Maintenance Menu

[Arvin Berner]

Now that I have found the maintenance menu, it would be nice to know more about the items found on these pages, specifically:
-what is the "test saw"?
-while "black shading" and "white shading" are terms that make sense, what are the effects of these controls?
-under "flare", there seems to be an adjustment for each sensor? Is this related to lens flare?
-what is "auto FB adjust"?

I wish Sony would have included this information in a manual that we can easily access. Does anyone here have insight into these menus?

Thanks

[David Issko]

Arvin,

They are adjustments that you should not touch as you need proper test charts, monitoring equipment and of course, Sony EX camera technical training for such complex adjustments.

The auto FB adjust is one that is a user adjustable on the EX3 lens menu. Again, without a proper test chart (for this a back focus chart such as a siemens chart) you should not try to make any adjustments.

I agree that Sony should make the menu more user friendly, especially some of the picture profile adjustments, but the maintenance menu is really off limits and one should not attempt to toy with the adjustments without the proper training.

However, if you must, then write down the camera preset settings before making any moves. Still, I personally will not touch the maintenance menu.

My camera has recently been put on test charts and the tech and I found it to be set very well out of the factory. Any further adjustments I have made have been for personal and/or topic genre reasons.

It takes a lot of time to see how the adjustments affect the picture. I have carried out quite a lot of tests and still at times I am a little confused as to what 'looks' better.

[Arvin Berner]

I agree that we do not have the information available that we would need.

But I think it should be available if we want or need it. With most other products you can get the manuals and equipment if you want to. All of my professional audio gear has very detailed instructions, and one of my mixing boards even has a section in the manual (the standard manual that comes with every mixing board, not a special service manual) labeled, "modifications". The section describes, "three signal routing changes that can be performed easily on the [unit]... for someone with soldering experience." Even though I am capable with a soldering iron, I have no intention of performing these modifications. But if I needed to, and wanted to, the information is there. Yes they do have their warranty disclaimer very clearly stated.

The same should be true with the Sony cameras.

Thanks for your input, and actually I don't plan to adjust anything in those menus, but I want to know what they are so that if I ever need it I understand it.

[Andy Tejral]

Originally Posted by Arvin Berner

one of my mixing boards even has a section in the manual (the standard manual that comes with every mixing board, not a special service manual) labeled, "modifications".

Hmm. Lemme guess... Mackie? Yeah, Mackie will do that. Sony? Yeah, don't hold your breath.

[Noah Kadner]

Originally Posted by Arvin Berner

I agree that we do not have the information available that we would need.But I think it should be available if we want or need it.

Actually without the proper test bench gear and diagnosis software there's literally nothing positive you can extract from settings in the maintenance menu. Most cameras have them and using them is almost never recommended. There's no hot-rodding or added performance boost you can gain by messing around in there. All you'll wind up with potentially is a messed up camera that will require service and a possibly voided product warranty. It's hidden for a reason- your camera's protection. Everything you could ever possibly need to fine tune your camera is already there in the standard user menus.

Noah

[Arvin Berner]

Originally Posted by Andy Tejral

Hmm. Lemme guess... Mackie? Yeah, Mackie will do that. Sony? Yeah, don't hold your breath.

Yes... you guessed it. I like Mackie.

[Arvin Berner]

[QUOTE=Noah Kadner;984366There's no hot-rodding or added performance boost you can gain by messing around in there.
Noah[/QUOTE]

Yeah I hadn't thought there was. What I'm after is knowledge, and that is why I asked the question in the first place. I like to have as deep a knowledge as possible of the equipment I am using.

I recently encountered an excellent example of how useful deep knowledge of your equipment can be when I was using my still camera. I was in the field shooting with my 4x5 (I can't remember which camera, but it it irrelevent to the discussion anyway) with a Schneider Super Angulon lens in a Synchro-Compur shutter. The slow shutter speeds were not working. But I had a discussion one time with my technician, and he mentioned that the slow shutter speeds utilize a different spring mechanism than the high speeds. So I theorized that I could try using the higher speeds and it was a reasonable guess that it might work. The exposures were correct. So the detailed knowledge allowed my to keep my artistic vision and use the lens I wanted instead of switching to another. By the way that knowledge doesn't mean I'm going to take apart my shutter.

So back to the Sony camera. I want more knowledge about the thing. It's performace record has been terrible so far. When it works I love it... it can produce beautiful images. But it has failed twice in the field. It is less than a year old, and that is a terrible performance record.

I expect more than that from a camera - even more so because I treat my equipment with kid gloves. I have a still camera that has to be pushing 50 years old (Zeiss Contarex), and it works almost perfectly, and it doesn't spend time in the repair shop. Furthermore, the finish on the camera is like new... like it just rolled out of the factory, and the camera has seen a lot of use. Meanwhile we have our EX1's that are less than a year old and the paint is flaking off?

[Bob Grant]

The "test saw" is a SAW test pattern generator. It creates a linear sawtooth signal. Quite usefull in conjunction with a waveform monitor if you want to see what your gamma curves are doing.

[Arvin Berner]

Ok. Thanks Bob. Any insight about "flare"?

[Bob Grant]

Originally Posted by Arvin Berner

Ok. Thanks Bob. Any insight about "flare"?

No. I think the rest are adjustments and best not adjusted without knowing what you're doing.

[Nick Wilson]

Originally Posted by Arvin Berner

Any insight about "flare"?

From reading the EX3 manual, it appears that flare is to do with chromatic aberation correction. I would agree strongly that it is not something to be played with.

[Piotr Wozniacki]

If I'm not mistaken, the Auto Black Balance function was added to the EX1's maintenance menu in the 1.11 firmware update, right?

However, it seems to always be grayed out in my camera. Is it just my unit?

[Daniel Epstein]

Originally Posted by Arvin Berner

Now that I have found the maintenance menu, it would be nice to know more about the items found on these pages, specifically:
-what is the "test saw"?
-while "black shading" and "white shading" are terms that make sense, what are the effects of these controls?
-under "flare", there seems to be an adjustment for each sensor? Is this related to lens flare?
-what is "auto FB adjust"?

I wish Sony would have included this information in a manual that we can easily access. Does anyone here have insight into these menus?

Thanks

If these items are the same as on other Sony cameras they are all relatively important settings or signals which are used when setting up the camera properly to spec.
Test saw is a signal which allows the set up of gain gamma, preset white balance knee slope and other parameters. Sony has used this signal as an alignment signal for other adjustments.
Black shading and white shading are to align the white and black parts of the signal so they have flat response. When you are looking at a waveform of the camera black with the cap on the lens the signal should be flat without any hooks or curves.
White shading is similar except the camera has to be looking at white. As an example you want the left side of the frame to have the same response to a signal as the right side. Definitely not for the inexperienced user to play with.
Flare comp is usually adjusted using a grayscale chart and minimizes color changes in the black gray area when overexposing by aprroximately a stop. This can affect the black balance and is not directly related to lens flare but helps the tracking of the black levels as they go to from black gray.