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Left and Right Side: Navigation

Lesson 13 from: Sony A7 Mark II Series Fast Start

John Greengo

Left and Right Side: Navigation

Lesson 13 from: Sony A7 Mark II Series Fast Start

John Greengo

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Lesson Info

13. Left and Right Side: Navigation

Lesson Info

Left and Right Side: Navigation

So working our way around the camera we did the top. We did the back let's, go for the left hand side of the camera will see our microphone over there. Pop, open the doors. We're gonna have our mike jack, standard mike jack for hooking in a remote control microphone. Headphones for monitoring our sound for anyone, who's shooting video a lot. And something that is on the r and the s model is a tiny little hole in there for a cable protector. And this is for people working tethered in a studio system who don't want the cable accidentally just pulling out of their camera too quickly and easily. And so your camera comes with one of these little adapters in the box. When you get from the factory in the other little door, we have our multi micro usb port. This is a usb uh, two point. Oh, connection on it. And then we have. Well, we have a number of devices that we can plug into that the first is a wired remote control. This sells for about fifty dollars, so that you can trigger your camera m...

anually while it's on a tripod, for instance, the camera comes with a cord for charging or downloading images, and so this is something you plug straight from the camera to the computer and the cameras also come with a little adapter so that you can charge it from the wall. Now this is what the a seven mark two comes with as its sole charging device, the s and the our models come with separate battery chargers that you can plug into the wall. There is a little tiny charge lamp there that will show you win. The camera is actually charging the battery, and when it is finished on that it's, a very small light. So you got to be kind of right on the on target in order to be able to see it. But that's going to tell you if your battery is charging or not when it is plugged into the camera. One of the things about this court is that you can plug in the camera and get continuous power from the wall. So if you were working in the studio or some sort of a scientific experiment, you can have constant power to the camera, not worrying about the battery dying on you. And then there is an hd, my micro jack. So if you want to hook it up two tv or other type of displays system recorder, you can hook it up through the hd, my port over on the right side of camera. We have our other microphone over there. We do have the capability of hooking this up so that it can connect with other nfc devices, typically phones and tablets, and what you need to do is you need to get that phone or tablet very close, usually touching or within a couple of inches of that little mark on the side of the camera, and you, khun, automatically transfer images from your camera to that device. There is a few little things that you need to go into the menu to set up to allow them to communicate, but it's a quick way of getting images out of your camera onto another device. And so that is going to be all controlled in the wireless section, within the menu system. And then, of course, we have our memory card, and in the very small slot, sony has figured out a way to fit all sorts of different types of cards in there. Now it can only fit one card at a time, but it can take a lot of their own proprietary memory sticks. But I think most people are going to be using the sd type cards because they're the most common on market out there, so the x see part of it just simply has to do with the size the card in physical memory size and if you do want to shoot video on this I would highly recommend the sixty four gigabyte cards and larger because that will allow you to shoot four k video on the camera after that for the still photographer, the maximum speed is of the card is important because that is a matter of how fast the camera will write information to the card and that was that excess lamp that was on. If I had a faster card in this camera, that light would be on for a shorter period of time and then there is another little minimum speed number, and this number is important to people who shoot videos and if you shoot basic videos, you're going to want a class four or faster a card which is extremely common these days. If you plan to shoot four k videos, you're going to want a u h s class three or faster card, which is kind of the topper top into the cards that are currently available in the market they're going to become more and more prevalent, but right now it's kind of that top tier of cards that are available out on the market shooting video, especially for k video is very intensive hard work on the card because there's a constant stream of information that it's trying to keep up with and so it needs a very fast card and able to be doing that and so if you are working with camera, you will find that, yes, you can hook it up to your computer to charge the batteries for downloading, but it's a very slow process for downloading the images. I would highly recommend looking at one of the aftermarket card readers or plugging the memory card directly into your computer. It's just gonna work a lot faster and it's what most people do over on the right side of the camera, and we also have our movie record button, and we'll have some controls for going into working with the record button. One of the options is choosing what mowed the cameras in program manual aperture priority, for instance, we also have the movie button, for instance, when will it record a movie all the time? Or on lee, when you are in the movie mode and sew, this button can be customized in some ways, it is not a full on custom function button, so if you are a still photographer who doesn't not shoot video, this button cannot be just programmed to do whatever you want, which is, I have a feeling, some people's questions on that. So let's, talk a little bit about movie recording on this thing? We got a question here, and I don't think so back a few frames ago, you mentioned class three and class for what's better a lower number or a higher number will they tried to simplify things and they made things more complicated and so what happened is they came out with different classifications that had a direct relation to how fast the card was. Two four was twice as fast six, eight and ten and then they got faster and now they're calling a mu h s class one and three and so two, four, six, eight ten one three if you can remember that order of number ah that's they and so they'll be called a u h s class three it'll be pretty obvious because it's it's labeled on the cards all right so in the video mode we now khun record four k video in the camera itself which only a few cameras on the market as of the recording of this class can actually do that so that's something that we can do with them on there is also a couple of other modes that we can put our cameras in. The standard high definition mode is called an x a vc mode it's a relatively new video format from sony and is very good quality. An older version for high definition definition video is an a v c h t it's a more compressed format that'll be smaller and final size but it's still an hd nineteen twenty by ten eighty resolution and then there is a lower mp for resolution that if you were simply doing an online video and you were really not wanting to larger file that work with you can work with the mp for which is a very common format it's going to work very easily on most computers and most operating systems and so there are upwards of four different modes that you can choose in the type of file that you are recording you khun recorded various resolutions. Now the exact