Sony a7 IV: Pocket Guide

1 review for Sony a7 IV: Pocket Guide

1. 

   wepsphoto January 28, 2023

   When I started shooting pictures in the 1970’s, cameras were quite simple. The bodies had buttons to open the film compartment, disengage lenses for changing, and firing the shutter button. There were dials for ISO, aperture, shutter speed, and focusing the lens (which used to be the photographer’s job). That was just about all you needed to know about the controls of the camera.

   Today there are still buttons and dials but now they lead to scores of screens which allow perhaps too much control of virtually every camera function and subfunction imaginable. Few photographers will ever use all of the options presented, but being able to find the ones that you do want to utilize is a challenge when you purchase a new camera body. Sony’s amazing cameras are often criticized for their hard-to-comprehend menu systems, even the newer version featured in the A7IV. But there is simply no way to logically lay out such a vast number of options and controls onto a 3” screen to make operation intuitive.

   To help to learn this camera, Rocky Nook offers the Sony A7IV Pocket Guide, a pocketable reference to this recent Sony body.

   The guide begins with labeled images on the camera from all angles, identifying the physical controls found on the body and then identifies the data that can be viewed on the displays in various modes. The latter is quite helpful since some data is quite cryptic to the novice Sony shooter.

   The guide then explores shooting, drive, focus and exposure modes, as well as white balance and file format controls. Deeper menu items including custom white balance, noise reduction and bracketing controls are identified and the guide wraps up with Typical Shooting Scenarios, tips for portrait, landscape, low light and action scenes.

   It’s important to know what this guide does not do- it is not an instruction manual on using the camera; rather, it provides a map to guide access to functionality for the user seeking controls on an unfamiliar tool. And it does this quite successfully- it’s simple to learn your way around, but there’s an assumption that you know what you’re trying to do and how you’ll do it. But for truly learning to use the camera, David Busch’s Sony A7IV Guide to Digital Photography would be a more appropriate read.

   There are two areas that could be improved. The first is the identification of Customizable buttons. The guide makes no mention of the default functions, which makes sense since the individual user will likely change the presets. But it would be wonderful to have a section of recommended settings based on the photographer’s type of work. Replacing the blank Notes page at the end of the guide with a Customized Buttons one that could be personalized would be perfect.

   Additionally, the complex menu system is only explained for the few functions that are featured in the guide- it would have been helpful to have a visual map that outlined the entire menu system that could then be highlighted by the photographer for those times when quick access to controls is needed amongst the plethora of options.

   But the Sony A7IV Pocket Guide is still quite valuable, especially to anyone new to the Sony system.