Sony a7iv Gotchas
Backstory
You can skip this if you want but this is my first post of this kind so I'd like to explain how I got into this.
After moving to Japan, I've gotten big into photography and digital cinematography; an early passion of mine even predating my home digital audio recording venture that I started in Los Angeles. It's all very expensive and I had to pick one, so I picked music. I'm still into music but after releasing records, making a few videos and doing a few memorable live sets at places like The Mint and even Whisky-a-Go-Go but to limited success (even at an "indie" level), I decided to capitalize on the fact that Japan--in my opinion--is the most beautiful country in the world, whether it's the natural landscape, architectural and engineering marvels including the train networks or whatever else.
I started getting (back) into photography soon after the 2020s started, a fortuitous thing because 20 years prior, the world's best digital cameras were worth thousands of dollars and even just one good lens could set you back hundreds of dollars. Many of the professional cameras and lenses first released 15 years ago are still--even by today's standards--produce beautiful photos, and yet because they're older and used (and now so-called "mirrorless" cameras have been introduced, and so the older DSLR line is less in-demand), these cameras costs many hundreds less than they used to, and the lenses also end up costing less.
It wasn't easy dealing with eBay bidding and you might get a bad product a time or two (with fungus being a particular risk in buying used lenses) but in the end, I made out like a bandit, and now have a beautiful collection of marvelous Canon lenses thanks especially to some shops in Japan I found on eBay while I was still in the US. And I prefer DSLR because I love having an optical view through the lens of what I'm shooting. The only time I depend on the LCD is when doing video.
Video is much more complex to work with than still photography but there are just some subject matter where you really want to shoot video. While I started collecting Canon EOS cameras capable of shooting HD, I decided I wanted to shoot 4K and invested in a Canon EOS 850D, and it's beautiful, except in practice, I ran into issues trying to use DSLR lenses in a video application.
Electronically adjusting the aperture isn't a great inconvenience, but though I tried as much as possible to practice and improve my technique in handling the zoom and focus rings to try and smooth out zooms and keep everything in focus, I never got over it and ultimately began to investigate cine lenses.
Cine lenses differ from photography lenses in a few ways:
Lenses made this way are absolutely far more expensive than typical DSLR lenses as you might expect; there are "re-housed" lenses that are DLSR lenses put in different casing to offer some of the features (mainly an improved focus ring) but I felt a great sense of peace of mind if using lenses that were always meant to be used for cinematography.
But given the cost, I struggled with trying to be "OK" with prime cine lenses... Should I forget about zoom and get into gimbals, put together a rig that it can weight-balance? Which focal length do I want to be trapped using for everything? Maybe I can just rent the lens since I don't shoot that much? But what about practice and getting comfortable with the gear?
I watched countless YouTube videos and spent a bunch of time searching and reading about my options but I never found out about the lens I wanted to use until I started seriously considering renting. Near Tokyo, the shops primarily rent on the Sony system, which is E-Mount (not EF or EF-S mount like the Canon system that I've invested in). Here, I discovered a magnificent lens.
Made in Japan, the Fujinon MK18-55 is available (and MKX18-55 for Fuji-mount camera bodies) is a par-focal T2.9 cine lens often found in ENG (Electronic News Gathering) camera rigs. The rental option was very affordable, as were the range of Sony cameras, but then one day, I found a used unit in good condition at a remarkable price. I decided, well, this is my main creative activity from now on, and if I want to be happy with the video I spend lots of money on talent and locations to shoot, I better get a lens that lets me work without producing disappointing footage. And from there, I made my purchase.
And yes, since I didn't have an E-Mount camera, I went with the most popular, most popular camera for this, the a7iii from the Sony Alpha-series camera line.
