A7 / A7R custom buttons for B&W

[Myrk-]

Hi guys,

New to the forum, just got myself an A7 the other week - first digital camera I have ever bought! (Hate big SLR digital cameras, been sticking with my old SLR all this time!). Anyway I have an issue - I love these custom buttons on the A7, but I feel that only half the full thought went into them, or maybe I'm missing something?

My ideal situation would be to hit C3 and the camera turns to B&W shooting mode. Currently the best I can get is going to some picture effect menu, where I then have to scroll down to High contrast B&W... not exactly what I'm after, and quite tedious to flick between. Does the A7 do a straight up B&W mode? Is there an instant flick switch for this?

Any ideas? Or worth prodding Sony to include a more specific picture effect selection on the custom buttons in a future firmware update. Anyone who suggests "turn it B&W in photoshop" please hit yourself with a stick :lecture:

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

You can make one of the custom settings on the top dial into B&W. That said using a camera like that in jpg mode and not raw is a very big waste. The control over conversion which can be had when doing it on computer is far far better.

 

[Cindy Flood]

If you set it up to shoot raw and jpeg and then put creative style on black and white, you will get a black and white jpeg, your review will be in black and white, and you still have the raw to work on, too. This could be saved to a custom setting on top.

 

[Myrk-]

Legends guys! Works fantastic using the top wheel. And the shooting with RAW and Jpg (but using the jpg for preview) is just even more of a bonus I have even noticed the time to display images on the back screen is actually faster on RAW+JPG than it was on JPG or RAW mode (how weird...)

Have to say though I don't know what Sony were smoking when they developed the memory setting... Seems you have to make your adjustments in manual mode, then go to menu -> memory, and click in the accept button to save it over that memory setting, but you never get a confirmation or anything to acknowledge whether it did what you asked or not. Strange.

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

Yeah confirmation would be nice. I would also love the ability to save some of the other settings other than just shooting mode, shooting settings and picture styles. I've got my custom setting 2 on the wheel set up for studio 1/125 iso 100 but I can't save the setting to not show exposure settings in the viewfinder so that everything isn't black. Annoying.

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

Just realised that you don't get B&W in the viewfinder when shooting with the 'Live view display' set to off (i.e. for studio). I use the B&W to help me with peaking. Was a real nuisance today. I got far too many out of focus for a portrait shoot.

 

[jfzander]

Legends guys! Works fantastic using the top wheel. And the shooting with RAW and Jpg (but using the jpg for preview) is just even more of a bonus I have even noticed the time to display images on the back screen is actually faster on RAW+JPG than it was on JPG or RAW mode (how weird...)

Have to say though I don't know what Sony were smoking when they developed the memory setting... Seems you have to make your adjustments in manual mode, then go to menu -> memory, and click in the accept button to save it over that memory setting, but you never get a confirmation or anything to acknowledge whether it did what you asked or not. Strange.

No, just use the mode, change the setting and save it again.