A7s sample footage

strancali said:
I can't wait until you get your a7s. You seem to have it down and what to look for!
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mid-august, I'm afraid
I'm gonna be a nail-less bastard by then...


BTW, Squig is not gonna like this, but there's one more thing to comment about the Arizona falls raw footage: there's some vertical FPN, you can see it in the horizontal pan of the sixth or seventh clip :(
Not a huge issue (the kind of pixel peeping your palms go hairy about), but it is there. You will want to do 5D3+RAW vs a7s FPN tests.
 
Samuel H said:
mid-august, I'm afraid
I'm gonna be a nail-less bastard by then...
Click to expand...

Mine is supposed to ship Monday and I have the whole week off to tinker. If there's something specific you - or anyone else - would like to test with the settings, subjects etc., let me know either with a PM or here and I'll try to grab what people are looking for while I'm out testing. I can make short clips available in a dropbox.
 
Samuel H said:
mid-august, I'm afraid
I'm gonna be a nail-less bastard by then...


BTW, Squig is not gonna like this, but there's one more thing to comment about the Arizona falls raw footage: there's some vertical FPN, you can see it in the horizontal pan of the sixth or seventh clip :(
Not a huge issue (the kind of pixel peeping your palms go hairy about), but it is there. You will want to do 5D3+RAW vs a7s FPN tests.
Click to expand...

that sucks :(
 
Samuel H said:
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.
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It's looking like the 5D raw is now an unnecessary headache. Fingers crossed I'll get my A7s next week.
 
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.
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7 stops of ND gives me a good exposure with the MK3 raw @ 3200ISO f/8 ETTR in the midday winter sun.
 
Samuel H said:
mid-august, I'm afraid
I'm gonna be a nail-less bastard by then...


BTW, Squig is not gonna like this, but there's one more thing to comment about the Arizona falls raw footage: there's some vertical FPN, you can see it in the horizontal pan of the sixth or seventh clip :(
Not a huge issue (the kind of pixel peeping your palms go hairy about), but it is there. You will want to do 5D3+RAW vs a7s FPN tests.
Click to expand...

Oh joy. I'll check it out. Despite its flaws the A7s is still going to save me a lot of money and headaches lighting big dark outdoor scenes. I think I'll be able to get away with lighting those scenes with v-mount battery powered 1k LED fresnels instead of crazy stupid generator powered 4k tungstens.
 
Samuel H said:
Great, thanks for posting :)



Weird and stupid. I hate being right on this one. I'll keep my US preorder anyway, it's $400 cheaper and having to format the card and suffer the annoying message have to be taken into account too.
Click to expand...

This time it's not like that!! for once in EU it will cost less than USA..In Italy they are selling it at €1790 which is €40 less than B&H :cheesy:
 
Samuel H said:
BTW, Squig is not gonna like this, but there's one more thing to comment about the Arizona falls raw footage: there's some vertical FPN, you can see it in the horizontal pan of the sixth or seventh clip :(
Not a huge issue (the kind of pixel peeping your palms go hairy about), but it is there. You will want to do 5D3+RAW vs a7s FPN tests.
Click to expand...

Interestingly there's a lot of aliasing & noise in the 60p shot (C0006). It's exposed a bit to the left but I wouldn't expect 3200 ISO to be that noisy, and the aliasing makes me think that 60p is skipped/binned.
 
The results of the riddle test are out:

Camera 1: F3 SLOGCamera 2: F55 Slog2
Camera 3: a7S Slog2
Camera 4: FS700 Slog2
Camera 5: F55 Slog3
Click to expand...

That means:
* The a7s has more headroom in the highlights than any other camera in the test, except the FS700 (which has way noisier shadows)
* The a7s has at least the same range into the shadows as all the others, except F55+slog3

In particular, compared with the F3 (my favorite in the blind Zacuto shootout, tied with the Alexa), it has more headroom in the highlights, and shadows that are lifted up but not cleaner (about the same noise, I would say). So, maybe slightly more DR, definitely not less.

Couple that with this and this, and it must be at least 3 or 4 stops better than the 5D3+H.264 in terms of DR, which means it is in BlackMagic RAW territory.