After shooting exclusively Canon-only cameras since 1998, the a7iii became the first Sony camera I would use for video since a Digital8 camcorder I picked up in 2002 and it took some getting used to. I have always loved and even preferred the look of Canon color science above the footage I've seen from either Panasonic or Sony (all three Japanese brands). Cine Canon cameras and lenses are expensive to the point of being mind boggling, so I was never going to go in that direction as someone just getting started and doing this basically for free, and the a7iii is perhaps the most popular camera of its kind, in its price range. But I had some problems.
Why the a7iv upgrade
Attending class at U of Tube
While preparing to shoot an image video in downtown Tokyo, I saw countless videos talking about how to set this camera up to look as much like film as possible, changing the Picture Profile and making sure to use things like S-Log II, etc. When I got back my footage from that day, I thought I destroyed my shoot. Basically everything was yellow, the highlights were blown out, color fluctuations, exposure fluctuations, etc. I tried to use LUTs (look-up tables) to fix it among many other things, but compared to my clean, beautiful Canon 850D 4K footage, the video that came off the Sony a7iii looked simply awful.
I found a way to make the footage look acceptable, especially since I had the presence of mind to buy and use a clapboard with a color check bar. With that, I was able to set the white balance and fix the red, green and blue as well, which cleaned up the footage very nicely. But it was a lot of work and I still wondered what had happened.
It turns out that, unless you want to (or need to) "color grade" (color correct) your video (usually necessary for paid projects, for what it's worth), the factory default color recorded on Sony a7iii cameras is actually perfect. But I still had two more problems...
Display Language Shock
I bought the a7iii used from amazon.co.jp. Sony does many weird things and one of them is that: if the camera you bought was made and sold for markets outside of Japan, the camera could be configured to display its screens and menus in English, Spanish, French and Chinese but not Japanese. Inversely, cameras made and sold for the Japanese market display its screens and menus in Japanese, and no other language. It's not possible (and it's ill-advised to try) to "root kit" your camera's firmware to force it to support multiple languages. What expats from Japan were supposed to do with a non-Japanese camera bought in America, or what English-speaking expats are supposed to do with cameras bought in Japan that offer no English, I have no idea.
4:2:0 8-bit color depth
Simply put, there is more color data with 4:2:2 sampling than with 4:2:0, expanding the options available to a colorist/color editor working in post-production. More importantly, though only 2-bits, there's an exponential difference between 8-bit and 10-bit color.
While the 8-bit system can produce over 16 Million colors (like the JPEG standard that has been around since the early 1990s), 10-bit video is capable of reproducing over 1 Billion different colors. One of most obvious situations in which this 625% increase in color definition represents itself is in the blue sky. In a 16.7 million color system, you see "color banding" or visible borders between the different shades of blue across the gradation of the sky.
An example of color banding:
With greater bit-depth, the sky looks more natural:
Hollywood feature films, which are now mostly digitally filmed on the DCI 4K standard (4096x2160 resolution vs UHD 4K of 3840x2160) are 10-bit with 4:4:4 subsampling (normally down-converted from 6K or even 8K for the highest quality possible). The new Panavision, ARRI and RED cameras shooting at these standards are worth tens of thousands of dollars, as are the digital editing suites with enough CPU and GPU power to do editing at such high resolutions. Because this footage are meant to be projected on screens that are 30x50 feet (or 10x15 meters), so you need the resolution. My videos are meant to be watched on home TV screens, laptops, tablets or perhaps even smartphones, for which the color provided by the Sony a7iv is more than adequate.
Even though the a7iii was technically good enough even at 8-bit 4:2:0, I really didn't want to cope with the menu display language problem in addition to this.
The a7iv
I finally decided that I would sell the a7iii and use part of the money to pay for the a7iv. Indeed, there is quite a lot about this camera that I really do enjoy:
This camera, roughly ~$2,750 USD produces video footage at a quality level consistent with $30,000 cameras being made in 2008, but there are still much more expensive cameras being made, sold and use, including those made by Sony because those are intended to be no-compromise, highly-flexible, high-endurance workhorses used professionally for 10-15 hours per day, hundreds of days per year. Whether for in-the-field news camera or studio cameras for use in broadcast and film production, you simply cannot have any issues at all as time is (lots) of money... Locations rented by the hour, crew being paid by the hour, the cast or other talent, etc.
