Foolography Community

I have the exact same problem with the unleashed'22 that I just received.
My camera is a A7III (firmware 3.10, rather than 4.10), firmware of the unleashed and the app software are both up to date.
Android 13, up to date.

Camera (!) crashes and resets whenever I don't set it to save jpegs, but only raw.

When I do save jpegs, the timelapse takes pictures, but the ramping does not work. The entire timelapse is taken at the initial settings.
Is there another update planned for this?

Hi,

There are a few issues, bugs, and idea/feature requests, which, for (my) simplicity, I will mention in the same post.

Setup:
- Sony A7III (firmware 3.10, rather than 4.10, update isn't possible, as my cable is at home)
- firmware of the unleashed up to date
- app software are both up to date
- Android 13, up to date.

1)
(I just sent a support ticket for this, but meanwhile found somewhat of a solution, but not an entirely satisfactory one).
Whenever I save only RAW files (my standard setting), the camera actually crashes when trying to save the images. No images are saved on the camera, instead the camera either restarts or even freezes.
Sometimes, as mentioned, it gets stuck, and I can not even switch the camera off any longer. I have to take the battery out to be able to do anything else, which is basically a hard reset of the camera.
The camera actually shuts off in the process (you can feel the detector vibrating as when switching the camera off), and settings that have recently been changed are being lost.
I need to set on the camera that jpeg, or raw+jpeg are saved, and then it work.

If this setting of saving jpegs is critical to unleashed, this setting should be set automatically, or at least a warning should be given, not just crash the camera. I know it's tchnically doable, because other devices do this.
Solution: save as jpeg (or raw+jpeg) in the camera settings manually, which, as I said, I don't feel satisfying.

2)
As reported in other posts, "ramp order and mode are still read only", as the app warns when doing a holy grail timelapse. So there's still a bug somewhere (unless the device necessarily requires camera firmware 4).
As a consequence, the timelapse does not change any settings, all images are being taken at the exact same (initial) settings. Other posts reported this before, but it has allegedly been fixed, but it's not true for my setup at least.
As this is the main purpose of the unleashed for me, this makes it pretty much unusable.

3)
Aperture change can not be specified
In the timelapse settings, I am unable to set the aperture size to change (daytime, starting and nighttime values). The menu just doesn't display any options (see attached screenshot)

4)
Remote re-connected after each image taken in the timelapse:
As seen in this video I took, in a timelapse (with the above caveats), the camera behaves funny after every image (see this video).
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/dw8njd46 ... 4p7x2&dl=0

It seems the camera shows the preview of the image, then checks the space on the SD cards again, then reconnects the device. It behaves a little like during a startup.
I assume this reconnection is not intentional, but the device should STAY connected. The re-connecting introduces delays, which are critical for a timelapse at night with a 25 second exposure, and a 28 second interval (or so).


5)
The unleashed/app offers ramping over sunrise or sunset, but not both. This means that full nights are not possible?
Again, as this is the main thing I do, this pretty much makes the device useless for me.
Could such a ramping that can go up and down be implemented? Surely that's just a software thing of connection the 2 ramps?

6)
Images not shown on app
It's a bit of a shame that the image (or live preview from the camera) is not shown in the app. This helps immensely with the camera setup.
Yes, one can simply do this with the camera itself, but with my old Arsenal device, I really like this feature. There you can even use the app to set the focal point.
I hope this is implemented in some future updates, as it improves usabililty massively.


If anybody knows any solutions, or whether such features are being planned for the future, that'd be great.

Thanks!

Hi,
sorry for the trouble.
I split and merged the topic, because while you say you have the exact same problem, you describe a very different one ;-)
Since you followed up with more info in this thread, I merged them.

Also, the other issue was solved with the app update, so yours seems to be a new one.

Could you specify what you mean with "camera crashes and resets"?

Could you share a screenshot of your settings in the holy grail screen, especially the view when you tap on "Show limits >"?

Thanks!

So, we have done a little research on this today.

1) Here's some background: Unlike the other brands, Sony (as well as Fuji) don't allow access to the SD card via USB, unless you change USB modes in the camera menu. However, they do allow access to the photo in the camera's buffer, but what's worse: they REQUIRE access to those photos in most cases. This means that we have to handle the photos as they're being saved to the buffer, or the camera won't allow you to turn it off - resulting in the "stalled" camera you describe, which can only be fixed by unplugging the camera battery. You can also unplug the Unleashed, by the way, which also solves the issue in most cases.

