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Network Menu

Lesson 25 from: Sony A7 III Fast Start

John Greengo

Network Menu

Lesson 25 from: Sony A7 III Fast Start

John Greengo

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Lesson Info

25. Network Menu

The Sony a7 III has both Wi-Fi and NFC. Dig into how to use the Wi-Fi to easily share images, including sending to a smartphone, sharing with a computer, or shooting with a tether.
Next Lesson: Playback Menu

Lesson Info

Network Menu

We are in the midst of the menu system and we've gotten through a lot of the key components and we're getting into the WiFi playback in the general settings menu. So a lot of the things that are not the most critical in the world, but you do need to get in through these to do the WiFi stuff and get a lot of the custom settings set up for you. Alright. This first section is on the network and there is a number of ways that you can communicate with this camera to a greater network of cameras and mobile devices out there. And so, we're gonna go through some of the many different options. We're gonna be a little light on the demos in here. We're not gonna go through everything extensively because there's a lot of stuff that this can do. To start with, we have send to smartphone functions. So once you have a photograph that you've taken in the camera, you can send it over to a smartphone that is linked to the camera. In here there is going to be a little sub menu, and so the first option is...

just sending over a photo that's already been taken. It doesn't seem like this should really be the first item in here, but it is, so the order is a little bit goofy in my mind. Alright. Next up is sending a proxy movie over. We had a question about the proxy movies, and so this is where you can choose to send over a proxy movie only and not the full res, high res image video that you might have shot. So that's your options when sending to a smartphone. You can send it to a computer as well. This is not something that's done very often because even though it's WiFi, very convenient, I hate wires. So it's nice to get away from the wires, but it's actually just a little bit simpler to hook it directly up, if you do have that cable. But you can go WiFi to the computer and download via that system. Next up, FTP transfer function, so this is for tethering. So people shooting in a studio who want to shoot with a camera download directly to their computer into light room, or some other program, you can use this to tether. And so, inside here there's gonna be a whole host of features of which I am only going to briefly talk about here. So you would be connecting up using the USB plug on the side of the camera. You can show the results of your transfers here, you can choose which one of three different servers you can have preset that you are going to, and then you can have a variety of information, of names, designation settings, and user info settings that you can have set for each of your different servers that you are communicating with. You can use this to view on a TV that has a WiFi system so you could do a slideshow remote without any cords. And then we get to the good thing. So this is the one that most people are going to be interested in, is controlling with a smartphone. So you can use your smartphone mobile device to make setting changes on the camera, and fire the camera, and see what the camera sees in here. So that's what we're gonna do a little demo on here, but let's talk a little bit more about what we can get into here because we have a little sub menu in here. So the main thing is that when you do want to do this, you want to turn this on. I leave this turned off on a normal basis because when it's left on, it's part of the WiFi signal that's on and it's using battery power. And if you use WiFi a lot, then you would turn it on, but for most of us who use it on an occasional basis, it's best to leave this and everything else turned off. The connection info will show you information about how it's hooking up with the camera and this is what we're gonna use to connect with the phone here in just a moment. So I wanted to make my own diagram because there's a lot of different things that you need to do. There are things you need to do with the phone, there are things you need to do with the camera in the setup of this. The first thing you need to do is you need to download the Sony app because that's what you're gonna be using on your mobile device to control the camera. So it's called the Play Memories Mobile from Sony, and you can download that, of course, it's a free app. Next up, on your camera is you're gonna go in to where we were just talking about on the menu, and control by smartphone, make sure that's turned on, and then go to the connection, and then you'll be walked through the next steps. So from there you need to go back onto your phone and make sure that your WiFi is turned on, you select the WiFi signal from this particular camera, enter the password which you will only need to do the first time around, and then you can open the Play Memories Mobile app. So that is what I'm going to do right now. So I've already downloaded the Play Memories Mobile part, so let's go ahead and get onto the back of the camera, and we're gonna go into the menu system, and we're gonna go into the network system, and we're gonna do control by smartphone. First thing we want to do is make sure this is turned on, so that we can actually make this work. Second thing is, we're gonna go into the connection. And there are two ways to connect, one is the barcode, the other is the password. I have found the barcode very troubling and very inconsistent in the hooking up. And it's a little bit slower, but going in, if you press the garbage can it gets you to the password, and then you have to type in the particular password. But I believe I have already done it to save us some time here in the class. So I am going to go into my phone and what I'm gonna do is go into the settings to make sure that we have WiFi turned on. Currently I am in