Sony proves that they’ve been listening to their cult’s needs and wants after all.
Thank you Sony! Today, the company finally updated its cameras to unlock touchscreen capabilities on all their FE cameras. To be clear, that means that the Sony a7 III, Sony a7s, Sony a7r III, Sony a7r IV, Sony a9, and the Sony a9 II are all getting the firmware updates. Besides fixing a few bugs with the interface and functionality, this new firmware update allows Sony users to fully interact with the touchscreen menu system. This update has been much needed and it now allows photographers to get to something like the “Format” command with two taps of the screen. Further, it lets photographers interact with the camera’s quick menu system that’s displayed when shooting. This has long been standard for every Full-Frame camera system, and in a way Sony is proving they’re still catching up while also providing class-leading innovations at the same time. We’ve done a bit of testing and played with the new firmware before launch. Our thoughts are after the jump.
We installed the firmware on the Sony a9 II, which we still have sitting around. The Sony a9 II already provided admittedly fast navigation of the menu system using the joystick. But it’s now even faster. In the photo above, we’re in menu 1 and page 1. Previously if you wanted to get to page 14, you’d need to scroll all the way there. But, with the new menu interface system, you can simply tap the bottom of the screen and slide your finger across. When you do this, you’ll get to the specific menu system quicker. If you’ve got smaller fingers, you can tap on the specific little square to get immediately to the end. This works very well in the toolbox menu. We know that the Format option is in Toolbox and then Page 5, so all we needed to do was tap the toolbox up top, tap the 5th square on the bottom, and then we were at the page for the Format option.
The new firmware breathes a lot of life into the already rich Sony system. And we’d be surprised if it didn’t boost sales.
Editor’s Note: This is an April Fool’s Joke. Chill.