Camera Settings for Shooting Action - Sony Alpha A7RIII, A7lll, A6300 and A6500
2024 ж. 11 Мам.
276 162 Рет қаралды
A7RIII and A7III Camera Settings for Shooting Action, Wildlife and Sports.
These settings can also be used for the A6300 and A6500 APS-C cameras
Mark Galer is a Sony Imaging Ambassador.
⬇️more info below⬇️
Mark's Alpha learning support website www.markgaler.com
Facebook: / markgalerphotography
Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/markgaler/
Instagram: / markgaler
Mark, thank you so much for such a professional walk thru on for my A7RM3. The best yet.
This is one of the most thorough, informative and easiest tutorial to follow. Love it.
Thank you for this video. It helped me improve my hockey shots a ton. Lot more photos in focus now. Thanks again.
best tutorial videos I've ever encountered. you've got yourself a new fan!
So clear, so nice, so....grateful, Mark! Really great job.
Thank you Mark!!!! Just bought A7III and am about to shoot my son's hockey game. I was not sure the logic of being in Aperture mode until you showed the ISO Min Shutter option. Makes sense. Thanks.
Thank you for this guide. It was quite difficult to get around for a new user like me!
Amazing Content! Thank you very much for this easy to follow and professionally explained Tutorial!
this was the best setup video for a7 third gen so far. I was looking for a setup that was fast to use that gave great results. thanks
Thank you very much for your videos! Being a veteran DSLR user, it has been a challenge to quickly learn my new A7iii. Your videos, by far, have been the best tutorials! I appreciate YOU and your knowledge of the Alpha systems. Cheers!
Thank you so much Mark, as always!
thank you for this. i just upgraded from the A7 ii to the A7 r iii, and all of the new features were a little bit confusing. now I have set me three memory settings to action, landscape and portraits. thanks again for making it so easy to understand.
Amazing deep video tutorial, thank you very much.
You need 10x the current amount of subscriders Mark, truly amazing quality content which helped alot learning the sony system!
Hello. Thank you very much. Comprehensive and clear. I have already followed your advice and registered this settings.
Thank You Again... My 1-2-3 Are All Set.... Great Educational Content Mark!
This video is very much appreciated. I'm new to Sony with the recent purchase of the a7r iii. This video was quite helpful. Thank you.
This is the most in-depth tutorial series of sony alpha camera. thank you so much!
thank you mark really love your videos and info
Thank you - great intro to action shots on my new A7RIII
Thankyou Mark for your informative Videos, this is my first foray into digital. I am an analogue large format Photographer and alternate printer. This is all very new and thank goodness there are people like you who devote so much time for the benefit of others.
Thanks a lot for your extremely useful video tutorials! I should’ve watched them earlier so I wouldn’t have to struggle with changing settings manually after different individual motifs... :))
This was really detailed. I only managed to grasp 3/4 of it. Thank you Sir.
Mark, I can't thank you enough for this extremely informative resource; I'm struggling with action work on my new A7R3, coming from a Canon 1DX2, where I felt totally comfortable and confident; I haven't been getting consistent focusing on my action work so really feel this will make a difference!
Did you have any improvements? I've also been struggling with AF on car racing photography with mi A7r3 for years...
Awesome! Thank you for your lessons
Thank you! All my questions have been answered in under 20 mins :-)
great content, solid information, thanks so much
Extremely helpful, thank you!
Excellent and understandable information for a newbie - Thank`s.
Awesome - thank you so much, this will help me dial in my surf photography :)
Your videos are easy to understand and so detailed i just set up my new A7R III with the help of your videos and found them so easy to follow. Cant wait and go and try them all out. Thank you very much. AAA teaching
Well done. To the point. Thank you.
Many thanks for this great explanation!!! Straight forward and very professional :-)
Great job Mark!! …. I learn so much from your detailed tutorials.
Great tutorial! Thanks.
Great video Mark thanks
Thank you very much! I am new to Sony a7III and this was a very useful information! The game day is coming up tomorrow!
Very helpful thank you
Excellent, easy to follow, accurate..
Very useful information thank you. Regards
Thanks! Maybe this will help me! I was trying to shoot bluebirds this morning on regular wide, and it was locking onto the background almost every time...
