Before the Frame
what the recipes are shorthand for
Two decisions and a bill
Shutter and aperture are the decisions. ISO is the receipt. Shutter decides whether motion freezes or smears. Aperture decides how much is sharp. Those are the only two that change what the picture looks like. ISO changes nothing but noise: it is what the other two cost.
So set what the scene needs for motion and depth, then read what ISO it came to. Acceptable, and you are done. Not acceptable, and the only real question is which of the two you give back.
Every recipe below is a pre-made answer to those two decisions for a situation you will be in again.
1 MotionWhat is the subject doing? This sets the shutter floor, not your hands. IBIS steadies the camera and does nothing for a moving person.
2 DepthHow much has to be sharp? One face f/1.8 to f/2.8 · three people at different distances f/5.6 · building or landscape f/8.
3 LightWhere is it coming from, and is it one color or several? Outside, one. Inside, usually three fighting each other.
4 MeterWill it be fooled? The camera aims every scene at middle gray. Snow, sky, a white wall need +EV. A dark room or a stage needs -EV.
Then check what is about to break
Read the numbers in the finder before you press, and ask which one is at its limit.
Shutter sitting exactly on your floor means the light has run out and the camera is now spending ISO.
ISO pinned at the cap means the next thing to give is the shutter floor, silently and with no warning. On MR 1 the cap is 6400: past that you are at 1/125 and the walkers go soft.
Highlights blinking means clipped. Raw recovers a great deal of shadow and almost no blown sky. When unsure outdoors, expose darker.
With Setting Effect on, the finder is showing you the real exposure. If it looks too dark through the eyepiece it will be too dark in the file. Believe it.
Outside
Light is abundant, so the enemy is dynamic range, not noise. ISO sits at 100 and stops being interesting.
Expose for the highlights and lift the shadows later. A sky four stops brighter than the ground is the normal case, and a blown one does not come back.
Sun behind the subject is the best light available and the one that fools the meter worst. That is question 4, every time.
Inside
Light is scarce, so something has to give. Concede in this order:
1 open the aperture · 2 raise ISO
3 lower shutter, but only to the subject's floor
4 brace, move them to the window, set the camera down
A slightly noisy sharp frame beats a clean blurry one, always. Noise is visible at 100% and motion blur is visible when it is too late to reshoot, which is why this gets learned backwards.
The indoor problem is color, not brightness. A window, a warm lamp, and an overhead LED are three temperatures in one frame, and auto WB will drift between shots. Fix the Kelvin: a set uniformly wrong is one slider, a set that wanders is fifty.
Windows in the background are daylight in a room that is not. They blow out and drag the meter down at the same time. Include them deliberately or put them behind you.
The habit
After a frame you care about, read the three numbers the camera chose and ask whether they are what you would have picked.
You are not checking whether the photo is good. You are checking whether your prediction was right. Do that a few dozen times and the arithmetic turns into intuition, and the recipes stop being crutches and become a fast start you adjust from.
Recipes
● hold ○ let float
Street & Travel MR 1
a7 IV walking around, unpredictable subjects.
Min shutter1/250hold
Aperturef/5.6hold
ISOauto100–6400
- Lens
- Sony 35mm f/1.8 — lighter, quieter, one less decision
- Mode
- A, Auto ISO, min shutter manual at 1/250
- Focus
- AF-C, Wide. Face/Eye Prior. on, subject Human.
- Meter
- Multi
- Drive
- Single, or Continuous Lo for a gesture
- 1/250 is the floor because people move, not because the camera shakes. IBIS does nothing for subject motion.
- f/5.6 gives enough depth that a slightly missed focus still lands. Wide open on the street is a good way to collect sharp ears.
- If the light is stable, go full manual and stop metering. Fastest camera is one that is not thinking.
Hockey — Indoor Rink MR 2
Dim, flickering, fast, shot through glass.
Shutter1/1000hold
Aperturef/2.8hold
ISOautocap 12800
- Lens
- Sigma 24-70 at 70mm. Add APS-C crop for 105mm equivalent when you need reach.
- Mode
- M with Auto ISO — lock the two things that make the picture, let ISO absorb the rink
- Focus
- AF-C, Zone. Face/Eye Prior. on, subject Human.
- Drive
- Continuous Hi
- Exp comp
- +0.7 to +1.0 EV — ice is white, the meter wants it gray
- WB
- Fixed Kelvin, set it off the ice
- Shutter type
- Mechanical
- Turn on Anti-flicker Shoot. Rink LEDs and fluorescents pulse, and without it you get banding and frame-to-frame color shifts across a burst. It needs the mechanical shutter, so silent mode is off the table.
- Exposure comp still works in M with Auto ISO on Sony. That is the whole reason this mode is worth using.
