A7s sample footage

[Kholi]

Okay you guys, I'm burying this here on private links for now because I know most of you will read this first:

- I was using both cameras at the EXACT same time. Both had 70-200/2.8s on them. So that means I had to compose and focus two different cameras with two entirely different sized sensors, one being lower than the other. The frames aren't exact.
- A7S only had the tiny screen going, it's actually not horrid in daylight, but focusing at 4-5.6 wasn't very easy with it. This is the biggest reason why I want to just leave it private for now.
- They're also both on a monopod, so imagine a camera rig that looks like something out of a sci-fi film, it's also completely unbalanced etc. Just not the way you want to shoot but I wanted to see them together.
- Yes, I know that the 4K camera is smoother, it's also heavier and was on the primary rig. It also had IS on it so that helped.
- I know that the color isn't completely consistent in either, and no it isn't flat. I feel like any camera can be run through FC, but finding formats that look great saturated etc., it's hard to come by. SO that's why I do this first.
- The A7S stuff was rendered at 4K on accident, nothing too major, but the second shot in the A7S is a bit cropped in (black borders), it's fine. Don't freak out.
- Some of the A7S stuff's clipped (white shirts), I'm very confident that it could have been saved in camera. Don't freak out.


Both of these cameras have their own thing going on, I could easily match the vibrance or luminance of one to the other, or adjust reds or blues. The only thing I think I cannot match between them would be motion, inherent detail, noise/patterns, and the general depth of either.


Tech:

A7S - XAVCS / Ground up PP1 Slog2 settings / Tamron 70-200/2.8 Di / Hoya ProND64 / 1/45 shutter / 3200 ISO
Blackmagic 4K Cam - RAW / Canon 70-200 MKii / Hoya ProND 100 / Tiffen Black Satin 1 / Rated @ 800 ISO

Try not to repost anything just yet, but you're free to download the ProRes LTs and run them through Film Convert.

https://vimeo.com/100626145
pw: 4k1

https://vimeo.com/100626144
pw: a7s1


​

I'm gonna take one more afternoon into evening adjusting the PP I have setup, still needs some overall color bumps or subtractions in the depth menu, and then the WB thing is really becoming tricky.

 

[Kholi]

And first time in crappy indoor lighting, fluos and more weird fluos, 70-200/2.8 MKii and 18-35@35 in FF mode (covers from 30-35 I think)

 

[PTRush]

^^^ Damn! This camera is actually quite amazing for the cost~

Hey Kholi, were you using auto white balance?

Very much anticipating your custom PP... any chance you'll posting your personal settings?
Love to see what they are at the moment..

 

[goodgoings]

What was the ISO for the first five stills above? I expect it to be higher than 3200 ISO with all that noise. 3200 is pretty clean on the A7S from what I've seen.

 

[Kholi]

^^^ Damn! This camera is actually quite amazing for the cost~

Hey Kholi, were you using auto white balance?

Very much anticipating your custom PP... any chance you'll posting your personal settings?
Love to see what they are at the moment..

Manual WB actually, just adjusted the grid.

As soon as I get to a really good place with the PP I'll post pictures of my menu settings. Probably like tonight.

What was the ISO for the first five stills above? I expect it to be higher than 3200 ISO with all that noise. 3200 is pretty clean on the A7S from what I've seen.

3200. Slog2 gamma.

I haven't worked out the noise thing but to me these are extremely clean considering how little light is in this room, and it's 3200 ISO. I couldn't imagine being put off by this noise at all, but yeah maybe I clicked a menu setting or something?

 

[DvxHerb]

Why do I think I recognize the guy in the white shirt and gray hair in those two shots?

 

[dustylense]

Well done Kholi. Talk about 2 opposite cameras being the A7s and the BMC4k. You managed to match them pretty well. Slight differences but easily gradable for a near perfect match (Mostly the blue hues of the sky).

Could you elaborate on the post process? I'm gonna assume that you are trying to grade in camera on the A7s as much as possible leaving only contrast and gain adjustment for post?

Kudos dude!