Thank you Mark for these videos, I watched all 3 settings - Landscape, Action & Portraiture. Very useful and your channel is my go-to reference. Happy to be a Sony Alpha / GM lens photographer.
Great to hear!
Great video, really helpful and informative. Going to try these settings out as soon as we're all back to normal
Glad it was helpful!
Mark you are a god send. Been struggling to get to grips with my Sony A7R3 having always been a Canon user. I have even been contemplating returning it and going back to Canon. But your clear, concise videos have helped me enormously, thank you so much.
Richard Brown - Thank you for your very positive feedback Richard. This gives me the encouragement to continue supporting the alpha community.
I got my 1st football game gig tonight. Thx ya for this
Hope the information helped.
Thanks so much. I just switched over to Sony and your videos have been a fantastic help in getting me up and running. Clear, thoughtful, thorough. Bravo!
Great tutorial
Fantastic teaching as always Mark - very impressed with A7M3. I'm so pleased the Work experience student who designed the earlier interfaces has been sent back to school and a real interface designer has sorted things out. It is so much more logical. Now can we retrospectively add this to our earlier camera models?
Gerry Lefoe - it would be nice to see this as a firmware upgrade for older models but I suspect Sony will be afraid of upsetting owners who are familiar with their current menu system.
I just got the Sony 100-400mm GM OSS lens today. This really really helped me be successful on my first outing with the lens and my a7RIII. Thank you so much!
Good job!
I’ve got a lot to learn. Cheers.
Thanks, that was very informative. I just saw in the A7III manual you have to stop the lens down past f/11 for the focus to lock on the first scene.
You have to use apertures wider than f/8 on the A7RIII and A7IIII and wider than f/11 on the A9, e.g. f/8, f/5.6, f/4. If you use f/11 or f/16 on the A7 models focus will be locked on the first frame and will not track your subject. Most action photographers shoot with the aperture wide open or close to wide-open.
Very useful. Thank you.
best video series on Sony alpha. now i m able to quickly toggle my setting with single button. Thank bro
Glad it helped
Thanks Mark !! Extremely Helpful ...
Glad to hear it!
Thanks Mark
thank you
this was super helpful, thank you for sharing
Glad it was helpful!
Thanks Mark, great video. I use both the a7rii and a7riii bodies. There is so much to learn to maximize the usage of these little gems and your videos make it easy to understand.
James Johnston - Thanks for the positive feedback
Hi James , can you tell me if after you setting perfectly these too camera, does the A7r3 is still slower than A73?
I have never used an a7III, only the a7RII and a7RIII. Sorry.
The A73 does not feel slower than the A73.
thank you for making a photography a fun for late starter. thank you
Glad you enjoyed it!
@@AlphaCreativeSkills how can we improve to take great photos. If you could suggest us
Your the very first person that ever talked about the horrible high fstop tracking I've been commenting about it since release of A7rii it also effects I believe below 1/40 or f8 & higher contrast af kicks in as you lose your 399 or 600+ af points
Shoot A7RIII so really liked this video; super helpful
Thanks for the positive feedback
Thanks for the video :)
One thing I would like to be able to do is to activate/toggle Silent Shooting with one press of a custom button (for perched birds or other more static wildlife photography where going silent in the field would help). As it is now on the A7rIII, you can assign Silent Shooting to a custom key, but this brings you to the ON/OFF menu, so this is an extra step.
Very helpful
Thank you. Very useful information.
Glad it was helpful!
Thanks Mark, You have a clear way of explaining. I have a question concerning Lock-on AF. You will use either Expand Flexible Spot with this option or use Lock-on AF:Wide when your subject is moving too erratic. Can you explain why you don't use one of the other options in Lock-on AF (flexible spot S/M/L or Zone or Center)? Thanks again
The two options mentioned seem to cover me for 99% of all situations. Lock on AF Expand Flexible Spot is as good as S/M/L as it starts at S but expands to L as required until it can find an edge of the subject to lock on to. Center is like Expand Flexible Spot you have left in the Center of the viewfinder. Zone may be a useful alternative to Lock-On AF: Wide if there was a subject close to the camera (other than the subject you are trying to track) that you want the camera to ignore - moving the zone to the other side will effectively ignore anything outside of this area. I don't typically find many situations where Lock-On AF: Expand Flexible Spot cannot deal with this. If you are NOT skilled at moving the spot with the joystick I can see where zone may be useful. I can also see where Zone may be useful if you are having trouble identifying where the AF point is positioned in the viewfinder.
