Sony Well, the cat's out of the bag now. Sony releases pay-to-play firmware for A7 IV

[Brownie]

This kind of thing really grinds my gizzard. It's going to become normal across brands. I was going to get an A1 in the next month or so, now I think I'll hold off.

Sony Electronics Announces Custom Gridline License Available for Alpha Camera Bodies for $149!!! – sonyalpharumors

 

[Brian]

Well, it is more expensive to change out the framelines for a Leica.

What I'd like is open-source on a digital camera. Samsung did that- bit got out of the higher-end cameras.

 

[drd1135]

I can’t say I didn’t think this would be coming. It is annoying of course.

 

[Brownie]

The article at Peta Pixel talks about Panasonic starting the trend with the video options on the S1. I see that a bit different in that you knew up front those features were extra. This is more of an after-the-fact "oh, by the way." thing. Sony is set to release A1 and A7S III firmware in March, which it going to be features, not fixes. Makes me wonder if it will cost.

I doubt (at least I hope) no manufacturer ever charges for corrective firmware. That would be beyond the pale.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

It’s funny because on computers, OS upgrades used to cost money, but now they are free. Intel at one time tried this as well by charging to unlock features. It went over terribly.

To charge this much money for a grid overlay is ridiculous. Sony gets no money from me just for dreaming up something so preposterous. Gridlines have been an included feature on every camera I’ve owned as far back as I remember.

 

[gryphon1911]

Panasonic was doing that back with video options on the GH series as well. I believe it was a special v-log that you paid $100 or $150 extra for.

I’m not a fan of this as a closed ecosystem. Like Brian mentioned, make the OS open source and provide a quality base product if you are going to do that.

Then again, I was never a fan of the kaizen approach as it just allowed makers to put out less than complete products in the hope that they would give you more later on. I’m more for a wait and give me a mature QA’d product and maybe some firmware tweaks if needed.

If this approach becomes the trend, then I may have bought my last new cameras.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Panasonic was doing that back with video options on the GH series as well. I believe it was a special v-log that you paid $100 or $150 extra for.

I’m not a fan of this as a closed ecosystem. Like Brian mentioned, make the OS open source and provide a quality base product if you are going to do that.

Then again, I was never a fan of the kaizen approach as it just allowed makers to put out less than complete products in the hope that they would give you more later on. I’m more for a wait and give me a mature QA’d product and maybe some firmware tweaks if needed.

If this approach becomes the trend, then I may have bought my last new cameras.

At least they could kinda justify this in the video space since they were getting around some restrictions on what constitutes a camcorder. If something records at least 30 minutes, it was classified as a camcorder and had different VAT rules. There might also be some licensing royalties on certain codecs, but I’m guessing there. I’m okay with them doing this kind of pay to play if it means the gear is cheaper for those that are wanting primarily a stills camera.

 

[Brownie]

I’m okay with them doing this kind of pay to play if it means the gear is cheaper for those that are wanting primarily a stills camera.

This. I would be in favor of buying a base camera and adding features ala-carte, IF (and only if) it controlled the price.

In all fairness, this is being marketed as a grid (think 'frame' or 'mask') for people who need consistent sized subjects, like school photos when you want all of the kid's heads to be the same size, or passport photos, or where there are multiple photographers shooting for a company and they need the same results out of all of them. Odds are most of us will never need the feature. The problem is it opens the door for expanding the model.

 

[Brownie]

Hey at least it's not like BMW, charging a subscription fee of $18 a month for heated seats.

I actually used that example elsewhere!

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Hey at least it's not like BMW, charging a subscription fee of $18 a month for heated seats.

There are other ways to keep your seat warm.

 

[Brownie]

There are other ways to keep your seat warm.

Yeah, but pee smells after a while...

 

[MountainMan79]

At some point they’ll just give away the hardware and charge you to use it, like most cellphones in the US. Every time you press the shutter button, your card gets charged. Probably why they’re doing 120fps now 😂

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

At some point they’ll just give away the hardware and charge you to use it, like most cellphones in the US. Every time you press the shutter button, your card gets charged. Probably why they’re doing 120fps now 😂

And AI that knows how to hold your best shots for ransom.

 

[MountainMan79]

And AI that knows how to hold your best shots for ransom.

Of course I’ll pay extra to “unlock” my best. Groan.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Someday, kids will buy these cool "retro" mirrorless cameras that lacked a credit card chip reader on them. 😃

 

[L0n3Gr3yW0lf]

I'm not particularly surprised, not just Sony but most of the manufacturers are going to milk the cow for profitability ... It's the capitalistic way.
People are taking notice from other industry on how easy and lucrative it is to extract money (cough mobile gaming cough).

