I made a mistake.
A few days ago I posted a new video on this channel about this
camera, the new Sony A7RV, but if you go looking
for that video, you won't find it.
Hands up.
I got something VERY wrong.
So let's rewind
and I'll show you the things that I still want to keep
from that first video,
but then I'll show you what this thing can really do,
when you use the proper settings.
So Sony have now released the long awaited upgrade
to the A7RIV with the new A7RV
and as well as having some long overdue functions added in,
it also has Artificial Intelligence.
But would I buy it?
Well, I ...
So Sony have now released the A7RV
the update to the A7RIV, which I own and have been using
for a few years now, mainly for taking portraits.
Anyway, Sony sent me this
camera to have a play with for a few weeks, not to keep,
and they didn't give me any money either.
It's just to have a play with because judging by all the hype,
this is supposedly one heck of an upgrade from the A7RIV.
Now I had intended to talk about all kinds of stuff
with this camera,
like the build quality, but there's no point
because that really hasn't changed.
What has changed, though, is this flip out, tiltable
screen, which feels surprisingly robust.
So that's really useful.
It's not new to cameras,
but it's new to Sony,
and the fact that it can come away from the body quite a way,
apparently helps with the heat dispersal.
It's also got a touch screen now,
which these days isn't really something to shout about,
but it is a welcome update from the A7RIV, as is the new menu
which first appeared in the A7SIII.
There's also a nice big record button for when doing video,
rather than this
ridiculously small button on my A7RIV, but the one thing
I really loved about the Canon R5 when I had that for a while,
was how when you dial in settings for stills,
the camera remembers it, and when you switch to video
it also remembers those settings so you can jump from one
to the other.
Now, there may be some other way you have to do it in Sony,
but if I dial in settings for stills
and then jump over to video, the settings don't change.
So I dial in the settings I want for video, then jump back
to stills.
The settings for the stills
are now the same I set for the video.
The ones I just dialed in are overwritten.
Okay, so I want to dive in here now
because in the first video this really annoyed some people.
Yes, I know
now there is a way
to separate the settings for stills and video
so that when you go from one to the other,
the settings do change or you can pre-program
the dial to store settings.
But I still stand by what I said in the first video.
When would you ever use the same settings for stills and video?
Why not have it like the Canon system
where the settings are stored by default?
and if you want it another way, then dive into the menu.
But hey, that's just my opinion.
There's also Focus Bracketing now; again,
nothing to shout about as it seems to be
in every other brand except Sony and has been for a long time.
But it is a welcome addition.
This, though, is nothing major.
It's just a software update.
So why Sony seem to refuse to add it into the models
already on the market, like the more recent A7IV
or even the flagship A1 costing nearing of £6000,
which is £2000 more than this A7RV is beyond me.
Oh, and something I'm really pleased to see
is that this model now has full sized HDMI.
But instead of going on about all that kind of stuff,
I want to focus, no pun intended, on the focusing
because when you look at all the promotion
Sony are doing about this camera, the apparently vastly
improved focusing is what they're shouting about the most.
And that's because the A7RV now has an AI Processor,
which in short is supposed
to increase your success rate focusing and tracking humans.
And they've also introduced more subject recognition types
to now include vehicles and insects.
Now my A7RIV
has always been impressive when it comes to focusing
and for tracking with the kind of work that I do.
But there's definitely been an improvement
which I noticed recently
when taking some portraits of my friends.
When I was taking a portrait of my friend Dave Clayton,
who was wearing glasses, my A7RIV
would not recognise his eyes, but when I tried the exact
same shot with the same lens and lighting using the A7RV,
it was bang on.
Even when trying it on my friend Ian and he turned side on
and even further, it was locked onto his eye.
But when it couldn't quite see it,
it predicted where his eyes would be.
And that's the big thing with this AI Processor in that
it uses Subjective Form Data for more accurate recognition.