Mark you are very professional in photography and teaching.I am a regular viewer of your videos.I am planning to take sony a 6600 in time.Can you please do a video about camera buttons and how it works.
Download the A6600 eBook from my website (free download) - it will have all the info you need.
@@AlphaCreativeSkills thanks mark.
Thank you for this video! So clear and precise. So once I have those saved in my memory, what mode should I shoot on? Auto?
You are loading Aperture Priority in the saved Memory. You will then be recalling it from either 1, 2 or 3 on the Shoot mode dial.
Very helpful vid. Is the high+ continous shooting the same for a6500 concerning blackout Thanks
Yes - the A7RIII behaves exactly like the A65000 in Continuous Shooting Mode when using the mechanical shutter, i.e. Blackout exists between each individual frame but the viewfinder is 'live'. In this respect it is the same experience as using a DSLR. There is no blackout in Hi+ but the feed has lag - making it difficult to pan. The A7RIII should be considered as a full-frame equivalent to the A6500 rather than a slower A9.
Thanks for the video, very informative! I've been really struggling with actions shots of my dogs, but I use adapted Sigma ART lenses with the MC-11 adapter. Literally 95% of the pictures are out of focus but I have a feeling that either the primes are slow or it's the adapter that's slowing them down. I have the newest firmware installed on the camera, adapter and lenses. I'm planning to rent the 70-200 f4 and I do hope it performs better, because I really love the camera for dog portraits and landscapes and being able to shoot actions shots would be the icing on the cake for me. I didn't have any issues with action shots on my Canon 6D and 6Dmk2 and the old Sigma 70-200, so I do hope I can get at least the same performance on Sony with a native lens.
Using non-native E-Mount lenses via an adapter slows AF performance dramatically. Make sure any lenses you purchase for your Sony (Sony or non-Sony E-Mount lenses) have linear focus motors.
@@AlphaCreativeSkills I'm renting the Sony 70-200mm f/4 next week, fingers crossed!
This is my go to video when I need to brush up on locations to all these high speed settings. Thank you!
Great to hear!
Amazing channel! You really help me with my new a7iii.
Wow thanks
skvělé video :)
Thanks for the positive feedback
Hi! This video is excellent and I, for the most part, set up my camera with your settings. I have a question about Steady Shot and taking photos of birds in flight with the 100-400GM. Usually the birds in flight are flying from right to left, or from left to right, and I am moving the lens with the birds. Is this considered panning? ... and should I put on mode 2 on the 100-400 lens ... or should I turn off steady shot completely? I have not had a high rate of good birds in flight--however the lock on does seem to work, the bird is just not sharp. I have my minimum shutter speed set at 1000 (and maybe that's too low). Thanks for any help you can provide!
Brooke A Miller - Mode ll is recommended for panning from left to right or vice versa. If the movement of the bird is erratic and the lens has to be moved vertically as well as horizontally then switch steady shot off on the lens. If your panning technique is not yet fully accurate then I would definitely advise raising the minimum shutter speed to 1/2000 second.
Mode 2 on the lens is the correct setting in this instance
Lock on Af is so slow on the R3 maybe the new firmware fix the lag
I have a new a7r3 and i find this video really usefull.
But i find hard to focus small birds on 600mm
Photographing small birds in flight is technically the hardest subject in photography. I am sure it has put many an amateur photographer off photography completely, because of the low success rate. I recommend building up panning practice using slower moving subjects, e.g., bicycles. Practice locating subjects above the finder with your eye and then raising the viewfinder to your eye so that it appears in the centre of your viewfinder each and every time. Practice pre-focusing the lens at an approximate distance before locating a bird in the sky. I also recommend switching to a small spot when the bird is in amongst branches. Newer cameras such as the A7IV have bird Eye AF and superior tracking performance which makes bird photography a little easier. The cameras with stacked sensors (A9, A9II and A1) have better tracking performance when compared to cameras with regular backlit sensors. If you need additional support check out my support channel at Patreon.com/markgaler
@@AlphaCreativeSkills Thank you for your answer.Today i was trying on big birds flying like ducks and swans and it was great.I got some nice shots.The funny thing was that i have turned on touch operation and moved the focus point with my nose to the lower right corner without knowing and in sunlight it was a bit hard to find out what is wrong.:)
You can restrict the Touch pad focus initiation to the upper right-hand corner so your nose doesn't drag the focus point to the lower right-hand corner when it touches the monitor.