What worries me is the incentive for Manufacturers to release unfinished products and then ask for money to Upgrade your camera for features that should have been in the first place to make them mor profitable.
Ex: a camera should have by default a choice of frame lines among it's features (Panasonic didn't invent this but it was offered for free on the Panasonic G1 14 years ago), as it's part of basic functionality.

With Panasonic video centric features being put behind a paywall, well not everyone needs those kinds of features but those who do want them they can have the S5 Mark II X model instead ... While some features on S1H like RAW video capabilities were not released on launch for a video centric camera.

I'm a way I would support a company with paid firmware updates IF they promise to improve and work on the cameras to actually improve them instead of abandoning them (cough Olympus E-M1X's promised additional subject detection upgrades? Cough). Software development and R&D is not cheap and should be supported wherever possible (cough Kaizen cough) but I don't know how reliable the companies are from not abusing a economic model like this or outright lie/give up on the customers (cough Samsung cough) .... I think there's something wrong with my voice today.

My own disappointment with Sony, it's feature lineup and firmware updates is one of the major reasons why I abandoned that system at a painful financial cost. They could, and I think should, trickle down their features in their entire camera lineup to be more competitive by having feature parity in their system (wherever possible). Panasonic, Canon, Nikon do it pretty well, different camera ca suite different needs but not one is limited to severely compared to the other option.

Sony and Olympus are the worst of these because they don't trickle down features and capabilities to their other lineups unless you buy a new camera ... Sort of, even flagship cameras are missing features that newer camera do have.
For Sony the High Resolution is locked behind the a7R series and a1, the faster 1/8.000 shutter speed and faster electronic bursts are locked behind a9 series and a1, the Birds Eye Tracking is unavailable to a9, a9 II and a1 which is their wildlife cameras but A7 IV has it, Focus Bracketing is available only for a7R V and a6700 ... And if you want one of each of these features (which I do) you need to own at least 3 cameras (for a total of over 10.000 £) and that's something fixable with a firmware update.

Olympus isn't doing great either because their E-M5 III/OM-5 has not received the Subject Detection even though it has the processor capable for them. The E-M10 series have yet to receive PDAF capabilities and bring them up to par with the rest of the stack. The Pen-F suffered the same and no Weather Sealing even though the price was close to E-M5 at the time. While Olympus did great of keeping the other feature on parity, which I appreciate it and wish other companies did the same, the AF performance varied significantly from one lineup stack to another.

At the time of this writing the only companies that offer speed and IQ advance features (HR, HHHR, Live Composite, Live ND, Focus Bracketing, etc) from top model to midrange to low(ish) end are Canon R, Panasonic S and G, Olympus E-M/OMs, and Fujifilm X-H/T/S.
(In my opinion the kings of firmware updates are Panasonic, Canon, Nikon, Fujifilm, Olympus, Sony, in that order)

 

[Brownie]

Sony and Olympus are the worst of these because they don't trickle down features and capabilities to their other lineups unless you buy a new camera ... Sort of, even flagship cameras are missing features that newer camera do have.
For Sony the High Resolution is locked behind the a7R series and a1, the Birds Eye Tracking is unavailable to a9, a9 II and a1 which is their wildlife cameras but A7 IV has it, Focus Bracketing is available only for a7R V and a6700 ... And if you want one of each of these features (which I do) you need to own at least 3 cameras (for a total of over 10.000 £) and that's something fixable with a firmware update.

Not sure this is at all accurate. It may be a viewpoint, but let's dissect it some:

even flagship cameras are missing features that newer camera do have.

In some cases they have no choice. The A1 was updated to the latest AF including Bird Eye, after the A7 IV was released, but in the case of the new 'AI' focus in the A7R V, it requires an entire second chip. Not something that can be updated with firmware. I'm certain the A1ii will have all of that.

Most don't think of high resolution as being 'locked behind' the A7R series and A1, most think of the 'R' series as simply a different offering. For example, I don't want that many MP, and am happy to be able to buy a camera that doesn't have it. And if cost is the issue, you can still get an A7R III with 42MP for around $2k. That's still pretty high resolution by anyone's standards. And, the A7RIII does pixel shift.