So it can kind of predict poses
and then kind of know where an arm is
and where a leg is, for example.
It doesn't know what an arm or a leg is,
but it's kind of predicting it
from all the subject information built into it.
Its brain isn't drawing an imaginary stick
figure either, like the video suggests.
But that kind of gives an idea of how it's predicting.
And yes, it seems to work really well.
But what about the other subject recognition types?
Bird, for example?
So I met up with a friend of mine, Trigga,
who flies Birds of Prey,
and we went out for an hour or so with one of his Harris Hawks.
When he was holding the bird, as you'd expect,
the camera was able to lock onto it, no problem,
but then a lot of cameras would also have no problem.
But then Trigga
got the bird to fly and this is where I was surprised,
if not disappointed in this new camera.
And this was the mistake.
You see that disappointment, which isn't the case
now, was completely down to user error
and not knowing about some settings that were available.
So now I want to share with you the settings
that a great friend of mine at Sony suggested I give a try
and that worked out FANTASTIC
and by using them helped me go from this to this.
Okay, so first of all, Shutter Speed, Aperture and ISO.
The settings I dialed in here were exactly the same
as what I dialed in the first time
for both the lighting conditions
and so that the camera was fast enough
to freeze the bird as it flew.
The Shutter Speed was set to 1/2500 of a second.
Aperture f/5.6 and the ISO, give or take, around 2000.
Now also the same as the first time I went out ...
the Drive Mode set to High Speed Continuous, the Focus Mode
set to Continuous Auto Focus and for the Subject Recognition,
the Recognition Target was set to Bird.
Now for the settings I was recommended ...
First of all, Mechanical Shutter.
Then for the Focus Area rather than just using Wide,
just scroll further down and choose Tracking,
and in the submenu is a Tracking Wide option.
There's also another option I use called Tracking
Spot Medium.
I used Tracking Wide for when the bird
came from out of the trees when I couldn't initially see it
and Tracking Spot Medium
was what I used to lock onto
the bird when it was still so
that when it moved, all I had to do was pan with it.
Now, as I'm not experienced at photographing Birds of Prey,
to allow the camera to really help me out,
my friend also suggested turning on Crop Mode.
Now there's just a few things to mention about this.
This does reduce the megapixels of the camera from 61 to 28,
but unless you're going
to really crop in tight, you're not going to notice.
It turns the 600mm lens I was using into a 900mm lens.
But the main reason for the advice was this ...
In normal Full Frame Mode, the 693 focus points
cover 86% of the sensor, but in Crop Mode, the 693
focus points cover pretty much 100% of the sensor.
Lastly, in the menu, the AF Tracking Sensitivity.
This was set to 4.
And then last of all, the lens.
The Firmware
was updated from Version 1, and the lens was set to Steady
Shot Mode 3.
Now I’m a Portrait Photographer and not a Wildlife
Photographer, and capturing great wildlife photographs
isn't just down to camera settings,
but with modern cameras like this new A7RV, when you do
use the appropriate settings for the kind of photography
you're doing, the results can be FANTASTIC.
So yes, very impressed with this camera.
But would I buy it?
Now in the first video I said no, but it's not a case
of “Would I?” but now it's more a case of “Will I?”.
It is a very impressive upgrade from my A7RIV
and before COVID, I mainly did portraits,
but now I do other photography, not for anyone else,
but just for me, and because it's fun, enjoyable
and exciting, and a camera like this makes it even more so.
So I guess we'll see.
But on the subject of photography,
I need to pack my kit for a seascape photo shoot
I've got tomorrow morning.
Right, that's all the kit packet and all for this video.
As for the previous one,
taking it down and doing this update
just kind of felt the right thing to do.
I guess we all make mistakes.
But as always, I'd really appreciate
a thumbs up, and if you haven't yet,
click on that Subscribe button
because it's just a great free way
that you can support this channel.
But for now, that's me. I'm done.
I'll see you in the next video.