Star eater issues on Sony's

Rutgerbus · Jan 13, 2018

There seems to be a workaround to avoid the Star Eater issue on the Sony alpha camera's. Setting it to continues-Hi shooting mode should avoid the star eater algoritm from kicking in after 3/4sec....although, setting the camera into bulb seems to be a no-go since star eater is a plied again.

I personally think that the Star Eater issue is made bigger then it really is. Of course it's a pity that Sony implemented this feature, but most of us astrophotographers wouldn't even notice some stars were eaten in their image. Take for intance the image below, which was shot with a Sony A7R2 at ISO1600 and 60minute subs (90 of them to be exact).....there are probably stars eaten, but I can't see them because I don't even know they were there in the first place.....get my point?

So just go out, take the shots you like to take, and share your results here.

Just my 2 cents.

--
www.rutgerbus.nl
Photographic Moments
A photon only stops "existing" when it is captured by your sensor.

Pogo65 · Jan 13, 2018

Hi Rutger,

there are are plenty of discussions about this topic all over the internet, and while I agree with you that sometimes, and for certain types of nightsky photography, the issue is well exaggerated, there still some conditions under which this issue is clearly present.

And now that it has been identified, it is sort of strange that Sony just completely seem to ignore the whole issue.

That doesn’t mean that you cannot take your Sony out and still take a very pretty starry night picture, as you clearly show with your photo above. I’m sure this issue will continue to be brought up, until Sony decides to do something about it. If pictures taken in continuous mode on certain cameras turn of the spatial filtering and the picture still looks good, it makes you wonder why they put it in for other shooting modes in the first place.

cheers,

Peter

Pogo65 · Jan 13, 2018

Rutgerbus said:
There seems to be a workaround to avoid the Star Eater issue on the Sony alpha camera's. Setting it to continues-Hi shooting mode should avoid the star eater algoritm from kicking in after 3/4sec....although, setting the camera into bulb seems to be a no-go since star eater is a plied again.

I personally think that the Star Eater issue is made bigger then it really is. Of course it's a pity that Sony implemented this feature, but most of us astrophotographers wouldn't even notice some stars were eaten in their image. Take for intance the image below, which was shot with a Sony A7R2 at ISO1600 and 60minute subs (90 of them to be exact).....there are probably stars eaten, but I can't see them because I don't even know they were there in the first place.....get my point?

So just go out, take the shots you like to take, and share your results here.

Just my 2 cents.

--
www.rutgerbus.nl
Photographic Moments
A photon only stops "existing" when it is captured by your sensor.

I suppose you meant 60 “second” subs?

Rutgerbus · Jan 13, 2018

Pogo65 said:
Rutgerbus said:

There seems to be a workaround to avoid the Star Eater issue on the Sony alpha camera's. Setting it to continues-Hi shooting mode should avoid the star eater algoritm from kicking in after 3/4sec....although, setting the camera into bulb seems to be a no-go since star eater is a plied again.

I personally think that the Star Eater issue is made bigger then it really is. Of course it's a pity that Sony implemented this feature, but most of us astrophotographers wouldn't even notice some stars were eaten in their image. Take for intance the image below, which was shot with a Sony A7R2 at ISO1600 and 60minute subs (90 of them to be exact).....there are probably stars eaten, but I can't see them because I don't even know they were there in the first place.....get my point?

So just go out, take the shots you like to take, and share your results here.

Just my 2 cents.

--
www.rutgerbus.nl
Photographic Moments
A photon only stops "existing" when it is captured by your sensor.

Click to expand...

I suppose you meant 60 “second” subs?

Hehe, yes indeed ;-)

--
www.rutgerbus.nl
Photographic Moments
A photon only stops "existing" when it is captured by your sensor.

1llusive · Jan 13, 2018

I read the reason this works is because the camera drops down into 12 bit mode to save processing time. I don't think that's good for astrophotography. Thoughts?

Guido FORRIER · Jan 13, 2018

i have the A7R and and i do no longer exposures than 30 sec. so no stars for dinner . i am new to astrophotography and as the sky was only for 2 nights , _/- clear i had not the opportunity to take much photo's . i am working on the Pleiades and will show the results ; only 6 and 10 sec shots .

Navman · Jan 13, 2018

I'm very happy to share results, although I think that putting up a single post doesn't achieve much - if you only ever drink water, you'll never know how good wine can taste!

A 3.2 second example - no star-eater...

A 4 second equivalent - with star eater...

-John

sharkmelley · Jan 13, 2018

Rutgerbus said:
There seems to be a workaround to avoid the Star Eater issue on the Sony alpha camera's. Setting it to continues-Hi shooting mode should avoid the star eater algoritm from kicking in after 3/4sec

This is a firmware bug.

