5 SONY ALPHA HACKS YOU NEED TO KNOW - a7III a7RIII a9 a7SII a6300 a6400 a6500

Here are five Sony Alpha hacks you need to know. Number one, smooth focus pull using autofocus. Because mirrorless lenses are focused by wire, it is incredibly hard to manually control the lens to achieve smooth rack focus. So the trick is to rely on autofocus. Go to the menu and locate the AF drive speed and change that to slow. Then make sure your focus area is set to flexible spot. Position it to where your point A is. Now pay attention here. Roll the camera, move the focus to point B, but do not press anything else after. Roll for a few more seconds before soft pressing the shutter and now watch your camera smoothly pull focus. Number two, sharper magnify focus. If you're having trouble nailing focus manually whenever you're out shooting video and focus peaking doesn't seem like it's helping at all, I want you to try this sharper magnify focus trick next time. Turn your dial to M, manual mode, and press your magnify focus button again. Do you see the difference? It's astonishing, isn't it? And get this. Normally you can magnify up to four to five times in video mode, but in photo mode you can magnify up to 12 times. I know, it's kind of revolutionary. And the last thing to do to complete this trick is to make sure that aspect ratio in photo mode is 16 by 9, just for framing purposes. And after that, you're ready to go. But of course, there are some drawbacks to this trick. There will be a slight delay in movie recording whenever you're in this mode. And once you hit record, the sharper magnify focus is gone. Number three, clear image zoom. Here's a neat trick to turn your prime lenses into zoom lenses and turning your zoom lenses into mega zoom lenses. Go to the menu and enable clear image zoom. Program it to one of your custom buttons so you can access it while shooting. You will now be able to zoom in up to two times, allowing you to maximize the reach of your lenses. Quick tip, this trick is most effective only when shooting in 4K as you will experience the least quality loss. For 1080p, I would advise not to go past 1.4 times and I would not use clear image zoom when I'm shooting in slow-mo. Number four, angling the built-in flash. If you're using a Sony camera with a built-in flash, avoid using it directly at your subject as this will result in the dears and the headlights look. Now, this is going to work best when you're in a room with a closed ceiling. Angle your flash up 90 degrees and take the photo. You'll find that you'll get a much better and a more evenly lit photo when you bounce the light off the ceiling. Ow, my eye! Now, if you're coming from Canon, I'm sure you missed their magical color science and their accurate skin tones. So this is a bit of a stretch, but with a few settings modifications, you can get your Sony cameras to have colors similar to that of the Canons. Andrew Reed from EOSHD.com is selling an in-camera profile guide called EOSHD Pro Color 3.0, which promises truer, deeper reds, flattering skin tones, reduced color clippings, and more. Now, to clarify, you're not installing anything into your camera. You're not doing anything illegal. You're not going to be voiding your warranty. I also feel like I should let you guys know that there are mixed reviews on the EOSHD Pro Color. Some people who bought it were very happy with the results. Some people who bought it said they had to make a few changes to it, but overall, the guy was a good starting place. And there were people who felt like they wasted their money and did not like the results at all. My advice? Watch some of the example videos before purchasing. What you've been watching this entire video was on the EOSHD Pro Color profile. This is the original, and I liked it. Works for me. For additional tips and tricks, make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel. I have a guide on video autofocusing with the Sony Alpha cameras that shows you how to utilize each of the focus areas to ensure you nail your focus on whatever it is you're shooting. So be sure to click up here to check it out. Did I miss anything? Are there hacks you know about that you feel like we should know as well? Share them in the comments down below. I'll also be doing a workshop in Los Angeles next month on November 10th to the 11th at Samy's Camera. I will be doing a workshop on how to use Sony Alpha cameras with the Zhiyun Crane and another class on how to be a YouTube content creator. More info in the description box below. I hope to see you guys there. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you guys in the next video. Peace.