The hidden improvements of firmware 1.07 for the SLT-A77
February 6th, 2013 - 08:03:21 AM:
Firmware 1.07 for the SLT-A77 officially added only lens compensation support for a few extra lenses. But Sony has the unfortunate habit of including other improvements without announcing them. Improvements are always welcome, but I don't quite understand why these are not made official. This might be a false sense of pride to not admit mistakes.
Anyway, back to hidden improvements of the new firmware: With firmware 1.06 I got quite inconsistent flash exposure. Exposure varied within about ± 1 stop around correct exposure. This happend with the Minolta 3600HS (D) mounted on the camera, but was also reported for other flashes. After some experiments I finally found that this was connected with the Electronic Front Curtain. When you turned the EFCS off and used the mechanical front curtain, flash exposure was back to normal.
Now with firmware 1.07 installed, flash exposure with the same flash is very consistent. There's no longer a difference when the EFCS is on.
Unfortunately, the Macro Flash Controller MFC-1000 with the Ring Flash mounted still does not work with the EFCS: the flash does not sync correctly with the camera, and no light from the flash ends up in the picture. With this setup you still need to turn off the EFCS, and only then you get a working Ring Flash.
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