Then there is the cost of manufacturing a device. Even at a little less than $3,000, there is only so much that it can do without having to make some sacrifices.
So what kinds of issues can you face with the a7iv?
As simple (and silly) as it sounds, simply opening up all of the camera body doors (except for the battery and memory doors of course) helps dissipate some heat.
Perhaps the most effective thing was to keep the LCD screen away from the camera body, and face the camera toward yourself from the left side of the camera.
One benefit is that the screen isn't further heating up the camera body, but the bigger benefit is that there is nothing covering up the panel on the camera body where it is generating the most heat.
The heat on the inside of the panel is not getting trapped on the outside of that panel so in a test, I let my 32 GB card fill up recording video of the wall, which took about 35 minutes. The video recorded until the card was exhausted without the camera shutting down or warning about excessive heat
In a hotter setting such as outdoors, it may still be necessary to use a fan, which is less than ideal:
My strategy for limiting the risk of overheating also includes limiting the load on the processor through the use of an energy-efficient configuration.
I hear that the Sony FX3 (an outstanding camera with similar capabilities) has internal fans that limit the risk of overheating, so perhaps I'll sell this one and try to find a used FX3 if it becomes enough of an issue.
Conclusion
Had Fujinon developed an EF mount for the MK18-55 lens, I'd have continued happily using my Canon 850D, which is already an APS-C size sensor (the kind this lens was built for). There are many small things about the Sony system that I don't like, and now with this overheating risk hanging over my head, I can't say I'm impressed with the product experience decisions that were made. However, for the money, it's hard to complain and the video quality itself is as good as it gets without actually using a 16mm or 35mm ARRI camera with Zeiss cine lenses.
If I had have insisted on a Canon-only system, a slightly used Honda Civic would have been only a tiny bit more expensive than a Cine Canon and Lens kit. Canon gear is outstanding so it's worth it and not at all over-priced; just beyond my current budget.
You can skip this if you want but this is my first post of this kind so I'd like to explain how I got into this.
After moving to Japan, I've gotten big into photography and digital cinematography; an early passion of mine even predating my home digital audio recording venture that I started in Los Angeles. It's all very expensive and I had to pick one, so I picked music. I'm still into music but after releasing records, making a few videos and doing a few memorable live sets at places like The Mint and even Whisky-a-Go-Go but to limited success (even at an "indie" level), I decided to capitalize on the fact that Japan--in my opinion--is the most beautiful country in the world, whether it's the natural landscape, architectural and engineering marvels including the train networks or whatever else.
I started getting (back) into photography soon after the 2020s started, a fortuitous thing because 20 years prior, the world's best digital cameras were worth thousands of dollars and even just one good lens could set you back hundreds of dollars. Many of the professional cameras and lenses first released 15 years ago are still--even by today's standards--produce beautiful photos, and yet because they're older and used (and now so-called "mirrorless" cameras have been introduced, and so the older DSLR line is less in-demand), these cameras costs many hundreds less than they used to, and the lenses also end up costing less.
It wasn't easy dealing with eBay bidding and you might get a bad product a time or two (with fungus being a particular risk in buying used lenses) but in the end, I made out like a bandit, and now have a beautiful collection of marvelous Canon lenses thanks especially to some shops in Japan I found on eBay while I was still in the US. And I prefer DSLR because I love having an optical view through the lens of what I'm shooting. The only time I depend on the LCD is when doing video.
Video is much more complex to work with than still photography but there are just some subject matter where you really want to shoot video. While I started collecting Canon EOS cameras capable of shooting HD, I decided I wanted to shoot 4K and invested in a Canon EOS 850D, and it's beautiful, except in practice, I ran into issues trying to use DSLR lenses in a video application.
