Sony A7II - Monitor becomes brighter when starting recording

[Troman77777]

Hi, does anyone know what causes this problem: whenever I press the movie record button, the monitor on my Sony A7 II becomes brighter by 1-2 stops. At first I thought it was just the monitor, but the resulting video is also brighter than it should be. It's very inconvenient, because before recording I set the proper aperture to make sure the scene is properly exposed, but when I press the record button the video actually becomes brighter, so it's difficult to plan the proper exposure.

I tried changing all the settings I could think of, nothing works. The same problem persists with an external monitor. I tried turning the picture profiles on and off, it doesn't help.

Live view display is set to ON, so it shouldn't be a problem.

The settings that I use: XAVC S, 50p 50M, PP5, ISO 100. Monitor and viewfinder brightness is set to MANUAL (+/- 0)

What could be the problem? It's very annoying.

[Troman77777]

Update: this is all happening in MANUAL mode. When I set my A7 ii to MOVIE mode, the problem seems to go away. Still, I wonder why it happens in the MANUAL mode.

[tadwil]

My A7II won't do video from any mode other than the Movie mode.  At any other setting on the mode dial I get "Invalid in this mode.  Available in Movie mode".

[Troman77777]

18 hours ago, tadwil said:

My A7II won't do video from any mode other than the Movie mode.  At any other setting on the mode dial I get "Invalid in this mode.  Available in Movie mode".

Go to menu, select the GEAR icon in the menu and on the 7th page set "Movie button" to "always". Did it help?

In movie mode my A7ii sets the aperture on its own, but I want to control it myself, so the movie mode is not the option for me. Does your A7ii do the same?

[tadwil]

17 hours ago, Troman77777 said:

Go to menu, select the GEAR icon in the menu and on the 7th page set "Movie button" to "always". Did it help?

In movie mode my A7ii sets the aperture on its own, but I want to control it myself, so the movie mode is not the option for me. Does your A7ii do the same?

I tried as you have suggested and I can shoot in M mode but regardless of whether I shoot in M or Movie mode Dial settings, the aperture doesn't change for me.  I don't know if you tried this: Go to menu, select the camera icon and on the 7th page, select "Movie" sub-menu and set it to Manual Exposure.

[Troman77777]

14 hours ago, tadwil said:

I tried as you have suggested and I can shoot in M mode but regardless of whether I shoot in M or Movie mode Dial settings, the aperture doesn't change for me.  I don't know if you tried this: Go to menu, select the camera icon and on the 7th page, select "Movie" sub-menu and set it to Manual Exposure.

Yes, Indeed, I changed that setting and I can set aperture manually in MOVIE mode now, thanks.

Regarding my original issue, I noticed when I record in MANUAL mode and the brightness of my movies changes, I get a gear icon and "ISO" next to it (in the lower right corner). When I shoot in MOVIE mode I don't get this icon. I tried looking at the Sony A7ii manual, but I didn't find that icon in the list of icons, I'm not sure what this icon means.

[tadwil]

Are you still having the same problem described in the first post?  I have tried replicating your settings and take some videos, I am not seeing anything you are describing just now nor have the problem of aperture opening up by 2 stops or more.  I think there was one instance where the monitor brightened up momentarily but it didn't get captured in the footage.

[Troman77777]

9 hours ago, tadwil said:

Are you still having the same problem described in the first post?  I have tried replicating your settings and take some videos, I am not seeing anything you are describing just now nor have the problem of aperture opening up by 2 stops or more.  I think there was one instance where the monitor brightened up momentarily but it didn't get captured in the footage.

Yes, I still have that problem. I don't remember having this issue in the past, so I'm not sure what it is, maybe I changed some settings. And it's not just the display that brightens up, it is captured on video. It happens only in MANUAL mode.

Well, at least now I know it's not supposed to be this way, since you don't have this problem.