Sony a7C II Setup: Menu Settings to Change Before You Shoot

To set up a new Sony a7C II, make the menu easy to reach first, then set your autofocus subject, your photo file type, and your video profile before you shoot. This guide walks you through each setting in plain English, using Sony's own Help Guide and published reviews of the camera.

Take your time with it. Every setting you learn now is one less thing to think about when something good is happening in front of your lens.

Before you start: battery and card

Two small things save a lot of stress later: a full battery and a clear card.

The a7C II uses the NP-FZ100 battery, and Sony rates it at about 165 minutes of use or about 530 stills per charge. A full charge takes about two hours. Videomaker's reviewers reported shooting on and off through a whole day and still having battery left at the end. Charge it the night before anyway, so a long day never surprises you.

The camera has one UHS-II SD card slot. That means there is no second card making a backup copy as you shoot. Digital Camera World also points out that regular SD storage can slow the camera down when it is saving big, high-resolution files. Buy a fast card, and copy your files to your computer after every shoot. Think of the card like a single notebook: keep it safe, and make a photocopy when you get home.

Make the menu easy to reach

The a7C II uses Sony's newer menu system with touch control, which Digital Camera World says should make it quicker and easier to operate than the original a7C. A few small changes make it even friendlier.

Turn on touch for the menu

Sony's Help Guide says you can open setting screens by touching the icons on the Main menu when [Touch Operation] is set to [On] and [Menu Screen] under [Touch Panel Settings] is set to [On]. Turn both on. Now you can tap a setting like you tap an app on your phone, instead of clicking through it with buttons.

Camera Jabber notes that touchscreen control on this camera is still limited in places. So if a tap does nothing, that is the camera, not you. Use the buttons and dials for that part.

Learn the Main menu tab

The Main tab shows a list of your current shooting settings, and you can check or change them right from that screen. Picture it as a dashboard in a car: one glance tells you what the camera is about to do.

Sony's Help Guide also says you can assign [Display Main Menu] to a key in the custom key settings, so one press opens it. Do this early. It turns a hunt into a single button press.

Put your favorite settings on buttons and dials

The a7C II has many reassignable buttons and dials. Videomaker's reviewers said that after they reassigned buttons and dials to the settings they preferred, they no longer had to hunt through the menu. The camera now has two command dials, front and rear, like Sony's more expensive a7 models. Digital Camera World describes the dials as clicky with good resistance, so they are hard to bump by accident.

A simple starting plan for beginners:

• One dial for shutter speed. Think of a door: open it quickly and you freeze a moment, leave it open longer and things moving can blur.
• The other dial for aperture. It works like the pupil of your eye: a big opening lets in lots of light, a small one lets in less.
• A button for ISO. It is like turning up the volume on a quiet song: louder, but with more hiss.

Those three settings work together, a bit like syllables in a line of a poem. Change one and you often need to adjust another to keep the picture balanced.

Photo settings to change first

Save RAW files

The a7C II offers lossless RAW. A RAW file is like keeping the whole cake recipe instead of just a photo of the cake: you can still change the ingredients later. If you edit your photos, choose RAW, or RAW plus JPEG if you also want a ready-to-share copy.

Know your ISO range

Digital Camera World lists the ISO range as 100 to 51,200, expandable to 102,400. Camera Jabber describes the sensor as offering enhanced dynamic range and low-light performance. A good habit is to keep ISO as low as the light allows, and raise it only when your picture would otherwise be too dark or too blurry.

Burst shooting and the buffer

The a7C II can shoot up to 10 frames per second with full autofocus and exposure tracking, using either the mechanical or electronic shutter. Digital Camera World notes the rate drops to 8 frames per second when you want a live view between shots.

The buffer is like a waiting room: photos sit there before they move onto the card. Digital Camera World lists room for over 1,000 JPEGs or 44 RAW files. Camera Jabber says buffer performance could be better in RAW bursts. If the camera pauses during a long burst, it is just letting the waiting room empty. Shoot shorter bursts and it catches up.

Shutter type with very fast lenses

PetaPixel reports that the a7C II uses an electronic first-curtain shutter, not a fully mechanical one. They say this is fine for most scenes but can occasionally affect the shape of background blur with super-fast lenses. If you shoot a bright lens wide open and the blurry background circles look clipped, try a slightly smaller aperture.

Flicker under indoor lights

The camera has anti-flicker and high-frequency flicker-free shooting modes. Some indoor lights pulse faster than your eye can see, which can cause stripes or uneven brightness. If you see that, turn these modes on before you shoot again. That is a normal thing to run into, and now you know the fix.