airplane mode because I am in classroom mode myself. Going into the WiFi, let's make sure WiFi is turned on, which it is not, so let's turn that on. And we're looking for the signal from the 7M3, and there we go, top one right there. So I'm gonna select that one and if we get the check mark, that means it is connected up. Now, I did already do the password setting ahead of time, so I've saved you that hassle there. So now, my camera is connected up and I need to open the Play Memories app, which I have located right down in here with all my camera apps. And so, it should connect up here in a moment and we should see on the screen what we see with the camera, and things are working properly. So now, I can operate on the camera and I can get over and get in the photo myself. So I can position the camera as I want here. Alrighty. Okay guys, everybody up here, we're doing a group shot and I want to make sure we're in it, so I'm gonna be viewing over here. So come on up, get next to me. So I'm getting a slightly delayed view in the camera here, so you guys can see if you're in the shot. You gotta squeeze in here tight. You're gonna have to spread your legs, you can scoot down a little. Okay, there we go. So looking pretty good there, so I'm gonna hide this behind the back here, and everybody look and smile. (camera beeps) There we go, okay. So we got a shot with all of us in it, thank you, you guys can have a seat. So that's how you do your group shot with viewing to check to make sure that you are in it. So you can see on the back of the phone we now have this picture here, there we go. You went from the tallest to the shortest so easily. (laughs) So thank you for that. So that's the way that you can do the remote app and it's fun if you do need to put that camera into an unusual position. So I'm gonna go into the menu system now. Going to control by smartphone, and I'm just gonna turn this off because we don't need this anymore in the class. But that's the way that it works, and hopefully it's just as easy for you to get that hooked up. Okay, let's get that turned off and back on the menu system, and we'll go back to keynote. Alright. So you can use the barcode system, or you can give it a try, see if it works for you, as I say, it's been a little bit spotty for me in the connection on that. Alright. Next up, do you want to always leave this connected if you're the type of person that is constantly using your phone and transferring images back and forth, you may want to leave this on all the time. If you're more concerned about battery usage, and it's an occasional use of yours, then I would turn this off. So that is controlling with the smartphone. Next up, is the airplane mode, and this just turns off all the other signals in the camera. This is what I usually leave turned on just because I don't use the WiFi signal on a regular basis, and I want to get the most battery life out of the camera. So this is also gonna turn off the WiFi, or the Bluetooth system that we're gonna talk about in just a moment. Second page on the network, WiFi settings and in here this dumps us into another little sub menu. As I mentioned, this camera can be connected up to computers which have different WiFi systems and there is a WiFi WPS, where there is a device that you can just press a button and it automatically transfers images from whatever devices connected to it to that home device. So it's just a different way of downloading information. You can have different access points that you are setting. As I say, we're gonna go through this very quickly. Here you can see the address of the camera, which some devices need to connect up with. It has this other different password system for protection you may need. Then we get into the Bluetooth settings, gonna go quickly through this. If you do have a Bluetooth device, a mobile device, you can get it to hook up so that it connects with this. The Bluetooth is not as strong a signal as WiFi, so you do need to have the device pretty close for that to work. You can also have communication between the phone and the camera for other information. So for instance, you can have your phone's location information sent to your camera and linked to the meta data of the photo that you're shooting, which can be very handy for figuring out where you shot certain photographs. You can also have it linked to correct the time in the camera for timezones and daylight saving time changes that are made. Then as far as the area code also linked in with the time/date system on the camera, you can have that information sent over as well. You can change the name of the camera. For instance, if you have two of these cameras, you're gonna probably wanna change one to "A" and "B" or something like that, but that's only for people who have two of these. And this is bringing in information that might be needed for some types of servers for encrypted communication. Once again, not something that most people are gonna do on the camera, but it is available. You can completely reset all these network settings because there's a lot of little things that you might get lost in here turning on and off. And you can go just reset the network settings if you need to.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Sony A7 III Recommended Settings

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

John GreengO! What a wonderful teacher! As always to the point. You do all the testing for us and we get an amazing tour of the camera. Really thrilled with your class once again. Thanks a lot!

user-7002e3
 

Thanks John. Another great class! I appreciate the thorough explanations. I many never use all of the features on this camera but at least I know what they do. Love all of your classes and would definitely recommend them.

Mary
 

Wonderful class. John is a great instructor. Learned a lot. Only wish he'd include a bit more on using a7iii to shoot video, such as using Clear Image Zoom, and including video in the ending Camera Operation settings section. Loved the course though.

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