Sony A9 II A9ii assign function to buttons problem - still

[webcord]

Help please, can anyone tell me if it is possible to assign "drive mode" to one of the "c" buttons. I asked before and it looked like I needed to update firmware to v.3.
Done this but when I try to assign drive mode to any of the c buttons, although it allows me to select the function, when in normal use, I press the custom button I get a message saying that the function is available via the top control wheel.
Seems odd that the option is available but will not work.
I bought the Friedman A9ii book, not cheap at nearly £50,and very clearly the book says that I can assign this function to any of the customisable buttons.
Can anyone confirm, one way or another if this is possible, the book clearly says you can.
I have an A7iii and am used to configuring Fn buttons.
This is very important to me because of nerve problems in my wrists, I need to be able to alter drive mode without lowering camera.
I appreciate all help but would prefer someone who absolutely knows this issue on the A9ii. It seems many people offer well meaning advice, them mention that they don't actually have this model of camera.
Have spent hours on this and it is starting to annoy me, if it CAN'T be done then fair enough but having the option and the book instructions make me wonder.

 

[Reciprocum]

What you can do for sure is use/program one of the C buttons (you call them Fn buttons but they are labelled "Cn" on the camera) to override - only while you keep that C button pressed - whatever drive mode is selected on the drive mode rotary dial (top left of the camera if you look at it from the back/viewfinder).
I can tell you how to do this on A1 (same rotary drive-mode as the A9ii has), unless what you call "drive mode" is not the L/M/H/H+ dial but the P/A/S/M dial - wich I call "shooting mode" dial).
I use this all the time when having Hi/Hi+ selected on the rotary drive mode dial to override it momentarily to single shoot (to take a single shot without wasting card space when the subject stopped moving franticly ) without having to take my eye from the viewfinder or rotate the drive-mode dial to achieve that and then back to its original Hi/Hi+position again.

EDIT: If what you want is to 1) press a certain C button, 2) release that C button, 3) use the front or rear scroll wheel to change the current drive mode (say from H to L), 4) keep using your camera in drive mode L without having to press anything else.
Then this is NOT possible on the A92 or A91 or A1 because, having a physical drive mode rotary dial, you could end up int the paradox situation of putting the camera down for a while, then when you pick it back up you look at the physical rotary drive mode (still in H mode) and be mislead by it because you no longer remember in what mode you have switched to using the C button procedure. Next thing you are shooting an e-Mail to Sony support complaining that your rotary drive mode dial is broken... On 7M3 this is possible/acceptable because there is no physical drive mode rotary dial to mislead you into such paradox.

The temporary (while you press a certain C button, I use the lens button) override does not cause paradoxes (eMails to Sony support) and is the only alternate tool/mean - other than using the physical dial itself - that you have available to switch drive-modes (again temporarily) on cameras with physical rotary drive mode dials. Sony calls this functionality "Reg custom set" and is programmed in 2 steps a) you define wich set of settings you wish to override b) you select wich C button to invoke that set of setting.

 

[webcord]

Thanks for all that, we.re talking about the same thing almost. Your solution may work for you on the A1, the A9ii is not the same.
After many more hours research and trial and error, it seems that on an A9ii, the functions that have dedicated control knobs are not available to be allocated to any custom buttons. -thats it, no problem but would have been nice to get simple answer.
we will see how I get on with it.
thanks again for the input, it all helps.

 

[Clostridium]

Recently got the A1 after coming from an A7R3 and working through some of the same issues that Webcord brought up. It appears that Sony had anticipated that you'd be able to program in things to the custom settings that are covered by a dial on the camera thereby causing a bit of a conflict. If you look at the help guide (link below) they have a warning describing just that situation:

ILCE-1 | Help Guide | Camera Set. Memory

• For some functions, the position of the dial and the setting actually used for shooting may not match. If this happens, shoot images by referring to the information displayed on the monitor

So this begs the question about why they didn't go ahead and implement this since it looks like they anticipated the possible conflict. I feel like the users of the A9 series and the A1 are sophisticated photographers and they could handle the fact that providing people the ability to program something counter to a dial will mean it won't agree with the current camera settings. In fact they could have the camera flash some sort of small notice about this just in case.

You can use custom shooting sets to address most of this but I am running out of buttons that are easy to reach with my thumb to use for custom shooting sets to accomodate the things I want to do. When I use custom shooting sets I make them a replacement for the back button focus button. Also there are some bugs in the custom shooting sets - notably when you use one for DMF and have focus peaking set to on the camera will not show focus peaking when triggered from a custom shoot set. It only triggers the focus peaking if you have the focus mode dial at DMF. Which is a bummer.

More broadly this greatly diminishes the value of the C1-C3 custom settings and M1-M4 ones as well if you have to change the drive mode and focus mode dials every time to get what you want if it differs from the current dial positions. Basically it means that I could have 2 additional steps to effectively use the C1-C3 custom settings.

Craig

What you can do for sure is use/program one of the C buttons (you call them Fn buttons but they are labelled "Cn" on the camera) to override - only while you keep that C button pressed - whatever drive mode is selected on the drive mode rotary dial (top left of the camera if you look at it from the back/viewfinder).
I can tell you how to do this on A1 (same rotary drive-mode as the A9ii has), unless what you call "drive mode" is not the L/M/H/H+ dial but the P/A/S/M dial - wich I call "shooting mode" dial).
I use this all the time when having Hi/Hi+ selected on the rotary drive mode dial to override it momentarily to single shoot (to take a single shot without wasting card space when the subject stopped moving franticly ) without having to take my eye from the viewfinder or rotate the drive-mode dial to achieve that and then back to its original Hi/Hi+position again.

EDIT: If what you want is to 1) press a certain C button, 2) release that C button, 3) use the front or rear scroll wheel to change the current drive mode (say from H to L), 4) keep using your camera in drive mode L without having to press anything else.
Then this is NOT possible on the A92 or A91 or A1 because, having a physical drive mode rotary dial, you could end up int the paradox situation of putting the camera down for a while, then when you pick it back up you look at the physical rotary drive mode (still in H mode) and be mislead by it because you no longer remember in what mode you have switched to using the C button procedure. Next thing you are shooting an e-Mail to Sony support complaining that your rotary drive mode dial is broken... On 7M3 this is possible/acceptable because there is no physical drive mode rotary dial to mislead you into such paradox.

The temporary (while you press a certain C button, I use the lens button) override does not cause paradoxes (eMails to Sony support) and is the only alternate tool/mean - other than using the physical dial itself - that you have available to switch drive-modes (again temporarily) on cameras with physical rotary drive mode dials. Sony calls this functionality "Reg custom set" and is programmed in 2 steps a) you define wich set of settings you wish to override b) you select wich C button to invoke that set of setting.