In my camera, the Pixel Shift settings are in the menu under Camera 1, of 15.
Lock It Downįirst, because the camera is shooting multiple images which are then combined, it’s critical that the camera be locked down on a sturdy tripod and that whatever you’re photographing not move (although I have made some fun photos with intentional movement). So that’s the technology, here’s how I put it to use in the real world. The resulting image file has much higher resolution than a single exposure as well as improved color.
When Pixel Shift is being used, the sensor moves by a tiny amount between the series of exposures so that each photosite gets exposed by green, then blue, then red, etc (depending on how many exposures you set Pixel Shift to make). Each individual photosite on the image sensor has a color filter over it. With the four shot Pixel Shift, you get the color boost, and with the sixteen shot you get the color and a big resolution improvement as well. Using Pixel Shift, the α7R IV captures green, red and blue at every photo site by physically moving the sensor between each exposure. Each photosite captures one color and the camera uses that to build the color photograph. It’s a grid of green, red and blue filters placed over the photo sites on the sensor and its purpose is to generate a color image. The majority of digital cameras, including the α7R IV, use a Bayer array to capture color. Going step by step, Tony Gale explains how he uses Pixel Shift technology in his Sony α7R IV from his camera settings to image processing.
In the α7R IV, that can be taken up to as many as 16 exposures to generate a file with massive resolution.
In the α7R III, Pixel Shift captured four exposures to generate the final image. That’s an oversimplification, however, as Pixel Shift also delivers superior color fidelity because of how it works with the sensor. The technology is most commonly associated with creating a final image file with dramatically-higher resolution than a single exposure. It works by taking multiple exposures in rapid succession, each one moving the image sensor a tiny fraction to capture the subject on a different part of the image sensor. Pixel shift, which debuted in earlier models, offers both a resolution and a color fidelity increase. Among the many advancements in the Sony α7R IV is the pixel shift feature.