 

[reem12]

Koli can you state why u chose /45 instead of 1/50 for shutter. I didn't know the sony could go in those incraments. And if not a typo tell me where to go to get there. Thanks for helping us all to undertand the possibilities of this cam.

 

[Kholi]

Why do I think I recognize the guy in the white shirt and gray hair in those two shots?

He has one'a those familiar faces.

Well done Kholi. Talk about 2 opposite cameras being the A7s and the BMC4k. You managed to match them pretty well. Slight differences but easily gradable for a near perfect match (Mostly the blue hues of the sky).

Could you elaborate on the post process? I'm gonna assume that you are trying to grade in camera on the A7s as much as possible leaving only contrast and gain adjustment for post?

Kudos dude!

They are pretty close, and they can be matched. I know some people swear up and done you can match any camera and yeah, maybe with a lot of work, it's cool to see that I don't have to key the heck out of everything to get them extremely close. Of course, those things I listed will always show up front or subconsciously (the A7S is clean and looks great, on the other hand the 4K DNG definitely carries depth that the 8-bit doesn't have) but they look like a great pair. I'm actually really relieved because that means the 120FPS should cut with the 4K really well.

ANd of course, 4K out to the Shogun.

The PP I have setup actually starts relatively saturated, and I've adjusted black gamma to a degree. That's the next thing I have to figure out because it seems to introduce banding a bit too quickly in underexposed situations. I think it's manageable, though. All in all, you're right in that I'm trying to put down as much information up front in the areas I prefer (skin and blue). The more I think about it, the more I'm inclined to just let the magenta ride if it's going to help saturate skin to begin with.

The XAVC-S really is good, as Sam H pointed out long ago. Thinking to just let it do its job, put data to it (Sam can verify this later, but I really think it wants darker mids) and then let R11's own color science take it a little further.

Someone asked about converting, if you can't go to a lossless or 4444 then don't bother converting. Unfortunately, the XAVC-S seems to be pretty intense, where I have no trouble dealing with 10/422HQ on my Macbook, the XAVC-S gives it a run. Even pumping the XAVC-S to 4K on my new tower, what does REALLY well with 4K DNG, seems to want to throw the XAVC-S up.

Koli can you state why u chose /45 instead of 1/50 for shutter. I didn't know the sony could go in those incraments. And if not a typo tell me where to go to get there. Thanks for helping us all to undertand the possibilities of this cam.

Might be habit, but I actually think the 1/45 looks better if I have to choose between 1/50. Someone a long time ago told me I couldn't see a difference, I can. I'd rather go with more blur than less @ 24P.

You can switch the camera to .5 EV step in the menus ( 1st menu, 3rd page, last option), that'll open up 1/45, and at any time if you want to jump to 1/50 roll the EV step wheel down one, it'll auto-switch to 1/50 so you can do either one without digging into the menus.

FYI I don't know if this has helped with the edge aliasing, but the first thing I did when I got the camera from Strancali was sit, eat food, and turn EVERYTHING in the menus off, this includes all of the auto correction options in the menus. Knocking on wood, but I haven't seen any wild highlight aliasing in my footage, and if it's there, it's not yet objectionable enough to worry.

 

[vincent thomas]

Tamron 24-70 maybe a good choice too? It s open at 2.8 and has decent IS

Here's a shot, using the Canon 24-105mm f/4 with Metabones VIII. Image is slightly underexposed from the start, but hey we're shoot at 32,000 ISO! If it was a test, I would have tried shooting at 64,000 ISO to properly expose, and then bring down the blacks later. But was too afraid of getting to much noise.

Has anyone shot any night exteriors at 64,000 ISO? Acceptable grain? Or not?

(don't mind DVX compression on the photo)

View attachment 88805

 

[Kholi]

Hey can someone confirm something for me?

I'm getting the impression that ISO simply needs to be set for accurate exposure, and that's how you get clean images out of the camera.

For instance, using 3200 ISO in an underexposed setting awould actually give you worse results than using 6400 ISO which would be exposed properly. I'm asking because I kept seeing this when ramping ISO with the wheel, then I switched to AUTO ISO to check it and it seems to hold true.

