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Sony menu system

Jack Frost
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Jack Frost Rookie

Jack Frost

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I am giving serious thought to switching to a Sony full-frame camera- either the A7Rii or the A7iii  - from my MFT setup but a big fly in the review ointment seems to be the complexity/frustrations with the menu system and I thought it would be worth getting the views of long-term users rather than reviewers who may have only limited use of the cameras. In other words, should I let the menu system be a deal-breaker?

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FunWithCameras Community Regular

FunWithCameras

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Sony did a major overhaul of the menu system when they moved to the new processor, but we are talking the A1, A7IV, A7RV cameras (I think the A7SIII might have them, too). I really like the new system, because there are logical top-level menus, and no cases of pages being tucked into what seem like inappropriate places.

That said, I think the older menus aren't too bad. There are several things which alleviate the problem:

  • you can put the menus you use most commonly into the My Menu page, so you don't have to find them again - I always put the Format command into My Menu as the very first step
  • Sony bodies are very customisable - you can
    • build custom modes which go onto the PASM dial - set up a custom mode for shooting in studio, or photographing birds, or sports....
    • assign functions to buttons (and there are ample buttons you can customise - you can customise almost every button, except Menu!

I would not worry too much about the menus on the A7RII or A7III - there are guides to setting them up. Just be prepared to spend some time learning how to use your camera - they are very flexible beasts.

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XKAES Experienced

XKAES

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Sony menus vary from camera to camera, of course, but I find mine very flexible.  You can set it anywhere from TOTALLY automatic, to fine-tuning everything -- even for various situations.  The number of options can be mind-boggling.  The challenge, for me, is figuring out how one adjustment may effects/impact/conflict with another adjustments.  That's one reason I bought a 500-page book an all the variables -- and it does NOT include any details on POST-PROCESSING. 

Unfortunately, I can't memorize a 500-page book, and it's too large and heavy to carry around with me -- but I assume this is the case with Nikon, Canon, etc. top-tier cameras as well.

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    • XKAES
      JPEG options?

      By XKAES · Posted

      I'd suggest you start by running a simple test.  Take pictures of a typical scene/subject and each of the JPEG settings your camera offers.  Then compare them in the output that you normally produce.  You may or may not see a difference.  I normally shoot at the highest JPEG level and save that file -- but make a smaller file (lower resolution) for normal/typical use. There's plenty of editing that you can do with JPEGs on your computer -- depending on your software -- and there are features in your camera that can help out, as well.  That depends on your camera.  Put them together, and it might meet your needs.  For example, your camera probably has several bracketing features that will take the same shot with different settings with one press of the button.  Then you can select the best JPEG to work with on your computer.  I frequently use this feature to control contrast.
    • Cameratose
      JPEG options?

      By Cameratose · Posted

      If you set up some basic presets in your processing software and use batch processing, you don't need jpeg at all. I shoot RAW only, use (free) Faststone Image Viewer which will view any type of image file to cull my shots, and batch process in Darktable. I can start with 2000-3000 shots and in a matter of a few hours have them culled, processed, and posted. A handful of shots, say a couple hundred from a photo walk, are done in minutes.  This saves card space, computer space, and upload time.  The results are very good for posting online. When someone wants to buy one or I decide to print it, I can then return to the RAW file and process it individually for optimum results.  I never delete a RAW file. Sometimes I'll return to an old shot I processed several years ago and reprocess it. I have been very surprised how much better they look as my processing skills improved.  
    • Pieter
      JPEG options?

      By Pieter · Posted

      If you're only publishing small-sized photo's or viewing on a phone / computer screen, 12-ish MP should be more than enough for your needs. Since with JPEG, the ability to 'fix' stuff on the computer is very limited anyway, you're not giving up much except the ability to crop/recompose after taking the shot. If you tend to crop often or might print large, shoot fine quality instead as JPEGs don't take up a lot of space anyway. I tend to shoot RAW+JPEG. After a trip/shoot, I download my photos to my computer and quickly scan through my JPEGs to select my keepers. The JPEGs are fine for 90% of my needs but at times there are one or two 'WOW'-shots that I might one day print large. I'll edit the RAW of these photos to my hearts content, generate a JPEG, then delete all RAWs to clear up space.

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