A7s sample footage

evanburke said:
Thanks for posting that L1N3ARX

ReelWorksMedia, that review had me feeling good...until he did the side by side with the Lumix GH4. Then I was like, s*%t, it looks fantastic and records 4K internally, and outputs 10bit. :(
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Where was the side-by-side... I missed that bit?

For me, I think the review video itself (shot on the GH4) sold the difference between the A7S and the GH4... Some of the GH4 shots looked great. But some of them looked too plastic! There's just something that's not quite right about the GH4's color science that often makes things look unnatural - particularly grass, foliage and skintones - too much saturation in shadow areas, perhaps? Too much smoothing of lower-contrast areas, perhaps? I don't know what it is exactly, but I do know that 10bit can't help!

The image from the A7S however, looks to me to have a significantly more "natural" feel to it. I've shot s-log on the FS700, c-log on the C300 and I've never had a problem grading 8bit footage from either of those cameras. And I would a bet, than 99.9% of stuff shot on the GH4 will never see 10bit...

That said, I think Sony are being pretty small-minded not to include 10bit on here... But personally I'm more concerned about the possible lack of 24p on the European version of the camera. ;-)
 
Maybe it is time for some s-log2 vs rec709(800%) comparisons. :)
Random note: s-log ungraded footage seems to be balanced colder than Standard.
 
AlexLeith said:
There's just something that's not quite right about the GH4's color science that often makes things look unnatural - particularly grass, foliage and skintones - too much saturation in shadow areas, perhaps? ...

The image from the A7S however, looks to me to have a significantly more "natural" feel to it.
T
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I couldn't agree more, there's allways that bit of plastic/phantastic feeling in the GH4's shots. Especially in this camerastore's clip the colour of a rainy afternoon didn't look very great... Maybe some weired grading, but I didn't want to get a cam with such an unatural look. So this was a great review! :-)
 
Some of the GH4 shots looked great. But some of them looked too plastic! There's just something that's not quite right about the GH4's color science that often makes things look unnatural - particularly grass, foliage and skintones - too much saturation in shadow areas, perhaps? Too much smoothing of lower-contrast areas, perhaps? I don't know what it is exactly, but I do know that 10bit can't help!
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Also couldn't agree more. :) Especially in skintones, the GH4 is just a really weird plasticky look. Almost like the color and intensity of highlights aren't being handled right.
 
Yea, no offense to anyone shooting the GH4. For a low budget cam thats in the strike zone for people that can only afford that level of camera, its great for them. They can make things that look really nice at a super affordable price. In the professional world, I would consider that camera very much a consumer camera that doesn't look much like a professional camera by any means. It does do the job of helping others get their vision into the world...and thats a good thing. 10 years ago, a camera for $1600 couldn't get you much. Now, even though it still looks consumer, it does have a much nicer look and can be a good creative outlet for those in that market. I personally would not consider using it on a paid project unless it was "the right tool for the job" in a particular situation. Just not on a regular basis.

I wouldn't hesitate to through it on an hexacopter though.
 
I think it would be possible for Sony to implement a way to do the S-Log2 grading inside the camera before the 8 bit compression. Sony could enable different grading levels to shadows/midtones/highlights for the user to chose and turn the S-Log2 image into a graded image inside the camera, this way there would be no need of post production grading, much faster workflow and would avoid gradient banding. I think this is simple to do, just enable a menu function with some grading algorithms or lut curves. Also it would be interesting to allow the user to load custom grading presets to the camera.
 
Apefos Adapter said:
I think it would be possible for Sony to implement a way to do the S-Log2 grading inside the camera before the 8 bit compression. Sony could enable different grading levels to shadows/midtones/highlights for the user to chose and turn the S-Log2 image into a graded image inside the camera, this way there would be no need of post production grading, much faster workflow and would avoid gradient banding. I think this is simple to do, just enable a menu function with some grading algorithms or lut curves. Also it would be interesting to allow the user to load custom grading presets to the camera.
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I think a7s is just like fs700 got many setting in profile can manually adjust? but of course dont have lut. If not i think choosing other profile which give you more colour and manually adjust those highlights and shadow also can get pretty close to dynamic range of slog2, but of course will still losing it a bit.
 
