Don't buy the Sony A5000/5100 for astrophotography

[ccdfreak]

Hi Vacuum,

thank you very much  for your precious info! Did you also check the a5000 for the "star eater" problem which Mark mentioned above?

-ccdfreak

[sharkmelley]

On ‎28‎/‎02‎/‎2016 at 13:46, ccdfreak said:

Hi Mark,

as I've been developing scientific and surveillance cameras for over 15 years, I'm lucky to have good connections to image sensor manufacturers,... The proposed sensor isn't released yet (still under NDA, sorry for this), it's intended for a different application. The decision of going into mass production is expected to be made this summer.

I'm asking whether there would be enough potential customers for such a device. Maybe I have to start a separate survey?

-ccdfreak

Interesting.  It's about time a full size CMOS mono sensor came onto the market.  If it has high QE and preferably low dark current then all the better.

Mark

[Surfturkey]

On 01/03/2016 at 15:11, ccdfreak said:

Hi Vacuum,

thank you very much  for your precious info! Did you also check the a5000 for the "star eater" problem which Mark mentioned above?

-ccdfreak

I am not sure if you are asking me (sorry I'm very new to all this!), but I haven't investigated much as I don't really have any experience of other equipment. I am shooting in the city so light pollution is a pretty major issue for me anyway, however I know that my a5000 picks up stars that I can't see.

I would be interested to know more about the 'star eater' problem and how to check, along with any solutions anyone has to overcome it. 

Sorry I can't be of more help!

[sharkmelley]

7 hours ago, Surfturkey said:

I am not sure if you are asking me (sorry I'm very new to all this!), but I haven't investigated much as I don't really have any experience of other equipment. I am shooting in the city so light pollution is a pretty major issue for me anyway, however I know that my a5000 picks up stars that I can't see.

I would be interested to know more about the 'star eater' problem and how to check, along with any solutions anyone has to overcome it. 

Sorry I can't be of more help!

Just Google "Sony star eater" and you'll find numerous threads on SGL, Cloudy Nights, DPReview and even complaints to the Sony Community site.   You'll also find real world examples.

If you are using shorter focal lengths (less than 1000mm say) then the only way to prevent it is to avoid using bulb mode.  So in an average imaging session I take hundreds of 30sec exposures.  Above 1000mm stars are beginning to be adequately sampled so the spatial filtering has less effect on the stars.

The last I heard was that Sony engineers were going to take a look.  Nothing has been heard since and until we know the issue is fixed I will never buy another Sony camera for astrophotography. 

Mark

Edited March 15, 2016 by sharkmelley

[Zac]

Hi, I created an account just to clear up some misleading (or at least confusing) information contained in this thread.  I discovered this thread while researching a Sony a5100.  I read the thread before I owned a Sony camera.  My (mistaken) conclusion after reading it was that there was a workaround for avoiding LENR while in BULB mode. The fact is, there is NOT.  Upon re-reading the thread I see there was some switching back and forth between people talking about the a5000 and the a5100, and also switching between talk about the Remote Camera Control app and the camera itself.  These are the facts for the a5100 specifically:

Using the remote app:
The Remote App does NOT support any form of "Continuous" shooting modes, period.
The Remote App DOES support BULB mode.
Using the Remote App for exposures 1 second or longer will ALWAYS result in LENR.

Using the camera:
Using non-continuous modes results LENR for exposures longer than 1 second.
Using continuous mode IS a workaround for exposures between 1 second and 30 seconds; LENR will be skipped.
Bulb mode is NOT available in any continuous modes, period.
Therefore, Bulb mode will ALWAYS result in LENR.

I hope this helps any future shoppers who stumble upon this thread like I did and came to the wrong conclusions.

[enigma]

I have the Sony a3000 which I though was not much different from the a5000 and Bulb is available in both Cont. Shooting and BRK C 0.3EV modes. By choosing any of these combinations the camera does not automatically take a second (dark) exposure. And it works with a generic remote cord too. I would like to see the option to disable long exposure noise reduction in the menu, but for now this workaround seems to work for me. I hope this does not make things more confusing.

