A7S for stills/video hybrid?

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dishan

Well-known member
I currently shoot Panasonic for video and a Canon for stills, as each are great at one yet mediocre at the other.

The A7S has really piqued my curiosity though. Looks like it really might be a master-of-all instead of a Jack of all master-of-none! I do have some reservations though, so I'd like to get the opinion of some of you users.
Personally, my 2 biggest concerns are AF lenses for stills, and rolling shutter for video:
1)The rolling shutter problem is pretty apparent on the tests I've seen, but they were also TRYING to illustrate it as a problem. In normal everyday use, does the rolling shutter wobble negatively impact your footage? I do some documentary and live-event style shoots where the camera ocassionally has to make sudden movements to follow the action. I'm usually on a monopod or shoulder rig in those situations, however some camera bounce is inevitable in my experience. Is this something that you have to take into consideration?
2)As for lenses, I like that I'd be able to use all my current glass- from FD to Nikon and even Canon EF with the right adapter. But the main reason I own any EF glass at all is because I want that autofocus for stills. I know metabones adapters will let me AF somewhat, but I've heard it is very slow and inaccurate. So, I'd need to invest in some native Sony lenses- but I'm noticing them to be more limited in variety and price than Canon. Is it my imagination, or is there just very little competition on glass there? Decent third party zooms and primes, for example, seem few and far between.
If I end up going back to my Canon for stills in order to use the AF, than I think I may as well stick with what I've currently got for video too and this whole pipe dream is a bust.
What do you guys think?
 
I personally wouldn't go this route. I'm not convinced the A7s is a suitable stills replacement for a DSLR at all.

1. Rolling shutter is very bad. For handheld doc type stuff it will be quite noticeable. As to whether or not that type of looks matters, it's up to you. Fast moving objects become very bendy.

2. Sony lenses aren't worthwhile in my mind. Their glass looks pretty good but is overpriced and slow, which to my style of shooting is a big trade off. F4 doesn't cut it if you shoot interiors even if the ISO looks ok jacked way up (which is a bit overrated in my mind - there definitely is noise, though it's pleasing generally.)

There aren't enough manual buttons on the body for me. Too much menu clicking which can make you miss a moment. I love the size of it and nailing focus is easy with peaking and the terrific OLED. IQ is great for video. On the stills side I definitely notice the lacking megapixels - cropping is not going to give a pleasing image, and honestly high ISO photos don't look good enough to print.

I do a lot of the same work as you. I own a 6D and C100 which had me covered before but got the a7s for full frame video, 4k, and high speed stuff. It has a good look. I like the stills from it (I use the Metabones mkiii) and the portability. I use it for vacations with a pancake. I could see myself using it as an A-Cam if I didn't have a C100 though it does get smoked by that camera. Significantly better video than my 6D though, by leaps and bounds.

For professional stills I would not trust it.
 
So far the A7s has been exactly what you want for me. The stills resolution is enough for my needs and the video has been good, I think it will be great once the quirks get worked out. There are color issues but I feel they will get worked out once this camera is out for a bit, the s-log2 and s-gamut are tricky and will take some time to get worked out. As a disclaimer I mainly shoot full manual and plan on getting 1 sony lens for auto, at this point I would only recommend sony e-mount lenses for auto focus. The rolling shutter is bad full frame but much improved shooting in crop mode, which has shown to be very good quality as well.

The e-mount has a big advantage over EF since many lenses can be adapted to work with it, my current favorite are old Oct18 35mm cinema lenses for video and m42 mount lenses for stills. The Oct18 lenes can be quite good and are very reasonably priced for cinema lenses, you can pick them up for under $200 for a prime on occasion, zooms are scarce though. Then there are Oct19 mounts as well which are also good but more expensive.

I see the MKIII for raw mentioned often and it is a great option for sure, IF you can deal with the raw workflow. It is very slow and very memory intensive, you will need lots of hard drive space and memory cards. I love the raw from the MKIII but it will slow down post by a very large margin. In reality MKIII raw is for hardcore video people only, IMHO.
 
remsyatassi said:
I personally wouldn't go this route. I'm not convinced the A7s is a suitable stills replacement for a DSLR at all.

1. Rolling shutter is very bad. For handheld doc type stuff it will be quite noticeable. As to whether or not that type of looks matters, it's up to you. Fast moving objects become very bendy.

2. Sony lenses aren't worthwhile in my mind. Their glass looks pretty good but is overpriced and slow, which to my style of shooting is a big trade off. F4 doesn't cut it if you shoot interiors even if the ISO looks ok jacked way up (which is a bit overrated in my mind - there definitely is noise, though it's pleasing generally.)

