4 Days with the Sony NEX-FS700

Postmaster said:
Both, the 700 and the 100 do timelapse down to 1 FPS.
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LOL .. Frank.. you are so fast :) ... tell me, please - did you talk to Sony about this? -- "That's the LA-EA2 adapter offering that functionality. I'm hoping that this functionality is rolled up into the FS100 firmware update next week."
As I see - almost everyone would like to have even PART of autofocusing improvement in FS-100.... this will make camera a GOOD "back-up" device for FS-700 as soon as we able to get it.. and also, when we talk about aspect ratio lines in external monitor, I reply you that it whould be the same as the rest of info, which I see on both - LCD display and external monitor, but it's NOT recorded into footage.. why aspect ratio lines have to be different?
 
The only thing I am still concerned with is the highlights. Like my FS100, the shots of the first and of the setting sun color shift in HUGE blocks of color, and something I want controls to get around in camera, and not just post.

I mean this as a serious question of your opinion, do you not mind what it does to those colors? When I look at fire and sun footage I shot with my 7D the last two years, I really like how the clipping goes to white. It just looks more natural to me. When I look at those shots on the FS700 (and the same I see on the FS100) those red or yellow areas just take my focus off the rest of the image and look wrong to me. When they go white, with a good transition from color to white that is shorter, they look more natural as a blowout.

I ask for opinion because I really do want to know how others feels about it. When I look at C300/Alexa footage that has these conditions, those zones of color shift are MUCH smaller and there ia a gradient into them from the real color and to white that happens pretty fast. Which is NOT what happens on the FS cameras. They hard clip almost and then stay that color shift for quite a bit till they hit all white.

The rest of the video looks great, and the rest of the colors I really enjoyed.

Thoughts?
 
Rick, since you asked for our thoughts...

I've never seen anybody more concerned about a camera's highlights. You keep bringing this point up on many of your posts (to be fair, so have others).
I have an FS100 and the video looks just fine to me. The FS700's video looks fine to me. The highlights on these cameras look no worse to me than any other camera I've used and owned. Honestly, it doesn't even occur to me that my camera is bad at handling highlights. You may be right, but I don't see it, or it's negligible enough that it doesn't bother me. The FS100's image may not be perfect, but for $5,000, I'm happy.

And if you're trying to compare video cameras in the $5-9,000 range to cameras in the $17-80,000 range, that's a bit unfair. I think you're always going to be disappointed with those match-ups. They are what they are. But so far, the FS700 is really looking like a camera that can give more expensive cameras a run for the money. The 700 may become the bargain of the year, maybe the next 5D, who knows?

But if you're not happy with the Sony products' highlight handling, my only advice is to move on to different cameras. Whatever you're seeing that bothers you isn't going to go away. There are plenty of other options out there. (Or, at this price point, maybe not.)
 
@Simon (the OP)

I have some extra time on my hands, might be a good opportunity to review some of that day 3 footage. Help out with a quick edit if you know what I mean.
 
I only got halfway trough the video because I'm loading up for a feature.

But this should have been Sonys release video. I now want this camera, and to me it's a little more detached from the revered Sony look. In a good way.

Good job Sony! Great pice for a great camera with really incredible features.
 
vanvideo said:
Rick, since you asked for our thoughts...

I've never seen anybody more concerned about a camera's highlights. You keep bringing this point up on many of your posts (to be fair, so have others).
I have an FS100 and the video looks just fine to me. The FS700's video looks fine to me. The highlights on these cameras look no worse to me than any other camera I've used and owned. Honestly, it doesn't even occur to me that my camera is bad at handling highlights. You may be right, but I don't see it, or it's negligible enough that it doesn't bother me. The FS100's image may not be perfect, but for $5,000, I'm happy.

And if you're trying to compare video cameras in the $5-9,000 range to cameras in the $17-80,000 range, that's a bit unfair. I think you're always going to be disappointed with those match-ups. They are what they are. But so far, the FS700 is really looking like a camera that can give more expensive cameras a run for the money. The 700 may become the bargain of the year, maybe the next 5D, who knows?

But if you're not happy with the Sony products' highlight handling, my only advice is to move on to different cameras. Whatever you're seeing that bothers you isn't going to go away. There are plenty of other options out there. (Or, at this price point, maybe not.)
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I understand where Rick is coming from. This is one area where the Canon sensor just spoiled some of us. The highlight rolloff on these cameras is amazing, but it is just one small component of image quality. And as you point out, except for the DSLRs, it's a price vs performance issue.
 