Edited June 16, 2016 by enigma

[sharkmelley]

On ‎04‎/‎06‎/‎2016 at 21:39, Zac said:

Hi, I created an account just to clear up some misleading (or at least confusing) information contained in this thread.  I discovered this thread while researching a Sony a5100.  I read the thread before I owned a Sony camera.  My (mistaken) conclusion after reading it was that there was a workaround for avoiding LENR while in BULB mode. The fact is, there is NOT.  Upon re-reading the thread I see there was some switching back and forth between people talking about the a5000 and the a5100, and also switching between talk about the Remote Camera Control app and the camera itself.  These are the facts for the a5100 specifically:

Using the remote app:
The Remote App does NOT support any form of "Continuous" shooting modes, period.
The Remote App DOES support BULB mode.
Using the Remote App for exposures 1 second or longer will ALWAYS result in LENR.

Using the camera:
Using non-continuous modes results LENR for exposures longer than 1 second.
Using continuous mode IS a workaround for exposures between 1 second and 30 seconds; LENR will be skipped.
Bulb mode is NOT available in any continuous modes, period.
Therefore, Bulb mode will ALWAYS result in LENR.

I hope this helps any future shoppers who stumble upon this thread like I did and came to the wrong conclusions.

Thanks for taking the trouble to update this thread with your experience.

Mark

[enigma]

I know that this topic is about the a5000/a5100, but for anyone interested in these two cameras I would suggest to also consider the a3000 if it is still available. It is not as compact in size, it is made of plastic and has a lower resolution LCD (and an electronic viewfinder), but it is also much cheaper and uses a 20.1 mega pixels Exmor sensor. And as I already wrote above bulb is available in cont. shooting and this is a workaround to disable long exposure noise reduction.

[tuomito]

Hello stargazers, just registered to mention that there is now a "homebrew" app called BetterManual made for the A5100. It allows using BULB mode without noise reduction. It has also a simple built in intervalometer allowing you to do timelapses without forced NR. It is a little unfinished app, but does its job. It installs in the isolated Android subsystem and does not alter the firmware. It can be installed using the official PMCA downloader browser plugin. It is an open source project which you can find here https://github.com/obs1dium/BetterManual. I hope someone skilled would help to develop it! You can install it easily using browser (preferably IE because others are dropping NPAPI support) from here https://sony-pmca.appspot.com/plugin/app/com.obsidium.bettermanual. Tested with A5100 3.10 and it works! Of course it needs work to be more useful, secretly hoping someone here would get interested. I havent tried if some wired shutter works with it.

Edited September 18, 2016 by tuomito

[sharkmelley]

6 hours ago, tuomito said:

Hello stargazers, just registered to mention that there is now a "homebrew" app called BetterManual made for the A5100. It allows using BULB mode without noise reduction.

That certainly sounds like good news for A5100 users.

[SonnyE]

And here I am just wishing I could manage to get and keep a good focus....

 

Sigh.

[Dave In Vermont]

Just a minor-point for our new members here: 'vacuum' is not the member's name. It's the 'Rank' of new folks. Just look above the Rank for the name. Example: I am 'Dave In Vermont.' 'Little Green Man' is my Rank. As is ccdfreak the name of the member.

The more posts you make, the higher your Rank becomes to things like 'Nebula' and/or 'Proto Star.' Don't feel like you need apologize - we all managed to stumble into this error in the start!

Have fun -

Dave

[asset189]

Title of the thread is misleading, for a beginner like me the sonyvA5000 is more than adequate . the attached image is a 30 sec+ exposure and does not appear to have eaten many stars.  All in all for the price its a smashing wee camera.

[sharkmelley]

13 hours ago, asset189 said:

Title of the thread is misleading, for a beginner like me the sonyvA5000 is more than adequate . the attached image is a 30 sec+ exposure and does not appear to have eaten many stars.  All in all for the price its a smashing wee camera.

 

Yes, the thread title might be a bit alarmist and if I could change the title of the thread, I would.  However, the conclusion is still valid - anyone thinking of buying this camera specifically for serious deep sky astrophotography should think very carefully.  I bought one; quickly realised it didn't do what I needed and returned it as fast as I could.

Sony make fantastic sensors and with just a small effort on their part they could build the mirrorless cameras that all astrophotographers would want to own.  Their engineers have received the necessary feedback from the astro community and now the ball is firmly in their court.