Sony's intention is to apply spatial filtering to all longer exposures to hide the thermal noise. However their engineers never foresaw that anyone would be daft enough to use continuous mode for long exposures and so there's currently this loophole in the firmware logic.

Now it's been brought to their attention, expect Sony to plug this loophole in a forthcoming firmware update. The A7RIII and A9 already work in the intended manner.

Mark

Astrophotographer 10 · Jan 13, 2018

Rutgerbus said:
There seems to be a workaround to avoid the Star Eater issue on the Sony alpha camera's. Setting it to continues-Hi shooting mode should avoid the star eater algoritm from kicking in after 3/4sec....although, setting the camera into bulb seems to be a no-go since star eater is a plied again.

I personally think that the Star Eater issue is made bigger then it really is. Of course it's a pity that Sony implemented this feature, but most of us astrophotographers wouldn't even notice some stars were eaten in their image. Take for intance the image below, which was shot with a Sony A7R2 at ISO1600 and 60minute subs (90 of them to be exact).....there are probably stars eaten, but I can't see them because I don't even know they were there in the first place.....get my point?

So just go out, take the shots you like to take, and share your results here.

Just my 2 cents.

--
www.rutgerbus.nl
Photographic Moments
A photon only stops "existing" when it is captured by your sensor.

I think its more of an issue in tracked short exposures where the stars will be more pinpoint. Here with 60 seconds at ISO1600 and with some decent aperture I doubt any of the stars would be only 1 pixel wide which is what it needs to be to be affected by the spatial filtering.

I have done a mosaic of the Milky Way with 5 minute very precisely tracked exposures with an A7r2 and 85mm F1,8 Zeiss lens. It was the best image I have taken with any digital camera.

Also the filter is worse with larger pixels as the likelihood of a one pixel star is greater, like the A7s.

Greg.

sharkmelley · Jan 14, 2018

Astrophotographer 10 said:
I doubt any of the stars would be only 1 pixel wide which is what it needs to be to be affected by the spatial filtering.

Sorry, this is totally wrong. You are perpetrating a misunderstanding. It is NOT just single pixel stars that are affected.

Stars fitting in a 2x2 area of pixels are affected and those fitting in 3X3 still have their centres punched out.

If you want to understand it better take a look at what I've written here:

http://www.markshelley.co.uk/Astronomy/SonyA7S/sonystareater.html

and here

http://www.markshelley.co.uk/Astronomy/SonyA7S/sonystareater_v2.html

Mark

W5JCK · Jan 14, 2018

Rutgerbus said:
There seems to be a workaround to avoid the Star Eater issue on the Sony alpha camera's. Setting it to continues-Hi shooting mode should avoid the star eater algoritm from kicking in after 3/4sec....although, setting the camera into bulb seems to be a no-go since star eater is a plied again.

I personally think that the Star Eater issue is made bigger then it really is. Of course it's a pity that Sony implemented this feature, but most of us astrophotographers wouldn't even notice some stars were eaten in their image. Take for intance the image below, which was shot with a Sony A7R2 at ISO1600 and 60minute subs (90 of them to be exact).....there are probably stars eaten, but I can't see them because I don't even know they were there in the first place.....get my point?

So just go out, take the shots you like to take, and share your results here.

Just my 2 cents.

--
www.rutgerbus.nl
Photographic Moments
A photon only stops "existing" when it is captured by your sensor.

I agree, the star eater is making a mountain out of a molehill. For one thing, the star eater doesn't seem to be present in my a7 or my a6000, but they are the 24MP models and it is the 42MP and higher models that seem to have it, the "R" models. And I agree, if you have to get your Sherlock Holmes handy dandy large magnifying glass out to examine the photos pixel by pixel to find it, then no big deal. I remember years ago hearing about the Nikon star eater issue and how many APers said to avoid Nikon digital cameras for AP. That eventually went away. I'm not sure if people thought it was a non-issue or whether Nikon fixed the problem, but I haven't heard anything in a few years about it. I think there are a lot of oddballs who hate the brands they don't buy, which makes no sense to me, and they love to find faults with them. You see a lot of Nikon haters, a lot of Canon haters, a lot of Apple haters, a lot of Adobe haters, etc. These people tend to jump on any issue they hear about, even when they don't have the ability to fully understand the issue, and scream about it until they are blue in the face. My thoughts are like yours, if you couldn't care less about the issue when it comes to your own photos, then it is NOT an issue for you. I doubt most people would even notice if a few stars went missing, unless they were prominent ones.

As far as some questioning why Sony won't fix the so-called issue, we need to remember that astrophotographers likely make up a very small fraction of a single percent of the owners of these Sony cameras. We are a rare breed. If I were Sony I wouldn't waste my time to address an issue that affects only 1 owner out of 10,000 or more. Not worth the effort nor the expense IMO.