About highlight handling...The camera seems to keep the knee option enabled when using cinegammas (weird!) . Maybe it was set to auto knee instead of a manual 105 / 0 setting.
 
SergeSmArt said:
LOL .. Frank.. you are so fast :) ... tell me, please - did you talk to Sony about this? -- "That's the LA-EA2 adapter offering that functionality. I'm hoping that this functionality is rolled up into the FS100 firmware update next week."
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We don´t talk to Sony engineers directly (whis I could though) but everyone of us "early birds" has a "wish list" that get´s forwarded to them.
I included your LA-EA2 issue and the thing with the lines.
 
Rick Burnett said:
The only thing I am still concerned with is the highlights. Like my FS100, the shots of the first and of the setting sun color shift in HUGE blocks of color, and something I want controls to get around in camera, and not just post.

I mean this as a serious question of your opinion, do you not mind what it does to those colors? When I look at fire and sun footage I shot with my 7D the last two years, I really like how the clipping goes to white. It just looks more natural to me. When I look at those shots on the FS700 (and the same I see on the FS100) those red or yellow areas just take my focus off the rest of the image and look wrong to me. When they go white, with a good transition from color to white that is shorter, they look more natural as a blowout.

I ask for opinion because I really do want to know how others feels about it. When I look at C300/Alexa footage that has these conditions, those zones of color shift are MUCH smaller and there ia a gradient into them from the real color and to white that happens pretty fast. Which is NOT what happens on the FS cameras. They hard clip almost and then stay that color shift for quite a bit till they hit all white.

The rest of the video looks great, and the rest of the colors I really enjoyed.

Thoughts?
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i'm also very annoyed with the highlight handling, i have never seen it like this with any of my other cameras (canon t2i, panny hmc 40/150, pmw 350)

it looks absolutely terrible when a highlight is red instead of just white
 
Does anybody have answer for this one?


gene_can_sing said:
1) Does the continuous Autofocus ONLY work with Alpha lenses? I'm going to be using mostly Canon lenses with either the Metabones adaptor or the Berger. Will the L-Lenses do continuous autofocus as well? Seems like something Metabones could do since they seem to have great coders writing their firmware.
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Continuous Autofocus ONLY works with Alpha lenses with the Sony adapter (or sony e mount glass)

Metabones website clearly shows it does not have AF (but does have IS)
Birger has also never said they will do AF (although their Adapter will use the Auto focus motor as a way to use their wheel as a follow focus) but not AF.
 
To Berk's post, I emailed Metabones about the continuous autofocus on the Canon L lenses, they said it's under development, so I'm assuming they are working on it. I would think that if they've got the adaptor working good so far, that doing the continuous autofocus should not be that difficult, especially when compared to getting the IS to work. But I could be wrong.
 
SergeSmArt said:
NO ! it's NOT correct" both FS-100 and FS-700 HAVE timelapse capability.. you can shoot with 1 fps, 2 fps, 4 fps, 8fps, 16fdps and up to 30/60 fps in FS-100 and up to 240fps in full resolution in FS-700 ..
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Maybe it's just me, but I consider timelapse to be intervals of 1 second or more and any thing less to be variable frame rates. By that definition, the FS700 does not offer timelapse because at 1 fps, the interval between exposures is less then 1 second. Of course it's all just semantics.
 
I´m not into timelapse, so yeah, didn´t think of that.

Awesome job by the way Andrew and thanks for responding on my cinegamma question on Vimeo.

Frank
 
gene_can_sing said:
To Berk's post, I emailed Metabones about the continuous autofocus on the Canon L lenses, they said it's under development, so I'm assuming they are working on it. I would think that if they've got the adaptor working good so far, that doing the continuous autofocus should not be that difficult, especially when compared to getting the IS to work. But I could be wrong.
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Even if Metabones make AF work, it would be terrible AF during video (jerky, slow, will hunt). DSLR lenses are not optimized to work with CDAF AF system. Canon cameras themselves can't AF-C with their own lenses (in video mode). How do you expect Metabones to "solve" that issue? It's technically impossible. It will be unreliable and usable in practical usage.

