Effect of HDMI monitor on Sony 7 series 4K recording, autofocus, face recognitionetc?

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lowep

Well-known member
I am weighing up the pros and cons of investing in a small external monitor for run and gun 4K video recording with my A7RII, for which I generally rely (for better or worse) on continuous AF, face recognition and other pansy features of this prosumer camera.

The main pro for an old coot like me is that I expect it will help me to keep an eye on focus via peaking and other tools at the same time as doing other stuff for example interviewing. The main con is the added size, weight and extra batteries it will add to my kit.

While trying to figure out what to do about this, I have come across some suggestions (but no definite declarations) that using a small 5" or 7" monitor via HDMI output on a Sony A7 series camera may effect operation of other functions such as 4K recording, speed and accuracy of tracking, face recognition, etc, by putting an excessive load on the already heavy workload that this small camera has to accomplish.

Is this fanciful nonsense or is there any real cause for concern about the impact using an external monitor may have on the funcionality of this or similar Sony A7 series cameras? If there is, do you have any idea if using a Sony monitor like the CLM-v55 be less likely to effect functionality than using a non-Sony monitor like the SmallHD Focus or other models
 
Apparently if HDMI is used, one must use an external recorder for 4K+face tracking. Perhaps not a big deal as external recorders are fairly affordable and will result in a higher quality image.

If I ever pick up an A7x and it still has this limitation, I'll get a recorder that also has HDMI passthrough as we monitor on a big screen TV when shooting in the studio (e.g. the $700 Atomos Ninja V).

It would be cool if external recorders supported professional H.264/265 and even Cineform (wavelet) as ProRes and DNxHD are very old technology and not very efficient (DCT based- basically different flavors of MJPEG). Cineform is at least 2x more efficient than the other two codecs, and will never have macroblock artifacts at higher compression levels.

If a fast machine (with GPU decoding) is available, 10 bit 422 (etc.) H.265 is by far the best bang for buck for quality and file size, especially for low-motion shots where IPB (interframe) recording can be used (vs. ALL-I, intraframe (each frame is a full image with no interpolation, like MJPEG)). I can only guess why the external recorders don't offer better codecs- perhaps hardware/power limitations or licensing fees? I'd be happy to pay extra to get these superior codecs and more codec options means more flexibility- ProRes for a client that requires it, and Cineform/H.264/265 for internal work.

 
Wow that's great - proof of the pudding is definitely in the eating! Thanks Gerald for clearing this up.

Taking this into consideration looks like the choices are to either to invest in an external 4K recorder, forego the digital candy and go manual with a more affordable monitor, or stick with the camera and maybe look for some sort of optical rather than electronic viewfinder enhancement solution?
 
Is it possible to have focus peaking or some other form of focus assist working on the external monitor at the same time as Sony A7RII (or any other Sony A7 series) camera is internally recording 4K in AF-C mode with face detection confirmation (oblong box) displaying on the camera LCD?

This is based on the (hypothetical) assumption that focus peaking on an external monitor does its thing no matter what focus mode the camera is set in?

If this were true, then would it not be possible to confirm via glancing down at the oblong box on the LCD screen that face detection autofocus was working, as well as being able to monitor exactly what the camera was deciding to focus on via focus peaking on the external monitor?
 
No worries re: video- didn't want to take credit for someone else's work :)

Yeah, peaking will work at all times on external device when enabled.
 
jcs said:
Yeah, peaking will work at all times on external device when enabled.
Click to expand...

Thanks for this useful part of the puzzle. Now all I need to figure out is if features like face detection autofocus confirmation display and other trapeze stunts work same as usual on the camera LCD when a HDMI monitor is hooked up to the A7RII.

For some reason they apparently don't when Sony's own CLM-FHD5 external monitor is switched on and 4K video is being recorded: the LCD display changes to an instrument panel. But most likely that is just a Sony external monitor thing?
 
lowep said:
Thanks for this useful part of the puzzle. Now all I need to figure out is if features like face detection autofocus confirmation display and other trapeze stunts work same as usual on the camera LCD when a HDMI monitor is hooked up to the A7RII.

For some reason they apparently don't when Sony's own CLM-FHD5 external monitor is switched on and 4K video is being recorded: the LCD display changes to an instrument panel. But most likely that is just a Sony external monitor thing?
Click to expand...

Could be a setting- perhaps dig through the menus?
 
Lol, people are legit shocked in the YT comments.

It's been like this since the a6300.

The HDMI mode(s) 24p/30p he's going into change the camera to output 422 while disabling the internal recording thus allowing the face-tracking (as mentioned).

It doesn't matter which monitor/recorder you use...if you're recording internally and outputting a signal externally some features may not be available (this is common with many cameras).
 
NorBro said:
if you're recording internally and outputting a signal externally some features may not be available (this is common with many cameras).
Click to expand...

The tricky bit is to find out which features are not available with what camera, which is not specified very clearly, and this is why it is great to have discussion forums.
 
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