--
Best Regards,
Jack
Website: http://w5jck.com/nightscapes-gallery.html
Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jackswinden
Sony RX100M3, a6000, and a7

1llusive · Jan 14, 2018

W5JCK said:
Rutgerbus said:

There seems to be a workaround to avoid the Star Eater issue on the Sony alpha camera's. Setting it to continues-Hi shooting mode should avoid the star eater algoritm from kicking in after 3/4sec....although, setting the camera into bulb seems to be a no-go since star eater is a plied again.

I personally think that the Star Eater issue is made bigger then it really is. Of course it's a pity that Sony implemented this feature, but most of us astrophotographers wouldn't even notice some stars were eaten in their image. Take for intance the image below, which was shot with a Sony A7R2 at ISO1600 and 60minute subs (90 of them to be exact).....there are probably stars eaten, but I can't see them because I don't even know they were there in the first place.....get my point?

So just go out, take the shots you like to take, and share your results here.

Just my 2 cents.

--
www.rutgerbus.nl
Photographic Moments
A photon only stops "existing" when it is captured by your sensor.

Click to expand...

I agree, the star eater is making a mountain out of a molehill. For one thing, the star eater doesn't seem to be present in my a7 or my a6000, but they are the 24MP models and it is the 42MP and higher models that seem to have it, the "R" models. And I agree, if you have to get your Sherlock Holmes handy dandy large magnifying glass out to examine the photos pixel by pixel to find it, then no big deal. I remember years ago hearing about the Nikon star eater issue and how many APers said to avoid Nikon digital cameras for AP. That eventually went away. I'm not sure if people thought it was a non-issue or whether Nikon fixed the problem, but I haven't heard anything in a few years about it.

Nikon fixed the problem. So as long as Sony is punching holes out of the centers of stars, I'll steer clear of them.

a7sastro · Jan 14, 2018

The work-around to avoid star-eater 30 seconds and under (continuous shooting mode) changes to 12 bit, but 12 bit was always the case for images in BULB mode anyway....

So if anyone wants to complain 12 bits is not enough,

should have been complaining about it prior to star-eater even being an issue....

Astrophotographer 10 · Jan 14, 2018

sharkmelley said:
Astrophotographer 10 said:

I doubt any of the stars would be only 1 pixel wide which is what it needs to be to be affected by the spatial filtering.

Click to expand...

Sorry, this is totally wrong. You are perpetrating a misunderstanding. It is NOT just single pixel stars that are affected.

Stars fitting in a 2x2 area of pixels are affected and those fitting in 3X3 still have their centres punched out.

If you want to understand it better take a look at what I've written here:

http://www.markshelley.co.uk/Astronomy/SonyA7S/sonystareater.html

and here

http://www.markshelley.co.uk/Astronomy/SonyA7S/sonystareater_v2.html

Mark

Ah yes, sorry.

I was thinking of something someone else posted and it was incorrect. My apologies.

Greg.

Astrophotographer 10 · Jan 14, 2018

a7sastro said:
The work-around to avoid star-eater 30 seconds and under (continuous shooting mode) changes to 12 bit, but 12 bit was always the case for images in BULB mode anyway....

So if anyone wants to complain 12 bits is not enough,

should have been complaining about it prior to star-eater even being an issue....

I did a test last night (nice clear no moon night and at my house the sky is quite dark).

Star eater on and star eater off on a Sony A7r2. Doing a quick comparison this morning the difference is there - subtle perhaps but there. It most comes across on the A7r2 as a slight drop in the vibrance of the image. It drops the impact of the image a fraction and weakens some very fine detail in star images.

The 12bit drop if anything seemed better as it for some reason made a darker image with better contrast. Night sky conditions didn't change and it was the same lens and same exposure settings - same everything just simply shifted the drive mode from single to continuous Lo.

I'll try to load some images later.

Greg.

Peter Houtman · Jan 20, 2018

Rutgerbus said:
There seems to be a workaround to avoid the Star Eater issue on the Sony alpha camera's. Setting it to continues-Hi shooting mode should avoid the star eater algoritm from kicking in after 3/4sec....although, setting the camera into bulb seems to be a no-go since star eater is a plied again.

I personally think that the Star Eater issue is made bigger then it really is. Of course it's a pity that Sony implemented this feature, but most of us astrophotographers wouldn't even notice some stars were eaten in their image. Take for intance the image below, which was shot with a Sony A7R2 at ISO1600 and 60minute subs (90 of them to be exact).....there are probably stars eaten, but I can't see them because I don't even know they were there in the first place.....get my point?

