A7S colored highlight peaking?

Somebody give NYVZ a PRIZE this is great info! If we find that these settings completely eliminate the problem we should make this a sticky.
 
Yes please someone else do their own tests to confirm. I've really only tested solutions to the issue on color charts so far so maybe see if I'm missing something.

Also definitely contact Sony Support and let them know it's a problem that needs fixing:
http://esupport.sony.com/US/p/support-contacts.pl?mdl=ILCE7B&LOC=3

Edit: Chat is useless, try email or phone I guess. The Chat guy just referred me to this number 1-800-222-7669
 
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I had a shot ruined when I was shooting some SPFX b-roll on my A7S a while back. Highlights were flickering with yellow; it looked almost as if my focus peaking had been baked into the shot. I was using sunlight through a window as backlight and fluorescents as key (not sure of their exact color temp).

It's pretty nerve racking to know that wasn't a one time fluke.
 
I contacted Sony about this nearly two years ago for my FS700 and they simply said to avoid this type of light. It definitely seems to be a problem with most Sony Cameras.

Here's their response...

"Hello Andy,



Thank you for the link



I have looked at it with our product specialist and his first thought was that it relates to the light emitted from the LEDs being outside of the reproduction range of the camera, similar to the effect you get with the high intensity blue lights. Almost certainly this effect will be duplicated by all other machines under similar conditions. Unfortunately there is not much you can do apart from avoiding this type of light source, and there is no repair we can offer you that would change the effect you are seeing.



All I can suggest is that you compare your camera with another FS700, the effect should be the same.



Kind regards,

xxxxx


xxxxx xxxxx
Sony PrimeSupport Engineer
E-mail: primesupport@eu.sony.com

SONY Europe Ltd"
 
I shot a wedding this weekend. Blue LED light machine, of couse. And the usual problems, of course. WB 5000K solved the issue: it still looks horrible, because that's how it looked in real life, but no overblown clipped uglyness from hell. Much easier to fix WB in post than to fix those blue holes.

Thanks again nyvz.
 
That is great Samuel, my wedding didn't have any blue led light this weekend so could not test it but sounds like we have a solution now.:)
 
for reference, I've uploaded one of the charts I shot with the A7S that illustrates the issue. Obviously there is something very wrong with the way Sony has designed their color science, and apparently this happens on many of their cameras.

https://vimeo.com/107648779
 
I just got some of this blue uglyness on my raw photos @Iso1600 from a nikon D7000. Mixed lighting. Those LED's are just laser canons.
 
I am very angry about this bug.

My Focus is on Event/Aftermovies for Clubs and the blue lights looks horrible.

I am from Germany and the Sony support ist very bad. allegedly they dont know about this problem.

and the solution is to push up the white balance?? i have troubles to understand the text on site 4. can anybody easy explain what to do with this problem?

thank you
 
Pushing the WB to arround 4700 or higher seems to reduce the bad effect.
Currently I'd say if you are in situation with strong blue lights and are experiencing the issue first try increasing your whitebalance or switch to PP OFF and a creative style of CLEAR, DEEP, LIGHT, BLACK & WHITE, SEPIA, or AUTUMN LEAVES.
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nyvz suggests to additionally or alternativly (to the WB increasing) to turn Picture Profiles off totally. This is necessary to active "Creative Styles". Those seem to eliminate the effect totally.

You can contact me via PM in German, if you like. I just repeated what I've understood, I do not experience the problem. I would like to dump the A7S for its shifting some red highlights to bright intense orange, which is similar annoying and destroying the footage.
 
I shot a concert documentary and had bright blue LED spots going straight into the camera and didn't get the effect. But I shot with no picture profiles at all - the only thing set on the camera was to make it shoot in 24p/xavc-s. Everything else was on auto (WB, ISO). Incidentally for all the effort and time that has gone into tweaking picture profiles, no PP at all looked fine to me generally.
 
Which creative style were you in? Some of them do not have the blue light problem. Perhaps you were in one of the ones that does not have the problem? Also I'd think you are more likely to see the effect if you are looking at a large area/subject illuminated by bright blue light rather than having a source pointing at the camera and possibly just blowing out or flaring.
 
No creative style on. I'd just gotten the camera that day. Definately didn't see the problem from any of the angles I was at. They were some type of stage light that was 4 banks of 5 LED per light - pretty bright, they were the mains for the performers.
 
Is possible to turn off CS? I didn't think so besides turning on PP. Pretty sure I always uses one or the other. Also the issue occurs for blue with a certain luma range at certain WB and in certain CS modes, so if any of those didn't match the range which causes the problem, you wouldn't have experienced the problem.
 
Unless someone can show a video with a scene exibiting the problem followed by a shot with different settings with the problem gone, any so called fix is just speculation from our perspective.
 
nyvz said:
Is possible to turn off CS? I didn't think so besides turning on PP. Pretty sure I always uses one or the other. Also the issue occurs for blue with a certain luma range at certain WB and in certain CS modes, so if any of those didn't match the range which causes the problem, you wouldn't have experienced the problem.
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Oh, you're right, I thought you meant picture effect. It was in standard. I agree with Mattoid, it's possible the lights I was shooting into might not have created the effect in any style.
 
nyvz said:
I can reproduce the issue on a color ramp chart and it appears to be a significant discontinuity that only exists in the blue channel a few stops before clipping, right before the point where the highlight primary color shifting issue takes place. It is different from the highlight primary color shifting issue* which I have seen in nearly all Sony cameras. The issue seems to occur in all picture profiles with all gamma curves and all color modes even including Black & White. It also occurs in PP OFF if creative style is set to Standard, Vivid, Neutral, Portrait, Landscape, Sunset, and Night Scene. The issue does NOT seem to occur in CLEAR, DEEP, LIGHT, BLACK & WHITE, SEPIA, and AUTUMN LEAVES. Alternatively, the issue seems most greatly affected by white balance, where in my tests the issue was greatest around 2500K and quickly diminished as WB was adjusted upwards and the issue seemed nearly imperceptible by around 4700K.

Currently I'd say if you are in situation with strong blue lights and are experiencing the issue first try increasing your whitebalance or switch to PP OFF and a creative style of CLEAR, DEEP, LIGHT, BLACK & WHITE, SEPIA, or AUTUMN LEAVES.

*I also see the normal primary color highlight issues that Sony cameras have where blue highlights go cyan and red highlights go yellow etc. Interesting that particular issue seems to be solved by using REC709(800%) gamma, though it seems to fix the issue simply by clipping off all the highlights where such lights would be an issue... Oddly the issue is fixed in my FS700 by using slog2, but while Slog2 and Sgamut seem to minimize the issue on the A7s, it still exists.

Also I would caution against using Color Depth B+7 to fix the issue as it doesn't seem to remove the crazy blues, only to bring the entire blue channel up to the clipped blue saturation level that occurs in the issue. It will likely make your colors look ridiculous like anything blue is a bright flat blue cutout. In my test, Color Depth just shifted where the issue seemed to appear in the luma and WB range.
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Ist jemand der deutschen Sprache mächtig und kann mir das noch mal erklären. Ich bin so wütend über dieses Problem :/
 
When i shoot with 5000 calvin, how i get this yellow picture to a correct white balance back in post?

I work with Sony Vegas.
 
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