- 1/1000 freezes skaters. 1/640 is the floor and you will lose stick blades.
- Through the glass: hood pressed flat against it, shoot wide open, and the scratches blur away. Shoot through the gaps in the boards when you can.
- ISO 12800 with a usable frame beats ISO 3200 and motion blur. Noise is fixable, blur is not.
- 70mm does not reach across the ice. Work the near boards and the bench, or flip to APS-C crop for 105mm equivalent at about 15MP. At rec-league print sizes that crop costs you nothing.
- The 35mm f/1.8 buys back about 1⅓ stops, which drops you from ISO 6400 to roughly 2500. Too wide for on-ice action, right for bench, warmups, and locker room.
Architecture — Exterior MR 3
Daylight or twilight, tripod, full facade or detail.
Shutterautofloat
Aperturef/8hold
ISO100hold
- Lens
- Sigma 24-70. Shoot 35–50mm and back up; 24mm bends the verticals.
- Mode
- A — aperture and ISO are the picture, shutter is just bookkeeping on a tripod
- Focus
- AF-S, Spot S, on a hard edge about a third into the scene. Then flip to MF to lock it.
- Meter
- Multi. Switch to Highlight if the sky is blowing.
- Drive
- 2-sec timer
- Exp comp
- −0.3 to −0.7 EV, protect the sky
- SteadyShot off on the tripod. IBIS hunting against a locked camera softens long exposures.
- f/8 is the sweet spot on 33MP full frame. Past f/11 diffraction starts costing you more detail than the depth of field buys.
- Shoot the facade square-on to avoid keystoning, or frame wide and correct verticals in post. Turn the level on.
- Twilight crossover is the money window: roughly 15–25 min after sunset, when interior lights and sky sit at the same brightness.
Interior — Available Light M3
Handheld walkthrough, occupied space, moving fast.
Min shutter1/60hold
Aperturef/5.6hold
ISOautocap 6400
- Lens
- Sigma 24-70 at 24mm — your widest, and it will not be wide enough
- Mode
- A, Auto ISO, ISO AUTO Min. SS set to Manual 1/60
- Focus
- AF-S, Spot S
- Meter
- Multi, or Highlight when windows are in frame
- WB
- Set a Kelvin value, not AWB
- Stabilizer
- SteadyShot on. This is the one interior recipe that wants it.
- Mixed light is the real enemy, not noise. Daylight through a window plus tungsten downlights cannot both be neutral. Kill the practicals or commit to one source.
- f/5.6 is the compromise. f/8 is sharper and deeper but costs a full stop you probably do not have indoors.
- Expose for the window if you plan to blend later, for the room if you do not.
Interior — Bracketed M1
Tripod, blending for windows, the paid version.
Shutter±2 EVbrackets
Aperturef/8hold
ISO100hold
- Lens
- Sigma 24-70 at 24mm, corners kept clear of hard verticals
- Mode
- M — everything fixed except the bracket steps
- Drive
- Cont. Bracket, 3 or 5 frames at 2.0 EV
- Focus
- AF-S once, then MF. Do not let it refocus between frames.
- WB
- Fixed Kelvin. AWB will drift across the set.
- SteadyShot off. Same reason as exteriors.
- Turn on self-timer during bracket so the whole burst fires after the shake settles, from one press.
- Five frames at 2 EV covers most rooms. If the window still clips, add a manual dark frame rather than widening the bracket.
- Shoot the room, then shoot a detail at the same settings. Detail shots sell the set.
Detail — Focus Stack M2
Tripod, still subject. Millwork, trim, hardware, product.
Shutterautofloat
Aperturef/5.6hold
ISO100hold
- Lens
- Sigma 24-70, usually 50–70mm. The closer you are, the more frames it takes.
- Mode
- M, or A if the light is steady. Exposure must not drift across the set.
- Drive
- Focus Bracket
- Focus
- AF-S, Spot S, on the nearest point you want sharp. The rack runs from there outward.
- Step
- 2–3 close in, 4–6 at normal working distance
- Frames
- Start at 20. Check the last frame is past the far edge.
- Extras
- Exposure Smoothing on · 2-sec timer · SteadyShot off
- WB
- Fixed Kelvin
- Focus on the near edge, not the middle. Focus Bracket only racks toward infinity from where you start, so anything closer than your first frame never gets a sharp version and cannot be recovered.
- Step size and frame count trade against each other: a smaller step needs more frames to cover the same depth. Small step plus too few frames is the usual failure, and it stops short of the back of the subject.
- Verify by playing back the last frame, not the first. If it is still sharp on the subject rather than past it, add frames.
- Nothing in the frame may move. No wind, no traffic vibration, no one walking on the same floor. A shifted leaf ghosts across the whole stack.
