Sony a7V: Is this the end of Picture Profiles?

This will be a short article talking about a less-known detail of the new Sony a7V : the Color Depth option has been removed entirely from the Picture Profile menu. I only found out because someone in the community flagged it, and at first I thought it was simply an error. Unfortunately, it's not.

If you’ve been following my work, you know that Picture Profiles have been an incredible tool for creating film-like looks in-camera, often rivaling or even surpassing Fujifilm. Color Depth is one of the key ingredients for "baking" the in-camera looks. Without it, Sony is loosing some of its edge compared to other brands like Fujifilm.

Color Depth Gives Us Fine-Grained Control

Don’t get me wrong, the new Creative Looks are genuinely good, but they just don't offer the same flexibility and control. Compared to Picture Profiles, they can be inconsistent or produce unpleasant color transitions.

For me, losing Color Depth is a somewhat of a dealbreaker. It was an incredible tool for:

• Refining skin tones and deepening skies without extra editing.

• Controlling color brightness (luminance) of individual hues.

• Preserving detail in heavily saturated or clipped areas.

Can We Still Use The Picture Profile Film Simulations on the a7V?

A question I know many will ask is: Can I still use Picture Profile film simulations? The answer is technically yes, you can still use Color Picture Profile based film simulations. You will get a similar image, just without the color brightness control. There will be differences. Sometimes unnoticeable, sometimes obvious.

But when it comes to black and white film simulations, it's a totally different story! Black n white recipes rely heavily on the color depth option, so unfortunately now that the color depth option has been removed, half of the magic is gone for BnW film simulations :[

Why This Matters - A Real Life Test

The differences are subtle on some recipes like Kodak Gold, but on deeper simulations like Kodachrome V1, the loss is a bit more obvious.

Without Color Depth, you lose control over the brightness of individual color channels. You can’t preserve details in heavily saturated areas, and you lose that deep "color contrast" that makes an image look more like film.

Kodak Gold with & without Color depth

Kodachrome with & without Color Depth

I used Kodachrome as the example here because it's one of the "deepest" simulation of the bunch. This is where the lack of color brightness control is the most obvious.

X-Tarr - Black and White film simulation with & without Color Depth

X-Tarr is the B&W film simulation with most density, and we can see while not bad, we are loosing some color depth

A Shift in Philosophy

Sony hasn’t said a word about why they removed this feature. It’s a weird decision because it worked perfectly. We saw something similar when they moved PP7–PP9 into a limited "Log" menu.

I don't get it - you can have a dedicated Log menu while keeping the full Picture Profile slots intact.

It feels like Sony is pushing everyone toward the "plug-and-play" experience of Creative Looks. While looks like FL2 or SH are nice, they often have that oversaturation. Losing the precision of the old menu just feels sad.

Sony cameras with Color Depth menu

If you own an a7C II, a7CR, a6700, ZV-E1, or a9 III, hold onto it. Personally, I’d say anything released after the RX100 VI or between 2019-2025 is worth keeping for the colors. Models older than 2019 that have a heavy magenta cast are much harder to fix in-camera color wise.

What Now?

Sony usually only brings features back—like focus breathing compensation—if enough of us make noise on Reddit or DPReview. If we want this back, we have to talk about it.

I’ll be updating my product descriptions so everyone understands these limitations before they buy. I still want to buy the a7V, but knowing I can't get those same results with my simulations sucks. Not going to lie, I’m pretty pissed. I’m going to wait and see what Sony’s next move is for the rest of the year.

Take Action: If you want to request this feature, I’ve provided a direct link to Alpha Customer Service here.

Let's hope Sony brings it back!