I didn't think I would say this, but it's easily the best camera I've ever touched and it could 'almost' replace my A1. Now my A1 mk1 feels quite dated lol.
Battery grip feels great. So glad we finally get aspect guides and a ton of other quality of life improvements over the RV that will serve me very well.
FL2 is beautiful. The auto white balance better. I actually feel like I could use the JPEGs SOC. Menus and processing just feels faster.
Besides portrait sessions, I want to try using it for day 1 football practice but I am a little nervous about panning and with it and ES distortion for vertical lines like poles, and balls. I noticed the distortion and bending poles immediately when panning a motorcycle going by my house. Also the rear screen still kind of sucks and is still way too dark. The EVF is incredible tho.
Have to figure out the best way to set this thing up now. Off to YouTube University I go.
Hi Moses. I asked ChatGPT to help me with the initial setup and it got me going. Not perfect, and a deep dive needed on specific areas, but a good starter guide.
BigBabyMoses06 wrote:
I didn't think I would say this, but it's easily the best camera I've ever touched and it could 'almost' replace my A1. Now my A1 mk1 feels quite dated lol.
Battery grip feels great. So glad we finally get aspect guides and a ton of other quality of life improvements over the RV that will serve me very well.
FL2 is beautiful. The auto white balance better. I actually feel like I could use the JPEGs SOC. Menus and processing just feels faster.
Besides portrait sessions, I want to try using it for day 1 football practice but I am a little nervous about panning and with it and ES distortion for vertical lines like poles, and balls. I noticed the distortion and bending poles immediately when panning a motorcycle going by my house. Also the rear screen still kind of sucks and is still way too dark. The EVF is incredible tho.
Have to figure out the best way to set this thing up now. Off to YouTube University I go. ...Show more →
If you opt for the lossy compressed RAW for fast action photography, such as sport or wildlife, the AF calculation rate is higher than using lossless compressed RAW for better AF performance. Of course not quite that of the A1 II though. In addition, you will get less rolling shutter effect. For fast action photography, it doesn't matter much, if any, since you are not going for fine art output anyway. But, off course, for other types of photography, you switch back to lossless compressed.
BigBabyMoses06 wrote:
I didn't think I would say this, but it's easily the best camera I've ever touched and it could 'almost' replace my A1. Now my A1 mk1 feels quite dated lol.
Battery grip feels great. So glad we finally get aspect guides and a ton of other quality of life improvements over the RV that will serve me very well.
FL2 is beautiful. The auto white balance better. I actually feel like I could use the JPEGs SOC. Menus and processing just feels faster.
Besides portrait sessions, I want to try using it for day 1 football practice but I am a little nervous about panning and with it and ES distortion for vertical lines like poles, and balls. I noticed the distortion and bending poles immediately when panning a motorcycle going by my house. Also the rear screen still kind of sucks and is still way too dark. The EVF is incredible tho.
Have to figure out the best way to set this thing up now. Off to YouTube University I go. ...Show more →
Great to hear your positive reaction 😎 Oh, I had forgotten about the aspect marker feature, I set mine up on a custom button to give me a blacked-out 2.39:1 crop guide for doing cinematic-style stills panos.
If you use the lossy compressed RAW mode, the sensor read-out speed will be faster. Still slower than that of the A1 II though. But, it will reduce the rolling shutter effect than what you get using the lossless mode. I forgot to mention the reason what that is in my post above.
Yeah, mechanical shutter is your friend for panning but obviously it tops at 10 FPS. I also just learned that the A7RVI can’t use electronic shutter for flash, mechanical shutter is the answer but you lose the silent mode.
Douglas L wrote:
Yeah, mechanical shutter is your friend for panning but obviously it tops at 10 FPS. I also just learned that the A7RVI can’t use electronic shutter for flash, mechanical shutter is the answer but you lose the silent mode.
Agreed. And I know those were more "extreme" scenarios, even tho it was a public 30mph road. I bet a race track would look wild haha.
I was really hoping they would give us at least some flash ability in E shutter Oh well.
Hi everyone, just wondering if anyone with the new Sony 100-400mm F4.5 GM and A7R VI could test something for me.
I'm trying to use the lens Function Ring for Preset Focus. The camera lets me assign it, but when I rotate and hold the ring to register the focus position, I get:
“The lens is not attached correctly or is not supported.”
A7R VI is running Ver. 1.01 and the lens is Ver. 01.
I've tested the same lens on my A1 II and Preset Focus works perfectly. I've also tested the Function Ring on the A7R VI using APS-C S35/Full Frame and that works perfectly as well.
So I'm wondering if this might be an A7R VI firmware issue.
Has anyone with the same A7R VI + 100-400 F4.5 combination tried Preset Focus and can confirm whether it works?
geoffhui01 wrote:
Hi everyone, just wondering if anyone with the new Sony 100-400mm F4.5 GM and A7R VI could test something for me.
I'm trying to use the lens Function Ring for Preset Focus. The camera lets me assign it, but when I rotate and hold the ring to register the focus position, I get:
“The lens is not attached correctly or is not supported.”
A7R VI is running Ver. 1.01 and the lens is Ver. 01.
I've tested the same lens on my A1 II and Preset Focus works perfectly. I've also tested the Function Ring on the A7R VI using APS-C S35/Full Frame and that works perfectly as well.
So I'm wondering if this might be an A7R VI firmware issue.
