So, I've got a bit of a bonus video for you today
because in yesterday's HDMI video,
I touched on a feature
that left many of you pleasantly surprised.
With some of you reaching out
and asking for further elaboration
and potentially some demonstration of this feature.
And the feature that we're talking about
is in the latest Sony cameras, like the Sony a7 III.
Using face detect autofocus
while having an external device connected over HDMI.
So, I'm gonna demonstrate how that feature works
and prove, I guess, essentially, that it does work
in today's video.
Let's get undone.
[offbeat music]
♪ Gerald Undone ♪
♪ He's crazy ♪
What is happening, everybody? I'm Gerald Undone,
and it seems like yesterday's video has a few of you
wanting to see a little bit more proof,
if you will, of one of the features that I touched on.
Take Peter Gregg, for instance,
you guys know Peter Gregg, right? He's this guy?
Hey, Peter Gregg, Miami, Florida.
Welcome to the Christmas room!
Well, even he commented asking,
"Hey, Gerald - I've been telling people on my channel
(and so have dozens of others)
that Sony blocks face detection when recording
to an external monitor or if you use WIFI."
And then he went on to ask if I could set up
another camera to capture the back of the screen,
showing that the box is working
and that it's focusing and all that.
And so that's what we're gonna do today
and I'm happy to demonstrate it.
But I do just want to clear one thing up
just in case there was any confusion.
I suggested in yesterday's video
that if you disable internal recording
and you only record to an external device--
an external recorder, that then you can use
face detection AF in 4K.
Any time that you record internally,
you won't be able to use it.
So, if you're just using an external monitor,
and you're just monitoring it
but you want to record inside the Sony,
that's no bueno.
You have to have an external recorder
actually capturing it, and not be recording to the Sony.
And I'll demonstrate how to set that up
and prove that it works right now.
[clicking]
[funky music]
[Gerald] 'Kay, so to get this to work,
just like in yesterday's video,
we're gonna have to go into the set-up screen,
and it's gonna be Setup4, page four
of the yellow toolbox there where it says 4K Output Sel.
We're gonna choose that.
And we're gonna choose HDMI Only(24p).
Well, you can do 30p if you want to.
But I'm gonna use 24p.
This disables the internal recording.
So, if we jump over to Setup3
and go to the bottom of "HDMI Settings",
we can see here that we can't change the output,
we can't put on info display,
and we can't change the resolution.
But we can still use the "TC Output"
and we can still use the record control.
And then, if we go to the video settings first page here,
you can also see that you can't change the file format
and you can't change the record setting either.
And now, if we go to page six, on the first tab,
which is where face detect autofocus is,
you go to "Set. Face Prty in AF",
you can see it's on, and it's on.
Now, just to sort of confirm one more time
with you guys about how this works,
if you go back over here and you turn
and you go to Setup4,
and you put this back to memory card and HDMI,
and then you jump over to where the face detect
autofocus would be again, which is on page six
of the first tab.
You can see that you can't turn it on,
and it's greyed out.
And the way that I was able to figure out
how this works is because when we actually try
to enable it here, it says,
"This operation can't be used when XAVC S 4K is used,
which is why most people thought you can't use it
in 4K, but you can use it in 1080.
But all that means is you can't use
the internal 4K codec, it doesn't mean any 4K at all.
Which is why we have to disable
the internal recording and instead use external 4K,
in which case we can use it.
Because that's not using the internal XAVCS 4K.
So, we're gonna put that on there.
And one last thing you need to know about
face detect autofocus, is that you're gonna wanna use--
don't use things like "Expandable Flexible Spot",
or any flexible spots, but you're gonna wanna use
some of the bigger things like "wide".
And the reason why this is is that flexible spot
outranks the face detect autofocus,
where face detects outranks wide.
I'll give you a demonstration on that in a minute.
But right now, we're all set up.
So, I'm just going to adjust the exposure
a little bit here.
OK.
So, face detection should be on me,
you should be able to see the box,
and I should be sharp. And if I get out of it...
Should switch to the background.
And then, if I come back in,
the box should come back on me, again.
And focus on my face. What if I bring it in a little bit?
Come back out. And jump out of the shot again.
And then back in. And like I was saying,
this is using the wide mode. I'm gonna show you what happens,
just in case you guys ever have this problem
with face detect, if you use the flexible spot,
so let me just set that, real quick.
So, if we jump down here to "Flexible Expandable Spot",
which I use a lot. So, I'm gonna move the spot
over here to the right hand side.
And I'm gonna put myself in the left hand side of the frame.
Face detection is still on, so you'll still see the box,
but it won't be white.
It'll turn grey and it won't focus on me,
even though it has a box on me,
because the spot overrides the face detect.
Here, I'll demonstrate it now.
So, if I jump over here, and I'm on the one side
of the frame, like this. And the point is over there,
you'll see a box on me but it'll be dimmer, like we said.
And even if I get closer or provide a little bit of action
around my face, it's not gonna focus on me
no matter what I do.
Because it's gonna stay prioritized over there
with the spot.
So, don't use spot focus when you want to use
face detect because it won't work
until you actually move the spot onto my face.
In which case the face detection
isn't really doing anything. Make sure you use wide,
which is that top option on the autofocus list.
Wide-- that's the one you want.
[funky music]
♪
And that's pretty much it. That's the demonstration.
That's what I was talking about in the other video.
So, it does work.
There are definitely some limitations
and it's definitely not perfect,
because if that was just a monitor, well,
that was monitoring, I wasn't recording there.
So, that's pretty much the most you can do.
You can't record on the Sony,
but I could've started the recording on the Atomos.
So, with just a monitor, you can use the face detection,
I guess, for focusing,
but it's not really a full implementation of that.
You're definitely gonna need an external recorder,
which are generally more expensive than just a monitor,
in order to be able to fully unlock that.
But for those of you that have an external recorder,
and you couldn't get it to work,
and you're pretty much giving up,
which is what some of you said in the comments,
on the Sonys, because, like, the face detection doesn't work.
Well, it does. So long as you record externally,
and disable it internally. But, that's gonna be it for me.
I hope you found this video helpful
or at least entertaining. And if you did,
make sure you leave it the old thumbs up
and consider subscribing, if you haven't already.
But if you did not find this video helpful,
or entertaining, feel free to hit the dislike button twice.
Alright...I'm done.
[funky music]