Sony Sky HDR

A new application for some Sony cameras - not free unfortunately, but not really expensive. It is VERY grey here this morning, and drizzling, so I thought I would try the new app. It has made the sky faintly blue (and the rest of the picture too!), but the light is so flat that you can't expect much.  It takes 2 photos (several seconds gap between them), so movement can be quite a problem with trees - some others I took in the park earlier are completely useless. Like other Sony downloadable apps you can only use one at a time (so, for example, I could not use at the same time the one which triggers the shutter by waving your hand by the viewfinder, which makes a great substitute for a remote release when using a tripod), and most of the camera settings have to be set in menus in the app, not using the usual camera controls. There is also another setting in the app which just uses ND and not colour filtering, which I must try another time. You can also alter the sky/land transition point before saving the image. Unlike some 'art filter' effects you can shoot both RAW and JPEG, but the RAW is a single, merged picture. I much prefer the Olympus solution to these 'art' effects, where if the camera is set to shoot RAW, you get an unprocessed RAW original and the processed JPEG. 

I also tried for the first time using the camera processing settings in Lightroom with this camera (this is camera standard).

My conclusion so far, though I need to experiment more, is that it is an interesting idea, but quite cumbersome to use, and I doubt that I will use it much. But if you are stuck for ideas sometimes (as I am, and can't get around much for new subjects either), gimmicks like this can be amusing to play with.