Imaging Edge Mobile Reviews

by Lizzygirl90s

I’ve been using ImagingEdge for 2 or 3 years and never had a issue till now. Every since I updated my iPhone to iOS 13 ImagingEdge will not work. I’ve tried everything ImagingEdge told me to do to get it to work again. I’ve reset my phone, I’ve reset my network, I’ve turned my phone off and back on, I’ve even deleted ImagingEdge and re-downloaded ImagingEdge . I’ve turned on my Bluetooth, I’ve literally done everything and nothing is working. I’ve been working on this for hours. If I knew this mess was going to happen then I would have never updated my phone. I use this camera all the time now I cannot even transfer the images to my phone. This is sad, especially when I can’t call or email anymore connected to Sony or ImagingEdge to tell them what is wrong and how everyone I talk to is having the same issue. I hope they can fix this issue soon.

by AOANLA

This thing is terrible. It's clunky, bug-ridden, and lacks basic functionality like the ability to transfer RAW files. Even some of the things it's supposed to be able to do don't work—I can't even transfer a full-res JPEG with this, although there's a setting to do that. This is why smartphones are eating the traditional camera industry's lunch—the workflow on a smartphone is so much smoother and more polished, compared to this barely-even-an-afterthought garbage that we get with "real" cameras. Seriously, this kind of trash software wouldn't even pass as a sophomore CS student's term project.

Sony, you can do better. You make incredible cameras that push the boundaries of what technology can do. You lead the camera industry in multiple areas, from sensor design to machine learning. You even make some pretty decent smartphones. Please devote just a tiny, tiny fraction of your immense resources to making ImagingEdge what it should be. If you can create a seamless interface between your cameras and your customers' phones and tablets, your cameras will gain much greater appeal to a generation of photographers who are currently turning their backs on the traditional camera industry en masse. ImagingEdge could be the bridge that brings an effortless mobile workflow to photography enthusiasts and professionals, which would be immensely powerful and advantageous. You can do it!

by Chaeb1i

I’ve been shooting with the a7riii since its released after upgrading from the a7rii. After learning that the remote function is barely usable with its connectivity issues, along with the fact that the tap to focus not being supported on the a7riii, I stopped using ImagingEdge. Which is perplexing because the a7rii worked fine with it even when ImagingEdge was called PlayMemories or something to that effect.

It’s 2021 and I thought I’d try it again. The a7riii is at its latest firmware and lo and behold, it’s still just as I remembered. I guess it’s fine as an external monitor for a quick reference (if you can get a good connection) but without the tap to focus, there’s hardly a reason for me to have ImagingEdge. This really sounds like I’m ranting about the a7riii rather than ImagingEdge but I’d argue that the features of ImagingEdge is part of the package and it’s severely lacking.

Imagine all the money invested on this camera system only to be burdened by a feature that cameras costing fractions of its asking price does perfectly. And I heard that all of this also applies to the a7riv. Embarrassing.

by Commonwealth

Used it on a professional shoot today. Just so frustrating.
Trying to use remote camera trigger via the Sony app is so close to useless. You can’t really change settings without minutes of lag and having to close app restart reconnect fiddle with camera which is 15 feet in the air. Pull it down, up down, up down, up down on busy city streets in 30 degree windy weather. What should take 5 minutes, take 1/2 hour. When it does trigger it won’t stop taking photos. Then because it took 100 it takes forever to process in camera. Wouldn’t stop when in mid burst, which is new. Switched to low burst still no effective control over shutter. Then needed different exposure. Because of this zero way to bracket. Even though I paid for bracket app, it’s not integrated into remote Sony app. Crazy that after years it’s not available. Always hate using Sony, much prefer Nikon shooting blindly, but needed wider Rokinon 10mm (35mm equivalent to 14ish) lens. Awful. Don’t get your app teams act together. Geez! Worked better 2 years ago. Put bracketing in app if people paid for it, I’d pay more, JUST FIX IT!

by Bigballjie

I made sure to turn on the location service on both the camera and turn on all the required settings in ImagingEdge. The Bluetooth pair and location service worked for the first time. But when I turned on the camera the next day, the location service didn’t work anymore. I checked ImagingEdge , it always said “Searching for the camera”. And I checked my iPhone Bluetooth connection. The camera was not connected by Bluetooth automatically. I also tried to manually connect the Bluetooth in the setting, the location service didn’t work either! Location service is extremely important to me. If there isn’t a way to get it work, I will have to return the camera and switch to other brand. Come on, Sony! You are a company that made so many amazing products! You should do better than this!

by B1jones

Ever since ImagingEdge updated to calling itself ‘Imaging Edge’ it has become a source of frustration and annoyance.