There aren't enough manual buttons on the body for me. Too much menu clicking which can make you miss a moment. I love the size of it and nailing focus is easy with peaking and the terrific OLED. IQ is great for video. On the stills side I definitely notice the lacking megapixels - cropping is not going to give a pleasing image, and honestly high ISO photos don't look good enough to print.

I do a lot of the same work as you. I own a 6D and C100 which had me covered before but got the a7s for full frame video, 4k, and high speed stuff. It has a good look. I like the stills from it (I use the Metabones mkiii) and the portability. I use it for vacations with a pancake. I could see myself using it as an A-Cam if I didn't have a C100 though it does get smoked by that camera. Significantly better video than my 6D though, by leaps and bounds.

For professional stills I would not trust it.
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I find rolling shutter issues are often overstated, as most people don't notice it and if you really need, apsc mode has a much faster rolling shutter.

Which sony lenses do you mean? A or E mount? I tend to agree about E mount, though the 24-70 OSS f4 is surprisingly nice if it weren't for f4 being a bit slow. A mount might be able to do AF well enough for some with thhe adapter but yes the a7s doesn't have such great options for fast AF. Fast lenses are easy though since nearly any lens can go well on the a7s with an adapter.

On the megapixels, I guess it depends on your needs but its more than enough for me generally, and I disagree about it lacking controls. On the C100/300 and a lot of other cameras you don't even have direct access to all your exposure controls like you do in the a7s. The a7s has a separate wheel for aperture, shutter, and ISO as well as quick buttons for expanded focus and a quick menu for everything else...
 
benjaminreece said:
Agreed. Mark III raw is a better approach if you need a solid stills camera + video as backup.
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I very highly disagree. The OP isn't looking for video as a backup- he mentioned that his video jobs involve run & gun, documentary and live events. Forget about the ridiculous post workflow, you can't reliably record any amount of a live event with mkIII RAW. Canon DSLRs are lackluster event cams in the first place, shooting RAW makes them even worse. They are best reserved for carefully controlled shoots, music videos and short narratives in which everything can be carefully planned, shot, and reshot if something goes wrong.
 
Right, I've heard the APS-C mode makes rolling shutter more manageable. I'd be fine with that, as APSC is "full frame" in the world of cinematography anyway, and I could flip back over to FF stills in the same body. Is the rolling shutter in APSC comparable with other DSLR cameras? Or is it still worse?


I had a shoot recently which required me to whip-pan to catch something, and it was just on the border of passable with my current gear. I think if the rolling shutter were any slower, that shot would have been toast. I can deal with rolling shutter in APS-C mode as long as it isn't a step backwards from my current gear.


But, more imporantly, I'm concerned about the stills side. The lack of available lenses for AF photography is a major downside to me. If I'm already shooting APS-C mode to avoid rolling shutter, if this thing isn't a compelling camera for stills, it really isn't much good to me.


The megapixel count doesn't scare me. My 7D, 60D and Rebel before it were all only 18 Megapixels. The difference between 16 and 18 is negligible IMO. You don't need 30+MP to be a photographer, prints from a 16mp sensor are just fine. But the lack of AF lenses are a definite hinderance. Maybe this system isn't ready for me yet?
 
For people shooting both stills and video, my recommendation right now would be either the Sony a7s or the Nikon D810:

* Sony a7s if you want the best video but also care a lot about stills
* Nikon D810 if you want the best stills but also care a lot about video

As you noted, the main issue for stills with the a7s is the limited native lens selection (not a problem if you use manual focus for stills too, but you really want native lenses for stills if you're going to use AF)

The D810 is very similar to the D800, but with reduced aliasing/moire (it seems there's still some of it, but it hardly ever shows up, I've only seen one problematic shot so far) and a new flat profile designed for video (I still don't know if it's any good).
 
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I've been shooting stills pretty much all the time and i love this cam, over any dSLR i've ever used. Size vs performance, ability to use it discreetly and its compatibility with rangefinder lenses. The resolution is perfect, i did worry about that before but in real world use it's fine. The silent shutter is very useful at times too. I have access to a D800 as well and i personally would never choose it over this cam.

The video is what it is, i bought it as a B cam and it's proved very useful in those cases. I will be rigging it to a car soon and that's something i'd be more nervous about if it was a full weight FS700/O7Q rig - that's the beauty of the cam. Of course whether the car rig will produce any useable results with the rolling shutter is a different question - testing time soon.