Well done and a thank you
No problem 👍
super thanks
Hi Mark, Thanks for sharing this really helpful video. I used yesterday this setup on my A7RIII + Metabones V + Sigma 100-400 and my results on Wildlife were unfortunately terrible (hit rate of 1%). Could you also consider on doing additional setups for adapted lenses? There's a big community from Canon users that moved to Sony but not getting the shots as we expected... Thank you!
I have used a Sigma MC-11 adapter and the tracking works fine. Success will vary depending on what Metabones adapter you have and the firmware version. For optimum performance you would be advised to use a native E-Mount lens.
Thanks for your great videos! Which focus field would you choose for flying birds and can I use the rest of the settings for it 1: 1? Many greetings, Udo
I have a video tutorial called ‘Focus Area’ that outlines how I choose the appropriate Focus Area for the subject I am choosing
Great video, thanks. Can you elaborate on why the electronic shutter is not as good as the mechanical shutter for action shooting? Rolling shutter?
The A9 uses a new BIS stacked CMOS sensor for ultra-fast readout times to remove the impact of shutter distortion when using an electronic shutter. The A7RII features a sensor that is a similar design the the A6500 and A7RII so is not immune from shutter distortion - the sensor design is discussed in this article: www.markgaler.com/sonys-stacked-cmos-sensors-the-dawn-of-a-fully-electronic-age
Hi Mark, great tutorials. What modifications to the settings would you suggest for amateur photography of indoor sports like volleyball? What about the 70-200 F4 in this situations?
These settings should still be appropriate for indoor sports so long as the level of indoor lighting is not too low. The FE 70-400 F/4 should be OK - you would only need to switch to a lens with an f/2.8 aperture if the level of lighting is very low. Brighter lenses will lock-on more easily even if you are not shooting at maximum aperture.
Hi Mark, Great tutorials. Something that I would find helpful would be a spread sheet of your various settings for the A7RM3. Four columns total: Left column for the features, then three columns (one column each) for Landscapes, Actions, and Portrait.
I'll put it on my 'to-do list' :-)
Thanks Mark. That would be great!
Great idea !
Great idea! It would be very helpful
Hows that "to-do list" coming along? :)
Hi Mark, thank you very much. I love watching your videos, they are very informative! One question, if I successfully setup all the menus and custom buttons to dial 1 and 2 exactly how you described. I switch from one to the other and it all works really well but when I switch the camera off the settings reset to original. I am making sure I am saving to position 1 and 2 not M1, M2 etc. Do you think there might be an issue with my camera? Thanks
The Memories should be retained even when the camera is turned off. You should be able to rotate the Shoot Mode dial away from 1 or 2 and when you turn it back to 1 or 2 you should be provided with a screen showing you visual confirmation of the settings you have saved (same screen you saw when saving/registering the settings). When saving settings just check you are pressing the Center button the confirm registration. If your setup workflow is all good you will need to get the camera checked out.
@@AlphaCreativeSkills I will give it another shot. Once again really appreciate your guidance!
Thank you Mark for a very helpful video, I am shooting Crossfit, that is a quite fast movement and the light are not so great in this gyms. With the A-Priority and auto ISO, i don't get fast enough shutter to freeze the moment. What i do wrong? Should i change to Manual mode?
Hans Petter Støre - the first step would be to switch to a lens with a wider aperture or raise the level of ambient light. When testing the A9 at a TaeKwondo sports event I used an 85 f/1.8 lens and added two large LCD panels.
Thank you Mark! Great informative video. One question though. Is it better to gain frames per second with compressed raw rather than image data with the uncompressed raw format for post processing?
