Sony Camera Settings for Bird & Wildlife Photography: My Setup and Custom Buttons for a9 a7R III IV
Setting up your Sony camera for the first time for bird photography or just looking for a new perspective and different ideas? In this video I share my current menu settings and custom buttons that I use across the Sony a9 and a7R III / a7R IV camera bodies for wildlife and bird photography! ↓↓↓
The Sony Alpha camera menu system can be a bit dense and slightly intimidating with its vast set of options. Over the years of professionally reviewing these cameras and now owning them myself, I’ve tried out many different setups and customizations and have settled into what you see here for my bird photography. If you have questions leave them below!
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►Sony a9
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►Sony a7R IV
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►Sony a7R III
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►Sony VG-C3EM Vertical Grip for a9, a7R III, a7 III
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►Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS
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Thanks so much for this video. Probably the most helpful thing on this subject I've watched to date. Just pulled the trigger on the 200-600mm with your link.
I just got an A7R III and this video is super helpful for me who just started getting addicted to bird photography. Thanks for taking the time to share all those settings. Can't wait to use them as a starting baseline and tweak em out as I go. Appreciate the video!
Brilliant vlog just go my A7R IV a few weeks ago and I am just at the stage where I am ready to customise it, so this was a perfect vlog. Thank you Ian (UK)
Learned a lot from this Ryan! Thanks for the tips!
Great stuff..really useful settings guide which I am using after a day wading through the Instruction book.
Thank you for this top class presentation - very informative and helpful.
Thanks!
Very helpful. Thanks for putting this together.
Glad it helped!
Great video. I just upgraded from A7III to A9II. I love the capabilities of this great camera. Any tips on getting sharper images right out of camera?
Hey, don't usually comment but this was SUPER helpful. I think I've got an eye and taking good frames but needed a way to quickly move between a perching bird and a flying bird and then be ready to take pics of family, etc. Excellent information, thank you SO MUCH for detailing the custom buttons. It's nice to have a "try this stuff" intro. Kudos! A7Rii here :)
Thanks for this great video. Just got my A7RIII + the 200-600 last week and simply love all the options there is to customize the settings and paired with your thoughts and explanation I feel, I've got a excellent head start. Thanks, Ryan, looking forward to more of your videos !
That’s awesome! The customizations run deep.
focus area limit is a great new feature, wish the a7iii had that
Focus hold! That's why I've been missing shots on my 200-600mm! I've got the lenscoat on mine and didn't realize I was pushing the button. I was getting peeved at how the A9 was missing focus on a large bird against the sky. Durp. I'm new to Sony coming from Canon. I basically got into Sony for this 200-600mm.
A tip for AF-ON btn, if you want less delay/lag with the operation you have selected, you can assign the AF On btn to "Reg. AF Area + AF ON" instead of "Recall Custom Hold 1/2/3, the delay/lag is almost same as with the shutter button with this customization... also you can change the AF Area that is activated with AF ON btn just by changing the Reg. AF Area............., you can use the Fn btn to register the desired AF area by long holding it once you have enabled AF Area Registration in the AF Menu.......
Thank you very much! Very helpful!
Glad it was helpful!
Love this video. Thanks!
Glad it helped
Hi Ryan, Thanks for the informative video. I have a question about the custom recall button, When I set it up and use zone for the focus area, I cannot move the zone focus around because I also have to keep the button pressed to get to this setting. Is there a way, I can keep it for this during the shot?
Hey Ryan, your videos have been very helpful and I'm pretty much convinced I'll be getting a Sony mirrorless for bird photography as a major upgrade from a Panasonic. But I'm trying to decide between a7iii and a7Riii specifically for bird photography combined with the Sony 200-600 lens. Thoughts?
Very nice tutorial, i shot manual landscape and architecture mostly be4 picking up this 200-600 mm the autofocus is buggy for shooting small birds... hopefully these settings help or ill go back to manual for larger birds its ok
Very interesting thanks a lot ! Travelling hopefully to Iceland, I'll try to catch flying puffin which are like missiles. Had hard times with my 5d4 last year, I'll try to be better with my a7r3 !
