Fails to complete on A7R

[mykela]

Will not accept a second focus point (maximum) on an A7R. Also does not draw the horizontal focus bar at the bottom of the screen though the two end point icons are visible. (Maybe the FocusDriveListener is not firing change events?)

[mykela]

(Awesome job on this BTW.)

[obs1dium]

Maybe the FocusDriveListener is not firing change events?

Possibly. You should be able to see that in the log file (FOCUSBRK/LOG.TXT on the SD card).

[mykela]

Sorry. No logs on the A7R SD. I'm not building this myself yet, so as soon as I get that done, I will try some stuff. Works great on an A6000 though, including the logging.

[obs1dium]

Alright. Since you own an A6000, maybe you'll also figure out why the app won't take pictures if the logging calls are commented out (see #1).

[mykela]

Two items.

1. On the A7R, the FocusDriveListener, onChanged method is never called. Suspect the API that sets it is broken. I think that's in the firmware so no option for fixing that I can think of.
2. Commented out all the logging and ran it on an A6000. It worked exactly like it did before the logging was commented out. No issues that I could see. If you have symptoms, I can try to reproduce?

[obs1dium]

Interesting. I don't own an A6000 myself so I can't test this, but @vanderLo was having issues. If you're both on firmware 3.10 then maybe it's a configuration issue.

[vanderLo]

Interesting indeed. We tested like 3-5 different builds and only those with enabled logging seemed to work.

[3ricj]

Hi there,

Just a note: I was so super excited to try this on my a7r, but alas it doesn't work when I press the Enter button on the max position. I'm using the 90mm lens on firmware 3.10. The "Focus Bracket Pro" app (limited to 3 photos) from the playstore does in fact work, so there must be some method for making this work. Best I can tell no logs are on the SDCard. Please let me know if I can provide any other debug info or testing.

-- info from my camera:
Name: ILCE-7R
•Product code: 0032826110
•Serial number: nopenope
•Firmware: 3.10
•Battery: 86 %
•Total storage space: 104.4 MB
•Free storage space: 49.5 MB

Installed apps
•android (2.3.7)
•com.android.certinstaller (2.3.7)
•com.android.defcontainer (2.3.7)
•com.android.providers.applications (2.3.7)
•com.android.providers.media (2.3.7)
•com.android.providers.settings (2.3.7)
•com.obsidium.focusbracket (1.2)
•com.sony.imaging.app.bracketpro (1.20)
•com.sony.imaging.app.flickr (1.10)
•com.sony.imaging.app.manuallenscompensation (1.30)
•com.sony.imaging.app.photoretouch (1.30)
•com.sony.imaging.app.portraitlighting (1.10)
•com.sony.imaging.app.smoothreflection (1.00)
•com.sony.imaging.app.snsdirect (2.12)
•com.sony.imaging.app.srctrl (2.20)
•com.sony.imaging.app.startrails (1.10)
•com.sony.imaging.app.synctosmartphone (1.20)
•com.sony.imaging.app.timelapse (2.30)
•com.sony.scalar.app.hotspot (1.0)
•com.sony.scalar.app.wifisettings (1.0)
•com.sony.scalar.dlsys.scalaraappmanager (1.0)
•com.sony.scalar.dlsys.scalaradisclaimer (1.0)
•com.sony.scalar.dlsys.scalarainstaller (1.0)
•com.sony.scalar.dlsys.scalaralauncher (1.0)
•com.sony.scalar.dlsys.scalaramarket (1.0)
•com.sony.scalar.dlsys.scalarasoftkeyboard (2.3.7)
•com.sony.scalar.dlsys.scalarausbdlapp (1.0)
•com.sony.scalar.lib.webapiddservice (1.0)
•com.sony.scalar.providers.avindex (1.0)

[3ricj]

I found this thread: ma1co/OpenMemories-Tweak#30

It makes me think if we can take a peek at the APK used on the Focus Pro App, maybe we can figure out what it's doing. How do you download the APKs from the camera?

[obs1dium]

How do you download the APKs from the camera?

You can use OpenMemories-Tweak's telnet feature to copy files from internal storage to the SD card.
I suspect that all Sony apps share a lot of code.

[MartinNuc]

I can help you with this. I know how to reverse engineer android apps but i am unable to purchase focus pro app :(

Btw that Focus Pro App from sony, does it do true focus bracketing? I thought it just changes appreture. If it does true focus bracketing its a great news!

[Kabouik]

I have the exact same issue on A7II. I can set the minimal focusing distance, but can't confirm the maximal distance. Also, the focus bar in the bottom is there, but I see no change when I move the focus ring on the lens.

This is the first time I try using this application, so maybe I'm doing something wrong. I hope this can be solved, I was really super enthusiastic when I saw this app!

[obs1dium]

Unfortunately I don't have access to any A7 cameras, so I can't test this myself. Which lens are you using?

[Kabouik]

Sorry I missed your answer, I thought I had notifications enabled but I was wrong.

The lens I was using was the Voigtländer Nokton 50 F/1.1 using a Techart Pro adapter. I can try with other Voigtländer lenses, with a different M to E adapter (Hawk's Factory helicoid ring), or with adapted Canon EF lenses. I'll also give it a try with the A7s when I can, but at the moment the application is not installed on it so I'll check that later. I'll let you know if any lens or adapter gives better results.

