FS5: A7Rii vs FS5

Certainly interested in seeing some of the wonkyness in 4K - any samples posted anywhere?
Definitely concerning... on the fence wether to buy it or not!
 
I posted this FS5 UHD footage a while ago testing PPs. You can download the UHD, but even that has been recompressed by FCPX.

I have the FS7 as well, this actually looks pretty similar. I will make side by side evaluations soon.

 
It's pretty bad. Been testing my FS5, and at ISO's higher than 2500 in 4K, it introduces strange blocky smearing and streaking at contrast points. It's visible in all PP's and settings, and I don't think it's the codec compression because you can see it right in the monitor and on a live feed to a 4K TV.

Never seen this effect on a camera. It's almost like a temporal noise reduction that's constantly falling apart.

It's a serious issue. Hoping that Sony can address this with firmware.
 
maxjw said:
It's pretty bad. Been testing my FS5, and at ISO's higher than 2500 in 4K, it introduces strange blocky smearing and streaking at contrast points. It's visible in all PP's and settings, and I don't think it's the codec compression because you can see it right in the monitor and on a live feed to a 4K TV.

Never seen this effect on a camera. It's almost like a temporal noise reduction that's constantly falling apart.

It's a serious issue. Hoping that Sony can address this with firmware.
Click to expand...

Can you post samples. I have not found this with mine yet.

More testing next week, I plan to do compares FS7 to FS5 side by side.

Like I did with the FS7 and A7s, in this case the FS7 was very superior, except in low light.
 
Thanks, Olof
I am considering the FS5, but am waiting to see real examples from people who own the camera. Hard to know what is really going on with a camera until you have very specific examples with data. What I have seen with users that have experience is a very nice picture under controlled conditions. Not much so far with pushing the camera to it's limits.
 
I'll put together a sample video of this weird "shimmering" effect soon because I'd also like to send it to Sony.

It shoots beautifully at 2500 ISO and below.
 
Here’e a quick clip I shot to show off the problem. This was shot at 3200 ISO (not a crazy high ISO considering it’s the base ISO for slog)


Whenever the camera moves, it shimmers between smooth and sharp streaky lines. It looks like compression, but I suspect it's noise reduction gone wrong. I don't think it's compression because it is clearly visible on the camera monitor and when fed via HDMI to a 4K TV.


This occurs in all picture profiles at 3200 ISO and up in UHD (you can even kinda start to see it at lower ISO’s). It does not appear in HD.


 
Clear image zoom turned off completely. Also straight out of camera into Premiere and exported. Tried it on every setting variation I can think of with no changes in the strange tearing pattern in 4K. It seems to be showing up on other FS5's too. Anticipate Media mentions it in post #57, and the instagram page he references shows another example of this same pattern.

I don't know enough about video signal processing to say for sure, but this really looks like some sort of noise reduction algorithm being applied poorly at higher ISO's. I'm hopeful that it can be fixed because I love everything else about the camera.
 
Last edited:
I tried and tried but I can't reproduce the issue

https://youtu.be/geTvj0KWDxE

except, when I edited on a UDH timeline by cropping in a great deal because every time I crop it would "upsize" back to UHD (wish I knew the correct terminology, Im sure upsize isn't it :) )
on an UHD time line if you crop it its still going to be "3840x2160" so even if I export 1080 its going to go from the "stretched" image (see image)
resizeError.jpg
 
maxjw said:
Clear image zoom turned off completely. Also straight out of camera into Premiere and exported. Tried it on every setting variation I can think of with no changes in the strange tearing pattern in 4K. It seems to be showing up on other FS5's too. Anticipate Media mentions it in post #57, and the instagram page he references shows another example of this same pattern.

I don't know enough about video signal processing to say for sure, but this really looks like some sort of noise reduction algorithm being applied poorly at higher ISO's. I'm hopeful that it can be fixed because I love everything else about the camera.
Click to expand...