apefos adapter said:
i think it would be possible for sony to implement a way to do the s-log2 grading inside the camera before the 8 bit compression. Sony could enable different grading levels to shadows/midtones/highlights for the user to chose and turn the s-log2 image into a graded image inside the camera, this way there would be no need of post production grading, much faster workflow and would avoid gradient banding. I think this is simple to do, just enable a menu function with some grading algorithms or lut curves. Also it would be interesting to allow the user to load custom grading presets to the camera.
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picture profile parameters: Black level, gamma (movie, still, cine 1-4, itu709, itu709 [800%], s-log2), black gamma, knee, color mode, color level, color phase, color depth, detail, copy, and reset.
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.
 
^ should be enough to fight the 8-bit curse (my plan was to increase contrast a bit so I get better gradation in the midtones at the expense of highlights and shadows, as long as they don't clip any sooner; all these controls should help to get an even better result)
 
Samuel H said:
^ should be enough to fight the 8-bit curse (my plan was to increase contrast a bit so I get better gradation in the midtones at the expense of highlights and shadows, as long as they don't clip any sooner; all these controls should help to get an even better result)
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Please post resulting profiles
 
If I find anything worth sharing, there will be a Flaat for a7s, just as there was for 5N, even if it's not an actual profile, but a series of settings


Now:
I've been playing with the raw files from the Arizona falls video:
https://twitter.com/wamaddox/status/482520903755239424

Some comments:
* Nothing goes above 85% IRE, except from some speculars in the water. If the curve is similar to the FS700 one, there are three stops of DR above that, unused. I would have thrown two or three stops more light into the sensor. For me, in daylight, slog2 is ISO 400-800, definitely not ISO 3200.
* The image only fills a very small part of the IRE range. There's A LOT of range not being used in these clips, often close to 50%. That's a sign of great DR: there could be much brighter and much darker stuff in the frame and it wouldn't clip.
* I've been trying to break the codec. I added loads of MB Mojo, loads of contrast, etc. For anything reasonable, the codec holds. When it breaks, it is because of ugly noise (I can get banding in the sky, but noise is an issue before banding is).
* I was afraid I might have to go Premiere CC, but CS5 loads the files without issues.
 
Samuel H said:
If I find anything worth sharing, there will be a Flaat for a7s, just as there was for 5N, even if it's not an actual profile, but a series of settings


Now:
I've been playing with the raw files from the Arizona falls video:
https://twitter.com/wamaddox/status/482520903755239424

Some comments:
* Nothing goes above 85% IRE, except from some speculars in the water. I would have thrown two or three stops more light into the sensor. For me, in daylight, slog2 is ISO 400-800, definitely not ISO 3200.
* The image only fills a very small part of the IRE range. There's A LOT of range not being used in these clips, often close to 50%. That's a sign of great DR: there could be much brighter and much darker stuff in the frame and it wouldn't clip.
* I've been trying to break the codec. I added loads of MB Mojo, loads of contrast, etc. For anything reasonable, the codec holds. When it breaks, it is because of ugly noise (I can get banding in the sky, but noise is an issue before banding is).
* I was afraid I might have to go Premiere CC, but CS5 loads the files without issues.
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Samuel, that is some great finds!

I haven't had a chance to play with the clips myself.

Really happy the codec is fairly robust!

If the Arizona falls clips could have been exposed brighter, I would think that could have reduced the noise in the shadows. Thereby making the clips even more gradable. Right?

Thanks for sharing!
 
dfreerider said:
If the Arizona falls clips could have been exposed brighter, I would think that could have reduced the noise in the shadows. Thereby making the clips even more gradable. Right?
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That's my plan: to throw more light into the sensor, overexposing with respect to Sony's ISO3200 rating, because there's plenty of room in the highlights and it will make shadows cleaner, while requiring less ND.
 
Samuel H said:
That's my plan: to throw more light into the sensor, overexposing with respect to Sony's ISO3200 rating, because there's plenty of room in the highlights and it will make shadows cleaner, while requiring less ND.
Click to expand...

I can't wait until you get your a7s. You seem to have it down and what to look for!
 
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