A few new Sony Camera Apps are available for your photography toolkit pleasure 😉 At first I thought the apps were going to just be a novelty thing, but the fact is, they are very powerful tools worth utilizing in a lot of cases!
The newest App worth checking out is the Sky HDR. It basically creates a virtual Graduated ND filter on your camera so you can get the perfect sky and foreground exposure balance with ease. This app also supports RAW file quality, so hard core editing can be done in post. This App can potentially save some processing time and avoids the Auto HDR Look that is often not the best.
All Sony PlayMemories Camera Apps Available This Way >>
Many other apps worth checking out and I put a few that I thought looked the most intersting below with more detail 😉
Sky HDR
Current Ver. 1.00
Price = $9.99
Space required: 7.8MB
Compatible Cameras
NEX-5R NEX-6 NEX-5T ILCE-7 ILCE-7R ILCE-6000 DSC-RX100M3 ILCE-7S ILCE-5100 ILCE-7M2 DSC-RX100M4 DSC-RX10M2 ILCE-7RM2 ILCE-7SM2 DSC-RX1RM2
By capturing the scene twice at different exposure and shutter speed settings, then combining the best of both images in a single image, this feature expresses a wide dynamic range without using a graduated ND filter.
Moreover, when you want to highlight hues such as those in a sunset, you can depict them with even greater expressive power by individually adjusting the White Balance setting of the sky and ground.
The resulting HDR images can be saved in the RAW or JPEG format.
A fantastic Live Demo by Matt Kloskowski
Time-lapse
Eight time-lapse themes are available: Cloudy Sky, Night Sky, Night Scene, Sunset, Sunrise, Miniature, Standard, Custom. You can choose to save the still images as a series of photos instead of a movie.
Using Angle Shift Add-on, you can easily add pan, tilt, zoom and other effects to your time-lapse images .
Angle-Shift Add-On
Note:
This app will not work on its own. Use this app after launching Time-lapse Ver. 3.10 or later.
Note that this app will not appear in the Application menu after it downloads. You can confirm the app’s information or delete it from the Application > Application Management menu.
Multiple Exposure
Light Painting
Star Trail
LiveView Grading
Touchless Shutter – Beta
Now you can operate the shutter without touching the camera, thus eliminating camera shake once and for all. When bulb-shooting, hold your hand over the eye sensor twice to start and end the exposure. (*1)
Note:
?Requires built-in or optional finder device with eye sensor. Pop up the finder when using this application with a camera model which has a pop-up electronic finder,
?Before launching the app, make sure the [FINDER/MONITOR] or [FINDER/LCD Setting] that toggles image display targets is set to Auto.
*1 This application supports bulb-shooting with: ?7S and ?7 II.
Closing Remarks
That is about it for this article and I hope you got some useful info about the new Sony PlayMemories Camera Apps currently available! Please let me know if you have tried some of these apps and what you think of the whole App thing? I have tried several apps including the Bracketing App, Time-Lapse, Picture Effects.
All Sony PlayMemories Camera Apps Available This Way >>
I would like to try the New Sky HDR App, the Star Trails app, and the Light Painting App in particular at some point myself…
Have a great day and be sure to check out the Motion Photography Challenge going on in the forums now here >>
Jay
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Thanks,
Jay
About the Author
“The newest App worth checking out is the Sky HDR. It basically creates a virtual ND filter on your camera so you can get the perfect sky and foreground exposure balance with ease. ”
More precisely a graduated ND.
I like this app…pretty nice and useful if you dont want to fiddle with filters etc. Many options too.
Very good point Gabriel, Graduated ND filter is the correct term and I was wrong! Not the same thing and just wasn’t thinking 😉
Thanks for the comments and also sharing your thoughts on the new HDR Sky App,
Jay
Has Sony completely given on their DSLR cameras? Nothing listed for the A77ii
It looks like it Rob as far as the Apps go. The new A68 does not have Wi-Fi, and the apps need to be different for the A-Mount cameras due to the mirror and other issues. Sony really needs to address this issue ASAP!
Thanks again for the comments and input Rob,
Jay
Hello.
I was wandering if the Sky HDR app will work with my ILCE-QX1 lens style camera?
The QX1 has WiFi and NFC but is not included on the compatible devices listed.
Hopehopehope!
I think the QX1 is only designed to share photos to a smart device via the app and that is about it. Due to the camera not having the same hardware as the mirrorless alpha line, the apps need to be coded differently as well I think. This is why the A77 II for example, only has only one or two apps available, and is unfortunate. Sony really needs to put more people on the App development team in my opinion 😉
Jay
Hi Jay
Thanks for taking the time to reply and dammit!
ah well…
Cheers.