I choose compressed for shooting action for the increased frame rate but Uncompressed may give you extra dynamic range if you are dealing with a a subject brightness range that is extreme. An alternative is to choose the optimum higher ISO of the dual gain sensor. 640 for an A9, A7III, A7RIII and 320 for an A7R IV. If you shoot Uncompressed you can choose to convert the files to DNG files on import into Lightroom which will use lossless compression (typically halving the file size on an A7R file.
Hi Mark, many thanks. Your tutorials are great. I have a few questions regarding wildlife shooting. If the animals are not moving very fast would you use settings closer to your recommended settings for portraits? ie slower shutter speed etc? Secondly, for action would you not use shutter speed priority? I was surprised you used aperture priority. Do you get the fast shutter speed by setting the minimum shutter speed on ISO?
If the action is slow I adjust my AUTO ISO Min SS to a slower minimum shutter speed. If the action stops I use the AEL button to recall a set of 'Registered Custom Shoot Settings' that use settings more appropriate settings for a stationary subject. Using Aperture priority provides maximum control over depth of filed, minimum shutter speed while ensuring appropriate exposure.
Great video! When you use the joystick, do find the black square is hard to see? Can the colour of the black square be changed?
At the moment the colour of the square cannot be changed - Sony are aware of the feedback in relation to this - so I hope to see it change or become an option in a future firmware update.
Hello, love your vids!!! I use back button focus, for action shots which do you suggest I use?
I don’t use back button AF as I like to move a spot AF point using the multi-selector and/or the monitor as a touch pad
I just recently purchased an A7R III and have been trying to get familiar with all of the settings this camera has to offer and your videos are by far the best that I have came across for the different shooting situations and everything else related to Alpha Cameras. I was wondering if you have a specific shooting setup for photographing birds when panning? I have a 70-300 g lens and just started to get into bird photography I find for myself the that continuous lock-on flexible spot is difficult unless you start when the bird is stationary but when a bird is already flying, it is hard to lock on. Pretty much all of my images have been out of focus shooting at 125th of a second at around 200mm hand held.
David Fukuda - increase the size of the AF area to Lock-on AF zone or Lock-on AF wide -if you cannot accurately target your subject with a spot AF. remember the camera will target the subject that is closest to the camera and towards the centre of your selected AF area. Your shutter speed is way too slow to capture birds in flight. Occasionally motor sports will slow the shutter speed to 1/500 or 1/320 second to add some motion blur behind the speeding vehicle but you can’t blur the sky. The slower the shutter speed the higher the miss rate unless your panning action is 100%. Take the shutter speed up to 1/2000 second as outlined in the movie and use a + exposure compensation value if the bird is backlit by the sky or Manual exposure settings.
@@AlphaCreativeSkills Mark, thank you for your response and informative suggestions. I will definitely try them out the next time I go. Thanks again!
Very informative video. Thanks for taking the time Mark. I was wondering why you yourself don't set up for back button focussing. On that note, can you answer a question please? On my old Canon 7d, if I was in continuous AF and tracking a subject using the shutter button for focussing, it would lose focus after the first shot and would then have to re-acquire focus for the next shot and so on. Consequently, I would get some out of focus shots in the sequence. If I disabled focus from the shutter button and used the AF-ON button for back button focus, then it would continue to autofocus all the while I was pressing the shutter button, without having to re-acquire between shots. Does the Sony A7III work the same way or does it continue to track on the shutter button whilst taking pictures?
The A7lll does no have to reacquire the subject it is tracking because it does not use a mirror. DSLRs phase detect sensor is in the mirror box and is temporarily blinded each time the mirror flips up to clear the path of light to the sensor. The use of back-button AF requires the use of continuous AF only and sometimes I like to use AF-S. Sometimes I am holding down another custom button and I don’t want to have to hold down the AF-On button as well. Back-button AF is loved by many users but it does not add any AF performance for a user who knows the AF systems of the Sony cameras.
That's a very quick and detailed answer, Mark. Thanks very much for taking the time.
