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Sony Imaging Edge Viewer: Assembles Pixel Shift into Incompatible ARQ — Why Not Industry-Standard DNG? (REVISED)

UPDATE Dec 14: Adobe has issued updates that handle Sony A7R V raw files ARW and ARQ formats now. Verified with Photoshop 24.1.0, Camera Raw 15.1.0.1329 and Lightroom 12.1.

...

A pixel shift image shot on Sony cameras is recorded as separate frames. These frames are all stored as uncompressed raw, which needlessly wastes a huge amount of space on camera cards, main storage, and backups. So... not a great design starting at the camera.

Once captured, all you have is individual frames which are shifted by whole pixels (4-shot mode), or whole and fractional pixels (16-shot mode). Each such image is no different than any other single-shot image shot without pixel shift. The frames can be used for frame averaging (see automated script), though the presumed idea is to generate a true-color image.

To create a true-color image* out of the captured frames, PixelShift2DNG is an outstanding tool, instantly generating a lossless compressed industry standard DNG file readable by any/all raw file converters, with a simple user interface—ideal. However, as well designed as PixelShift2DNG is, it is a “dumb” assembler, with no smarts for dealing with subject motion—and subject motion is the reason that pixel shift is often unusable.

That’s where the Sony Imaging Edge Viewer software comes in. With the release of the Sony A7R V, Viewer sports a new Stabilize a composite image option, which indeed works well as demonstrated. This stabilize option is available for the Sony A1 (confirmed) and Sony A7R V (confirmed), but not any older Sony A7R camera (A7R IVa and prior).

With all the massive processing power of the Sony A7R V, why do we not get a motion-corrected lossless-compressed raw file right out of the camera (in addition to one or more of the single-shot frames)? The Panasonic S1R did this 3 years ago with its 8-frame multi-shot high-res mode, a much more complex processing challenge!

As of this writing, Viewer generates a proprietary Sony ARQ file, which Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw cannot yet be opened by Adobe software.

* A true-color image means a full R/G/B color value for each pixel, versus the single color that is the case with Bayer matrix cameras.

Sony Viewer dialog to create an ARQ pixel shift file
Adobe Camera Raw vs ARQ from A7R V

Why does Sony needlessly generate an incompatible proprietary raw file format?

Even if/when Adobe comes up with ARQ support for the Sony A7R V, the question remains a good one.

Once the pixel shift frames are assembled into a true-color raw file, there is no further need for a proprietary format—each pixel has a full RGB value, and no special processing is needed. Indeed, no demosaicing is even needed. The work has been done to assemble the images, motion has been corrected already, etc.

So why why emit a space-wasteful (uncompressed) format that requires special support?

What reason can there be to not output an industry standard (and lossless compressed) DNG file? There is no credible technical reason at all. All it does it generate incompatibility problems.

Who would not prefer an industry standard DNG file, and lossless compressed too? I’ve asked Sony to explain why a DNG file is not produced, hoping to get a an answer of “we’re planning on doing that”. But I don’t hold out much hope, since this situation has persisted for years.

Dominik W writes:

With my Sony A7R III the files spit out by the Sony software open up fine in Lightroom on windows 10.

DIGLLOYD: me bad on memory — Adobe does indeed support ARQ, just not ARQ from the Sony A7R V — yet. One more file format change that made a mess of ARW file compatibility which speaks to my point of why not a DNG.

I tested Sony Imaging Edge Viewer with pixel shift frames from the Sony A1. The ARQ file it generated can indeed be opened by Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop.

Presumably there will be an update by Adobe to read ARQ files, just as there are mixed compatibility issues with ARW files from the A7R V. The last time I tried to use them, I concluded no support but perhaps it just took time. But it does not change the fact that an industry-standard DNG would always be more desirable, particularly at 1/2 to 2/3 the size as lossless compressed DNG.


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