Sony α7 4K60 and APS-C Crop — Sympolymathesy, by Chris Krycho

This week I was trying to do some video recording directly to my Sony α7R V (for the sake of the video essay version of this month’s issue of my music newsletter), and could not for the life of me figure out why it kept reporting that 60p was unavailable when I had been recording in 60p literally five minutes earlier. The error message was inscrutable:

Sony back panel showing an error message that reads, “This operation or setting not available as follows: Rec Frame Rate: 60p” — *What* operation or setting?!?

After a few minutes of mucking around, I finally realized that I had accidentally been tapping the custom button next to the record button on top of the camera —

The top of a Sony α7R V, with the word ‘whoops’ and an arrow pointing to the C2 button — It helps if you hit the right button.

— which I have mapped to toggle between full frame and APS-C crop, and had also set the camera to record in 4K60… and apparently that combo isn’t supported. If you try to switch to the APS-C crop while in a mode where you have set the video recording to 4K60, the camera will just refuse… specifying only that the function is unavailable, and not why. Boo, Sony. Boo.

So if you (including if “you” here is just future me) see this message, check that you’re not doing something silly like hitting the C2 button and trying to activate some function that isn’t supported.