A7s II RAW histogram / zebra bug?

G

GMC

Well-known member
Hi folks, I have now joined the Sony A7s II owner club, coming from the Panasonic GH1, GH2 then Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera and now my first fullframe Sony! I have just used it for test shots the last couple of days, but I can say that the IBIS works surprisingly well (I am using old Canon FD / FL glass), absolutely usable. Also, I find that the combination of SLOG2 / SLOG3 and SGamut3.cine gives very good colors. I use Resolve for color grading, and they have nice stock Sony SLog3.SGamut3.cine to LC709 deluts. Gives very accurate colors, and it seems that the decoding / color depth environment of Resolve helps with banding, which I have not seen yet. More findings to come. What I find very strange, maybe I am missing something, when I am shooting RAW stills the zebra as well as the histogram show clipped highlights which are not clipped actually when debayering the RAW stills - there is some 2 - 3 stops headroom above the clipping!? Hence, how do you judge exposure for stills? All my cameras so far were referring to the RAW sensor clipping in the histogram / zebra - why is Sony referring to some 8 bit JPG stuff? I must be missing something. CfdfsdfS.Linfo
 
Raw stills basically show the correponding jpg on screen, which has effectively had a LUT applied, the exposure tools will be working on that LUT.

I would not worry.. with a raw file just be happy to take some headroom in to post. That is entirely normal for stills shooters.

I can see it is a bit 'random' but it works fine - just make stills that look a bit bright if you want the cleanest files.

S
 
AFAIK, all stills cameras show the histogram for the jpg image, which by definition doesn't accurately represent the RAW data.
 
morgan_moore said:
Raw stills basically show the correponding jpg on screen, which has effectively had a LUT applied, the exposure tools will be working on that LUT.

I would not worry.. with a raw file just be happy to take some headroom in to post. That is entirely normal for stills shooters.

I can see it is a bit 'random' but it works fine - just make stills that look a bit bright if you want the cleanest files.

S
Click to expand...

Thanks, thats exactly what seems to be the case. Very strange, as I want to see sensor clipping not some applied LUT 8 bit clipping when shootin RAW stills. Any other way to identify when highlights "really" clip? I have not found anything so far.
 
Samuel H said:
AFAIK, all stills cameras show the histogram for the jpg image, which by definition doesn't accurately represent the RAW data.
Click to expand...
Funny and very strange if thats the case on a 3000$ camera - how to judge accurate exposure then? My Panasonic GH2's histogram turns from white to yellow if highlights clip, and that rather accurately represents what clips in the RAW still too. Of course not to speak about my BMPCC, which very accurately shows sensor clipping with the zebra and histogram.
 
Exposure in stills doesnt have to be so nailed.. raw is so flexible and deep.

If you expose so the jpg is at the top you will have a raw file with a bit of extra safety headroom. Perfect

S
 
GMC said:
Funny and very strange if thats the case on a 3000$ camera - how to judge accurate exposure then? My Panasonic GH2's histogram turns from white to yellow if highlights clip, and that rather accurately represents what clips in the RAW still too. Of course not to speak about my BMPCC, which very accurately shows sensor clipping with the zebra and histogram.
Click to expand...
Both are showing you a histogram that is based on the JPG image. Look at it this way: you are complaining that, while your GH2 had absolutely no headroom in the highlights beyond what the JPG was using, your new camera has plenty of headroom there to fix things in post.
 
To be fair on the OP I can see that this 'random headroom' is a little odd and to some extent stops one from ETTR to completely control ones image.

I shoot stills and am used to 'some headroom, probably 2 stops' but have indeed found this a little vague since shooting log video where I can fully see my range.

I wonder if the camera has some form of look management where one could create a flatter jpg and get a more accurate picture of the exposure latitude.

Again in practice raw stills are so flexi it probably just isnt worth worrying about.

S
 
I don't think there's any way to see a flatter image. If there was, we'd be using it to record video...
 
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