- Zoom-caused Focus loss: If you want to pull focus manually, you will be busy struggling to keep things in focus if you zoom in or out
- Infinite focus ring turn: Though there is a beginning and end range with which a lens can focus, most DSLR lenses will let you turn the focus ring in perpetuity, which makes it very difficult to pull focus without looking at the focus ring
- Zoom rings aren't usually geared: Some DSLR lenses do not have the smoothest zoom ring travel, resulting in an unprofessional-looking jerkiness when zooming in or out
- Only prime lenses are all that "fast": The maximum opening (aperture) on affordable DLSR zoom lenses (focal lengths like 18-55mm or 24-70mm, etc.) can be as much as f/5.6, which is very dark in all but the brightest of shooting situations; only "prime" lenses (non-zoom) in the 40mm, 50mm or 85mm focal lengths can get down to f/1.8. You can make up for less light reaching the CMOS sensor by using higher ISO (more gain) on the sensor, however this also introduces "noise," which kind of looks like film grain but it's not nearly as aesthetically pleasing, and introduces color "weirdness"
Electronically adjusting the aperture isn't a great inconvenience, but though I tried as much as possible to practice and improve my technique in handling the zoom and focus rings to try and smooth out zooms and keep everything in focus, I never got over it and ultimately began to investigate cine lenses.
Cine lenses differ from photography lenses in a few ways:
- "De-clicked," limited focus ring: These focus rings can only turn so far so without looking, you always know where you are
- Smooth gears on the focus and zoom rings
- Fast apertures in a wide range of focal depths: Lenses as wide as 12mm can have have T-stops as low as 2.2 (which is Like an f/stop, but more precise), making it possible to do lower-light shooting at a reasonable ISO gain like 500
- Parfocal capability. Parfocal zoom lenses are capable of maintaining focus that is a certain distance from the camera sensor whether the lens is zoomed all the way in or out.
- Manual aperture control. Instead of electronically stepping between f/2.8 to f/3.2 to f/4.0 to f/5.6, to f/6.7 to f/7.1--you can turn the aperture ring to exactly the right amount to expose your shot precisely the way you want to
Lenses made this way are absolutely far more expensive than typical DSLR lenses as you might expect; there are "re-housed" lenses that are DLSR lenses put in different casing to offer some of the features (mainly an improved focus ring) but I felt a great sense of peace of mind if using lenses that were always meant to be used for cinematography.
But given the cost, I struggled with trying to be "OK" with prime cine lenses... Should I forget about zoom and get into gimbals, put together a rig that it can weight-balance? Which focal length do I want to be trapped using for everything? Maybe I can just rent the lens since I don't shoot that much? But what about practice and getting comfortable with the gear?
I watched countless YouTube videos and spent a bunch of time searching and reading about my options but I never found out about the lens I wanted to use until I started seriously considering renting. Near Tokyo, the shops primarily rent on the Sony system, which is E-Mount (not EF or EF-S mount like the Canon system that I've invested in). Here, I discovered a magnificent lens.
Made in Japan, the Fujinon MK18-55 is available (and MKX18-55 for Fuji-mount camera bodies) is a par-focal T2.9 cine lens often found in ENG (Electronic News Gathering) camera rigs. The rental option was very affordable, as were the range of Sony cameras, but then one day, I found a used unit in good condition at a remarkable price. I decided, well, this is my main creative activity from now on, and if I want to be happy with the video I spend lots of money on talent and locations to shoot, I better get a lens that lets me work without producing disappointing footage. And from there, I made my purchase.
And yes, since I didn't have an E-Mount camera, I went with the most popular, most popular camera for this, the a7iii from the Sony Alpha-series camera line.
