In this episode I'll show you step-by-step how to update the firmware
on your Sony cameras.
AdoramaTV presents The Breakdown with Miguel Quiles.
Welcome back to the breakdown, I'm Miguel Quiles. On occasion Sony releases
firmware updates for their digital cameras that enhance there functionality
and reliability. Let me walk you through the process using my Sony A7R II. Before
we begin let's check our camera to see what firmware we're currently running on
our camera. Turn on your camera and click the menu button. On the A7R II you'll
want to go to the last menu option, which looks like a tool box. Click on the down
arrow and press over to the right until you get to page six.
Now scroll down and select version. You should see a screen showing your body or
camera model number, which I recommend you jot down. You'll also see the version
number of your firmware, which in my case is version 3.20. Now that we have this
information let's go over to our computer and download our new firmware.
First you'll want to open your browser and visit esupport.sony.com. Once you're
there click on the drivers and software link. Now you'll scroll down to select
your product. I'm doing this demonstration with the A7R II so I'll
scroll down to the cameras, alpha interchangeable-lens, the series is ILCE
and the model is ILCE - 7RM2. Which as you can remember we jotted down
earlier. If you're updating a different camera like an A6300, A72 etc you'll
select the correct camera from this list. Now on this new page will confirm that
it's the A7R II showing up top, which it is. Then we scroll down and select our
operating system.
I’m using a mac so I'll select Mac OS X. Now you'll see all of the downloads
available for this camera. Since we're updating the firmware I'll select
firmware and now we can see all of the details for this new firmware. You'll
notice the release date which was August 18th 2016 for the latest firmware
and the version number is 3.30 which is newer than the current version that we
have right now which is 3.20. In the file description below you can take a look
and you can see exactly what this new firmware is doing for you.
So in this case it adds support for radio-controlled lighting system, which
is the new triggers for Sony. It improves stability and picture shooting mode. It
adds support to output video via HDMI when you're using the remote camera
control software and it improves overall stability and operability of the camera.
That all sounds great, sounds like something that I want so I’m going to go
ahead and I'm going to click the download button. Now once you click the
download button you're going to see a new page here once again with the
7RM2 model at the top. We have the file download link on the right this is
download now so we're going to go ahead and click that. Now once you've done that
it's going to take you to a software agreement page you're going to want to
make sure that you read through all of this and scroll down to the very bottom
and if everything looks great you'll go ahead and click accept agreement and
once you've done that that's going to begin the process of downloading the
file. So in this case it's a 254 megabyte file, so it's going to take maybe a
minute or two so go ahead and download. So you can go ahead and wait for that
and once it's done we'll go ahead and move to the next step.
Ok so once it's finished downloading it's going to ask us if we want to
discard or keep this particular file, so we're going to go ahead and click keep
and this is of course on a Mac on a PC it's going to look a little different
but same concept.
Now with this new firmware downloaded I'm going to go ahead and
double-click on this newly downloaded file. Its going to go ahead and open up
and verify the contents and now a new windows going to pop up and it's going
to say system software updater. So I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to
double click on that then it says system software updater is an application
downloaded from the internet are you sure you want to open it. I'm gonna go
ahead and click open and now this will open up the system software updater
program. From here on out it actually gives you the instructions on what to do.
So we're going to go ahead and just follow along with these instructions. So
it says first things first complete the following procedures to connect the
update target camera to the computer with the USB cable. Number one, we're
going to turn on the camera.
We're going to select USB connection from the setup in the cameras menu
screen and verify that the connection method is set to mass storage. Then we
connect the camera to the computer with the USB cable and then it says click the
next button when the connection has been made which in this case we could see it
has been made, and at this point is going to verify the connection of the camera
and the computer for this update so it'll take a few moments.
Ok so once the computer recognizes the camera it's going to ask you to verify
the version of software that you're looking to update and compare it to the
one that you already have .So down on the bottom corner here
you'll notice that it says the current version is 3.20 and the version after
the update is 3.30 which is correct, so we're going to go ahead and click next
and once you do that it's automatically going to go through the process of
updating the firmware on your camer.a So it says the camera will reset
automatically please wait.
Very, very important that you do not unplug your camera or turn off your
camera or don't do anything to your camera at this point just let it go
through the process of updating the firmware. It takes a few moments here so
we'll just wait as it goes through this process while we're waiting for this to
update. I also think it's really important to note that it's very
important for you to make sure that you check to see if your camera's firmware
is up-to-date especially if you begin to buy some of the newer lenses and newer
accessories that are available for the sony cameras, oftentimes the lens
profiles or something that has to be updated via firmware so you want to make
sure that every few months that you check this esupport website to make sure
that you're running the newest and the latest firmware for your camera's just
so that you can ensure that your newest lenses and accessories and everything is
working properly on your new camera bodies.
Ok and so about eight minutes has elapsed I've sped up here a little bit
so that you didn't have to wait through the whole process but now it says that
the update process has been completed and you simply will click the finish
button and you are all set. At this particular point you want to go into the
camera menu as i showed you at the beginning of this video and double check
to make sure that the version of your software is the correct version which in
this case for this install was version 3.30. Hope you guys enjoyed this episode,
if you did please make sure you leave a like and a comment on this video. Also make
sure to check out the Adorama Learning Center for more great videos and
articles on all sorts of different topics of photography.
Thank you so much again for watching and I will see you in the next episode of
The Breakdown. Bye everybody.