a5100 support

[justin8]

Hey,

I'm interested in using your fork of obs1dium's project, there seems to be a ton of fixes for issues I've encountered, but I have no experience with android projects, or how to build the APK. Obs1dium's version was installable via the pcma appspot application without issues, but this one is not available there.

Is it possible to provide an APK for this? or an easy way to install it

Thanks

[KillerInk]

Hi, sorry for answer so latly. That stuff is only tested with a a6000. For any other device i cant promise that it work. Will upload the apk the next days.

[KillerInk]

https://github.com/KillerInk/BetterManual/releases/tag/1.5.1_A6000

[justin8]

Awesome! Thanks

[justin8]

It does seem to be completely broken on my a5100, I can't change any settings other than auto/manual on/off and the bracketing/timer functions. no shutter/iso/aperture/etc control. Changing between auto and manual seems to have 2 autos and 2 manuals that have different configurations, which seemed odd. The original better manual worked mostly fine, but crashed occasionally.

[KillerInk]

i think thats caused due the touchscreen. i left it out because a6000 dont have it. for navigation you have to use the center wheel. to change aperture etc you have to use the right top wheel

[justin8]

Ah, I only use the touchscreen for focusing really, I forgot to try that. The wheel couldn't select the settings in manual mode, and spinning it wouldn't change them.

Also, after I installed this (not sure if this was the cause, but the only other thing I did was swap SD cards) my camera started turning off every few seconds and I had to reinitialize all the settings to get it to work again at all. :/

[KillerInk]

i looked a some pics from the a5100 and it seems it dont have the two top navigation wheels. how does it work on that from obisidum? you click on iso and swipe on the screen to change it?

a5100

a6000

about sd card. i have that too when i plugg it to the pc with mtp and move images. after that i have to format the sdcard again. else it could happen that i cant use the inbuild gallery or it starts to reboot the cam. only way to prevent that behavior is for me to copy the images with the playmemories app.

[justin8]

Ah, interesting. When I get home tonight I'll re-install the obs1dium better manual one and double check how I was able to navigate it previously.

Good to know that it was likely not this that caused issues with the camera though, I was worried for a while until I finally found the reinitialization option that fixed it.

[KillerInk]

i checked the old code and he added there alot swipelistners for the surface. so i think its like touch on the view(iso) and swipe. i have the basic code for swipe inside but not activated

[KillerInk]

i checked my code even more. when you scroll with the disp wheel to iso you should be able to change it with swiping on the screen. ----edit i see the problem, the swipelistner use the context from the view where it come from and not from the cameraUI

[justin8]

Ok, just reinstalled obs1dium's one. I can swap between the shutter speed, iso and exposure using down arrow on the front spinner/dial thing (the only one I have). And then spin it to change values. to swap auto/manual, or do things like bracketing, burst shots, timer, etc I use the touch screen. The selection shows as green text instead of white.

Installing your branch, there is no green selection, and it's not just hidden, spinning the dial does nothing. Up arrow to change display, changes the display as expected, left/right/down do not seem to do anything. I can touch ISO to make it change to auto ISO or manual, tapping the auto/manual button changes from manual at 1/30 shutter, to 0.4", still manual, then to auto at 0.4", then auto at 1/30th?

The LENR button doesn't do anything, neither does the orange one? (motion compensation maybe? not sure of the icon).

But anyway, the dial controls do not work on the a5100 currently.

[KillerInk]

Lenr is long exposure noise reduction / darkframe substraction the orange is the imagestabilisation. not sure if both are supported on the a5100. on a6000 the disp dial gets used to rotate through the items. the left icons can get activated/used with the enter button. normaly that should work for you. the bottom wont work cause the swipe listners are using the wrong context. will look into it when im back from vacation

[justin8]

LENR is definitely supported, I started using better manual to disable it for astrophotography. The button on the UI says it is disabled in your fork, but touching it does nothing, and no buttons seem to let me navigate the menu.

I'm unsure about the image stabilisation. From looking online it seems both the A6000 and A5100 don't have in-body stabilization, but some lenses do?

