A7s sample footage

the only thing i can see, is the color highlights.
Amirra has a more natural feeling in highlights (indoors scene, lamp highlights on the wall)... but its easy to correct it in post in A7s.
 
Great test, macgregor. As always.

The Amira highlights are just perfect. The a7s suffers a bit there, but it sees a bit more into the shadows and seems a bit sharper (well, the Amira was stuck at 2K...). Much closer than most people would expect, in any case.

How did you expose the a7s? Folowing Sony's suggestions, or with a slight overexpose?
 
I thought the Amira had more filmic color, but I wonder if that can be compensated for in post. Look way closer than a $4500 solution has any business coming to an Arri camera. If you're careful, you could shoot around the weaknesses...
 
Well, the Amira is better, period. Not even a question.
But I see that with the right workflow I can cut A7s footage with Amira/Alexa and get away with it.
 
Nowadays, there are lots of cameras that are great all around (D750/D810) and even some that add some particularly strong points (color in the 5D3+RAW, sharpness in the GH4, DR in the a7s and the blackmagics). Any of those should be perfectly good for almost everybody; you may prefer one over the others, you may care more about ergonomics and have a budget for more expensive options, but it's not like any of those cameras are going to limit you in a significant way.

In particular, about the a7s+slog2, I read lots of complaints about skin tones and noise, but I really don't see any issues in my footage. Just avoid sgamut and overexpose a bit, and it's all more than fine:

When you say "avoid sgamut" when using SLOG2 - what color profile did you settle on?
 
I use cinema, with some tweaks

but really, just using cinema would be a great improvement over sgamut2 if you ask me (sgamut works if you're using a LUT-based workflow, for everything else it's horrible)
 
I use cinema, with some tweaks

but really, just using cinema would be a great improvement over sgamut2 if you ask me (sgamut works if you're using a LUT-based workflow, for everything else it's horrible)

Thank you for the reply and the link. I will test those settings. I think originally I had avoided coupling SLog2 with any color profile other than Sgamut because I thought I read somewhere that to achieve 14 stops of DR from the camera you needed to stay locked to SLog2 + Sgamut and stay right at 3200 - and that any deviation eliminated (at least somewhat) the 14 stops of DR.
 
I think you mean cine gamma with gamut color (and no LUT in post)

I use slog2 because it has slightly higher DR than cine4 with has clearly higher DR than any other gamma profile. If you don't want to deal with the ISO 3200 limitation, cine4 is not awful by any means.

sgamut is awful no matter what gamma you pair it with (the only way to make it work is by using official LUTs in post, which will deal with the color nonlinearities and "fix" the problem)
 
Mojo: Looks awsome mojo. Congrats on the staffpick.

Finbo: You've got weird motion in the video. Shot 50p?
 
You have to stay at slog2 and 3200 to get maximum DR (which is impressive but way short of 14 stops, btw). I haven't seen any effect on DR from changing the color profile.

Your link seems to measure only subjective "useable DR" not absolute DR from white clip to noise floor. From what I've seen it is possible to see 14 stops from white clip to noise floor. If you measure to an arbitrary and subjective noise level you will get arbitrary and subjective measurements.
 
Here is my latest video called Go Cuba. Shot in cine4 pro colour mode.


Thanks Joost. Two in a row! Although I think I just squeaked by on this one. I am going to step it up on the next one... Or at least I am going to try :)

Really great work. I'm new to the forum but I've caught a few of your videos via Vimeo. Would you mind sharing a bit about how you capture, sort, and edit audio in your videos? More your creative approach to it rather than technical. Thanks!
 
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