Manual lens SSS?

i'm shure that was the case when i was reading up on the a100 when it came out before i got it,also with my dynax 7d.the a700 also had support for unchipped lenes so i would imagine it functions on that too.
don't know about the a900 but going off your discription it is working.
with your 1 second exposure there should be a differance between the two images.a half second exposure should show a biger differance.with anti shake on at that shutter speed i can get a fairly sharp shot,without it should be blurred,the same as if it's not working.

I don't have any official statement or proof to include here (these days there are more and more users that require "proofs" for any statement ) and can only share what i learned talking "off the record" with various Sony reps and a-mount camera users in the past(note that i have no clue about cameras released in the last year or so and don't know if something was changed from old behaviors)).

- AS/SSS, if turned ON does work with manual focusing lenses
- focal length (and subject distance !) info is one of the important variables in AS/SSS efficiency; if missing (unchipped lenses), AS/SSS will be less effective (but still working)
- 50mm focal length is supposedly used with unchipped lenses. However, more than one person (that i have talked with) that had their manual focusing 50mm lenses chipped did found that AS/SSS worked better after the mod. I didn't performed these tests myself but i don't have any reason to doubt their statements.

gouldina wrote: Subject distance? How so? I didn't know this.

Once in a while we touch this topic .. usually it turns that few of us defend our knowledge against those that need official Sony statements about anything

See here

the OP himself can actually test this quite easily. just pop the unchipped lens in, and start to slow down the shutter till you can't handheld anymore (getting blurry pics), then pop a chipped one in and use the same shutter.

the claim of SS is about 2 stops, so it should be quite a big difference at the same shutter speed without.

6tyNine wrote: i've adapted the zeiss 50/2 for my a900. i've read all this before but here is my first hand experience. i used the lens for about a month before chipping it. i can say without a doubt that there was a difference before and after, atleast for hand held limited avaialble light table top shooting. without the chip, i wouldn't get crisp images unless the shutter was about 1/50th seconds. with the chip, i was getting crisp images with the shutter as slow as 1/10th seconds. about the same # of stops SSS is supposed to give.

there ya go, so SS doesn't work when you don't have a chip. which makes sense to me, why the hell would sony bother to default SS @ 50? that's not a "primary" FL, that used to be, but most DSLR are APSC size...

pentax have the option to "input" the FL for SS, sony should have done the same, it probably take the coding guy like a day to copy it from pentax and paste it into sony firmware.

momech wrote: clockwork247 wrote: there ya go, so SS doesn't work when you don't have a chip. Yes, it does work, but it's not as effective without the input from the lens for focal length and distance. I've got a few M42 mount MF lenses with a chipped adapter for some, but not all of them. Roughly, I think the SSS gives at least 1 stop advantage even without the chip, a bit more with it.

did you test it with SS off?

I believe there is no distance encoder in lenses with 5-pins contacts. Does that also mean that lenses with ADI support enjoys better SSS than those without? I am not quite sure on the subject distance part, since I do not have a pair of identical lenses in both 5- and 8- pins form.