Sony a7II, Sony a7sII and Sony a7rII – Firmware Update Request (by Photochirp)

The following is a Guest Post from Photochirp. To write a guest post on SAR follow the instruction on that page.

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The Sony a7rII is a great camera and I am mostly satisfied with it. There are a few things I would like to be implemented or changed but most of those things exist within a software update and not necessarily a hardware update (of course, I would like dual card slots). I’m not sure how to get the communities support on this, but please let me know what you think of these ideas.

Sony a7rII Specific Firmware Improvements For The Sony a7rII 3.30 Firmware Update

• The battery drains after a while even if the camera is not in use or switched on
• Crop mode should be easier to access, perhaps as part of the quick menu so that it can be quickly enabled for videos
• Video mode crop mode should be separate from photography crop mode, therefore videographers don’t have to continuously change this when taking photographs or making videos ~ This is an extremely important feature for the Sony a7rII
• Lossless compressed raw should be an additional option for the RAW file format ~ Lossy compressed is lossy and uncompressed creates incredibly large files

Sony a7II, Sony a7sII and Sony a7rII General Firmware Improvements

• Better manual focus options ~ manual focus should have the option to go straight to full zoom when you rotate the lens, and there should also be the option to only magnify a portion of the frame e.g. a small, 10x square around the selected focus point or focus area. This would allow you to compose the shot while focusing ~ I believe this is important and would improve the manual focus experience with the Sony a7II, Sony a7sII and the Sony a7rII considerably
• Spot meter should be able to meter the focus point instead of just a point in the centre of the frame, in other words, interlock the focus point with spot focus
• A customizable video menu should allow duplicates of what’s in the stills menu, this would allow people to create their own menu system in an order that did not irritate them
• Facial recognition software should be put to better use for manual focusing, for example, it could automatically move the focus point to the subjects face and when you turn the focus ring, it magnifies around that area ~ This feature is fairly unimportant
• The option to disable electronic first curtain shutter automatically with speeds above 1/1000 of a second. This would help to avoid situations where banding can potentially exist ~ This feature is important as if is annyoing having to disable EFCS (electronic first curtain shutter) with the Sony a7II, Sony a7sII and the Sony a7rII
• Live histogram and zebra stripes should relate to the raw file and not the JPG settings
• Live histogram should be adjustable so that it can display red, green or blue, and not just luminance
• Maximum exposure length should be customizeable like auto ISO, for example, you should be able to have a maximum of 1 minute instead of 30 seconds
• Save settings from the “gear” menu to the custom function settings i.e. “C1” should remember setting-effect has been set to “off” while “C2” remembers setting-effect has been set to “on”
• Customizeable PASM dial, so “P” can become “C3” or whatever you want it to be

Sony a7II, Sony a7sII and Sony a7rII Wi-Fi Firmware Improvements and App Requests

• Send to phone using a network connection already available i.e. connecting to a router, instead of having to create a new network and disconnecting the old network
• An FTP, dropbox and an instagram app, and they should not require you to type in a password each time you use them