Even if the rolling shutter was better it would still be a nausea inducing shake-o-cam simply because of the form factor. So if you shoot with it mindful of that then you'd be minimising the rolling shutter as a matter of course.

Look at some of the more photo orientated sites and i'm not alone

cheers
Paul
 
Samuel H said:
For people shooting both stills and video, my recommendation right now would be either the Sony a7s or the Nikon D810:

* Sony a7s if you want the best video but also care a lot about stills
* Nikon D810 if you want the best stills but also care a lot about video

As you noted, the main issue for stills with the a7s is the limited native lens selection (not a problem if you use manual focus for stills too, but you really want native lenses for stills if you're going to use AF)

The D810 is very similar to the D800, but with reduced aliasing/moire (it seems there's still some of it, but it hardly ever shows up, I've only seen one problematic shot so far) and a new flat profile designed for video (I still don't know if it's any good).
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Interesting- In your opinion (which I highly respect, btw), the A7s is the best video option of the current hybrid cameras? I'd think the rolling shutter is a bit of a concern for video-specific tasks like event coverage and documentary / news gathering compared to the Panasonics that the OP is currently using.
The pannys aren't fantastic photo cameras, but even they seem to have more love due to the micro43 mount in native lenses. The A7s seems like a "so-close-yet-so-far" solution in my humble opinion. It has the potential to be so awesome, maybe it if had more native lenses and reduced rolling shutter... its so close at being awesome for both, but just seems to fall short at either. I'm keeping an eye on it for the future though. Would love to be wrong, I love the tech in it.
 
M. Gilden said:
Interesting- In your opinion (which I highly respect, btw), the A7s is the best video option of the current hybrid cameras? I'd think the rolling shutter is a bit of a concern for video-specific tasks like event coverage and documentary / news gathering compared to the Panasonics that the OP is currently using.
The pannys aren't fantastic photo cameras, but even they seem to have more love due to the micro43 mount in native lenses. The A7s seems like a "so-close-yet-so-far" solution in my humble opinion. It has the potential to be so awesome, maybe it if had more native lenses and reduced rolling shutter... its so close at being awesome for both, but just seems to fall short at either. I'm keeping an eye on it for the future though. Would love to be wrong, I love the tech in it.
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You make some good points M. Gliden, but it's been said a thousand times before that if you are concerned with rolling shutter, switch to APS-C cropped mode. You probably won't find a camera with the resolution, and flexibility as the a7S along with it's size/cost. I'm using this camera for most of my work now, and renting the C300 when needed. I chose the a7S over a C100 for versatility and portability. Works great imho. Now if WE can get the color science down more in line with the Canon look I'd be a happier camper =]
 
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If you need AF for stills you should just stay with Canon, imo.

remsyatassi said:
There aren't enough manual buttons on the body for me.
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Not sure what you mean by that. I find the customizable buttons way too many (10? 11 ?). In fact, I left most doing nothing. Also, the camera has 4 (four) wheels.
Then again, I only shoot MF stills.
 
I shot a WNBA game a week ago on the a7s and the rolling shutter was not a huge problem, especially in APS-C mode. I am also finding that you can make the camera look a lot of different ways.
 
To the OP - I'm very happy with my move from Canon to E/FE mount. I use the A7s and I just added the a6000 for faster AF/FPS shooting. I shot an giant event with 1200 people in a performing arts center - pretty much all stills - the main theater was mostly dark with a few lights for the speakers and presenters on stage - the A7s rocked. I shot 758 frames in 8 hours and never had an issue with the AF, even when pushing up to 25600 on the A7s (I limit the a6000 at 6400). It was always easy to get a positive lock. I used the 10-18 on the a6000 for UWA shots at 10mm (15mm FF FOV) and the A7s either had the 70-200 for reach or the FE 55/1.8 for shallow DOF candid stuff. I have the grip and through all that only changed 1 battery from the grip and the a6000 battery was still at 60%. In addition to the stills, I shot about 15 minutes of video across 60 clips. I never went above 6400 on the 5d3 with my 70-200/2.8 or the 35/85 F1.4, so I lose a stop of DOF with the FE lenses, but gain a couple in ISO.

IMO this is THE hybrid combo if you shoot a lot of stills and video - the a6000 gives you a 11fps machine gun with 24mp and the A7s mops the floor in low light and shallow DOF stuff with killer video. It all fits in a small bag that'll be much lighter than something like the D810 - especially if you carry 2 bodies to minimize lens changes. I always carry the zoom on a sling strap and I can clip the a6000 to the strap, clip it to my belt, or just grab it from my bag if I'm carrying it at the same time. Its fast, light and great IQ. The 10-18 is crazy wide on the A7s too, 12mm before it vignettes.