Mark

[Draculas-GR]

I created an account just to answer to the simple question if LENR in Sony α5000 can be disabled. (i have no idea about α5100 or α6000 etc)
Yes, it can be disabled (bypassed actually) if you are using the smart remote app from a phone in bulb mode.
This is the actual picture while it was taking a photo in bulb mode, and it says clearly that noise reduction in bulb is disabled, and it really is because when you stop taking a picture, there is no black frame or further processing, it just stops shooting and waits for the next shot.

Im not sure if this was supported a few years ago, but right now there is no LENR for α5000

[yodatheoak]

Ian Morison also found another way to bypass this - http://www.ianmorison.com/the-sony-a5000-apsc-mirrorless-camera-an-astrophotography-bargain/

[sharkmelley]

5 hours ago, yodatheoak said:

Ian Morison also found another way to bypass this - http://www.ianmorison.com/the-sony-a5000-apsc-mirrorless-camera-an-astrophotography-bargain/

It's nice to know there are multiple solutions.  But a proper menu option would be far easier!

Take the Sony A7RII for instance - the "star eater" spatial filtering can be worked around by putting the camera in continuous mode.  But try it on the A7RIII and you still get the star eater!  Go figure.

Mark

[Manual-Manuel]

I knew this tread is pretty old but it's on of the first googel listings when u google a5100 astrophotography

I also got one used and discovered the long exposure noise reduction problem afterwards

But now there is a relativly easy solution to deactivate it systemwide (inc. bulb mode)

you need to download the open memories tweak: https://sony-pmca.appspot.com/apps

after that you just have to enable wifi and telnet from OpenMemories-Tweak app in your camera, 

connect the camera and PC to same wifi, open telnet connection from PC to camera, and command: bk.efi w 01070108 00

After that it's disabled.

Manuel

(edit: I just opened this accout to say this, because i think its a fun very cheap camera for some astro photos and might be helpful to some people)

Edited January 3, 2020 by Manual-Manuel

[kostrzewa]

On 04/06/2016 at 22:39, Zac said:

Hi, I created an account just to clear up some misleading (or at least confusing) information contained in this thread.  I discovered this thread while researching a Sony a5100.  I read the thread before I owned a Sony camera.  My (mistaken) conclusion after reading it was that there was a workaround for avoiding LENR while in BULB mode. The fact is, there is NOT.  Upon re-reading the thread I see there was some switching back and forth between people talking about the a5000 and the a5100, and also switching between talk about the Remote Camera Control app and the camera itself.  These are the facts for the a5100 specifically:

Using the remote app:
The Remote App does NOT support any form of "Continuous" shooting modes, period.
The Remote App DOES support BULB mode.
Using the Remote App for exposures 1 second or longer will ALWAYS result in LENR.

Using the camera:
Using non-continuous modes results LENR for exposures longer than 1 second.
Using continuous mode IS a workaround for exposures between 1 second and 30 seconds; LENR will be skipped.
Bulb mode is NOT available in any continuous modes, period.
Therefore, Bulb mode will ALWAYS result in LENR.

I hope this helps any future shoppers who stumble upon this thread like I did and came to the wrong conclusions.

On 23/06/2018 at 11:27, Draculas-GR said:

I created an account just to answer to the simple question if LENR in Sony α5000 can be disabled. (i have no idea about α5100 or α6000 etc)
Yes, it can be disabled (bypassed actually) if you are using the smart remote app from a phone in bulb mode.
This is the actual picture while it was taking a photo in bulb mode, and it says clearly that noise reduction in bulb is disabled, and it really is because when you stop taking a picture, there is no black frame or further processing, it just stops shooting and waits for the next shot.

Im not sure if this was supported a few years ago, but right now there is no LENR for α5000

Hi. Just created an account to comment on the above posts by Zac and Draculas-GR.

 

As a first time user of Sony cameras, I encountered many "surprises" getting it to work.

1. On Android phone, you should no longer use Sony Playmemories app. You should use Sony Imaging Edge.

2. Launch Smart Remote app on your camera. When you connect your mobile to your camera and don't see too many configuration options, like in the screenshot uploaded by Draculas-GR, it means that Smart Remote app is outdated.