I've seen similar crap with the FS7 and much of those artefacts that your video contains are due to the way XAVC works. XAVC heavily compresses areas of similar tone (and I mean heavily compresses) and tries to leaves as much of the bitrate to detail. For example, a tree blowing in the wind against a blue sky will heavily compress the sky and retain as much detail in the leaves of the tree as the bitrate will allow. It can mean you get a surprise when grading that the sky is filled with massive blocky chunks. I can see similar blocky chunks in your video which give the impression of tearing.

A lot of people will be more familiar with how AVCHD works and how it falls apart with moving objects but XAVC tends to do the opposite and favour motion. The codec in the FS5 is more limited in bitrate than the FS7 so these artefacts are going to show up sooner rather than later.

I'd suggest the codec is crunching the noise in the image which makes it look like there's some crappy noise reduction going on. I've learnt to never under expose the FS7 to avoid the ugly codec+plus noise issues and will often over expose by 1 sometimes 2 stops if I don't need the dynamic range which I rarely do. Any FS7 owner who hasn't seen the compression artefacts hasn't looked hard enough.
 
maxjw said:
It's pretty bad. Been testing my FS5, and at ISO's higher than 2500 in 4K, it introduces strange blocky smearing and streaking at contrast points. It's visible in all PP's and settings, and I don't think it's the codec compression because you can see it right in the monitor and on a live feed to a 4K TV.

Never seen this effect on a camera. It's almost like a temporal noise reduction that's constantly falling apart.

It's a serious issue. Hoping that Sony can address this with firmware.
Click to expand...

its the compression engine. Externally recorded its just as good as the FS7. A bit better actually which means XAVC hurts the FS7 a little too. I shot a new thorough test you can view here:

Download “original” lightly compressed 4K file for best results from Vimeo but it’s streaming in 4K on YouTube


I’ll follow this commentary up with a podcast to talk about more aspects of the camera.


This video compares the FS5 in ISO 3200, 6400, 12800 in slog2, cine/pro both internally and externally recorded in 4K (with a look at HD too) for the same scene with an FS7, A7RII, and the RX100M4. All same lens except for the RX100. Both graded and original shown. The scene is somewhat dynamic and has dimly lit shadowed subjects in the distance and bright objects lit both.


Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/149383051
YouTube: http://youtu.be/N8EIWE6r0yQ?a
 
thanks for the video! That is great to know that the externally recorded 4k image is up there! I personally prefer the fs5 over the c100 just after using the fs5 for a short time and having used the c100 for several years.
 
Thanks for everyone's input!

Would the compression be causing that in a live feed to a TV or directly in the camera monitor? That wouldn't be the XAVC codec, right? That's what puzzles me -- on the camera monitor I can magnify right in live and see those blocky streaking lines. A 4K feed (not recorded) directly to a 4K TV should be the same signal a Shogun would record, but I get that same vertical tearing pattern. It's identical between the uncompressed hdmi, the internal card, and the camera monitor.

Starting to think there may be an issue with my particular camera. Am I missing something?
 
Last edited:
What are everyone's thoughts on the A7Rii vs A7Sii? I have considered picking one up as a B-Cam for my FS7 but I'd also like to use it for stills / photography as well. I shoot mostly SLOG3 on my FS7 so that makes me lean towards the A7Sii but the megapixels are a lot less than the A7Rii for stills. Plus, I think I read that the A7Rii overheats quite easily when recording internal 4K - although I think the A7Sii does as well but for some reason I was thinking it wasn't as often. I'd really appreciate any advice.
 
Having that discussion here: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?342205-A7RIi-vs-A7SII-going-crazy-cannot-choose/page4 (and tearing my hair out between the two cameras)

Bascially the A7Sii is better in low light, but you can't shoot 4K in APS-C with it… only full frame. On A7Rii you can shoot 4K in both FF and APS-C so it might boil down to what lenses you have.

I own the Sony F55 and am leaning towards the A7Rii. I have no plans on moon light shoots in the current or near future.
 
Spoke with a Sony tech today and showed the video. He acknowledged that it's not a codec or compression issue if it was visible on the camera monitor or through the HDMI live. Waiting to hear back if he can reproduce it himself. Eager to see if this is an issue with this particular unit, or if it's more common.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top