resolutions that you can choose will depend on the camera and the settings that you have set in there, and so we have a variety of resolutions. There are a variety of frame rates depending on the camera and the settings that you have set anywhere from twenty four to one hundred twenty frames per second. Now the video that you watch on most tv is thirty frames a second uh in some other countries it's twenty five frames a second so there's kind of different standards. Most hollywood movies, our shot at twenty four frames a second and movies as people know have a slightly different look to him than tv, and part of that comes from the fact that they're shooting at a different frame rate. The sixty and one hundred twenty frames per second is handy for anybody who wants to slow video down. If you want to analyze a golf swing or a runner's gate, you can shoot at a higher speed and then play it back at a lower speed and see that information slowed down. We have different types of frames we have progressive frames and interlock interlaced frames. Progressive frames is where we're getting pretty much a clean image with every frame that we shoot and the older system of getting the information across was with an interlaced rain where basically is a half frame with different line's recorded, and it says it's, a more compressed format that uses up less data but gets across a similar visual look, but it's very hard to pull a frame from it because it only has half the information from it megabytes per second. How much data, along with the frames per second, and the resolution is the camera recording, and so the higher that megabits per second, the mohr information that more coloring from martian, the more detail information that the camera is keeping, but it's also more intensive going to make take up more space on the memory card and then there's just different general recording modes that you'll find from sony. Fx is their highest quality and then f h and then ps, and they're just kind of a high, medium and low standard, and so these are all the different options that we're going to see as we get in to making the settings on the camera so the video formats that you can use the main note is that you can't shoot four k on the a seven mark too you can shoot the x abc hd on all of the cameras as you can the older abc hd and the mp for and so which one should you shoot? Well obviously if you have the four k capability and you want the highest quality you shoot for kate if you don't really need that much data the a b c h d is probably the way to go I think most people are going to be skipping past the abc hd unless they have a compatibility issue that they're trying to work with and they have previous programs or videos that there trying to mix with that and if you just want a real simple basic video then it's going to be the mp for option and these are going to be able to be adjusted by going into the camera settings under record setting too we will get to that in the menu sections so I will walk you through that but that is where you can jump to it if you want to as I just mentioned on the memory cards class four which is kind of in a little older standard this point now which is also going to be found as a u h s speak class one for your basic videos if you do want to shoot four k video the highest quality you want class ten with a u h s class rating of three, and it needs to be a sixty four gigabyte card, which is a fairly large card, not huge by any standards, but it's a fairly large card in orders to get that. If you don't have that card in your camera, it will not allow you to shoot that type of video so additional information on shooting movies. We do have a time limit of twenty nine minutes, so you can record a two hour football match. You're going to have to shoot it in thirty minute increments. You can, of course, start recording again. We do have a four gigabyte limit in a file, so what happens when it fills up a file? It automatically creates another file, so if you wouldn't record four k for twenty nine minutes, forget how many files it's going to take, but it's going to require a couple of different files that you'll have to add in order. There is a bit of an issue for people who do a lot of video shooting with the camera overheating when they leave it on for long periods of time. This camera is a still photography camera that happens to shoot video if it was designed to be a video camera they would design. A larger with heat sinks and special designs so that the sensor doesn't overheat but they're trying to make it small for the still photographer and so if you're shooting videos, just be aware that there are limitations as to how much you can shoot and I think the only way to get around that is by having multiple cameras so that you can let him cool down between one shot and the next and so when it's in the movie mode it's kind of either in manual focus or it's in the continuous focusing where it's constantly crying to track the action as it's moving around in front so the single mode is not available when when you are focusing now there is something called an s log and for somebody who doesn't shoot a lot of video I had to do some studying up because this is something new that I didn't you know about ten years ago s log is an option for shooting where the camera is collecting the colors and the lighting information in a way that it can retrieve as much information later on it's possible this is kind of the video equivalent of shooting raw and so you get back a very plain looking image that you will do color grading later on and so there are these different basis is that the camera will be working with in order for it to grab as much information as possible and so the way you set your camera for shooting video with s log is a little differently then setting manual uh saturday setting up for manual still shots and so something very important anyone who's really in to working with this camera for video reasons so we don't have any for kay on the a seven on the r and this is b honest with you this is not my testing, but I have been reading lots of reviews by other people who are more experienced than I am on the video on this portion video portion of this if you have the our model, the best quality video mode is by putting it in the super thirty five mode, which is a cropped frame mode where it's looking at a small portion of the sensor and that's giving them the best image already on it but it crops in its better for telephoto knot is good for wide angle and then four k and then going down to ten a tp now the problem with the four k in the super thirty five is that we have more of a rolling shutter and this is where if you're panning the camera back and forth or you're photographing subjects that are moving their going to take a little bit of a lean on them because there's a bit of a gel effect and I'm going to show you some photos of where I created that in the camera. And so we have a bit more of a problem there. And so there is either a better or worse. In the four k full frame, we're going to have less of that rolling effect, innit? Shooting the full frame on the s model something to be aware of, it said. If you do put it in the super thirty five mode, you cannot shoot four k there's, not enough pixels in that small area. So if you want to shoot four k with yes it's, full frame and the s log three gamma gives you fourteen stops of dynamic range, which is huge and so very, very capable camera when it comes to color, in contrast for shooting video. So a lot of things going on in the video, we're going to continue to talk about it as we go through the menu section of the camera, where there are a wide variety of menus controls for the movie setting of the camera.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Sony® A7II Info and Menu List
Sony® A7RII info and Menu List
Sony® A7SII Info and Menu List

