Sony announces development of wireless flash control system

I think it is great they have a reciever module, as that means you dont have to replace all of your flash units to get it to work.

I would imagine the next flash release will have an integrated reciever.

Yea the external module does have that benefit. I am just surprised that they didn't integrate the whole thing like CaNikon did. I am not sure what this thing brings to the game that the after market guys like Photix are not already doing. However, I am not a Sony user so perhaps there is something I am missing here.

Good to see radio control taking hold though, I love my 600EX RT's.

I would not be surprised if new higher end flash units from Sony has built-in radio receiver.

Great that they now offer receivers that can be used with existing Sony flash units, so we don't have to replace what we already have.

A non-reverse engineered officially sanctioned method of doing it with first-party support. There are a LOT of Sony (and Minolta) flashes out there; if this manages to work with F58s and F43s with an adapter it'll help spur adoption of the RF system. Get the F65/F45 with built-in radios out when the next flash recycle (heh) comes around. This way they can get the radio protocol out to market six months before the new flashguns. It also says "no, you don't have to replace your perfectly working flashguns to have a proper wireless flash."

Whether that is something you want to pay for is up to you, but it has the advantage of "guaranteed to work by the manufacturer." It's the same reason why someone would want to buy a first-party lens over a third-party lens. There's always a risk that a Sigma lens will be rendered incompatible later or won't support all of your body's features. But that doesn't mean they're bad lenses to buy; on the contrary they sell many superlative optics.

Doubt that the a7S can focus as quickly as the 5D3 + AF assist beam. We tried the a7S in real world low light scenarios, and while it is probably industry leading in terms of extinction point at which it can AF (something like -4-5 EV), realistically it was slow enough that anything but completely static subjects proved difficult to focus on in very low light. Most CDAF systems have this issue: they require hunting, which slows down in low light, which means that if your subject moves mid-hunt, the system keeps hunting.

Contrast that to the red beam AF assist + 5D3, which I use to shoot moving subjects on dark dance floors at weddings. While the a7S would just go into a hunt, the 5D3 + beam would focus quickly and I'd get my shot. This is where PDAF is just better.

What the a7R II needs is a red grid/beam AF assist; then it might even compete with DSLRs for dark wedding reception / event photography. It already focuses down to -2 EV using PDAF with fast primes.

My overall point here is that there's a difference between the lowest light a camera can focus in, and how good it is at low light focus. This is a subtle point that is often overlooked.

I have a d810 a d800E and a d600 and the A7RII. i can assure you there is no way that my A7RII can focus in a club (means almost total darkness) with a slowly moving subject (i mean people posing for the picture not even people walking!) without the in body AF assist light on. With in body AF led light on and a small lens (like the 28mm f2 or the 35 f2.8) i can focus in one to two seconds on people standing in pose and almost no way to focus on people dancing while even the cheapest Nikon D600 with the flash red AF assist pattern can focus in less than half a second on a walking-dancing people....I do that for living every day so you think i can be trusted... Now i use Sony for static pictures and small lenses while using flash and AF-C with a strong led light with every other lens for some particular effect posed pictures because the led light in darkness is very disturbing...

Edit the previous post sent by mistake :) :
I have a d810 a d800E and a d600 and the A7RII. i can assure you there is no way that my A7RII can focus in a club (means almost total darkness) with a slowly moving subject (i mean people posing for the picture not even people walking!) without the in body AF assist light on. With in body AF led light on and a small lens (like the 28mm f2 or the 35 f2.8) i can focus in one to two seconds on people standing in pose and almost no way to focus on people dancing while even the cheapest Nikon D600 with the flash red AF assist pattern can focus in less than half a second on walking-dancing people....I do that for living every day so i think you can trust me... Now i use the A7RII in AF-S for static pictures with small lenses while using flash and AF-C with a strong led light with every other lens for some particular effect because the led light in darkness is very disturbing...

At least if this means a firmware update to trigger external flash AF assist beams, then we could see 3rd party solutions from Yongnuo & Phottix that have proper AF assist beams.

Wasn't Phottix teasing a Sony solution? Hard to tell from that photo, but looks like it has a proper AF assist beam. Which currently wouldn't even be triggered...

Why does this always come up? These AF assist beams are close to invisible to image sensors, in fact that is both their biggest strength but also becomes a weakness when used with on sensor AF. The AF system and the sensor see different spectrums of light, AF assist beams are near infrared, which is blocked on the sensor (or heavily suppressed).

Yes there is the argument that they should work with LA-EA4 and I agree, but to keep asking for the same thing over and over (AF assist beam 'like the old days' with a system not designed 'like the old days') is just silly.

""??? They do exactly that, they put a bright visible light LED right there on the front of the camera - which is what you were complaining about."

Yes, I was complaining b/c it's bright orange (pretty obtrusive), with absolutely no pattern to aid the AF system, too bright, and completely obstructed by most lenses I use. It's next to useless, which is why I shut it off.

I'd imagine a red grid emitted by an emitter on the hot-shoe, with a pattern easily discernible by the AF system (so, vertical lines), even if largely a visible red as opposed to infrared, would be far better than the orange LED on the a7 cameras now. I'll test tomorrow and report back.

I'm not convinced that the majority of AF-assist light output on existing solutions is in the IR range. Most lenses don't focus IR at the same point as visible light, so for an IR based AF assist beam to be effective the camera would need to compensate for IR shift (which varies between lenses, focal length, and focus distance).

> and you're ready to pass judgement?

just a disgruntled user expressing his bitterness...

If you don't need TTL or HSS, pretty much any hotshoe radio trigger device works on the newest Sony 7-series bodies. I used my Nikon-version Yongnuo 560 III's and 560 TX perfectly on the Sony A7R II

yup. af assist lacking so far

Unfortunately, I don't see an AF assist emitter of any sort on the transmitter in this image of the transmitter from Brian Smith's blog.

A shame if that's true. I really don't get it - one of our own audience members has shown that the red grid emitted by a SB-910 helps the a7R II PDAF system acquire focus faster (or at all) in low light. It'd be such a boon to event photography.

keep up the pressure. uncompressed raw came through.

Too bad Sony dropped off its laser pattern AF assistant lamp a dozen years ago.

Yes..Keep up the pressure Rishi..i think all the event photographers are counting on you! (..and i'm one of them).

I use a 430EX-III RT as a radio master.

* It's cheaper than the ST-E3-RT but just as capable for my needs.
* It has the red grid AF assist (or you can switch it to use the flash head for AF assist)
* It's lighter and cheaper than another 600EX-RT.
* I can still keep using it as a flash.