The Sony Xperia 1 II finally supports the RAW image format
Sony pitches the Xperia 1 II as having "professional technology from Alpha cameras" and even goes as far as to claim that "there's never been a smartphone that can capture shots like the Xperia 1 II". Setting the marketing hyperbole aside, the device apparently has decent camera performance if you are willing to use its professional mode.
Now, Xperia 1 II owners can enjoy shooting in RAW via a software update. The update is called 58.0.A.3.88 and has been rolled out in multiple regions for the single-SIM variant of the Xperia 1 II. There is no word on when Sony plans to bring RAW support to the dual-SIM model, although frankly we are amazed that Sony did not enable the feature by default.
The Xperia 1 II can save images in RAW and JPEG simultaneously, should you wish to store the JPGs on your device and post-process the RAW files on your computer. Please note that the Xperia 1 II cannot shoot continuously with Auto HDR enabled if it is saving in RAW and JPEG. All RAW files will be saved internally with a 4:3 aspect ratio, for reference.
According to the Xperia Blog, RAW is available on all the rear-facing cameras of the Xperia . These are the Sony IMX363, Sony IMX557 and ISOCELL S5K3T2, which are the ultra-wide, primary and telephoto sensors, respectively. The new update apparently improves the quality of front-facing video recordings, particularly through WhatsApp. 58.0.A.3.88 also brings the Xperia 1 II onto the July set of Android security patches.
Source(s)
r/SonyXperia (1) (2) (3) via XDA Developers, Xperia Blog & @GOWITHSONY