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

INCREDIBLE Class! I couldn't find anything on the internet that truly explained this camera, explained what it can and can't do and what accessories would work with it. I have had my Sony A7II for awhile now, but was so overwhelmed by it, I rarely even took it out of its case. It was just easier to use my Canon 5D III. After this class, I am so excited to finally practice with and use my Sony. John is an incredible teacher. He is thorough, professional, fun and knowledgeable! Buying this class was the best investment!!! I feel like I just got the gift of a new camera because I can finally use my Sony!!! Thanks John and Thanks Creative Live!!!

Enrique Vega es
 

I stored my Sony A7II for more than a year since I've been Canon's user for 7 years and I felt unsure of taking this new camera which implied a different menu system, different functions, a little bit intimidating. Finally, I took a bit of valor, put my camera next to the computer monitor for then start watching this guide and I spent a great time actually. I'm amazed at how helpful and clear is the sequence of the chapters. It was enough to get to chapter ten to know all the basic controls and start taking pictures with an equivalent confidence of my good old Canon, or even better since in the chapter 8th I learned how accurate and easy to use is the focusing system, either, manual or auto (For stills I've always used manual focusing). Very informative, enjoyable and now I became a new fan of the mirrorless cameras, at the point that I'm considering to buy another two :D

VeraInAlbania
 

John is an excellent teacher! In fact his Fundamentals of Digital Photography 2014 was the first ever class I watched on CreativeLive, and since then I'm in love with his teaching style as well as with CreativeLive! I bought my Sony A7II in March 2015 and when I found out that John is giving a class on it I was very excited! As I expected I learnt many secrets about my camera which I had been using for 9 months already. For example about the option of focusing on the eyes, setting the buttons, making panoramas etc. The camera is still smarter than me I must admit. I am enjoying my Sony even more now since after the class I feel much more confident. Thank you John and CreativeLive for such an opportunity! I would recommend to everyone who has a Sony a7II camera and the other cameras in this line to watch this class. It's a concentrate of useful information, very detailed and to the point. I spent two days just watching the class and practicing new knowledge with my camera straight away. I had to postpone all the other life chores. And I would be ready to watch the class again after some time as it's a professional camera which needs a lot of practice!

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