Can’t speak for the 5D4 but I know my a7R III tracks better than the 1D X I owned. Good luck!
I just picked up an A9ii and 200-600. Thanks for the advise, I’ll take all I can get seeing as I don’t know what I’m doing. Lol. Just got out of auto.
That's the ultimate setup!
Awesome advice thank you. Could you please tell me which setting to use when my AF Point constantly default to upper right corner? I have to press the button on wheel to get it back to middle and have lost done bird shots with it . Sony 7R4.
Just got the A9ll and now my problem is to try to get pictures better than my RX10 IV , my first 3 days test was disappointing , lots of out of focus birds in flight . I love your video and advice ,I'll try all of those . I also reviewed and clicked many of your Instagram beauties
Thanks and good luck!
Great video! Just a quick question, why would you shoot full manual on an iso invariant camera? Auto iso doesn’t really matter, if you’re worries about your highlights just use a little exposure compensation.
Thanks! It’s just how I like to work, not really defending it beyond that. Auto ISO and the subsequently needed exp comp overcomplicates something simple enough for me.
Nice and easy video to understand and implement... well done. Also curious if your A9 has ever just started to randomly focus with AF linked to the shutter button? I have had it happen on several occasions and wondered if maybe I was doing something wrong or not. I delinked AF from the shutter button and went to BBF, which appears to have solved my random issue. Makes me wonder if there is a slight sticking issue with my shutter button when 1/2 pressed for AF.
This might be far off base from your own issue but I thought this was happening to me a while back until I realized it was just my lower palm sometimes touching the vertical battery grip’s shutter and activating AF down there. Otherwise I haven’t experienced a sticky shutter button issue.
Ryan Mense interesting as I noticed it first when using the grip and just switched to BBF AF. Maybe I will try again as I do like the flexibility of AF+Shutter combo. Thanks
You might have "Pre-AF" enabled on the AF Menu
Thanks for sharing, gold! Have you ever used electronic shutter on the A7R III for birding? I know it's nowhere near as good as on the A9 and for BIF I guess it would most likely result in bending and other nasty side effects. But for perched birds maybe it could work?
I've used the silent shutter for ducks since they can be sensitive to noise in Wisconsin. As long as I'm not panning the camera around at the moment of capture it's fine.
some great information ryan are both your recall buttons set for the same scenario
I get that it might seem like they are. I could have done a better job of explaining the reason behind the first one: the AF-On button that simply switches to Wide AF area. So while my Center button changes a whole bunch of settings to get birds in flight without warning, the AF-On button customization is more for the times when I'm already at a high shutter speed or if I just want Wide for whatever reason that pops up. Whether that be I'm in stronger light already shooting at a high shutter speed regardless of how fast the subject is moving, or if I'm already targeting birds in flight with the Expanded Flex Spot but it's getting too erratic so I want to go with Wide, or something else. It's basically set up just as a time saver so I can have two different focus area options at any given time.
@@RyanMenseWildlife ok thanks for the clarity on this, think i prefer the other way around af /on set to bif default and centre to change to af wide ,as on my a7r3 i have to hold the button down to remain in the mode s set on recall and af/on i find the easier button to locate not sure if it works the same way on the a9.
thank you very much,
You are welcome!
Theres no person on earth who fits my personal preference more perfect than your shooting-preferences. We could be twins. ;) Also I learned more in this one video than on reading 5000 fucking reviews, manuals or any other shit on dpreview and how they're all called. Thanks man. :)
Great video. I already have a pretty good setup for my buttons but you gave me a few ideas for things to tweak. Think I might make the lens's focus hold button my oh crap button.
Yeah, and I also just ordered the 200-600. So excited! 😆
VERY helpful as I’m brushing up on my annual Bald Eagle gathering in Couer d’Alene, ID starting around Thanksgiving using my a9 & Sony 200-600. Seems like you skipped Shutter AWB Lock (tab 1 pg 12). What is advantage(s) of Cont. Shooting ? Thanks much. Please keep these coming…very kind of you to help us out!
