Lessons
Class Overview
13:49 2Photo Basics
03:58 3Top Deck: Basic Controls
03:35 4Top Deck: Mode Dial and Exposure Compensation
24:50 5Custom Key Settings
08:43 6Focus Area
08:22 7Multi Interface Shoe, Audio, Focal Plane
02:15 8Back Side Controls: Focus Mode
06:14Back Side Controls: Viewfinder
08:27 10Additional Back Side Controls
07:55 11Back Side Controls: Function Button
19:31 12Back Side Controls: Control Wheel, Display, ISO, Drive Mode
03:22 13Back Side Controls: Playback Mode
04:54 14Left Side Controls
03:02 15Right Side Controls
05:15 16Bottom Controls
03:20 17Front Controls
03:12 18Sony Lenses
11:43 19Menu Functions: Camera Settings 1
31:10 20Menu Functions: Camera Settings 1 Continued
33:15 21Menu Functions: Camera Settings 2 - Video
27:43 22Menu Functions: Network
13:10 23Menu Functions: Playback
06:42 24Menu Functions: Set Up
26:04 25My Menu
11:55 26Camera Operation
10:16Lesson Info
Right Side Controls
Over on the right side of the camera we don't have too much going on. We do have our little NFC symbol, which lets us know that the camera is available to work with phones and tablets that have that NFC, near field communication. So, you could be send images as long as that device is very near and it's located over here so that's where it's got the best reception. Opening the door, we will find our memory options. So, we now have two card slots on an a7 series camera. They are not the same though. The bottom one is working with SD cards, the top one works also with SD cards, but the bottom one works with UHS I and UHS II cards, which are the cards that have two lines of information and can record and read information faster. The top one works with standard SD cards, but not the UHS II versions, and it'll also work with Sony's older memory card system, which is their Memory Stick. We don't see too many of those being used these days, but kinda for legacy reasons, it does double duty in ...
handling that as well. And so, keep in mind the fact that one of these cards is faster than the other. If you're the type of person that shoots either a lot of photos or a lot of 4K video and you want everything backed up on two cards, everything is gonna be working at the speed of that slower card 'cause it's gotta keep up if you're sending both to different cards. And so, this works a little bit better if you are using the bottom one as your primary card and the secondary overflow or recording jpegs or something smaller on the top or top card. So, on the SD memory cards, they're the most common memory cards on the market today. Obviously the size of the card is gonna be pretty obviously listed there. HC and XC are just simply different versions of the card for different sizes. The speed of the card will be important to anyone who shoots lots of different photos very quickly. This will also take a... play into a part when you are downloading your cards. How quickly can they pull information off of those cards as well. For anyone who shoots video you may want to pay a little bit closer attention to the minimum speed of the card because video tends to take up a lot of data on an every second type basis, and so you need to have a card that can keep up with the camera. And so, it's gonna be helpful to have a faster card using that lower card slot. Using a UHS III card means that there's gonna be no bottlenecking when it comes to recording data to that card. If you use a slower card, depending on how slow and what you're shooting, you could have problems if that's the problem in the length. As I mentioned, the camera can be hooked up to be downloaded directly from the camera for convenience. As an emergency backup I think it's a nice solution, but for most people it's a better solution to use a card reader. It's gonna be faster and you don't need the camera. You don't use the camera's battery for downloading that. Card readers are pretty cheap, and if you can plug it straight into the computer itself, that's a also a very good system as well. So, it's a preferred system for most photographers. Now, we haven't gone into the menu system yet on this camera, but one of the things that you'll see is that we talk a lot about cards on this camera, and there's a lot of different places that you can have slightly different settings set for the cards. And so, this is kinda my one slide that talks about all of these different settings at once. And so, one of the options is selecting which media the memory... Remember on the top of the camera we have memory position one, two, and three? Well, that information is stored on a card. Well, in the first camera settings is where you choose which one of those cards it is stored to. In camera settings two is something called proxy recordings, which are small movies that are recorded along your regular movies. So, when you shoot a 4K movie... Let's say you shoot a 4K 10 minute video. Uploading that to your phone could take a long time 'cause that's gonna be a really big file. So, the camera records, if you want, a proxy movie that's really small and easy to transfer, and then you can choose if you want to do that in camera settings two. In the playback option, you can select which card you are looking at for playing back images. Probably the most important of these settings is where you want your files recorded, and you're gonna find that in setup menu six of seven, record media settings. And this is where you get to choose which card it goes to. Does it go to both cards? Where do your movies go? Where do your still images go? And other one that kind of also fits in here that you might want to know about is the format option. And so, if you wanna reset the card and format it, delete the photos, the file directory, the data folders, all those sorts of things, you're gonna go to the format and format the card, and it's something that I do on a regular basis. Before I go out and shoot, I wanna go out with a formatted card that is fresh and ready to go. So, a lot of different options. We'll be talking more about all of these when we get into the menu section of the camera.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Angela Sanchez
Super great clearly explained guide for the Sony a7r III. John is always a fantastic knowledgeable instructor who knows how to teach all about cameras in a super clear organized way. I love John Geengo classes!
Craig Markham
As always, John shines as a teacher extraordinaire! His visuals, pacing of presentation, clarity, and and adherence to the class objectives are all spot-on. As a devoted A7r II user for the past 2 years, this was a great review of the shared features, and gave me the best information for evaluating the cost/benefit of an upgrade to the A7r III now.
ufmystic
John Greengo is the man. I've been watching CreativeLive classes for years and there is no better instructor than him. I recently upgraded from the A7r II to the III and had been waiting for this course to be offered. John is incredibly knowledgeable and, with great dedication, provides all pertinent information related to operating and knowing your new camera. If it weren't for John, I wouldn't know the ins and outs of my new camera and would struggle with optimal settings which would decrease the best output possible. You rock, John. Thanks again!
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