After shooting exclusively Canon-only cameras since 1998, the a7iii became the first Sony camera I would use for video since a Digital8 camcorder I picked up in 2002 and it took some getting used to. I have always loved and even preferred the look of Canon color science above the footage I've seen from either Panasonic or Sony (all three Japanese brands). Cine Canon cameras and lenses are expensive to the point of being mind boggling, so I was never going to go in that direction as someone just getting started and doing this basically for free, and the a7iii is perhaps the most popular camera of its kind, in its price range. But I had some problems.
Why the a7iv upgrade
Attending class at U of Tube
While preparing to shoot an image video in downtown Tokyo, I saw countless videos talking about how to set this camera up to look as much like film as possible, changing the Picture Profile and making sure to use things like S-Log II, etc. When I got back my footage from that day, I thought I destroyed my shoot. Basically everything was yellow, the highlights were blown out, color fluctuations, exposure fluctuations, etc. I tried to use LUTs (look-up tables) to fix it among many other things, but compared to my clean, beautiful Canon 850D 4K footage, the video that came off the Sony a7iii looked simply awful.
I found a way to make the footage look acceptable, especially since I had the presence of mind to buy and use a clapboard with a color check bar. With that, I was able to set the white balance and fix the red, green and blue as well, which cleaned up the footage very nicely. But it was a lot of work and I still wondered what had happened.
It turns out that, unless you want to (or need to) "color grade" (color correct) your video (usually necessary for paid projects, for what it's worth), the factory default color recorded on Sony a7iii cameras is actually perfect. But I still had two more problems...
Display Language Shock
I bought the a7iii used from amazon.co.jp. Sony does many weird things and one of them is that: if the camera you bought was made and sold for markets outside of Japan, the camera could be configured to display its screens and menus in English, Spanish, French and Chinese but not Japanese. Inversely, cameras made and sold for the Japanese market display its screens and menus in Japanese, and no other language. It's not possible (and it's ill-advised to try) to "root kit" your camera's firmware to force it to support multiple languages. What expats from Japan were supposed to do with a non-Japanese camera bought in America, or what English-speaking expats are supposed to do with cameras bought in Japan that offer no English, I have no idea.
4:2:0 8-bit color depth
Simply put, there is more color data with 4:2:2 sampling than with 4:2:0, expanding the options available to a colorist/color editor working in post-production. More importantly, though only 2-bits, there's an exponential difference between 8-bit and 10-bit color.
While the 8-bit system can produce over 16 Million colors (like the JPEG standard that has been around since the early 1990s), 10-bit video is capable of reproducing over 1 Billion different colors. One of most obvious situations in which this 625% increase in color definition represents itself is in the blue sky. In a 16.7 million color system, you see "color banding" or visible borders between the different shades of blue across the gradation of the sky.
An example of color banding:
With greater bit-depth, the sky looks more natural:
Hollywood feature films, which are now mostly digitally filmed on the DCI 4K standard (4096x2160 resolution vs UHD 4K of 3840x2160) are 10-bit with 4:4:4 subsampling (normally down-converted from 6K or even 8K for the highest quality possible). The new Panavision, ARRI and RED cameras shooting at these standards are worth tens of thousands of dollars, as are the digital editing suites with enough CPU and GPU power to do editing at such high resolutions. Because this footage are meant to be projected on screens that are 30x50 feet (or 10x15 meters), so you need the resolution. My videos are meant to be watched on home TV screens, laptops, tablets or perhaps even smartphones, for which the color provided by the Sony a7iv is more than adequate.
Even though the a7iii was technically good enough even at 8-bit 4:2:0, I really didn't want to cope with the menu display language problem in addition to this.