If I press the center button, it toggles the Auto/manual button, which is green at startup. But I can't change to other items to modify those.

Thanks for looking at this stuff even though you don't have the a5100

[vlousada]

Hi @justin8 , @KillerInk:

If I am not mistaken, the obs1dium app used the center-wheel DOWN key to toggle between modes / "dials" and then we do rotate wheel to increase/decrease or press Enter key to set some other settings. At least the part of code I used back then work that way. On other hand, Killerlnk* fork (from the really quick code inspection for onDownKeyxxx) seems to ONLY use the Enter key event to toggle things! I do suspect that something does not apply on a5100 (and so nex6) as opposed to a6000, so it does not go over the “current dial”.. Perhaps the log.txt can give a clue about this issue on a5100…

---

* BTW, I tried the Killerlnk's APK on my nex-6 and it does crash at very begining... so I could not check regarding the Key Events. I must try on a6300 which is more similar to a6000, tomorrow

[vlousada]

Just installed his version into a6300 and it does work fine (in a way that must be similar to the a6000). The way that we can select settings is implemented in a different way of Obs1dium (which way I was familiar due having made an app using his code)… Here, rotate the CENTER-WHEEL is used to move from "M/A" mode to other settings, while on original code we use the DOWN key to pass through modes/settings.

@justin8, Please check if the center wheel of your a5100 works to navigate to other settings. Keep in mind that since a5100 has only one dial (the center wheel) some other settings in this app like changing aperture will not work too because other dial/wheel is used!! I also suspect that the center-wheel (dial1? / dial2?) keycode in a5100 may not be the same in a6xxx cameras, and some keymapping must be needed to this version works on a5100.

[justin8]

The center (and only) wheel on my a5100, does nothing. Pressing the button alternates auto/manual modes.

[KillerInk]

so the simplest solution is to add on UP/DOWN the navigation to the next ui item. changing the value seem to work with the upperdial for a5100 the center

[justin8]

That sounds accurate, let me know if you need me to test anything.

[KillerInk]

@justin8 with that you should be able to navigate on down key https://github.com/KillerInk/BetterManual/releases/tag/1.5.2_A6000

@vlousada newer tweak memorys app has adb inside. can you log the crash on nex6? if not i can add a logger wich store it in a txt file.

[schmety]

Hey, I have tested Better Manual application for a6000. I already have installed Better Manual version for a5100 and i'm also using it on a5000. Simply, one of the best application for Sony !

What i have noticed in Better Manual for a6000, that when i'm shooting for exposure Bracketing , for example 3 photos, after shooting is finished LCD screen on camera remains black. So i must go back to Menu and back to Better Manual app. Sometimes also Better Manual goes into camera's menu automatically, without pressing exit button. I have latest firmware for a6000 installed, 3.21 version. Could this be a cause ? Which version should be the most stable for use with Better Manual app or this have nothing to do with firmware versions ?

[KillerInk]

Hi the code here have not much todo with the orginal. the camera seems not realy to like that its working in background. sometimes its working without problems, and sometimes its rebooting the camera after app start. i think the orginal is more stable. also this has the bug that after a raw capture the sdcard light keeps on. something gets locked there. im not realy sure whats causing it.

if you want something stable use that orginal from obs1dium

[schmety]

Thanks for your reply ! I have tried original version, but i'm missing focus magnification option , which doesn't work at a6000 and helping me a lot while focusing something in distance.

[KillerInk]

seems like the raw saving problem is fixed with 3.21. latest commit fix the ae bracket crash

[schmety]

That would be really nice ! :)

[KillerInk]

new apk is up

[schmety]

Wow, that was fast ! :) I have tested new apk. Bracketing works fine, after shooting photos, lcd screen didn't goes black. What i have noticed is that, while pressing for focus magnification , i got blank window (bottom left side) where shows the cursor on focus screen and while pressing left, right, up or down, picture doesn't move anywhere.

[KillerInk]

changed the navigation. center wheel up down cycle now through the ui items. rotate the wheel change now the value. left right cycle through histogram and gridview.

[schmety]

I have answered about new update under "a6000 focus magnification" post.