The camera does have a setting which tells it to save the photo both to the SD card and to its buffer for the USB host to fetch it. on Sony this setting is called "Still Img. Save Destination". It's very important that this is set to save to "PC+Camera"
We can handle the photo in the buffer, either by downloading it, or deleting it from the camera buffer, (again - this is independent of it being saved to the SD card). Unfortunately, Sony doesn't always tell us whether there's a new photo in the buffer, especially when you take more than one photo, so it's very tricky to figure out that we need to delete a photo if we don't even get told it exists. This is further complicated when the photos are actually needed for transferring to the app, and for using in the LRT Autoramp algorithms. I think we've figured out a solution today, and will hopefully have it implemented in the next day or two. It will be part of the next firmware update.

2) Yes, this is already fixed in the Android app, but unfortunately not yet released. Coming soon!

3) Good catch - this is because this set of Sony's doesn't tell us the available Aperture values, and we can only adjust by + or - 0.3EV at a time. Because of this, we set the normal Aperture options to just + and -, and then reuse that for Day and night limits for Autoramping. You're right that this doesn't make sense. We'll allow setting apertures from f/1.4 to f/32, and you'll need to select aperture limits that your lens can actually handle, or you'll throw off the results. Again, this is a limitation only of the Sony cameras from 2016-2019. Newer Sony's and all other brands don't have this kind of limitation.

4) This is a direct result of 1)

5) Yep, on this camera, we don't get the EV Meter information. On other cameras where we do get this, we have another EV-based algorithm that works over 24h, which most our customers use. But we already have it on our todo-list to make a combined version of the LRT Algorithm. It will come as a firmware update at some point.


6) But you can show images in the app! Not Live-view - there is simply not enough bandwidth on Bluetooth Low Energy to make this a pleasant experience, but you can get image previews onto the phone in the PHOTO screen in the bottom right corner! You might have some limitations there due to 1), but generally this works! Though technically feasible, without Live-view, there was little reason to implement Focus point selection in the app. Also, in non-live view mode, almost every camera (especially DSLRs) have completely different layouts of focus points spread across the viewfinder, with no specified X,Y coordinates on the image. Combined with selectable crop factors and aspect ratios, this was simply not worth implementing with such limited use cases. But who knows what we'll still manage in the future! ;-)

Hi Oliver,

(I can only attach 3 attachments to a message, so the remaining files mentioned are in consecutive messages)
Thanks for your reply(ies).

>> Could you specify what you mean with "camera crashes and resets"?

Given your longer answer, I assume you figured this out. already. But if not, here's more information:
In the worst case, I need to take out the battery (or possibly unplug the unleashed). This means a hard reset in the camera, e.g. any changes done in the settings since last switching it on are lost, because seemingly the camera only saves those settings at shutdown.
(This is just from what I see, I do not know whether this is true)

This problem isn't specific to the Timelapse, but general (as I think you figured out by now), so I am attaching a few screenshots I just took for the normal photo mode.
unleashed1.jpg: photo settings in the app
unleashed2.jpg: the error message on the camera, after the photo was taken and I think it restarted (see video)
unleashed3.jpg: Settings before shot. I had just changed silent shooting to ON
unleashed4.jpg: As you can see, the silent shooting has been reset to OFF after the process.

Here's a video of the process on the camera:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/dw8njd46 ... 4p7x2&dl=0

>>> 1) Here's some background: Unlike the other brands, Sony (as well as Fuji) don't allow access to the SD card via USB, unless you change USB modes in the camera menu.

This is odd, because I think Arsenal can do exactly that, via the mini USB port, instead of the USB-C port, though, without such changes of the USB mode.
Arsenal can show you both the live view (which you say is a speed thing as it uses WiFi, not USB), and also saves the individual images. Not sure whether from the Buffer as you do, or from SD card. I think it's correct that it does NOT show images taken with the camera itself, so it probably uses the buffer like you say, yes.

I think one solution would be that the unleashed device just automatically sets jpeg saving ON (e.g. switches to RAW+JPEG if only RAW is set. That seems to be what Arsenal is doing. I 'save only RAW', but always also find the jpegs on the card when I use it. It's more elegant than having to rely on the user to change the setting themselves.