The a7iv
I finally decided that I would sell the a7iii and use part of the money to pay for the a7iv. Indeed, there is quite a lot about this camera that I really do enjoy:
- No confusing double audio jack - the a7iii had an extra input jack for connecting an external microphone that you couldn't see unless you opened up one more door
- Full-sized HDMI port - the mini-HDMI port makes adding external display and external video recorders easier for camera manufacturers but more difficult for consumers that need to carry dedicated cables Just for connecting HDMI-enabled devices to their cameras. Regular HDMI cables can be had everywhere easily and many already have several at home or in the studio
- Charge the battery with the camera itself rather than have to buy and use an external charger (also featured on the a7iii)
- Common battery system (the Sony InfoLithium system is common across several of their camera camera lines) - also featured on the a7iii
- a7iv's LCD screen can be turned all the way around, facing the opposite direction and also turned facing all the way up or all the way down
- The a7iv camera body doors don't swing around
- The a7iv camera body strap loops don't swing around
- Slightly larger body than the a7iii for better ergonomics
- Easier to navigate menu system on the a7iv
- You can save and export/import settings to SD or CF Express A cards, also making setting more than one camera with identical settings fast and easy
- You can save up to three configuration "presets" that you can literally dial in selecting the 1, 2 or 3 positions on the top rotary knob. Change ISO, white balance, frame rate, exposure compensation, etc. from one location to the next just by clicking the dial from 1 to 2
- Dedicated S&Q switch for slow-motion videography
- Programmable "Fn" (function) button for quick access to Menu settings you frequently want to be able to change (e.g., enabling/disabling or changing the way SteadyShot works)
- Multiple programmable buttons for quick access to specific settings (in my case, immediate access to white balance and ISO settings among others)
- 3 user-assignable dials, and one locking user-assignable dial; useful for wanting to have a dedicated dial for changing settings on the fly such as ISO but lockable with the push of a button to avoid accidentally thumbing the dial, and changing the setting in the middle of recording video
- Card slot recording failover - the camera can be set up to automatically use the card in slot B if it was set up to start using the card in slot A
- You can still configure the photo shutter button to also start the video recorder when the lower 3-way selector is in either video mode or S&Q mode
- Wi-Fi and USB-based Ethernet connectivity available (useful for copying data from CF Express A cards when you don't have an external CF Express A card reader for your computer or laptop).
- Computers and laptops may also be connected directly to the camera via USB not only to copy video or photo files, but also to operate as webcam for live streams, zoom meetings, etc. A specialty of the Sony a7iv is that while most DLSR and mirrorless digital cameras can be setup as a webcam, you tend to need to download special software from the camera manufacture's website to make the computer recognize your camera as a webcam. The a7iv was specially designed to present itself as a webcam to a computer simply by being plugged into that computer's USB port
- At 24fps 4:2:2 10-bit 4K, the video quality is absolutely stunning and, out of the box, creates broadcast television-level quality footage even without any color editing in post.
This camera, roughly ~$2,750 USD produces video footage at a quality level consistent with $30,000 cameras being made in 2008, but there are still much more expensive cameras being made, sold and use, including those made by Sony because those are intended to be no-compromise, highly-flexible, high-endurance workhorses used professionally for 10-15 hours per day, hundreds of days per year. Whether for in-the-field news camera or studio cameras for use in broadcast and film production, you simply cannot have any issues at all as time is (lots) of money... Locations rented by the hour, crew being paid by the hour, the cast or other talent, etc.
Then there is the cost of manufacturing a device. Even at a little less than $3,000, there is only so much that it can do without having to make some sacrifices.
So what kinds of issues can you face with the a7iv?
- Thermal Protection: it is dangerous for the longevity of electronics to operate at very high temperatures for long periods of time. The heat sink in the a7iii managed to do a pretty good job keeping the camera running, even outside on a hot day in the shade. However, even just using the menu for 30-45 min., the a7iv managed to display heat warnings and at one point, shut itself down with a message saying, "Allow to cool." How much time it takes to cool to the point it's willing to run again, I'm not sure and likely depends on the ambient temperature of the room that it's in (or if you're shooting outdoors in high heat, perhaps hours). You can make the camera work longer despite the high heat, but this is not recommended.