Since late 2019, every time I try to connect my iPhone 8 to my sony a5000 there seems to be a different problem. If I knew it was going to be this much of a pain I might have not chosen a Sony camera in the first place.

iPhones don't support NFC so wifi is the only way to go – and for the first few years I owned the Sony a5000 (when ImagingEdge was called 'Sony Play Memories' [I think?]) it worked just fine. I had to enter the complex password just once and then each subsequent connection went smoothly.

But since late 2019, Sony changed the name of ImagingEdge , and the ease of connection with my iPhone has been replaced with frustration and wasted time. Now, every time I try to connect to transfer photos off the camera and onto my phone it asks me to re enter the long, complicated password – and even then it works less than half the time. If I reset my network connections (erasing ALL my wifi passwords) and restart the phone it works most of the time – but then the next connection an hour or a day later means jumping through all those hoops again. I am very tired of dealing with this and if you own an iPhone I would recommend avoiding Sony cameras until they straighten this out.

by Daaanng

I’ve been having troubles transferring my photos and videos on my a5000 to my phone through ImagingEdge . I tried back in June but I thought it was just a bug in ImagingEdge . So I tried again several weeks after, still no go. I have to use my laptop if I want to save the videos onto my phone. Saving to my laptop isn’t the problem. I just like the convenience that I can do it through my phone and uploading them right away to any social media platform. Back to my iPhone, I tried to transfer a pic today. Connecting my phone with the camera through the WiFi settings works like a breeze. It shows I’m connected. It also shows “connecting” on my camera but as soon as I go onto ImagingEdge , it will not connect. Therefore can’t transfer any picture to save to my camera roll. Are y’all ever going to fix this or?? It’s just been very frustrating because I don’t carry my laptop wherever I go. Please fix this!!!

by Bewar3

First off, as a remote for my Sony DSLR and a photo transfer method, ImagingEdge is pretty fast. That said, there should be more controls (like mode, focus, etc). Also, when you’re connected to the camera, there’s no way to switch between taking a photo and looking at the photos on your camera. It’s not user friendly at all.

The worst part, however, is that ImagingEdge will automatically create BLANK, EMPTY albums in your photos app. It looks to me like it creates one album for every photo you download, but it’s just an empty album. Scrolling through my photos app, I have hundreds of blank albums labeled “Imagine Edge Mobile” with no way to delete them outside of one at a time. Horrible design. Those albums will be stuck in my photos app unless I decide to spend an hour or two scrolling through to delete them one-by-one, and will continue to build up every time I take a photo.

Developers, if you care about your customers, please find a way to fix this.

by Rob_from_ca

The NFC function is comical...you are basically waving your phone around the camera NFC point like weirdo hoping something happens (spoiler, nothing does). How long do you keep looking silly before you give up? (Yes, this is on an iPhone X with NFC support and the right OS).

Then when you switch to QR, it only transfers a low res version, not the original raw (I think).

The location linkage...well, this used to be nearly as comical, disconnecting a ton and requiring re-pairing several times in a shooting session. However something happened in the past few months so it actually seems to be working more reliably now. I can actually just start shooting and it links up and tags the photos. Not sure if it’s a fluke or if something got updated or what...but I’m basically afraid to launch ImagingEdge or try anything for fear of losing this magic.

by Katie052011

When I first got ImagingEdge I was excited to skip the steps of uploading images to the computer then transferring them too my phone. Except for the past month (I use this almost daily) I have had to delete, re-download and most of all, forget my networks just so I can get ImagingEdge to work. It’s ridiculous that with the number of bad reviews this still has yet to be fixed. Literally in my news section of ImagingEdge it continually tells me how to “fix” the issue. In my opinion, you as the developer need to fix it and show more interest in how your app runs.
I gave ImagingEdge two stars because RARELY it works and it’s amazing when it does- takes me just moments to choose pictures and transfer them. But it’s so inconsistent in how often it decides to work.