Has anyone with the same A7R VI + 100-400 F4.5 combination tried Preset Focus and can confirm whether it works?...Show more →
I just tired it, the custom button on the ring of the 100-400 f4.5 doesn't work with the A7RVI, but works with the A1II. I didn't use the ring, I used the button.
Thanks Douglas, really appreciate you taking the time to test it. That pretty much confirms what I'm seeing as well. Looks like it could be an A7R VI firmware issue.
geoffhui01 wrote:
Thanks Douglas, really appreciate you taking the time to test it. That pretty much confirms what I'm seeing as well. Looks like it could be an A7R VI firmware issue.
Douglas L wrote:
Yeah, mechanical shutter is your friend for panning but obviously it tops at 10 FPS. I also just learned that the A7RVI can’t use electronic shutter for flash, mechanical shutter is the answer but you lose the silent mode.
That’s good to know.
On the other hand, I’m hard pressed to think of many situations where a silent shutter is necessary but the visual intrusion from electronic flash wood be OK? ;-)
(I’ve used electronic shutter with other cameras to photograph during classical music concerts including onstage — where folks get really upset about camera sounds, with good reason — and for some other event photography.)
BigBabyMoses06 wrote:
Agreed. And I know those were more "extreme" scenarios, even tho it was a public 30mph road. I bet a race track would look wild haha.
I was really hoping they would give us at least some flash ability in E shutter Oh well.
Just like your previous A7RV (panning backgrounds and flash use). Sony wisely left a handful of better features for their most expensive flagship A1II.
On the other hand, I’m hard pressed to think of many situations where a silent shutter is necessary but the visual intrusion from electronic flash wood be OK? ;-)
(I’ve used electronic shutter with other cameras to photograph during classical music concerts including onstage — where folks get really upset about camera sounds, with good reason — and for some other event photography.)
I use flash maybe once a year, never really learned how to use my Godox V1 properly. I have been tasked to photograph a ceremonial event inside our church tomorrow. Last night I went online to learn to setup the buttons on the flash, mounted it on the A7RVI, took a couple test shots, the flash didn't fire. Consulted with ChatGPT, found out the A7RVI needs mechanical shutter to work with flash, the electronic shutter automatically disables the use of flash (sensor read speed still too slow??). Switched from electronic shutter to mechanical shutter, it worked fine.
As mentioned, silent mode only works with electronic shutter. I am going to use the good old A1II tomorrow. The A1II's electronic shutter works with flash, therefore, silent mode is available. Distraction of the flash is still better than the distraction of flash+shutter sound, especially when a speech is being given.
bwcolor wrote:
How do you report firmware issues to Sony?
This is the link for the AU support page - I am sure there will be a similar one for your country.
I have used it before and they normally respond within a couple of days. Usually they seem to be able to confirm whether it is a fault or not. Previously I had the loss of focus issue on one of the camera/lens combinations which they fixed with a subsequent firmware update.
I'm not sure why you want AI to tell you the shutter type, but there is so much erroneous crap online I'd suggest simply looking at the specs before buying. The Sony 67MP sensor has a slow readout so it needs mechanical shutter for flash, just like many others.
Why Sony limits the MS to 10FPS is rather lame, but I suppose they think that's adequate. With the new battery they should be able to bump that up to 12 or so, unless it's due to the slow readout not synching with the DGO. It's not that faster shitters cannot be made; they are not limited in FPS by the bulky DSLR mirror.
One bug or feature I've found so far is when shooting at max shutter speed 1/8000, the exposure I see on screen and EVF is brighter than what is captured. Slightly less so at 1/6400, and it's basically gone the next speed down. F stop doesn't affect it, but ISO does. As soon as I go from 100 to 125 and beyond, the issue is gone. Happens in all shutter modes, all metering modes, full manual or full auto. I've turned everything on and off to try and find a culprit.
Live exposure I see on screen at 1/8000 looks the same as what I capture and see on screen at 1/5000. At 1/8000 and 1/6400 when shooting black out free ES you can especially see it clear as day. As soon as I start shooting, the live preview goes darker.
My A1 has this similar quirk at maxed out electronic shutter.
I know very little about flash. The flash related spec of the A7RVI didn't come to my attention, it wouldn't have stopped me from buying one even if I had known the A7RVI's ES doesn't work with flash, since I rarely rarely use flash anyway. I also saw plenty of issues with panning in ES before I bought the camera. It didn't stop me from getting one neither. I wasn't complaining in my post above. I was just saying I learned something new.
It's unbelievable a new A7RVI can be had for $3800 on B&S board merely two months after launch. I thought we might see that kind of discount around holiday season.
EB-1 wrote:
I'm not sure why you want AI to tell you the shutter type, but there is so much erroneous crap online I'd suggest simply looking at the specs before buying. The Sony 67MP sensor has a slow readout so it needs mechanical shutter for flash, just like many others.
It's unfortunate how most camera makers disable flash triggering with their electronic shutters. There's no technical reason for this. And the restriction isn't even consistent - for example, Sony disallows flash w/ES for regular exposures but allows it for multi-shot pixel shift exposures.
Camera makers likely limit flash because they don't think it's useful to have flash photography with slow x-sync speeds. But in fact there are many scenarios where flash with slow x-sync is fine, particularly when the flash is the primary (or entire) source of illumination of the subject.
Oh well. 
(panning backgrounds and flash use). Sony wisely left a handful of better features for their most expensive flagship A1II.