There is no doubt that Sony cameras are some of most advanced on the market, but with those advanced capabilities come some very intricate and complex menus that can be a bit difficult to navigate. This great video tutorial will show you every item in the Sony menu system, including what it does and how you can customize it to your liking.
Coming to you from Potato Jet, this excellent video will show you the meaning and purpose of every item and option in the Sony camera menu system. I personally love my a7R III, but if I could pick one thing to change about it, it would definitely be the menu system. Nonetheless, once you get past its initial difficulties, it offers a huge range of capabilities and customizations that can make your workflow far easier and enable new capabilities; thus, it is well worth taking the time to get to know it. The great thing about Sony cameras is that they generally leave you a lot of room to customize the functions by mapping them to the device's buttons. I suggest taking the time to map your most common settings and functions to these buttons, as it will save you a lot of time searching the menus and make your shooting workflow more efficient. Check out the video above for the full rundown.
The menu is fine. Setup the “my menu” function with the 15-20 functions you frequently access and there is generally no need to fiddle with the rest of the menu after that.
I have no problems with the Sony menu system. Just take the time to become familiar with it which most detractors don't.
You must be kidding! 48+ minutes video to demonstrate menu system? Who in a sound mind will watch some potato head video for something that takes no time to find in a manual?
Some Youtubers are desperate for that precious ad revenue.
I have shot with the Sony system since their first camera and I still find it overwhelming. That being said, I used cameras of friends (Canon, Nikon and Fuji) and found just as confusing as the Sony system.
I’ve has Sony for 4 years or so, moving from Canon, and have A7R3 and A7R2. Ive always thought the issue over its confusing menu system was nothing more than hysterical hype. You buy a camera you set it up after taking it out the box. All the need to use features and settings are a thumb stab away. In addition it’s so customisable that if you wish to use it for different situations....no problem.
I tried to help a friend out one day who had an XT2...... I was totally stumped, not because it had a bad menu system, but because I wasn’t familiar with it. You spend a couple of K on a camera you expect it to have features, if it has features you have to invest some time learning them, regardless of the badge on the camera.
Sony fanboys be like
I don't get why people find these menu systems confusing. I shoot Canon, Nikon and Sony and all of these cameras have deep menu items. They are that way b/c they are very customizable. Probably some of the same people complaining about the menu system are the very same people wanting every feature imaginable in a camera. LOL Just lean how to set up the Function keys for the things you use the most and be happy.
Nikon's menus are also abysmal. I find Canon and Panasonic much easier to configure. I do event work with Panasonic and Sony.
I agree that Canon's seems to be the easiest to navigate, but there's still lots of menus an items to choose from. It's just the nature of the beast with all the options available for customization.
I think "It's just the nature of the beast" is an oversimplification. There are substantial differences in the various cameras' menu systems that make some easier to use than others. Sony's menus are not just wide and deep, but also convoluted, with unexpected interactions among settings and anachronistic duplication within AF options.
Anytime you get anything with a menu it takes time to figure it out. Went from Nikon to Sony but remember when I got my first Nikon the menu was abysmal.
The menus on my colleague's D750 ARE abysmal, and he's thought so, too, over the years he's had it. He's shot Nikon for about 30 years.
The menu system on Sony's aren't the problem, it's the god awful firmware updating process that needs to be updated! I love my a7R IV but after shooting Canon for 10 years the ease of updating the camera firmware might be one of the biggest things I miss.
Just curious what is so awful about Sony update? Download software, start updater, connect USB, follow the steps. How difficult is it? How Canon is so much easier?
The camera's USB settings have to be set correctly, you have to click through the updater tools to get things going, the camera has to be connected via USB, the update process takes some time... I'm not saying it's the hardest task in the world but Canon's update process of just dropping the firmware onto a card and updating it internally from there feels more polished to me.
I have never had any trouble with the updating. It couldn't be any easier.