Would be sick if someone else could check this out.

 

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

Hey can someone confirm something for me?

I'm getting the impression that ISO simply needs to be set for accurate exposure, and that's how you get clean images out of the camera.

For instance, using 3200 ISO in an underexposed setting awould actually give you worse results than using 6400 ISO which would be exposed properly. I'm asking because I kept seeing this when ramping ISO with the wheel, then I switched to AUTO ISO to check it and it seems to hold true.

Would be sick if someone else could check this out.

Isn't this true with any non-RAW camera? Best to get the image as close to what you'd like in camera before it is baked into a compressed codec?

 

[Kholi]

Isn't this true with any non-RAW camera? Best to get the image as close to what you'd like in camera before it is baked into a compressed codec?

It's true, I'm referring to noise on the A7S. FOR ME, it's not responding how I would expect it to. As in if I raise the ISO or Lower it, I'm expecting to see the same amount of noise, but a brighter image.

I'm not. There's literally less noise with the same aperture raising the ISO.

 

[Kholi]

Could you elaborate on the post process? I'm gonna assume that you are trying to grade in camera on the A7s as much as possible leaving only contrast and gain adjustment for post?
!

Here's what my PP looks like coming out of camera, and just a slight LGG for contrast.

Sigma 18-35@35 Full Frame mode, 1/45, and I think it's EDIT: just checked it was 4.0 @ 5000 ISO.

Taking care of the overall color cast right now.

 

[Erik Naso]

I went to shoot at Sunset Cliffs yesterday. Late day and sunset. I'm a little disappointed with Slog2 Cinema and. When you think it's a great opportunity for it to help the shadows are filled with ugly noise. Defeats the purpose of LOG shooting. I would rather see less in them, and have them clean rather than noisy ones that you can see in.

I also tested Slog2 with 120fps. I will never do that again. RGB noise all over the place. Then when you scale it to 1080 it gets worse. Definitely time to move away from Slog2 for me. Now here is whats funny. Slog2 looks pretty good if the lighting is, but than I wouldn't really need to shoot with LOG then. :-D

I'm editing my little test now. Some nice shots with bad noise in them. So sad.....

 

[Erik Naso]

Here's what my PP looks like coming out of camera, and just a slight LGG for contrast.

Sigma 18-35@35 Full Frame mode, 1/45, and I think it's EDIT: just checked it was 4.0 @ 5000 ISO.

Taking care of the overall color cast right now.

Kohli. Your stuff looks much cleaner than what I'm getting with Slog2. What Color Mode are you using?

 

[photochris]

Here's what my PP looks like coming out of camera, and just a slight LGG for contrast.

Sigma 18-35@35 Full Frame mode, 1/45, and I think it's EDIT: just checked it was 4.0 @ 5000 ISO.

Taking care of the overall color cast right now.

Youre getting some great results.

 

[strancali]

Hey can someone confirm something for me?

I'm getting the impression that ISO simply needs to be set for accurate exposure, and that's how you get clean images out of the camera.

For instance, using 3200 ISO in an underexposed setting awould actually give you worse results than using 6400 ISO which would be exposed properly. I'm asking because I kept seeing this when ramping ISO with the wheel, then I switched to AUTO ISO to check it and it seems to hold true.

Would be sick if someone else could check this out.

I think so too, look at the the first scene. That was at iso 12,800 and the second scene same lighting just slightly different angle at 6400. The room was crazy dark.

https://vimeo.com/100477702

 

[andrew00]

For 12,800 ISO that survives pretty well if you push it about in FC

 

[cyork]

Here's what my PP looks like coming out of camera, and just a slight LGG for contrast.

Sigma 18-35@35 Full Frame mode, 1/45, and I think it's EDIT: just checked it was 4.0 @ 5000 ISO.

Taking care of the overall color cast right now.

Nice! Stuff is looking amazing and matches nicely with the BMCC4k. Can't wait to see what you did to the profile!