Travis Rhoads
Well-Known Member
It seems kinda silly to talk about apps on a camera, but when it comes to the Smooth Reflections App on the Sony A7r2, its not silly IMO. I thought this thread would be good for those that might be interested in it and those that might not know much about it that are using Sony cameras that support it, the Mirrorless alpha series typically supports it, with the exception of the new a9 and still not shipped A7R3.
For those that don't know..Long Exposures are what get me going...I love the look of a cloud passing by an otherwise motionless object. The switch to Sony has brought many changes to my workflow, one of them being the way I sometimes shoot long exposures. The Smooth Reflections app composites any number of frames in camera to generate a long exposure image, one that is not only nearly seamless in the right conditions, but also very low noise, which allows me to pull the shadows up without risk of image quality loss. To top it off, if you decide to end the exposure sequence, you can do that at anytime, and still have a properly exposed image....try that with traditional LE...all in a RAW file, not just a .jpeg.
Case in point, this long exposure at Arch Rock from Joshua Tree National Park. I exposed for the bright parts of the rocks, which left the shadows nearly black. But the detail was there, and could be pulled out to give the right amount of context. And, as that last point above, I could stop this when I needed to. The number of people around required me to end this exposure at 77 frames, in lieu of the 96 it was slated to go for. Too many people showed up and started crawling around, so before they got into frame, I stopped the sequence. I really like the result.
Arch Rock LE by Travis Rhoads, on Flickr
For those that don't know..Long Exposures are what get me going...I love the look of a cloud passing by an otherwise motionless object. The switch to Sony has brought many changes to my workflow, one of them being the way I sometimes shoot long exposures. The Smooth Reflections app composites any number of frames in camera to generate a long exposure image, one that is not only nearly seamless in the right conditions, but also very low noise, which allows me to pull the shadows up without risk of image quality loss. To top it off, if you decide to end the exposure sequence, you can do that at anytime, and still have a properly exposed image....try that with traditional LE...all in a RAW file, not just a .jpeg.
Case in point, this long exposure at Arch Rock from Joshua Tree National Park. I exposed for the bright parts of the rocks, which left the shadows nearly black. But the detail was there, and could be pulled out to give the right amount of context. And, as that last point above, I could stop this when I needed to. The number of people around required me to end this exposure at 77 frames, in lieu of the 96 it was slated to go for. Too many people showed up and started crawling around, so before they got into frame, I stopped the sequence. I really like the result.
Arch Rock LE by Travis Rhoads, on Flickr