So just go out, take the shots you like to take, and share your results here.

Just my 2 cents.

Tristimulus · Jan 20, 2018

Just for the record:

Sony full frame cameras without in camera image stabilization do NOT have the star eater issue when using any settings EXEPT bulb.

Full frame:

A7, A7S and A7R - use any mode except bulb mode to avoid star eating.

All Sony cameras have the star eater issue in bulb mode.

The newer cameras with in camera image stabilization show the star eater issue when using 4 sec and longer exposures, bulb mode included (except when using continious mode, which is not available in bulb mode).

A7RII, A7RIII, A7SII and A9 show the star eater issue when exposing for longer than 3.2 sec.

APS-C:

Have not tested any Sony APS-C cameras for the star eater issue yet.

Have just got the Sony A6300 - will take a look at the star eater issue when the stars shine again here. Have the super sharp 1.8/55mm lens which shows the star eater issue and worms and more with my A7 when running tracked tests.

Have run a preliminary test with the A6300 and the cheap FE1.8/50mm lens just to see what the lens is up to (good for the money) and my only worry this far is the low Ha sensitivity of the A6300 (the Canon 7DII is better in this regard).

Did not get the A6300 for the night sky, but it will be interesting to see what can be done under a dark sky with this camera. Will post the results here as time and conditions allow.

ChiranjeeviRai · Sep 12, 2020

Hey!

I was considering a6000 and a6100 mainly for astrophotography. Do you know if this bug is still there?

Ferguson · Sep 12, 2020

Trollmannx said:
Just for the record:

Sony full frame cameras without in camera image stabilization do NOT have the star eater issue when using any settings EXEPT bulb.

So I have an A7Riv and have been happily using it for the last month with both a long sony lens, and (not so well yet) a C11.

I shoot in Bulb mode with capture via an ASCOM driver, and turn off lens compensation and compression (which was putting in odd artifacts) obviously in single drive mode, with IBIS and OSS off.

How can I best see if the star eater affects me? Is there any bench type check one can make? Or if I do (say) a 15 sec shot in bulb, and same with the camera shutter setting, you are saying some stars will disappear in the former?

Linwood

Tristimulus · Sep 13, 2020

Ferguson said:
Trollmannx said:

Just for the record:

Sony full frame cameras without in camera image stabilization do NOT have the star eater issue when using any settings EXEPT bulb.

Click to expand...

So I have an A7Riv and have been happily using it for the last month with both a long sony lens, and (not so well yet) a C11.

The C11 has a very long fokal lenght so unless the seeing is exeptional the stars will be blurred by turbulente. Blurred stars are bloated and usually not affected by the spatial filtering (which is designed to remove single pixel hot pixels). So in this case the star eater issue sound have litte effect.

Ferguson said:
I shoot in Bulb mode with capture via an ASCOM driver, and turn off lens compensation and compression (which was putting in odd artifacts) obviously in single drive mode, with IBIS and OSS off.

Almost same here. But I shoot lots of 30 sec subs. Have some light pollution and the added read noise drown in noise from light pollution anyway. Use my A7III at ISO640. Would go for longer subs at a dark location unless using very fast lenses.

Lots of 30 sec subs should not differ from longer sub exposures when it comes to spatial filtering. The star eater should work equally well...

How can I best see if the star eater affects me? Is there any bench type check one can make? Or if I do (say) a 15 sec shot in bulb, and same with the camera shutter setting, you are saying some stars will disappear in the former?

If a large part of the faintest stars turn greenish then there is something going on. Based on the RGGB Bayer matrix green should dominate after filtering.

My personal tests involve comparing images taken with an astromodded Canon 6D and dedicated astro cameras (Atik, CCD and CMOS) and the Sony A7III. The dedicated astrocameras are better but not by much, and there is some added hassle.

The Canon 6D is a bit better at Ha (after all it is astromodded) than the A7III. Limiting magnitude (the faintest stars recorded) is pretty much similar for both cameras. And that despite the dreaded Sony star eater issue! So now I use the Sony A7III for astronomy - my Canon is retired.

Whitening the faint and greenish stars is done in post processing. Fast, easy and works pretty well in my case (not everyone agree on this one, but no problem to me).

Anyway - guess the star eater issue will be controversial anyway. Bashing brands is a popular pasttime activity and minor issues are as bad at the end of the world.

Yes the star eater issue is there, but much reduced on newer Sony cameras.

In my case the Sony A7III works well enouh for the night sky to replace my astromodded Canon 6D. Har to learn some new post processing tricks, but that is commom when getting a new camera - even a dedicated thermoelectically cooled CCD or CMOS camera.

Guess each have to figure out what we want. What please me might not please you! ;-)

Star eater issues on Sony's

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