- Camera body door issue #1: Battery compartment door. Opens automatically when unlatched, but it does not auto-latch when you close it. You have to press the door closed and manually re-latch its lock. It can be done in one movement just with one's thumb but for a camera worth thousands of dollars, you'd thing a little convenience already available on Canon cameras 1/10th the cost would have been put in place. Moreover, there's no rubber notch in the door, so if you're using an AC adapter with a dummy battery head, you basically have to leave the door open, and rely on the blue clip that holds the battery inside to not let the dummy head fall out.
- Camera body door issue #2: The card door slot does not open unless you pull it open, even after you unlatch it. It has the opposite problem as the battery compartment door in that while the card reader door will lock when closed, the door does not open just by unlocking the latch. Instead, you have to slide down the latch, and then pull the door toward you. After it clicks, release the door, and it springs open. Even the a7iii card reader door just popped open once you unlatched the lock. I guess this is to prevent the door from being opened accidentally, but since the door is integrated with the grip, it's super unlikely that such an accident would ever happen
- 📷 🎥 S&Q sub-dial lock; unlike the P/A/S/M dial, the sub-dial does not turn unless you press down on a little key button and then either push or pull it to select photo, video or S&Q (slo-mo shooting) mode. The P/A/S/M dial with the "1-2-3" configuration presets is meant to be used often, so perhaps Sony noticed some users having problems with accidentally switching in and out of the different shooting modes as they went to go to use the P/A/S/M dial. By requiring a button to unlock the shooting mode sub-dial, this is prevented, but it's not intuitive
- Not every setting in the Menu is assignable as a custom button. I happened to want a button to quickly turn off (or on) audio recording, which is a Menu setting. However, under the menu for configuring a custom button, if you go to the Audio menu, you are only presented with two rather than all three choices from the Audio sub-menu. As a compromise, I set up the AEL button I'm not using to bring up the Audio Rec. Volume menu, and I can use the rotary dial on the back to turn the volume all the way down. It's still recording an audio track with no data, which is a waste of zeros being saved to the MP4 file.
- The menu in the camera is quite vast so it can take time to locate settings; furthermore, if you leave the menu for any reason, rather than provide a way to "go back" to the screen you were on, you have to navigate back to the menu setting you were on all over again from the very top, making overall camera setup a very time consuming
- CF Express A cards aren't a waste of money. I came across at least one video that commented on the CF Express A cards that the Sony a7-series cameras can use. CF Express A card write speed can be up to 700 MB/sec. (with read speeds being up to 800 MB/sec.) whereas the fastest UHS-II Class 10 SDXC cards can hit read and write speeds of 299 MB/sec. But there's another metric by which SD cards are read; the "V" speed. V60 means that a card will deliver a minimum sequential write speed of 60 MB/sec. V90 means the same thing, but at a speed of 90 MB/sec. As a result, CF Express A cards can actually end up being hundreds of dollars! Indeed, for basic photography, 1080P HD video recording and even shooting 4K, but it has to be in XAVC S 4K. Even UHS-II SD cards are not fast enough for XAVC "HS" 4K. When shooting 60fps 4K in S&Q mode, the camera will display a warning advising that cards faster than SDXC V60 (as well as certain slower CF Express A cards) cannot be used. Even if there is a faster card in slot A (CF or SD) but there's a slower card in slot B, the camera will show the same error message if you try to use S&Q. If you spend a little time, you can find a Lexar professional CF Express A card for slightly more than the cost of a V90 Class 10 UHS-II SDXC card and usually the capacity is also higher. In my case, I got a 160 GB CF Express A for 150% the cost of a 32 GB V90 UHS-II SDXC
As simple (and silly) as it sounds, simply opening up all of the camera body doors (except for the battery and memory doors of course) helps dissipate some heat.
Perhaps the most effective thing was to keep the LCD screen away from the camera body, and face the camera toward yourself from the left side of the camera.
One benefit is that the screen isn't further heating up the camera body, but the bigger benefit is that there is nothing covering up the panel on the camera body where it is generating the most heat.
