Today, I'm going to show you how to set up
the new Sony cameras to have a better focusing configuration
when shooting video.
Let's get Undone.
[offbeat music]
♪ Gerald Undone ♪
♪ He's crazy ♪
What is happening, everybody? I'm Gerald Undone
and recently, I figured out how to set my Sony a7 III here
to have a better focusing configuration
for the type of video stuff that I do.
Now, I've been so used to using my GH5
and one of the things I love about shooting video
on the GH5 is that when I set it to manual focus,
which I do often, this right now is shot on manual focus,
I can still use the autofocus capabilities
like the "AF Lock" button on the back of the GH5
to grab the focus so I don't have to actually move
the focusing ring to get the manual focus to lock on.
So, with that, you set it to manual focus,
you press the button, it uses AF to achieve focus,
but then it's not going to focus anymore
because it's on manual.
With the Sony, I was having difficulty achieving
the same result because either you could have it
in autofocus continuous, in which case
pointing at anything causes the autofocus to trigger
or you can put it in manual focus, in which case
the AF-On button-- and I believe even putting
the shutter button halfway down, but I don't use
the shutter button for focus, they don't do anything.
So, the AF-On button does nothing when you have it
on manual focus mode and I don't want it, obviously, to do
autofocus continuous or I would've put it in that,
but it would be nice to have the same thing that I have
on the GH5, which is that when I have it set up
and this is my shot, now just quickly focus
and then we'll start recording, it doesn't do anything
so I have to actually turn the ring until I get it sharp
and then I can start recording, so I figured out a way
around this and I'm going to show you how to set that up
on your Sony if you want to have the same settings
because I think it's really handy
and really awesome to have. So, I'm gonna plug this guy in
and I'm gonna show you how to do this now in the menu.
Okay, so we're all set up here and we're capturing
from the Sony. So, the first thing we're gonna need to do
is go to the menu and move over to the second one here,
the movie settings, and then go to page eight,
which is "Custom Operation1". Now, you'll see here,
you have "Custom Key" settings for photo mode,
for video mode and for playback mode.
Now, it really doesn't matter which one you set up
because you can make them roll out for all three,
but let's specifically go into the movie Custom Key
and you can do this for photo as well.
Then, we're gonna wanna go into the third page
which has the options for "AEL" and "AF-On Button".
Now, I always set the AF-On button to be autofocus,
and I take it off of the shutter button
because I don't want when I press the shutter button
to initiate autofocus. I only want to do it
from the back of the camera.
That way, I can take pictures without having it
refocus for me. So, I have the AF-On button locked down,
but I never use the AEL in video
because I don't really see much need to lock my exposure
when I'm shooting video and I do everything
in manual anyway. So, we're gonna use the "AEL Button"
as an option to configure it to what we want to do
and what we're gonna wanna choose this for
is on page 3/18 here, there is the "AF/MF Control Hold"
and there's also the "Toggle".
Basically, the toggle lets it so when you press it once,
it switches between AF and MF, but the hold
is a little bit more operating like an AF-On button would,
where it's only when you press it. So, we're gonna set it
to "AF/MF Control Hold" on the "AEL Button".
So, basically what that's gonna do is you can see here,
I have this pointing at the studio monitor here
and it's autofocusing on whatever I point it at.
This is because it's on "AF-C" mode. But, if we switch it to--
when we're on this mode, if I press the AF-On button,
it will give me that green indicator that its found
and locked on focus. Now, this is what we want
to have happen when we're in manual focus mode as well,
but it doesn't. So, if we switch to manual focus now,
you'll see the problem that I was talking about.
If I press the AF-On button, it literally does nothing.
If I want it to focus on something closer like my hand,
it just won't do anything and obviously it's not going
to focus on my hand automatically
because that's disabled as well. So, now that we have
the AEL button set up, if we hold it, for the second
that we hold it for, its switching over to autofocus,
but only as long as we old it. So that way,
it kind of gives us an autofocus. So now, even though
we're still in manual focus, so look.
If I put my hand here, it's not changing focus.
But if I hold the AEL button, it will achieve focus
just as long as I hold it. And, as soon as I let go of it,
it goes back manual focus so it won't change,
but if I'm holding it while it's on my hand
and I keep holding it with my hand away,
it will focus on that. So, that is great for what we want.
It's not going to give us the lock, the green lock
or make a beep or anything like that
because it's not the same thing as AF-On,
it's just continuously autofocusing,
but if you really want that, as long as you're holding
the AEL button, you can use the shutter button halfway
to get a lock. So, I'm still in manual focus,
but if I hold the AEL button
and then press the shutter button halfway, it will give me
the focus lock indicator. So, I can come over here,
press the shutter halfway and then just release
both buttons and then I know that I'm locked in there
and then I'm back in manual focus.
So, it doesn't matter if I point it at something really close
and then come up here, the focus hasn't changed
and it won't change if I put something in front
of the camera either until I press AEL just long enough
for it to focus and then it changes it.
So, that's pretty much it. It basically emulates
what the GH5 does, which is that you can have
it on manual focus all the time and just get it to focus
on things that you want it to and it won't change
the focus on you when you don't want it to.
This can be used in reverse as well,
so maybe you were already set up
on autofocus continuous and that's what you wanted
to do the majority of your shoot in, but every once
in a while, you want to pop in to manual to either
check your focus peaking to see if what you thought
would be in focus is in focus or if you just wanted
to give a fine adjustment to it, you can hold down
the AEL, which is now our AF/MF control hold
and you can adjust the focus ring here
and sort of dial it in and although you guys can't see
the focus peaking through the capture,
when you're not capturing, you can see it
on the back of your display, you could look at it
and get the focus peaking to show up exactly
where you want and go, "Okay, I'm happy with that."
And as soon as you let go of it,
you're back to autofocus continuous.
So, that can also let it be a focus hold.
So, when we're here, and we're like, "I like that shot."
Hold it and now if anything comes in front,
the autofocus continuous isn't going to interrupt it
unless you let go of the button and then it will.
So, it just gives you that option to switch back and forth,
which I think adds a lot more versatility
than the way that the camera comes stock.
I actually found the focusing modes right out of the box
to be kind of annoying when coming from the GH5
because I'd have it set up, and then I'd be like,
"Okay. Just press AF-On and wait.
AF-On doesn't do anything? Oh, we have to put it
in autofocus continuous? But, then it's going
to be jittering if I'm moving--" So, I was kind of annoyed
about that, but simple fix: use the AEL button
because you're not using it for anything anyway, right?
Anyways, that's gonna be it for me. I hope you found
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Alright...I'm done.
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