Sony A7RIV Tutorial?

[Dave Gurtcheff]

Greetings all:
I am moving from an A7RII to A7RIV. The new camera is due to be shipped Friday. Can anyone suggest a tutorial or third party book? I am 83 and learning to use a new camera has been a bit of a struggle lately. I also use a Fuji GFX 50R which I have now had for a year and a half, and still screw things up from time to time. The Fuji book does not even have an index. If anyone out there made a similar switch, are the two camera operations similar? Any glaring operational differences? I have an oversized eye cup, and hopefully it can be swapped with the new camera. I also have a Kirk quick release plate (NOT an L bracket), and I assume it will not fit. Using the GFX 50R and Fuji lenses lately, I must say the combination produces the sharpest and best images I have ever made in all my years in photography. It produces stunning 24"x32" prints. I am hoping the A7RIV will come close. But I know that also involves the highest quality lenses, and I am not sure my Sony and Zeiss lenses are up to it.
TIA
Dave in NJ

[MDL_SD]

Dave
I moved from an A7II to the A7RIV and am in love with the new camera.  It is slightly larger and the dials are also larger making it more comfortable to use.  The joystick on the rear is really nice to have (I use it to position the focus point and also to control back button focus). 

No comment on your Kirk plate, but I can tell you that I bought a Really Right Stuff L plate and really like it.  I use the full size plate so that the camera is a bit taller, again making it more comfortable to hold. 

Here is a link to a Tony Northrup video on setting up the camera that I found useful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiY7rwq0i00.  I also found this video to be useful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsmZVopNqxA#action=share. 

I shoot landscapes and don't utilize focus tracking or continuous shooting.

The first lens I bought, and the one I use most is the Sony 24-105 f4 G.  It is really wonderful to use and has produced sharp, pleasing images.  I recently bought the Sony 16-35 f2.8 GM and have not used it enough to really comment.  When shooting test images it seemed sharp.  My understandning is that the 16-35 f2.8 can have substantial lens to lens variability with some copies having significant softening on one side or the other.

You will probably really like your RIV.

[Dave Gurtcheff]

Thank you very much. I will check out the links you supplied. I do have the 24-105 lens and I have not yet tried blowing up anything larger than 13"x19' with that lens yet. I have the f4 version of the 16-35mm. It is sharp at the 16mm end (supporting 20"x30" prints, but at 35mm not as good, but certainly useable unless you put your nose on a big print).
Thanks again
Dave

[sbay]

I also moved from the r2 to the r4. I have mine setup pretty much the same and works more or less the same. I just do landscapes so there might be some differences in AF modes and how they handle.

Some things to be aware:

• You have the option of putting more functions on custom buttons and quick menu. There is also a custom menu (My Menu) that I put stuff like LENR, format card, etc on
• There are no apps but they added a built in intervalometer (30s max exposure). Goodbye to smooth reflections :-(
• There's a built in pixel shift but I've not used it for landscapes beyond just a few test shots. Definitely can result in artifacts.
• The dual gain kicks in at 320 instead of 640 ISO.
• There's a dedicated AF-on button. No going through contortions to get back button af. You can also use touch screen to set AF points.
• There's a bluetooth remote which also can control focus. Some people use this for semi automatic focus stacking

Re tutorials, Mark Galer has a long video on YouTube about setting up the a7R4.

[kers]

maybe a fuji to sony converter exists?  Or even better a shift-converter.
That would eliminate  the lens quality problem at low cost.

[Eric Brody]

Mark Galer, at markgaler.com is an excellent Sony resource with lots of how to articles and some really helpful videos. When I got my A7RIII, his settings guide was really helpful.

Good luck with your RIV, I love mine.

[gchappel]

I am also an old fart that moved from nikon to the sony a7r1v about 9months ago. 
The transition was not easy, and I found the sony menu system to be awful.  I just about threw the camera into the lake several times. 
Mark Galers videos, and book, were very helpful. 
What I ended up doing, which actually worked, was to just go shoot.   This is still just a camera.  I put everything in manual, and just went and shot.
Each time out I added a couple of settings that would make things easier, and slowly things fell into place.   Now everything makes sense, although I am still molding the system a little.  With everything being programmable, you can get this thing to do anything you want, you just have to know what you want it to do.
Gary

[mcbroomf]

I strongly recommend that you set up the Fn menu (the button above the rear dial) to settings that you will (over time) find you need to change frequently.  When pressed it brings up 2 rows of 6 menu settings (ie 12 in all) in the EVF or LCD that you can change to most things in the menu, ie you do not then have to dive into the menu to access and change them.  This together with changing button settings keeps you out of the menu for the most part.  I'd also watch carefully where your fingers rest on the camera.  I've had setting "change" unexpectedly on me and realized that I had a setting on the rear dial that I was nudging occasionally as I picked up the camera.  I've now set the rear dial to nothing which suits me better.