3. To update your Smart Remote App: on your camera go to Applications/Playmemories apps, login, update the app.

A couple notes here:

a. Notice, that on your camera you use Playmemories to update other apps. On your mobile, you only need Sony Imaging Edge.

b. Alternative option which ultimately I did not use. Consider this optional... Instead of using the camera itself, app update can be done over USB cable from a browser on your laptop. Spent hours getting it to work though... it turns out after many tries that my original USB cable from Sony is broken. I was about to blame Sony for bad cable quality... until l used the one from PlayStation and it worked flawlessly. Installation via USB only works on some browser/OS configurations and also asks you to install some kernel module to connect to the camera (wut). It's done through this website: https://www.playmemoriescameraapps.com/portal/

c. camera USB connection setting must be set to Mass Storage. Try USB LUN to Single as well.

d. If you cannot connect to Playmemories site from the camera (the camera will try to navigate to https://www.playmemoriescameraapps.com/portal/), there may be many causes. 1. Update date/time settings on your camera. 2. Set area to US. 3. Try different WIFI. I couldn't connect on my home WIFI, but setting up a WIFI hostpot on my mobile did the trick.

4. Smart Remote App may require camera firmware update. I had to update my a5000 from v1.00 to v1.10. This must be done over USB, but NOT through Playmemories website. Instead try this one: https://www.sony.pl/electronics/support/downloads/Z0005406, download installer for your model (it's just a normal .exe on Windows, without any kernel module needed), and run it.

 

Anyways, I got it to work. Bulb setting via remote control (Sony Imaging Edge app) is available and it doesn't seem like LENR is used, just like pointed out by Draculas-GR.

Hope this helps

 

 

[NikVladi]

del

Edited May 20, 2020 by NikVladi

[1crem1]

This is an old topic but the camera (Sony a5100) is still good for astrophotography, and much cheaper now second hand.

I learned the hard way that the only way to remove LENR from it is to telnet the command to it. This took a bit of research for me to do – but it has been successful and a lightbulb moment for me.

So: I don't have to use the dinky apps, just the camera, as it is driven by the astronomy guiding/imaging software I use – Kstars.  No LENR, bulb etc all works fine. Hopefully this will be useful to the one or two out there in a similar predicament…

cheers

Edited April 6 by 1crem1

[Gfamily]

As is mentioned upthread, the easiest way to switch off the automatic dark frame exposure is to use the autobracket mode BRK C 0.3ev, when using Bulb. 

The camera then thinks the image you're taking is the first of three and doesn't do the dark frame.  

Very easy. 

[Stickey]

On 06/04/2024 at 09:01, Gfamily said:

As is mentioned upthread, the easiest way to switch off the automatic dark frame exposure is to use the autobracket mode BRK C 0.3ev, when using Bulb. 

The camera then thinks the image you're taking is the first of three and doesn't do the dark frame.  

Very easy. 

This is the trick I've used from the beginning. It's very simple and works. No complicated technical hacks. It was shared with the astro-photographers in our society by Ian Morison of AstronomyDigest website and several books book fame.

The only thing to watch out for is when you want to take flats, you've got to switch it off. Otherwise you get 3 times as many flats as you intended and they're at different exposures 😳.

Then of course, don't forget to switch it back on again for the next imaging run. 

[Gfamily]

32 minutes ago, Stickey said:

This is the trick I've used from the beginning. It's very simple and works. No complicated technical hacks. It was shared with the astro-photographers in our society by Ian Morison of AstronomyDigest website and several books book fame.

The only thing to watch out for is when you want to take flats, you've got to switch it off. Otherwise you get 3 times as many flats as you intended and they're at different exposures 😳.

Then of course, don't forget to switch it back on again for the next imaging run. 

It was a talk by Ian that prompted me to buy the A5000 body when I saw one second hand in the London Camera Exchange shop in Chester. 

To be honest, he was also behind me getting my Pentax K5 when he recommended the sensor at one of the Peak Star Parties about a decade ago.

I really can't afford to hear him talk again 🙂

[Elp]

It's very odd with some cameras why you simply cannot switch it off completely, it's our choice isn't it to take images how we want.