I honestly don’t recommend ImagingEdge.

by Skr815

I can fully connect and maintain High broadcast level WiFi from iPhone to Sony AX53. However this Application looses it? Takes many attempt to even connect to camera. When it finally connects you can use it for only 15 sec after executing a command then spinner starts and Then it times out and looses connection. However at the same time the WiFi connection at high level and is up and stable so I can only deduce that this application is unstable? This situation has happened consistently for dozens of times. Literally have spent hours trying everything with marginal results!
I have read all the FAQ and reset my network connection on my phone. Results are exactly the same -marginal connection by App?
I have a iPhone 7Plus running 13.2.3 (latest IOS)
At this point I give up as there is no way to work with anyone directly to solve this continuous problem. I hope someone at ImagingEdge recognizes this problems and gets it stabilized soon ?!?

by RyanBreaker

The in-app experience is pretty rough. I wouldn’t say it’s “useless” like some of the other reviewers have written but it also doesn’t help itself. I haven’t had any problems with the image transferring when I tried it but I also never need to use it.

The Location Information Linkage feature which uses Bluetooth to add GPS metadata to your media when it’s saved is pretty much all I care about but it very rarely seems to actually work when I actually want to use it in the field. At home when I’m setting things up it seems to be fine and connects fine regardless of whether I even have ImagingEdge open but as soon as I’m out I’ll either need to redo the pairing or fight with it for a while.

I’m really not sure why Sony would allow such low quality control with the rest of their otherwise phenomenal photography products.

by Nico_a25

Ok so at first ImagingEdge made no sense to me it was terrible connecting to my phone but I didn’t realize that you could update ImagingEdge on the camera itself (I was running a much older version which I think lead to my issues). At first I couldn’t adjust shutter speed, aperture, etc. on my A6300 but that’s because I didn’t update the remote app ON THE CAMERA ITSELF! Once I updated it connecting was a breeze, and I was able to adjust shutter speed, aperture, and so many other features. ImagingEdge is perfect for when I have to use the bulb mode since I don’t have to touch the physical button on the camera and cause any form of shake to the sensor. So make sure you not only update ImagingEdge on your phone but update ImagingEdge on the camera itself!

Update* for whatever reason I can’t get my camera to shoot in raw when connected to the camera. Without shooting raw, ImagingEdge is useless to me.

by Deartheo

Not sure what the point of ImagingEdge is, it would be great if the live view function to control camera included some ability to adjustment the focus on AF lenses. ImagingEdge doesn't even allow for pinch to zoom. This could be a great tool for wireless use, studio or field use, with your mobile device as a field monitor if only Sony built out more functionality. ImagingEdge is so tedious to use for review of images on camera's memory card as well. This would be another useful function, the ability to quickly review shots and even download to phone. ImagingEdge has this but you must go through several steps. With ImagingEdge one has to reconnect to camera either as a monitor for shooting or as an image review tool. Come on Sony, you have ImagingEdge , put a little more user friendliness into it, otherwise what's the point?

by Ishoy2000

I see that a lot of people were having trouble connecting to the camera. I finally got it to work after a few tries. Follow these steps below: 1)Turn off your Wi-Fi to your Apple device so it doesn’t automatically connect to your camera when you turn on your camera’s Wi-Fi. 2) Click the Wi-Fi icon on your Sony camera device to show the name of the camera and password. 3) Open ImagingEdge on your Apple device and click on your camera’s model or “Connect to new camera” option. 4) Click on the enter SSID option. 5) Enter the name of your camera’s name. On ImagingEdge , it only says “DIRECT-“. You have to fill in the rest of the camera name. 6) Enter the password that is on your Sony device, but do not click “Connect” yet. 7) Turn the Wi-Fi back on to your Apple device. 8) Go back to your app and click connect. 9)Double check that your Apple device is connected to the Sony device’s Wi-Fi.
This should fix the issue. I was able to get it to work on both IPad Pro 11 and the IPhone XS. Hopefully this works for you since I had the same frustration of not being able to connect. Entering the rest of your Sony camera’s Wi-Fi name should fix the issue! Good Luck!

by GrahamWalters_

The location link feature broke after I updated to the latest version. I saw one review saying to reinstall, but I brushed it off because I thought the location settings would always show in settings > privacy > location. It turns out I was wrong and a reinstall was necessary.

Once you’ve reinstalled you’ll need to re-pair with Bluetooth. Also, when it firsts asks for access to your location it will only request “while using ImagingEdge ”. ImagingEdge later complains it’s not “always” and will request you change that in the settings. After that you should be set.

