With the SONY alpha 7S mark 3, the ability to upload both images and videos to Ci is now available. Previously, the a7 & a9 could upload only images. The rest of this article is primarily focused on the A7SM3, however, much of the menu's apply to A7S, A1, A9 & FX3. The A9 has some slightly different menus the Network menu has some different options and eliminates one set of menus where a user sees the "FTP Transfer Func." and also when navigating to setup the Wi-Fi Access Point. For the A7S, A1 & FX3, the menu's are very similar.
To start the setup & configuration to upload to Ci from one of those model cameras, first create a new File Request while logged into a Team Workspace in Ci. (For more information on creating File Requests, go to this Help Center article) It might be helpful to make sure the File Request is set to never expire so that a user does not have reconfigure in the Camera more than once, unless the intent is to separate content flowing to different workspaces for different projects by using different File Requests.
Once the File Request has been created, paste the link into a web browser and pull out the 8 digit code that makes the link unique and save it somewhere to reference for later use, it will look something like the example below:
For the rest of the setup, please have the actual SONY model camera as outlined above, with at least one SD card already formatted in the camera and a charged battery in the camera as well. Please also have ready the preferred type of connectivity to the internet, such as a Wi-Fi Access Point (SSID/Password) or Ethernet connection.
With the camera turned on and the LCD screen visible, use the "Menu" button to bring up the main menu. Navigation down the Menu options to Network, select. On the next setu of Menu options, proceed to "Wi-Fi", select and then select "Access Point Set.".
This will then begin a search for Wifi Access Points.
Identify if the Access Point you want to connect to is listed and proceed to select and put in the Wifi password.
For all inputs into the camera settings when needing to put in some value manually, a user will go through the input screens to select letters, numbers or special characters with the ability with letters to choose one at a time and what capitalization to use. Once the password is entered, the camera will attempt to connect to the Wifi. If it is successful, the camera will confirm with text stating it is "Registered" and will see on other views "Connected".
For some connections, you might need to set the Wi-Fi Frequency Band to match what the WiFi signal is supporting such as 2.4GHz or 5GHz.
Using the Menu navigation on the scroll button, go back to the Network Menu and select "Transfer/Remote" and the "FTP Transfer Func." option on the resulting menu.
Select "FTP Function" and turn it on, by selecting "On". It will attempt to connect to any FTP that has been setup already, if a connection method has already been turned on.
Go back to the "FTP Transfer Func." Menu options and select FTP Connect Method and select the method that matches your connection, such as "Wi-Fi".
Go back to the "FTP Transfer Func." Menu options and select "Server Setting". The resulting menu will show a list of up to 9 FTP servers.
Using the scroll navigation button arrow over the name of the first FTP server and click into it. There will be a new Server 1 menu with the following:
First, click into the Display name and modify by using the manual entry to change the name to be whatever is preferred, such as renaming "FTP1" to be something like "FTP_Ci" for example and then click, "Ok".
Second, back to the Server 1 menu options and select Destination Settings. The resulting view will allow to put in the following values
Host Name: ciftps.cimediacloud.com
Secure Protocol: On
Root Certificate Error: Connect (This allows for connectivity when getting a Root Certificate Error message)
Port: 21
Once those values have been entered, then click "OK".
Third, back at the Server 1 menu options, select "User Info Settings". In resulting view, click into "User" and type in the File Request code from the beginning of the setup. Any letters should be All Caps. Click, "OK".
Then enter a value for the Password field of anything or just a simple "12345", click, "Ok".
Click, "OK" at the Server 1 Menu and the Server Setting Menu will appear, click, "OK" at that menu as well.
The camera will try to connect to the Server 1 that was setup and will display "Connected (Root Certificate Error).
Now that the camera is configured to use FTPS to connect to Ci and upload, it's a matter of how and what content to be uploaded. Going back to the FTP Transfer Func. Menu, and scrolling down with the scroll button, scroll down to Auto FTP Transfer, selecting and turning that feature on, will allow for Images to Automatically upload when new photos are shot. This will not auto upload Videos.
Once the Auto Transfer is turned on, try taking a few shots and make sure they are uploading or have uploaded by one of two ways:
1. Navigate to the FTP Transfer Func. Menu on the and it will provide a status on how many files are remaining to transfer and then Complete when they have all been uploaded.
2. Login to Ci and navigate to the Team Workspace where the File Request is routing the uploaded content and to the folder that was setup to receive the content. The files will appear there.
Alternatively, you may use the FTP Transfer menu option under FTP Transfer Func. Menu. This will give you a few different combinations of settings to initiate a manual FTP Transfer based on a "Target Group" of either Date or the selected Media card slot.
Still Images/Movies: All, Only Still Images, Only Movies:
Target Img (Protect": All, Only Protected Img.
Transfer Status: All, Only Non-transfer, Only Failed Transfer
After clicking, "OK", the transfers will initiate and the status of how many remaining will show.
Check the files have arrived in the intended Team Workspace and Folder.
For any additional questions, please reach out to the Ci Customer Success Team by submitting a request here in the Help Center.