I already know I'll be really happy with the a7s, even if it is only 8-bit, and no matter how bad the rolling shutter is, etc.
The only thing I don't know yet is if I will want an external recorder, to reduce noise in the shadows a bit.
 
squig said:
Interestingly there's a lot of aliasing & noise in the 60p shot (C0006). It's exposed a bit to the left but I wouldn't expect 3200 ISO to be that noisy, and the aliasing makes me think that 60p is skipped/binned.
Click to expand...
I had noticed the aliasing in that clip, but didn't realize it was 60p. You're probably right: line skipping at 60p.
 
Iso 3200 limit to be able to use slog2...Don't know what to think here. I need a full frame camera for fashion film and portrait... you know, The canon 5d III magic latern's look...

I thought the sony a7s would be a better option and buying a 5d iii but now im not sure.. What do you think? I need to decide quickly, please share your thought..

Thanks

vincent*
________________________________________________________________
Vincent Thomas
Creative Art Director & VFX supervisor / Senior Lighter & DigiMatte Painter / Concept Designer
http://fr.linkedin.com/in/vincentthomas
http://www.stranger-than-paradise.book.fr/
 
Samuel H said:
I had noticed the aliasing in that clip, but didn't realize it was 60p. You're probably right: line skipping at 60p.
Click to expand...

There's aliasing and moire @ 24p too just not as noticeable. I'm thinking 4k recording is going to be essential to get around the aliasing and moire. It won't bother a lot of people but after shooting aliasing free on the 5D I'm not going backwards. I'd like to test the A7s shooting 422 straight to prores4444 to see if that reduces the aliasing at all. If it wasn't for the 1-2 stops more dynamic range I'd just stick to the 5D raw.
 
vincent thomas said:
Iso 3200 limit to be able to use slog2...Don't know what to think here. I need a full frame camera for fashion film and portrait... you know, The canon 5d III magic latern's look...

I thought the sony a7s would be a better option and buying a 5d iii but now im not sure.. What do you think? I need to decide quickly, please share your thought..

Thanks

vincent*
________________________________________________________________
Vincent Thomas
Creative Art Director & VFX supervisor / Senior Lighter & DigiMatte Painter / Concept Designer
http://fr.linkedin.com/in/vincentthomas
http://www.stranger-than-paradise.book.fr/
Click to expand...

I've posted this before in this thread, but I'll try to summarize: slog has A LOT of headroom in the highlights, around 6 or 7 stops, so you can safely overexpose by 3 stops and still have more highlight headroom than you have on the 5D3+H.264. That makes it ISO 400 when needed, so, no ISO problem.
 
Samuel H said:
I had noticed the aliasing in that clip, but didn't realize it was 60p. You're probably right: line skipping at 60p.
Click to expand...

The vimeo Arizona clip doesn't seem to have any aliasing. I'm thinking maybe quicktime is doing something strange here. I see the aliasing in quicktime player, VLC, and FCPX. I have to try Resolve and PP. I tried converting the file to prores in 5DtoRGB but it didn't help.
 
Samuel H said:
I've posted this before in this thread, but I'll try to summarize: slog has A LOT of headroom in the highlights, around 6 or 7 stops, so you can safely overexpose by 3 stops and still have more highlight headroom than you have on the 5D3+H.264. That makes it ISO 400 when needed, so, no ISO problem.
Click to expand...

Most of the s-log stuff I've seen so far has been either a bit underexposed or up to 1 stop ETTR, that explains all the noise. The big problem with this camera is going to be monitoring, that's where the LUTs on the shogun will be invaluable.
 
vincent thomas said:
Iso 3200 limit to be able to use slog2...Don't know what to think here. I need a full frame camera for fashion film and portrait... you know, The canon 5d III magic latern's look...

I thought the sony a7s would be a better option and buying a 5d iii but now im not sure.. What do you think? I need to decide quickly, please share your thought..

Thanks

vincent*
________________________________________________________________
Vincent Thomas
Creative Art Director & VFX supervisor / Senior Lighter & DigiMatte Painter / Concept Designer
http://fr.linkedin.com/in/vincentthomas
http://www.stranger-than-paradise.book.fr/
Click to expand...

If you are after the 5D III RAW look, and can deal with the raw workflow, then I would just buy that camera. The A7s will never look exactly the same, and you wil always be comparing it to the 5D. Once you have fallen in love with a look, it is in my opinion better to just buy that camera, than to buy another and try to make it imitate the look you are after.
 
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