Note that the author of this review (Ctrl+F "FocusBracket") has successfully used the application with an A7RII and M lenses adapted with a Techart Pro ring, so it has been working at some point. The review was published in June, not sure when he used FocusBracket.

[obs1dium]

Interesting. Maybe some camera setting is causing this. Either way I'd test using a native E-mount lens to rule out adapter issues.

[Kabouik]

Maybe, but I always was in A mode when trying. I suspect the author of the review tried in A mode too, and it worked with the Techart adapter and a M lens.

I have no native E lenses. However, I have tried with the Canon MP-E on my A7II, and same issue.

[mykela]

OK. I just finally got back to looking at this. I did a couple things and I'm now stumped and blocked. (Hope someone is still watching this.)

1. I downloaded the bracketing application that Sony produces and tried it on my A7R. The lousy and limited implementation notwithstanding, it seems to work. I can see the focus moving in the three frames from close to far. And it's very fast. Less than a second to focus and snap three frames.

2. I loaded the tweak application and telnet'ed into the camera. I can find their bracketing .apk file (and others) but nothing I do will allow me to copy it to the sdcard. I changed the files system to r/w, change permissions on the files, tried moving from the android folder, tried moving from the root folder, etc, etc. I get either read only filesystem errors and when I fix that, it tells me the files don't exist. I even tried writing a bit of java code to read the file and then write it to the sdcard but it throws an IO exception (file not found) when it tries to open it. And there's no ftp or tftp or anything else like that to try. I suspect those would also throw an exception.

Any suggestions on how to get this file off the camera so we can see what they are doing?

[obs1dium]

You can copy the APKs to the SD card that way, just make sure that the target filename is in 8.3 format and only uses uppercase characters.

[jbieler]

@mykela whats the exact command you used for copying the app?
I first tried copying to /mnt/sdcard which didn't work (it's empty, so prob not mounted). I was however able to copy apps to /android/mnt/sdcard.

[mykela]

All caps for the filename was the key! Thank you! I guess I should have noticed that everything else on the SD card was all caps. (But I didn't.)

For others, you need to

1. mount -o remount,rw '/android/mnt/sdcard'
2. cd /android/data/app
3. cp com.sony.imaging.app.bracketpro-1.apk /android/mnt/sdcard/AAA.APK
   (for example)

I've never reversed an android package before so suggestions are welcome/needed.

Thanks.

[obs1dium]

The first step was not necessary in my case.

[mykela]

Without spending too much more time digging into it, it looks like the focus bracket application they built works around it by letting the user see, roughly, where the focus points are by drawing some indicators on the screen. Then it uses the auto focus on those three points.

I can see some advantages for some people with this method, but if you want to do any macro/focus stacking work, it's probably not adequate. Maybe let the user pick a series of spots with the flexible spot system, or maybe pick two spots on the display and interpolate the points between them. Or 4 spots and a Bezier curve through the set? Or, I'll just buy a new camera that was finished before it was sold. The auto-focus method is clearly faster than the focus listener system though.

I think there's not really any way around the focus-listener system not working on the A7R short of updating the firmware. (Which Sony clearly refuses to do or even acknowledge that they won't do it.)

[cablecutter]

Hi All, Curious if there is any solution in 2019

[antoineloos]

Hi, I have the same issue with my A7 (ILCE-7) and the Sony 70-300mm G, i'm unable to confirm the maximum focus point, my firmeware version is : 3.20.
Does anyone has some advancement or advices on this bug ?
thanks

[mykela]

Unlikely this will ever be fixed. The first generation A7r Android subsystem (PlayMemories) which Sony uses (used?) for the A7r does not correctly support the focus motor. (No focus motor events are returned.) The A6000 is one Android version later and it does work correctly. Since the A7 was released prior to the A7r , I would expect similar behavior to the A7r. Sony, in all likelihood , will never update the firmware on the either of these cameras so I think you are out of luck on the A7. (They removed the Android subsystem in version 3 so that option doesn't exist.)

I'd say buy a used A6000 (used so as not to reward Sony for their decisions.) I know that camera works.

[3ricj]

My guess is that now that the firmware keys for the new A7r3 etal cameras are known, we'll start to see some real progress in hacking the newer cameras. I would love an in-body focus stacking application. Sony is making this such a pain.

[3ricj]

(my guess is that one of the first things to happen will be android back on the base OS of the cameras)

[pasha4ur]

My guess is that now that the firmware keys for the new A7r3 etal cameras are known, we'll start to see some real progress in hacking the newer cameras. I would love an in-body focus stacking application. Sony is making this such a pain.

Developers don't do anything new for last few years.

People is ready to donate for apps. But developers are to lazy (

[MartinNuc]

Developers are lazy? ... nice attitude. You can always go and build your app on your own. Besides new cameras don't have an Android environment to run apps. This was killed by Sony so there is really no reason to make any app at all.

[pasha4ur]

Developers are lazy? ... nice attitude. You can always go and build your app on your own. Besides new cameras don't have an Android environment to run apps. This was killed by Sony so there is really no reason to make any app at all.

There is no wiki, api docs or full process example how to make own app. Only "Look in code for example".

it was depricated by sony only few years later after hack.

[MartinNuc]

It's easy to learn from code. The problem is that API is kinda limited. So please don't blame developers.