Cody: “My wishes for the A7RIII and beyond.”

SAR reader Cody shared his wishes

To the Sony Imaging department:

​
My wishes for the A7RIII and beyond.

Problems to FIX
-Fix control dial lag, and all other lag! I feel like I’m using an 8 year old android phone. NO other camera on the market has lag like Sony cameras.
-Embed larger JPEG in RAW! Programs like Photo Mechanic need this! The only way to get around this is to shoot RAW + JPEG which I’d rather not have to do at all times.
-Fix the problem that we can’t change minor settings like drive speed or silent shooting when the camera is buffering.
-When changing some settings in menu, the camera jumps out to the shooting menu interface where that setting also resides. Then when you change the setting and hit ok, you have to go back into the menu again… Leave the setting in MENU while “in” the menu.
-When focus hold button or back button focus is used, don’t continue to show image preview after photo is taken! You can’t see anything except the image preview. Keep live view running when half pressing shutter.
-When using the setting to remember focus point by orientation – there is huge lag when flipping from landscape to portrait or the other way around! It makes it completely unusable in an action or wedding environment. Fix it. This is one thing that I was super excited to finally see on the mk III but it’s poorly implemented
-There is a lag when shooting continuous focus. It’s tiny, but it’s there and the only way I’ve found to take care of a little bit of the lag is to turn the setting from balanced to release in focus setting.

Things to ADD via firmware
-PLEASE add 4×3 and other ratios! Does every other camera and phone do this? Come on Sony! Nikon just added 4×3 in the d850 and the viewfinder even blacks out the side bars! That’s pretty amazing. With an EVF this would be such an easy change. Fix it
-The exposure scale in the viewfinder should go from -3 to +3 or more! It’s just grayed out? Why? Cameras like the Fuji GFX go from -5 to +5 and it’s really helpful in some environments, especially when shooting with flash when the camera is no longer showing true exposure.
-Skip over grayed out items in settings! If I change focus area, why do I have to click over every grayed out area? It’s a waste of time. Maybe studio people don’t care? Did you build this camera to live on a tripod? Also allow all settings to be changes in the menu! Why do you gray out settings just because you are not shooting in that mode right then? Freaking ridiculous
-PLEASE add focus tracking for whatever size focus area I’m shooting with! On Nikon d850, when shooting 3D tracking, if you have only one point selected, the camera tracks only that one point. I don’t want to be distracted by a giant green ever-changing rectangle! Keep the focus point size!
-Allow the focus point rectangle to be completely customizable. On Fuji cameras, when selecting focus point, you can turn a dial to make the point larger or smaller. Do something like this!
-Add an intervelometer for people who want it.
-Please add the ability to add continuous focus TOGGLE to a custom button. If I’m shooting single focus and then a bride is walking, I want a button to toggle continuous focus. This can be done on Canon 5D and I love it.
-Add auto review of 1 second and also .5 seconds in menu. Fuji GFX does this and it makes auto review in EVF great. I can see if someone blinked in .5 seconds and then preview is gone.
-Add ability to have auto review on LCD ONLY. So it would act more like an OVF camera. For instance – when shooting, auto review wouldn’t show in EVF but if I pull my eye away from the finder, the auto review is on the LCD. This is how Canon and Nikon and everything else functions without an EVF. Make this an option.
-Please add the ability to remove things from the finder. On Fuji GFX you can literally add or take out everything and have a blank slate if you want, or show just aperture and shutter speed, or battery life… Whatever. It’s a beautiful thing.

Things to add in next body
-Add a bloody top plate OLED! Fuji implemented this beautifully in the GFX
-Add a second processor? Why in the crap is there still lag in these cameras!?!?!? You can process 10 42megapixel images a second and throw them onto an SD card, but you can’t make a dial respond instantly?
-Add an ISO Dial?
-Move to XQD for rIIII and a9II?
-Make opening to EVF LARGER!! EVF is gorgeous, but when shooting with glasses on, I can’t see the edges of the frame! What the heck?

Just some last comments
Sony – You are now competing with the big boys and probably taking them over. Canon will die soon if they don’t change. You have done some amazing things in the last few years, but you need to do better. The A7R series has been priced with Canon 5D and Nikon 800 series since the start, but it hasn’t had all the pro features. With the release of the A7RIII, it finally has dual cards and better features to be able to compete and surpass many other cameras, but please pick up a d850, 5DIV maybe a GFX, and who knows maybe a Pentax camera, find what makes them great, and add everything they do only better. Fix the lag. Also know that you are now selling to potential professional shooters that have been shooting for a decade or many decades. Fix the menus. Know your customer. This isn’t someone buying an NEX 3 years ago! Make the menus and features pro. Don’t be afraid to add more defined settings. Heck add a setting to switch to basic mode for the random parent who buys it to shoot their kids. But make the default mode ready for a working pro to pick up the camera and customize every single piece of the thing.
Don’t be afraid to take over the camera market. Don’t be afraid to step on Nikon and Canon’s toes. Just make the best camera that has ever been made and be proud of it and then dominate. You have the ability to do this but you keep making these incremental baby steps, as if you are scared to annihilate the other guys.

Be a company who takes care of their customers with great service and firmware updates. People love fuji for this. Do the same. Don’t be some distant robot that doesn’t listen to people.

I have been shooting weddings full time for close to a decade. I started on Sony, then switched to Canon when Sony service badly failed us. Now I fully shoot Sony again but with all Canon glass. I love the cameras but I also put up with things that many pros just wont. I Also shoot the Fuji GFX which is bloody amazing but lacks a good fast standard so that makes it hard for weddings. I love you as a company but these things need to change and then who knows, in 3 years, you just may be the top dog. People don’t laugh at Sony anymore, but the majority of pros still aren’t ready to mess with a system that just has too may problems to put their full trust in. My all time favorite camera was the Sony a850. It had the best feel. The shutter was amazing, the interface was good if I remember correctly, the viewfinder was one for the history books, and it just had a glorious analog feel to it. Bring back a little bit of that Minolta history and feel and breathe a little “life” into the somewhat lifeless robotic a7 series. That will make Sony great.

Cody
Hunter Ryan Photo
http://hunterryanphoto.com
https://www.instagram.com/hunterryanphoto
https://www.instagram.com/codyhunterphotography