The heat on the inside of the panel is not getting trapped on the outside of that panel so in a test, I let my 32 GB card fill up recording video of the wall, which took about 35 minutes. The video recorded until the card was exhausted without the camera shutting down or warning about excessive heat
In a hotter setting such as outdoors, it may still be necessary to use a fan, which is less than ideal:
- You have to take it off if you want to close and protect the LCD screen on the camera
- Not cheap (Smallrig makes one that is $65)
- Some only run on an internal battery, with a maximum life of 60-70 minutes
- Some require being run on external power via USB-C cable (one might consider a USB-C "Y" cable so they can run power to both the camera and the fan from the same external battery perhaps mounted on a V-plate)
- Slight vibration issues were reported on even the better fans in the Japanese reviews that I read
- Though quiet even when set to high-speed operation (<50dB), they aren't perfectly silent, so if you aren't using an external microphone away from the camera body (which I recommend anyway, to avoid sounds being introduced by the operation of buttons and dials on the camera), it's possible to record some fan noise
My strategy for limiting the risk of overheating also includes limiting the load on the processor through the use of an energy-efficient configuration.
- Don't enable proxy recording
- Record in the lowest quality settings you're willing to accept (maybe video of the 2-year-old could stand to be in 60 4:2:0 8-bit XAVC S-I HD)
- The a7iv features very sophisticated, highly-advanced auto-focus technology, which for still photography, delivers remarkable results. This auto-focus tech includes next-generation features such as being able to pick which eye on the face to focus on, and whether nor that face is of a human, bird or different kind of animal (such as a dog). For video, if you're shooting full manual like I am, there's no need to enable any of it, which probably saves the processor some work (and potentially increases battery life).
- The Sony a7iv features a unique "skin enhancement" feature, but this signal processing is being generated and applied on the fly. Unless you really need it, I recommend turning it off and apply your effects in post during video editing
- Disable lens compensation
- Only use exposure compensation only when necessary
- ISO (gain) levels can go up well past 10,000 on this camera, but a well-lit scene might be OK with just 500 ISO, limiting how much power (and heat generated) needed by the sensor
- Powering image stabilization probably doesn't require that much energy or generate that much heat, but in the first place, it crops your image area and you have to set the focal length in use (which outside of using a prime cine lens, is cumbersome). I work on a tripod mostly, so I plan to keep this feature off unless I really need it
- Don't enable network options while not in use - it may be a hassle to keep enabling or disabling this as you need to transfer data off the camera (CF Express A card require their own card reader otherwise), so consider just connecting a USB-C cable when you need to copy data to a computer or laptop. A compromise to this is to enable this camera's "Airplane Mode," which will at least disable the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios while this setting is on.
- Turning off the camera in between takes limits the heat generated while the camera is idle (again, I got this camera to overheat while doing nothing but displaying its menus for 30-45 minutes)
- It's possible using an HDMI-connected recorder could limit the load on the camera because it doesn't have to encode, compress, buffer, checksum and write super large amounts of data at high speed
I hear that the Sony FX3 (an outstanding camera with similar capabilities) has internal fans that limit the risk of overheating, so perhaps I'll sell this one and try to find a used FX3 if it becomes enough of an issue.
Conclusion
Had Fujinon developed an EF mount for the MK18-55 lens, I'd have continued happily using my Canon 850D, which is already an APS-C size sensor (the kind this lens was built for). There are many small things about the Sony system that I don't like, and now with this overheating risk hanging over my head, I can't say I'm impressed with the product experience decisions that were made. However, for the money, it's hard to complain and the video quality itself is as good as it gets without actually using a 16mm or 35mm ARRI camera with Zeiss cine lenses.
If I had have insisted on a Canon-only system, a slightly used Honda Civic would have been only a tiny bit more expensive than a Cine Canon and Lens kit. Canon gear is outstanding so it's worth it and not at all over-priced; just beyond my current budget.