I am looking forward to the next firmware update then. I'll try it out for sure.

>>>3) Good catch - this is because this set of Sony's doesn't tell us the available Aperture values, and we can only adjust by + or - 0.3EV at a time. Because of this,
>>>we set the normal Aperture options to just + and -, and then reuse that for Day and night limits for Autoramping. You're right that this doesn't make sense. We'll
>>>allow setting apertures from f/1.4 to f/32, and you'll need to select aperture limits that your lens can actually handle, or you'll throw off the results. Again, this is
>>>a limitation only of the Sony cameras from 2016-2019. Newer Sony's and all other brands don't have this kind of limitation.

That's odd, because again Arsenal can do this and reports the aperture values correctly, so it seems possible one way or another.
Anyway, even if not, I find the design of the app unfortunate here. With using the same scroll list design used everywhere else, it looks bugged (e.g as if values are not displayed, but a scroll selection list is indeed intended), rather than the behaviour you describe.
It doesn't only say + and -, but actually there are 3 options (unleashed5.jpg). Maybe it might be better to design just 2 buttons that say +0.3 and -0.3 instead?
That would make the GUI more intuitive if the values themselves can indeed not be displayed.
The behaviour in the app is also not the way you describe. With this lens (Sony FE4 24-105 G OSS), the aperture is set to 4.0 if the app is on + (either of them), and on 4.5 when it's on - . I can not repeatedly click the + or - to change the value beyond those values (4.0 being the minimum, of course).

This behaviour is indeed different in the holy grail timelapse option, where the options shown are different (unleashed6.jpg, unleashed7.jpg), but at least on the larger limit, it offers 1.1 which the lens doesn't even do. On the night, I can only select 1.1 and 4.5 (current value on camera), on the daytime only 4.5 and "-" (which I have no idea what it actually does/sets)


>>>5) Yep, on this camera, we don't get the EV Meter information. On other cameras where we do get this, we have another EV-based algorithm that works over 24h,
>>>which most our customers use. But we already have it on our todo-list to make a combined version of the LRT Algorithm. It will come as a firmware update at some point.

I'm looking forward to this. This is by FAR most of what I do.


>>>6) But you can show images in the app! Not Live-view - there is simply not enough bandwidth on Bluetooth Low Energy to make this a pleasant experience, but you
>>>can get image previews onto the phone in the PHOTO screen in the bottom right corner! You might have some limitations there due to 1), but generally this works!

the bandwidth argument might be true. Such a shame, but not a deal breaker for me. I like it in the app, but it's not critical.
The photo screen doesn't work on my app. although I have it selected that images are shown (unleashed8.jpg, after I tapped the icon you mentioned, unleashed9.jpg)

And the gallery feature also doesn't work either. a) it requires storage permission on the phone (unleashed10.jpg) which I can not actually give (unleashed11.jpg), and b) even once this is done, one has to change the USB connection type on the camera to MTS by hand (which is cumbersome) and yet the images are still not displayed (unleashed12.jpg).
So I can not find any way to view the images in the app, no.

Further images for message above

Further images for message above

Further images for message above

We published an Android App update that solves the Android 14 and Storage Permissions,
as well as a some firmware updates that fix the Sony issues. You might want to delete the App and reinstall it to start Gallery over (and get rid of any corrupt images)

We added some more important instructions on our Getting Started page
https://www.foolography.com/start/

Set the file format to RAW+JPEG (or just JPEG), There are significant disadvantages with just RAW
Set the camera setting: MENU > Setup4 > USB Connection = PC Remote
Set the camera setting: MENU > Setup4 > USB Remote Settings > Still Img. Save Dest. = PC+Camera
Set the camera setting: MENU > Setup4 > USB Remote Settings > RAW+J PC Save Img = JPEG Only

Get the App update on the Play Store, and update your firmware. Whenever there's a Firmware update available, you'll see a red notification badge on the menu icon in the bottom left corner of the app. Follow this notification badge through the app to get to the firmware update screen.
App menu (bottom left) → Unleashed with gear icon (bottom left) → tap on your Unleashed (near top ) → tap "Firmware"
Scroll down and tap "Install Update". With the Unleashed M, you need to keep the camera awake, so that the Unleashed stays powered during the entire update. To keep the camera from entering standby, half-press the cameras's shutterbutton continuously or regularly until the update is done. This only takes a little over a minute.