Adam Wilt on the FS700

[Erick]

Yeah it is interesting that he just throws that out there without any explanation in his writeup, but I believe he is referring to this:
View attachment 54850

Which is mentioned in his more in-depth presentation on the FS700 you can watch here: http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/video/channels-nxcam_camcorders/video-Cine_Gear_2012

He mentions that you can nearly see a 15th stop.

Looks familiar
http://provideocoalition.com/images/uploads/red_alexa_dr_charts.jpg


I'd be interested to see what kind of noise is in those shadows, but overall it looks quite promising. Just put in my preorder for an FS700, looks like I'm definitely selling my FS100 and may be selling my Scarlet...

Man, I really want to see one of these charts shot with the Black Magic Camera! I have both on pre-order and time is running out. I have to decide soon!

 

[philiplipetz]

Yes you can see the 14th stop but at the cost of blowing out the highlights with the 20 IRE boost, so I do not see 14 stops DR because the highlights are not differentiated.

 

[nyvz]

Yes you can see the 14th stop but at the cost of blowing out the highlights with the 20 IRE boost, so I do not see 14 stops DR because the highlights are not differentiated.

That was part of the presentation, not the actual chart, the presentation video was quite clipped on both ends. The boost was only the black level. Why would it even matter if he boosted the whole signal in post blowing out the highlights when they were not recorded blown? If he can dig 14-15 stops out of the recorded image in post, then its there, since clearly you could dig it out without clipping the highlights in post as well...

 

[nyvz]

Looks pretty clearly like 11 usable stops (perhaps a tad more) before the detail starts breaking up, which is what most people who've tested the camera appear to concur with.

You're judging that from this framegrab of a web video of a still in a presentation with screwed up gamma from a video of chart which was shot in AVCHD? How would you have any idea where "detail starts breaking up" in this chart? And what does that mean? Looking at those EPIC and ALEXA charts and having done similar tests with Canon DSLRs trying to dig out all the latitude there is (useable/unusable is a matter of subjective taste), it looks like without making and judgements about the noisiness of particular shadow level detail, you can hardly dig 11 stops out of a 7D, 14-15 out of an EPIC/Scarlet, or 16-17 out of ALEXA. 14-15 isnt bad. From my experience with Sony sensors and RED-MX (I own an FS100 and Scarlet-X) I'd bet those last couple shadow stops are probably noisier on RED than on an FS700.

 

[Nirv]

(useable/unusable is a matter of subjective taste),

It would be nice if there was a figure one could use to determine where the cut off point is, the SNR of the last stops are important.

I am constantly surprised how much detail the FS100 records in the darks that can be brought up in post noise free. There's not much point in having 14, 15, 16 stops when the last two are riddled with noise so useable stops is actually a more important value I think.

 

[nyvz]

It would be nice if there was a figure one could use to determine where the cut off point is, the SNR of the last stops are important.

I am constantly surprised how much detail the FS100 records in the darks that can be brought up in post noise free. There's not much point in having 14, 15, 16 stops when the last two are riddled with noise so useable stops is actually a more important value I think.

Useable stops is certainly important but as it is a matter of taste and delivery/viewing formats and many other factors ti is not usually a very objective comparison without very carefully designed and documented SNR tests that are not influenced by a particular gamma curve. The visibility of noise is so greatly connected with contrast. You don't want to stretch out noisy stops but even the noisiest of stops may be useful for applications where shadow contrast is intended to be milky or highly compressed. It's just much easier to dig out what you can and see what is or isnt there. If it isnt there, it isnt there, but the grey area in between (pun intended) is much more difficult to compare as much as people are tempted to.