For those of you struggling to get the NFC to scan, the reader is on the very top (not on the back) of the iPhone 8. With that said, once it scans there’s a 90% chance it’ll fail to connect 👎 (or at least that was my experience with the old version)

by DanA206

I’m a professional photographer who switched over to Sony after shooting with another brand for 16 years. I love all the features of my Sony mirrorless cameras, but sometimes I need to be in the photos. My old camera brand had a great iPhone app where I could set the ISO, F-stop, shutter speed and focus point manually on any camera in the family. Imagine my surprise that when paring my top of the line 42MP camera to play memories mobile, I found it to be next to useless. No adjustment of anything except for being able to put it in the timer mode. You can’t change any other manual function and if you leave your camera in auto focus, it might even grab the wrong spot. Sony gets an F on this one at least with the iPhone.

Update. After looking at another app that prompted me to upgrade ImagingEdge in my camera, everything magically started to work as it should. I wish my phone app would have alerted me to this miss match. New grade B+

by AriaWashburn

I have a Sony a5100 and I spent hours trying to sync my photos from my camera to the playmemories app (which is ImagingEdge that even the instructions that came with the camera told me to use) and researching online and it was just useless. Then I stumbled upon ImagingEdge and it transferred my picture in seconds!! Also unlike the playmemories app, this one gives you simple steps to sync your camera to ImagingEdge and even has alternative methods if one doesn’t work. I was amazed.. don’t know why anyone would suggest that other app because this one is the best, and in my case, was the only one that worked! Thank you!!!

by Lagrive333

When I first bought my Sony RX100 V1 I could not for the life of me get ImagingEdge and my camera to synchronize. After watching every video I finally complied a quality list of exactly the steps to get things working. The KEY to the whole procedure is to get the camera and ImagingEdge to communicate with each other. Once you open your settings on your iPhone and click on WiFi you will see your regular home etc. WiFi Settings. Make sure your camera is on. It might take awhile but your camera WiFi setting will be entered into your list. Click on it and make sure once it takes over for your home WiFi it has to have a check on it. Immediately go to your app and make sure it’s opened. You will see what’s on your camera screen. You can then use your iPhone as a great remote. The procedure to get photos from your camera to your iPhone or iPod is different but the key is to make sure both are paired via WiFi. IT WORKS SEAMLESSLY except for videos. That’s another whole story. You must change specific settings in your camera menu and purchase a unit that can attach via usb to your camera’s charging cord and then into this new usb cord and that cord into your iPad via lightning connector.

by Errtrfvddggv

I used this software in connection with my purchase of a Sony DSC-QX100 camera, which I directly attached to an old Televue Pronto 480mm telescope along with a Barlow that doubled the focal length to 960mm.

I was able to connect to the camera’s wifi radio using my iPad Pro and could take pictures and see the images on the iPad before taking the picture as well as downloading the picture immediately to my iPad.

Given all the quick decisions needed to take good amateur quality eclipse photos, I didn’t miss the lack of manual settings on the DSC-QX100. The pictures turned out very well and I was able to share the view through the telescope with other viewers - all without disturbing the telescope setup.

While I realize that my use of the software is rather unusual, for me, the application fit my needs and was “Just What I needed for the Solar Eclipse”. While the 2024 eclipse is still quite a way into the future, I’ll be using the setup for other solar observing opportunities using neutral density and hydrogen alpha filters.

by Yukon92620

Ok so at first ImagingEdge made no sense to me it was terrible connecting to my phone but I didn’t realize that you could update ImagingEdge on the camera itself (I was running a much older version which I think lead to my issues). At first I couldn’t adjust shutter speed, aperture, etc. on my A6300 but that’s because I didn’t update the remote app ON THE CAMERA ITSELF! Once I updated it connecting was a breeze, and I was able to adjust shutter speed, aperture, and so many other features. ImagingEdge is perfect for when I have to use the bulb mode since I don’t have to touch the physical button on the camera and cause any form of shake to the sensor. So make sure you not only update ImagingEdge on your phone but update ImagingEdge on the camera itself!

Update* for whatever reason I can’t get my camera to shoot in raw when connected to the camera. Without shooting raw, ImagingEdge is useless to me.

by Ross878787

It is frustrating how little help Sony is with ImagingEdge, plus they recently changed the name of ImagingEdge I guess because all the you tube videos were calling it play memories or something, which is a completely different app for sharing photos. I had to find out from another reviewer that the firmware needs to be updated for the phone to connect properly to the camera. The updating process wasn’t all that easy either so give yourself about 40 min to troubleshoot that as well.

Once installed and connected, ImagingEdge works as expected and functionally you can change what you need to from the phone.

It was a frustrating process all in, so that’s why the middle of the road review