Hi Mark, thanks for the great tutorials you have been sharing. I have an A7 III and I am using the 100-400mm GM with the 1.4X TC and I have setup my camera exactly the way you explained and I have been shooting surfing for the most part and the camera isn't locking the focus,. I noticed even thou I place the box spot on the surfer the focus goes from one side to the other side of the frame and I normally lose a few shots. It's actually quicker and more accurate to keep refocusing whilst shooting. Any ideas what could be causing it? Would that be an issue with the 1.4X TC? I haven't tried shooting without the TC. Thanks
The camera may have trouble separating the subject from the surf - bird photographers have the same problem when a bird is about to take off from a tree. The camera can sometimes see the bird and the tree as one subject so becomes confused when they separate. My solution would be to try increasing the size of the Focus area from Lock on AF: spot to Lock on AF: Zone. If this does not work I would use the wide, zone or spot options that do not have lock on. In this instance the spot would be the hardest option as your panning would have to be accurate or you would have to move the spot AF area accurately. The larger AF areas are your friends when this happens. I have set up the AEL button to quickly change AF area when Lock-on becomes erratic.
Fantastic explanation! Thank you so much. I am very disappointed that I missed your workshop here in Sydney on the 2nd. Hopefully you will be doing more of those soon. You should maybe think about doing one for wild life and sports photography, that would be great! Thanks again
These Action settings are the ones I use for sports and wildlife that is moving.
Some valuable info here, but only some applies to my a6500. Maybe it's time to add another camera!?
Thank you for your video, but I need help! Can’t het sharp images with tamron 70-200. Your settings in this video help me a lot but still can get sharp images on indoor volleyball games. How can I get help? Thank you
I appreciate my question is very late to this thread, but I hope you still might be able to answer. Very recently purchased an A7iii and this is exactly the video I've been looking for. My question is, presumably I will have to reset many of these settings after saving as a preset, as many won't work for 'ordinary, day to day' shooting? So many of these settings are specific to action photography, that I wouldn't want set normally. For example I like ot shoot uncompressed. Must I change the setting back once I've made the preset? I'm new to your videos but so far they have been incredibly helpful. Thank you.
When you are finished recalling a registered Memory on the Shoot Mode (turning it to 1, 2 or 3) when your return the dial to P, A , S or M all of the settings you were using prior to recalling the memory are still there.
@@AlphaCreativeSkills Thanks for replying Mark, although I found that if I applied the settings while the dial is turned to A those settings remained for Aperture Priority even after I'd set them to a custom memory. Should I have performed the initial set up with the Dial turned to 1 or 2?
Excellent videos.. What settings you recomend for soocer?.. Thanks a lot
These ones
I really enjoy your videos Mark. Especially the ones describing how to set up the camera for different situations. Do you change your camera set up every time. In other words, if you shoot action one day and then portraits the next day are you changing your setup? Thanks.
Watch my Memory Mastermind video tutorial and will be clear.
Hi Mark, great tutorials. When you use Lock-On AF/extended flexible spot, how do you make sure the focus is on the primary target? For example, in your rodeo sequence, how did you make sure that the camera focused on the primary target, in this case, the person, not the bull? Thanks.
In the Rodeo sequence if the camera was set to Lock-on AF wide and chose the bull instead of the cowboy the depth of field would probably be enough to render both in sharp focus if the two subjects stay close to each other. Depth of field is helped when shooting the subject at a distance with a telephoto lens. If you need to be in control about which subject in the centre of the frame the camera chooses to track then you have to start the sequence with a Spot AF on the cowboy. This is the reason Sony added the multi selector (joystick) to make choosing a subject faster than on previous models. In the example of the Rodeo if the two subjects were at the same distance from the camera and bot close to the centre when the lock on AF engaged the camera would most likely choose the cowboy because of the colourful shirt. In AF wide the camera is also influenced by distinctive colours as well as front and centre.
Hi Mark, first of all, awesome videos! Love your work. I used this settings for a indoor low light sports event. But my photos came out really dark. I have a Sony a7riii with the gmaster 2.8 24-70m lenses. With all your settings I failed using 5.2 apature... I should've go as high as 2.8?
Exposure is a separate issue and the level of ambient light should not make difference to the final exposure. If there were strong backlights in the indoor arena this may have confused the meter. Try working with a histogram visible in the EVF so you can monitor overall exposure as you are shooting.