Category: Sony A7s Guide

In this lesson we’ll go over the features available and not available on the Sony A7s via HDMI. HDMI – what’s available? To access the HDMI option, head over to the menu – Setup > Page 3: There are two options: HDMI Settings – this has all the settings HDMI 4K Output – only available […]

The Sony A7s has a built-in microphone and built-in speakers, both of which I wouldn’t use even for home movies (are you going to subject your loved ones to terrible audio?). But it is useful for one thing, as we shall see. The camera has two ports for audio: 3.5mm stereo jack for a microphone, […]

The Sony A7s has unexplored features for multi-cam editing: Until I have further information, I’m not going into details here. Just for starters: TC refers to timecode. UB refers to User Bits. It is eight digits in the hexadecimel system written asXX:XX:XX:XX. The cool thing is you can assign values yourself to this. E.g., in […]

Here’s a cool ready to print (Paper size: A3+) infographic on everything we’ve looked at so far – on folder management, LUTs, backups, dailies and transcoding (click to enlarge or right-click and Save as…):

Please watch the review of Catalyst Browse before you watch this quick tutorial: Download Video Important: Sony’s free Catalyst Browse software product is currently not capable of batch transcoding of XAVC-S. It can only transcode one clip at a time. Ian Cook from Sony Broadcast and Professional Services posted a short message on the Avid forum stating that he was […]

Sony Catalyst Browse is a free software available for Macs and PCs. Here’s my review (version 1.0.2): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSXLGQJ96Bs Important: Sony’s free Catalyst Browse software product is currently not capable of batch transcoding of XAVC-S. It can only transcode one clip at a time. Ian Cook from Sony Broadcast and Professional Services posted a short message on the Avid […]

In this lesson I’ll walk you through the file organization and metadata capabilities of the Sony A7s. SD Card folder structure The A7s records stills, AVCHD, MP4 and XAVC S. Each has its own folder path. This is what it looks like: And here’s the exploded view: The Yellow folder, DCIM, is for stills. You […]

Here are the recording options available in the Sony A7s: Res. PAL NTSC Codec Data Rate Mbps Wrapper 1080p 24p, 25p, 50p 24p, 30p, 60p XAVC S 50 MP4 50p 60p AVCHD 28 MP4 25p, 50i 24p, 60i AVCHD 24 MP4 25p, 50i 24p, 60i AVCHD 17 MP4 720p 100p 120p XAVC S 50 MP4 […]

Many have reported the dreaded blue clipping problem that occurs specifically with LED lights (doesn’t have to be blue LEDs), in which the blue channel “clips” to an ugly blue color. This doesn’t happen with all LED lights, but just a few specific types. First, watch this super-quick video to see what’s happening: Explanations RGB […]

If all the picture profile tests were a bit too much, then this lesson will simplify it. Of course, it goes without saying that this exposure cheat sheet is based on my interpretations, some of which are heavily subjective. But it’s a good place to start, if that’s what you want. Don’t hold me responsible! […]