The reason that Sony's LAEA2 adapter works with the Alpha lenses that were made for DSLRs (and AF-C is so fast and accurate, no hunting) is because it does it with PDAF system. The adapter has a translucent mirror and PDAF sensor. This technology actually comes from Sony's SLT still cameras (A55, A65, A77).

However, there is a catch to this (for video shooters). You can't change the aperture in video mode if you want continuous PDAF AF. The aperture is automatically set to either wide open (or F3.5 if lens is faster than F3.5). Despite that drawback, it still can be very useful if you are tracking something that is moving directly towards/away from the camera.
 
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evilthought said:
However, there is a catch to this (for video shooters). You can't change the aperture in video mode if you want continuous PDAF AF. The aperture is automatically set to either wide open (or F3.5 if lens is faster than F3.5). Despite that drawback, it still can be very useful if you are tracking something that is moving directly towards/away from the camera.
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In my tests on an NEX5N with a LA-EA2 it's actually the other way round, the widest the adapter will do continuous AF is f3.5 or stopped down further, nothing larger than 3.5. I have no idea why and it's a bit of a pain. This may not be true of the FS series.

The SSM lenses (Sony Zeiss zooms) have good AF motors, quiet, fast and fairly accurate. The older lenses have the screw drive which work, but are noisy and slower.

The Canon lenses AF varies from lens to lens, some have higher numbers of focus steps in which case you may get decent smooth AF, some of the cheaper and older lenses don't.

cheers
Paul
 
Andrew Young said:
Maybe it's just me, but I consider timelapse to be intervals of 1 second or more and any thing less to be variable frame rates. By that definition, the FS700 does not offer timelapse because at 1 fps, the interval between exposures is less then 1 second. Of course it's all just semantics.
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You are right :) , but I belie we can use any of TimeLaps external devices, as Kessler ORACLE Controller, when we shoot with FS-700 in PHOTO-MODE, make any interval from 1 sesond up to hours probably... and that will be 8 megapixel quality! :)

100140-2.jpg
 
paulcurtis said:
In my tests on an NEX5N with a LA-EA2 it's actually the other way round, the widest the adapter will do continuous AF is f3.5 or stopped down further, nothing larger than 3.5. I have no idea why and it's a bit of a pain. This may not be true of the FS series.

Paul
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" Aperture setting for video capture is fixed at the maximum aperture of the lens or f/3.5, whichever is lower " so.. I think we can shoot on FS-100 and FS-700 with F1.4, F1.8 , F2, F2.8 aperture if lens have it...
But.. don't forget that Sony A-lenses DO NOT HAVE Image Stabilisation ..so if we need FAST lenses (2.8 ) with IS on FS -100/FS-700 - we will need to use some SIGMA lenses..

as Sigma 150mm f/2.8 EX DG OS HSM APO Macro, Sigma 17-50mm F2.8 EX DC OS HSM Zoom , Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 EX DG APO OS HSM, Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG OS Macro, Sigma 180mm f/2.8 APO Macro EX DG OS HSM
 
SergeSmArt said:
" Aperture setting for video capture is fixed at the maximum aperture of the lens or f/3.5, whichever is lower " so.. I think we can shoot on FS-100 and FS-700 with F1.4, F1.8 , F2, F2.8 aperture if lens have it...
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F3.5 is lower than F2.8, so the aperture will be fixed at F3.5. You can't change it.
 
That's why I did ask for opinions this time instead of just pointing it out, and I am not comparing it to just really expensive cameras, I am comparing it to my 7D which handles highlight transitions, in my opinion, much better. As I said, I own the FS100 as well and have spent A LOT of time trying to get the highlights to look better, but, it can be tough. I've recently done a shoot where we pulled out the 7D again because I needed two cameras and, while I loved EVERYTHING else about the image from the FS100, the highlights on the 7D were superior.

When I look at the sun, or the fire in those shots, it looks unnatural to me. That's why I wanted to know what others thought of just those parts of the shots. If I get some time, I will find comparable shots on my 7D and post them side by side to show what I am talking about.

The rest of the video is REALLY great, and I love the part with the bursting bubbles. This is also not a question of it being something expensive that Sony couldn't do, it's a choice they made which I believe is to retain more detail at the expensive of showing that detail in a color shifted area. Studying the FS100 has shown this.

But, if you are okay with this, thanks for letting me know your opinion, as I am truly curious if people are fine with these in their footage. (And to those who are not, I understand. This is the one thing I fight when shooting my FS100).
 
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