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Experimenting With Sony Smooth Reflection App

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The following is a Guest Post from Phototraces about Sony’s Smooth Reflection App (available here):

Experimenting With Sony Smooth Reflection App

I switched from a Canon DSLR to a Sony Mirrorless two years ago.

What triggered my final decision for the switch was the pixel peeping of a Sony a6000 sample RAW file that I downloaded from one of the earlier adopters in Germany. What blew me away was the quality of the digital file and how the image was useful even at 100% magnification.

I was sold.

Another feature of Sony cameras that I was really excited about and anticipated incorporating into my digital workflow was the ability to add the PlayMemories apps to the camera. It was a completely new approach in the camera world.

I was really excited about two apps in particular: Bracket Pro and Smooth Reflection.

I do a lot of HDR photography and luminosity blending so the limited auto bracketing functionality on the Sony a6000 was an issue for me. I expected to use the Bracketing Pro app to extend the functionality of my a6000. But, that was not the case. After installing Bracketing Pro, I realized that, although it can bracket pretty much everything, it does not go beyond three frames. After using Magic Lantern with my Canon for years, it was difficult to move backward and readjust to limited functionality.

Next, I installed and started testing the Smooth Reflection app. Again, I was disappointed. I shoot RAW in 100% of cases and, when I saw that Smooth Reflection produced JPEG files even when I set the a6000 to shoot RAW, I assumed that the application was only capable of producing JPEG files. I removed all the apps from my Sony and gave up on the whole concept.

Only much later and after listening to the Camera Labs podcast did I realize that Sony apps use their own menu system that overrides the global settings of the camera.

After my second attempt at using the Smooth Reflection app, I managed to set the app to produce RAW files and, since then, it has become my favorite functionality of my Sony.

The concept of Smooth Reflection is simple. The camera takes multiple shots (approximately one shot every second, regardless of what shutter speed is used) and merges them in-camera to produce a single RAW file with the long exposure effect.

What surprised me was that the app does not take any extra time to merge the images; it keeps combining the frames while shooting. When the final frame is shot, the new RAW file is ready immediately. It does not take any extra time. I find it very useful.

When I use the Smooth Reflection app, I do not use any camera presets. Instead, I manually specify the number of frames I need for the particular shot.

Here are some examples of Smooth Reflection at work.

Smooth Reflection: 48 frames

Single frame shot. Shutter Speed 1/50s

Smooth Reflection: 32 frames

Smooth Reflection: 16 frames

Smooth Reflection: 48 frames

Smooth Reflection: 96 frames

Smooth Reflection: 32 frames

Article by Viktor Elizarov. For more examples check his travel photography blog PhotoTraces.com

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