I tried to make this work with a GH4 and something like the EM1, but the stills were quite a step backwards from the 5d3 and I like lots of subject isolation when shooting events and clients like the look too - even at just f1.8 on a FF, that DOF can really only be matched by a couple M43 lenses, the Panny 42.5/1.2 and the Oly 75/1.8. And you can go much shallower with a legacy 1.2 like the 58mm Rokkor, the Canon FD 85 or even the new Mitakon 50/0.95 - which looks pretty good wide open. I'm leaning toward getting the Mitakon.
 
First a question to the OP. What are you primarily shooting? Event? Weddings? Portrait? Sports? What are you shooting? People here are trying to suggest cameras for stills without knowing what you are shooting stills of? "I need a camera to shoot pictures". OK. Pictures of what? Do you need fast AF. Do you need large prints? Do you shoot in harsh weather conditions? Are you supplying your images to AD agencies (Important because if you do and you're handing in 12MP images were as others are handing in 16bit +50Mp images, you're shooting yourself in the foot. Meaning, the A7s would not be ideal if working with any Ad agencies).

What do you shoot? Then we can find a camera for you.
 
photochris said:
To the OP - I'm very happy with my move from Canon to E/FE mount. I use the A7s and I just added the a6000 for faster AF/FPS shooting. I shot an giant event with 1200 people in a performing arts center - pretty much all stills - the main theater was mostly dark with a few lights for the speakers and presenters on stage - the A7s rocked. I shot 758 frames in 8 hours and never had an issue with the AF, even when pushing up to 25600 on the A7s (I limit the a6000 at 6400). It was always easy to get a positive lock. I used the 10-18 on the a6000 for UWA shots at 10mm (15mm FF FOV) and the A7s either had the 70-200 for reach or the FE 55/1.8 for shallow DOF candid stuff. I have the grip and through all that only changed 1 battery from the grip and the a6000 battery was still at 60%. In addition to the stills, I shot about 15 minutes of video across 60 clips. I never went above 6400 on the 5d3 with my 70-200/2.8 or the 35/85 F1.4, so I lose a stop of DOF with the FE lenses, but gain a couple in ISO.

IMO this is THE hybrid combo if you shoot a lot of stills and video - the a6000 gives you a 11fps machine gun with 24mp and the A7s mops the floor in low light and shallow DOF stuff with killer video. It all fits in a small bag that'll be much lighter than something like the D810 - especially if you carry 2 bodies to minimize lens changes. I always carry the zoom on a sling strap and I can clip the a6000 to the strap, clip it to my belt, or just grab it from my bag if I'm carrying it at the same time. Its fast, light and great IQ. The 10-18 is crazy wide on the A7s too, 12mm before it vignettes.

I tried to make this work with a GH4 and something like the EM1, but the stills were quite a step backwards from the 5d3 and I like lots of subject isolation when shooting events and clients like the look too - even at just f1.8 on a FF, that DOF can really only be matched by a couple M43 lenses, the Panny 42.5/1.2 and the Oly 75/1.8. And you can go much shallower with a legacy 1.2 like the 58mm Rokkor, the Canon FD 85 or even the new Mitakon 50/0.95 - which looks pretty good wide open. I'm leaning toward getting the Mitakon.
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That's quite interesting about the 10-18- been waiting for the 16-35 FE to come out, but maybe the 10-18 is a cost effective ultrawide for the A7s too. Albeit with the 16-35, in combo with APS-c mode, you have quite a range.
 
dustylense said:
First a question to the OP. What are you primarily shooting? Event? Weddings? Portrait? Sports? What are you shooting? People here are trying to suggest cameras for stills without knowing what you are shooting stills of? "I need a camera to shoot pictures". OK. Pictures of what? Do you need fast AF. Do you need large prints? Do you shoot in harsh weather conditions? Are you supplying your images to AD agencies (Important because if you do and you're handing in 12MP images were as others are handing in 16bit +50Mp images, you're shooting yourself in the foot. Meaning, the A7s would not be ideal if working with any Ad agencies).

What do you shoot? Then we can find a camera for you.
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For stills, mostly product related. Shooting a pair of shorts on a guy playing soccer, for example. Or a MMA fighter wrestling with a rash guard. Not for an ad agency, usually for web sites and occasionally print ads.
On the side I've been asked to do a lot local events, again mostly for web marketing purposes.


Right now I don't take too many photo gigs because my favorite lenses have been manual focus, which I've found very frustrating to use in these situations. I'd like to invest in more AF lenses and take on more of those jobs being offerred.
 