Autofocus: tell the camera what to look for

Autofocus is one of the biggest reasons people buy this camera. PetaPixel lists 759 autofocus points covering about 94 percent of the image. Those phase-detection points are like tiny helpers spread across the frame, each checking if its spot is sharp.

The dedicated AI processor can recognize humans, including bodies and poses, plus animals, birds, insects, cars, trains and airplanes. Sony claims a 60 percent improvement in Eye AF over the original a7C.

Set the subject recognition to match what you shoot most. Photographing your kids? Choose human. Photographing your dog? Choose animal. If the camera keeps grabbing the wrong thing, the subject setting is the first place to check. Blurry photos are often just the camera looking for a different subject than you are.

For video, the camera also offers focus breathing compensation, which Digital Camera World notes works only with specific Sony lenses. Focus breathing is when the picture seems to zoom a little as focus moves from near to far.

Stabilization: helpful, not magic

The a7C II has 5-axis IBIS, rated at up to 7 stops. Sony's figure applies when using a lens with stabilization. For video there is also Active Mode, which adds a slight crop. The camera records gyro data you can use to steady footage later in Sony's Catalyst Browse software.

Keep your expectations realistic. Videomaker tested the stabilization on a mountain roller coaster and found it helped at slow speeds but not once things got fast. They concluded it will not replace a gimbal for handheld video with jarring movement. For still photos, though, they said the extra stabilization will make a difference.

Video settings to change first

Here is what the camera can record, so you can pick a mode on purpose instead of by accident.

Mode	Frame rate	What to know
4K full frame	Up to 30 fps	10-bit, can be oversampled from 7K
4K Super 35	Up to 60 fps	About a 1.5x crop
Full HD	Up to 120 fps	For slow motion

A Super 35 crop is like looking through a smaller window: your 24mm lens suddenly frames more tightly. If you switch to 4K 60p and everything looks zoomed in, that is why.

The a7C II records 10-bit 4:2:2 video in the XAVC S-I format at up to 600 Mb/s. 10-bit means more shades of color, like a box of crayons with many more blues in it. That helps skies and skin look smooth when you edit. The higher bitrates also fill your card faster, which is another reason to use a fast, roomy card.

There is no RAW video, either inside the camera or through an external recorder. PetaPixel also notes that rolling shutter is still an issue because of the sensor's somewhat slow readout. Quick pans can make straight lines lean, like a building tilting as you swing past. Pan a bit slower and it shows less.

Pick a look: S-Cinetone, S-Log3, or Creative Look

The a7C II offers S-Log3, S-Cinetone, HLG and in-camera LUTs. It also has Creative Look presets.

• S-Cinetone is described as a happy medium between standard video and Log, with pleasant skin tones. It looks good straight away, like a meal that is ready to eat.
• S-Log3 gives more than 15 stops of dynamic range. It looks washed out at first, like raw ingredients, and needs color work later.
• A LUT is a color recipe.

Digital Camera World describes the camera's standard 4K as excellent straight out of the camera, with rich color and strong dynamic range. If you are just starting, S-Cinetone or a Creative Look is a calm place to begin. Move to S-Log3 once you are comfortable editing color.

Sound

The a7C II has separate microphone and headphone jacks, and Digital Camera World reports four-channel audio recording. Plug in headphones and listen before you record. Videomaker also found the camera itself very quiet while recording, with no handling noise.

Small-body habits that help

The grip is larger than the original a7C's, and Sony sells an optional extension grip for the a7C II. Digital Camera World found that big lenses can make the camera hard to hold by hand. They point to small lenses like the Sony FE 40mm f/2.5 G and the Sony FE 28-60mm f/4-5.6 as a good match for the compact body.

The viewfinder has 2.26 million dots at 0.7x magnification, which Digital Camera World calls average by today's standards. The rear screen flips out and turns, so use it for low angles and for filming yourself.

For moving files, the camera has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and USB-C, and works with Sony's Imaging Edge app. Pair it with your phone at home, not on the day of the shoot.

Where to go next

Sony's menus share a lot across cameras, so other Sony guides carry over well. Read the Sony camera menu setup guide for menu basics. PetaPixel describes the a7C II as drawing much of its design from the a7 IV, so the Sony a7 IV first-time setup guide and the a7 IV beginner video settings guide are useful next reads. Digital Camera World also compares the a7C II's design to the Sony a6700, and the Sony a6700 setup guide covers similar controls.

Set things up once, shoot a little, then come back and adjust. Every setting that confuses you today is just a lesson you will use on the next shoot.