- This is the alternative to stopping down past f/11. f/5.6 per frame keeps every frame at peak sharpness and the stack supplies the depth.
- Blend in Photoshop: load the set as layers, Auto-Align, then Auto-Blend Layers with Stack Images. Lightroom alone will not do it.
- Focus Bracket was unreliable before firmware 6.02. If yours misbehaves, check the version first.
Glass
24–70mm covered
Sigma 24-70 f/2.8 DG DN Art82mm filter · no OSS · ~835g
The working lens. Covers architecture, interiors, events, and most of the rink. No stabilization — it leans entirely on body IBIS, so SteadyShot stays on handheld. Heavy enough that a long shoot needs a real strap.
Sony FE 35mm f/1.855mm filter · focus hold button · ~280g
The walk-around. A stop and a third faster and a third the weight. Program the focus hold button to Eye AF or AF-ON and you rarely touch the back of the camera.
What the kit cannot do
Wider than 24mm. Interiors want 16–20mm on full frame. At 24mm you will back into a corner and still cut the room. Workaround: shoot a two- or three-frame pano on the tripod and stitch, which also beats a wide lens on distortion.
Longer than 70mm. APS-C crop gets you to 105mm equivalent at about 15MP. Fine for rec hockey, not for anything that gets printed large.
Tilt-shift. Neither lens corrects converging verticals in camera, so you correct in post. Frame with headroom to spare — the correction crops in from the edges and will eat a roofline you framed tight.
a7 IV Setup
set once
ISO AUTO Min. SSExposure / Color › ISO
The single most useful setting on the camera. In A mode this is what stops Auto ISO from handing you 1/30. Baseline is Standard, which tracks focal length; every MR mode overrides it with a fixed number, and those numbers are what the recipes above list.
Face/Eye Prior. in AFFocus › Face/Eye AF
Turn on, then set Face/Eye Subject separately. It does not auto-detect across types — if it is left on Animal it will ignore the people in front of you.
Anti-flicker Shoot.Shooting › Shutter/Silent › Anti-flicker Set.
For rinks, gyms, and anywhere under LED or fluorescent. Mechanical shutter only.
SteadyShotShooting › Image Stabilization
Off on a tripod, on everywhere else. Worth a custom button if you switch often.
Silent / electronic shutterShooting › Shutter / Silent
Costs you rolling shutter skew on pans and banding under artificial light. Use it in quiet rooms, not at the rink.
APS-C / Super 35mmShooting › Image Quality
1.5× crop for about 15MP. A free teleconverter when you cannot get closer.
Self-timer during BracketDrive Mode › Cont. Bracket
Fires the whole bracket after the delay, from one press. Essential on a tripod.
Button Map
fill in
C1
C2
C3
C4
AF-ON
AEL
Ctr
Lens
Ctr = multi-selector center press · Lens = the Sigma's AFL button
Reference
the parts worth checking
Shutter floor
Camera shake: 1 / focal length. IBIS buys 3–4 stops on top of that.
Subject motion ignores IBIS completely. If the subject moves, the subject sets the shutter speed:
walking 1/250 · running 1/500
skating, cycling 1/1000 · wingbeat 1/2000
Aperture
Sharpest around f/5.6–f/8. Past f/11 on 33MP full frame, diffraction softens the whole frame faster than depth of field improves it. Stack focus instead of stopping down to f/16.
ISO
Sony does not publish where the a7 IV's second gain stage kicks in, and independent measurements disagree — 400, 1600, and 3200 all get cited. Do not build a workflow on a number nobody can confirm.
What actually holds: the dynamic range curve is smooth, so raise ISO without agonizing. In RAW, protect the highlights and lift the shadows later. Recovering a blown sky is impossible; cleaning a noisy shadow is a slider.
Metering
MultiDefault. Reads the whole frame. Use unless something is fighting it.
CenterWeights the middle. Portraits where the subject fills the frame.
SpotTiny area only, can follow the focus point. Backlit subject, stage light, hard contrast.
Screen AvgFlat average, ignores composition. Consistency across a set — real estate, product.
HighlightProtects the brightest area. Windows, snow, ice, blown skies.
Focus
AF-SLocks once. Architecture, interiors, anything still.
AF-CTracks continuously. Hockey, street, kids, anything with a direction.
DMFAutofocus then twist to fine-tune. Macro, tight product work.
MFFull manual with peaking. Astro, adapted glass, locked-off tripod work.
Focus Area
Spot S/M/LYou pick the exact point. Architecture, anything precise.
ZoneA region you steer. Sport — the best hockey setting.
WideWhole frame, camera decides. Street, run-and-gun with Eye AF on.
TrackingLocks a subject and follows it anywhere. One subject in a crowd.