M. Gilden said:
Interesting- In your opinion (which I highly respect, btw), the A7s is the best video option of the current hybrid cameras? I'd think the rolling shutter is a bit of a concern for video-specific tasks like event coverage and documentary / news gathering compared to the Panasonics that the OP is currently using.
The pannys aren't fantastic photo cameras, but even they seem to have more love due to the micro43 mount in native lenses. The A7s seems like a "so-close-yet-so-far" solution in my humble opinion. It has the potential to be so awesome, maybe it if had more native lenses and reduced rolling shutter... its so close at being awesome for both, but just seems to fall short at either. I'm keeping an eye on it for the future though. Would love to be wrong, I love the tech in it.
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MY opinion is definitely skewed because of MY taste and MY needs. It is only natural that other people care more about other things. But for me:
* I want FF, because my lens set is designed for FF (vintage Leitz for the Leica-R mount) (APS-C plus speedbooster is also good enough for me) (this also means that I don't care about AF)
* I am DR-obsessed, definitely not resolution-obsessed. I don't shoot feature films, I don't need my camera to record internal 4K, or even external 4K. Sharp-ish 1080p is good enough for me, the a7s is already sharper than I need. And it has the best DR of all cameras under $6K (I still have to test this thoroughly, but I believe it will be a tie with the BlackMagics, or a slight advantage for the a7s).
* I don't do shaky-cam, the RS in the a7s is basically the same as with my 5N, which I've been really happy with for 18 months.
* I don't need most "pro" features. I want a great image, I can live with poor ergonomics, dual audio, mandatory rig, etc.

The GH4 has a small sensor (even with speedbooster) and not enough DR (though this last bit may be prejudice, I'm trying to borrow one to check if that's actually the case).

I am aware that all of this is very subjective...
 
dishan said:
For stills, mostly product related. Shooting a pair of shorts on a guy playing soccer, for example. Or a MMA fighter wrestling with a rash guard. Not for an ad agency, usually for web sites and occasionally print ads.
On the side I've been asked to do a lot local events, again mostly for web marketing purposes.


Right now I don't take too many photo gigs because my favorite lenses have been manual focus, which I've found very frustrating to use in these situations. I'd like to invest in more AF lenses and take on more of those jobs being offerred.
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OK. Now we know what your markets are.

If for the web and occasional print ad and you seem to be shooting sports and you want a video minded hybrid, I would suggest the Gh4. As fast of AF as a Nikon D4 with massive FPS in stills mode and great video to boot. Internal 4K that you can print from as well.

I'm primarily a stills shooter who deals with ad agencies. I shot a job on the A7s for a client and their ad agency came back asking for the full resolution image. I told them what they had was the full resolution image. So now I will NOT use the A7s for a stills shoot unless I fully understand where the images final uses are. The job was not that huge and not billboard bound (I currently have about 8 billboards just in my home market that I can drive by) so I wanted to see how the A7s would perform. When I got that message, the A7s became a video camera and a personal stills camera.

You could get away with the A7s if you know that the Web is your most common destination. But AF lenses as of today are limited. Basically you have the Zeiss FE zooms. The AF is an on par system. Nothing special about it. Battery life on the Sony A7s SUCKS. So my suggestion is either you stick with the Canons and wait for a dual pixel 7dMk2 or maybe 5dMK4 to come about or think about the Gh4 which has high FPS and world class AF system and battery life.

Sure, you're gonna hear that the "color science" is bad. Nonsense! I've matched my Gh4 with the BMC4K, C100, A7s, 5Dmk3, AX100 and more. I see the keyword "playing soccer" and "MMA fighter" and I think fast AF system. Sony A7,A7s, A7r is not the camera. And I own the A7s and A7r.

Nikon D810 would be an ok choice but you already have Canon gear. Not sure of your lens collection but between the Canon and Nikon and due to the fact you have existing canon gear, I would hold out for a Canon with dual pixel tech. We also don't know your budget and pocket book.

So based on the information we/I have on you, my vote is look at the Gh4. And the first person that talks about it's "color science" just disregard. But the A7s is a lowlight beast. Even more so in stills photography.
 
Sounds like I should just stick with Panasonic for video and Canon for stills.

*Sigh*

I'm not so heavily invested in Canon to switch to Nikon btw. I have 2-3 Canon AF lenses that are still worth more-or-less what I paid for them. But now that Speedboosters are available with EF support on m43 AND Sony mounts, I sort of like the idea of possibly getting IS support when needed. So I guess I should stick with what I got!
 
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