It's not true that 1/8,000 shutter is limited to the A9 and A1. The A7 IV has 1/8,000 shutter speed, as does the A7R III. It's actually available on all of their full frame cameras, not sure about APS-C. Uber fast burst rates are definitely limited to the A9 series and A1.

Again, bird eye focus is on the A1, including bird eye in video mode.

I dislike the fact that the majority of Sony's firmware releases are to fix issues, and that they rarely add anything. To be honest, Panasonic is about the only one. They added a ton of AF features to the G9 over a few years. Other than that, I don't recall anyone else going the extra yard.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

I dislike the fact that the majority of Sony's firmware releases are to fix issues, and that they rarely add anything. To be honest, Panasonic is about the only one. They added a ton of AF features to the G9 over a few years. Other than that, I don't recall anyone else going the extra yard.

Yeah, they really extended the value of the G9, which helped their cause since they had it on the market for so long. It really was a much improved camera from launch to current day. If any FW update might have deserved a for-pay update, it would have been v2.0 and maybe v2.4. My main concern with such a practice would be if the vendors got lazy with launch FW features, knowing they could milk the design along the way.

 

[Brian]

I just upgraded the finder on my F2a to add gridlines. It was $15. The gridline update is downward compatible with the Nikon F as well, but is not upwards compatible with the F3HP. The F3HP requires an additional upgrade charge.

 

[L0n3Gr3yW0lf]

Not sure this is at all accurate. It may be a viewpoint, but let's dissect it some:

It could be, I won't deny that it's an opinion that is biased towards what could be done better should be done better but that's a very consumer bias I guess.

In some cases they have no choice. The A1 was updated to the latest AF including Bird Eye, after the A7 IV was released, but in the case of the new 'AI' focus in the A7R V, it requires an entire second chip. Not something that can be updated with firmware. I'm certain the A1ii will have all of that.

My mistake, I was wrong on a1 not being updated with it.

Most don't think of high resolution as being 'locked behind' the A7R series and A1, most think of the 'R' series as simply a different offering. For example, I don't want that many MP, and am happy to be able to buy a camera that doesn't have it. And if cost is the issue, you can still get an A7R III with 42MP for around $2k. That's still pretty high resolution by anyone's standards. And, the A7RIII does pixel shift.

I would agree but then Panasonic offered not just High Resolution in camera stacking for tripod mode when they launched the S1 and S5 at 24 MP (and S1R and S1H) for a 96 MP output which greatly increases the difference between "the basic model" and "dedicated high resolution model". By with S5 Make II and X variant got updated with Hand Held High Resolution in addition despite being the most basic S series model available.
I can understand if certain older Sony a models might not receive a firmware update to add this if the IBIS is not but surely some a models after a7R Mark III have had good enough IBIS for that (and if it's read out speed the R have always been the slower ones so it's not that).

It's not true that 1/8,000 shutter is limited to the A9 and A1. The A7 IV has 1/8,000 shutter speed, as does the A7R III. It's actually available on all of their full frame cameras, not sure about APS-C. Uber fast burst rates are definitely limited to the A9 series and A1.

Sorry, I mean Electronic Shutter Speed faster then 1/8.000 ... Almost every camera in recent launches can do 1/16.000 or even faster, shooting wide open in daylight and in the summer (ISO 50 helps but I didn't always wanted to resort to that). I can understand APS-C being limited to 1/4.000 mechanical given how small they are (the shutter shock and vibration would be difficult to control) but again the Electronic Shutter Speed is limited to 1/4.000

Again, bird eye focus is on the A1, including bird eye in video mode.

Sorry about my mistake.

I dislike the fact that the majority of Sony's firmware releases are to fix issues, and that they rarely add anything. To be honest, Panasonic is about the only one. They added a ton of AF features to the G9 over a few years. Other than that, I don't recall anyone else going the extra yard.

I understand your frustration, Sony should be doing their best to offer compelling reasons for their customers to keep using their cameras. A firmware update won't Magically turn a a7 Mark IV into a7R Mark V or Sony a9 II, there will always be a need for specific cameras for specific needs BUT why the fragmentation in their offering with artificial limitation that can frustrate their clients.

At least Panasonic is recognizing how much of an uphill battle their are fighting and are trying to support their users with long living cameras and features/capabilities... And yet they are having some of the most feature reach universally capable tools (only lacking in sports genres on their S line). Similarly for Olympus and Fujifilm working hard on that.
(Sony feels more like they are still figuring out what limbs they have while forgetting their previous limbs ... It's getting better but only if you keep buying the latest and greatest FOR a more universal tool then extremely specific task tool).