If you have your white balance set to Auto, that setting means that the white balance the camera automatically chose will lock in after the first frame of a continuous shooting burst. This is in contrast to the white balance being recalculated for each individual frame. It could be helpful when batch editing so that there's consistency when applying adjustments across many photos. Otherwise, if you were panning from somewhere in the shade to somewhere with more sunlight and the white balance shifted, each individual frame would need a different level of color correction. I usually just have my white balance set in-camera to cloudy or shade because I like the warmer look while previewing photos in the viewfinder.
@@RyanMenseWildlife awesome advice.. thanks!
On an rII it's not possible to configure a custom button to change between crop and FF, right?
Hi, Ryan. Do you use Phase Detect Area (Tab 1, Page 8/15)? Thanks.
I have it set to On.
In my crop ZV-e10 cam GPEG in Extra Fine File size between 13 to. 20 MP. (Never 6 MP).
Is wildlife photography possible with the a7r ii? Is the autofocus good enough?
Probably, but I haven’t used that camera in many years and was more focused on landscapes at that time.
Have you considered focus register + AF-on for the AF-on button?
Yeah, that's something I do now that's tweaked from when I published this video.
@@RyanMenseWildlife Thanks both, would either of you mind going into a little detail about what this is and does specifically please? Thanks
Ah, btw, may I have one question? I read in a forum, that Shooting on Hi instead of Hi+ (on the a7r III) makes the AF much more reliable and you get a live-view while shooting, while on hi+ you just get a slideshow of the photos you took before. What do you use? And what is your personal experience? Is there really a noticable difference in AF-reliability? How important is the live-view for you personally? I just read this yesterday and wasn't out for testing it by myself.
I never used Hi+ on the a7R III because of that
@@RyanMenseWildlife ok. Thanks a lot. :) I always thought the faster the better because of this one particular moment we all want to catch :)
Hoping someone can help me: I'm shooting with a7riii and 200 600g lens. When in afc and using centre or flexible spot the focus area keeps jumping from the centre to the top right area of the screen. This means I have to keep resetting it with the joystick. No idea why this is happening. Any ideas?
Would these setting also be good for an A7iii?
It’s a good place to start I would think. I haven’t used that camera much though.
What shutter speed would you recommend for birds in flight ?
1/2000s is a good starting point I think
@@RyanMenseWildlife Thanks
2500 to 4000. All depends on situation
Why did you skip the single most usefull setting for BIF? (1/9/14 Spot metering Point - Focus Point link) 14:47
At what shutterspeed you turn off stabilisation?
I usually don't worry about it too much unless I'm panning and tilting the lens around. And if I'm doing that I'm probably above 1/1600s.
Ryan Mense thank you! Wil try it out
No need to take a raw and jpeg if you use “fast raw viewer” it shows the raw file not an imbedded jpeg almost instantly. I take 1000s of photos on a good day and it’s the best/fastest program for sorting/culling I’ve ever used and it only cost about £20
It is annoying how Sony JPG previews are so small. I found in Irfanview I can look at the full sized raw, but it takes forever to go through them lol. I do wish Sony would address the A7R IV + 200-600 combo, the tracking mode is way off. I've been using flexible spot with great results, but when I would zoom into the focused area when using tracking it was rarely on the bird in flight. The A9 nails it though. Maybe Sony just wants us buying multiple cameras lol!
Try fastrawviewer it’s really quick to view full sized raw files. I just started a 30 day free trial today and I’m already convinced to purchase a licence. I have it set up so that when viewing the files, one key press will copy the file to the desktop. Don’t even have to copy the entire memory card to the pc, just pick and copy over the possible keepers with the single key. Makes choosing from many similar shots so much easier.
To this day I cannot see a real difference between sony uncompressed vs. Compressed RAW. Personally I think they put it there because people complained but makes zero difference. I've heard of some landscape guys claiming banding but they pushing the hell out of the RAW files
Yeah, as someone who is comfortable in pushing the hell out of their raw files that is why I would recommend using uncompressed if the shooting speed doesn’t matter.
All I'm looking for are straight forward best fast settings for for BIF Ican set to a memory recall button I find this video to confusing with to indepth explainations sorry just my opinion