morgan_moore
Major Contributor
Doug is testing the FS5.. a camera that I have access to but don't own. The raw may be equally as 'substandard' as the FS7 or not.. hence the need to objectively test
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FS5: Comparison of Internal Recording on FS5 vs. RAW output to Odyssey 7Q+
- Thread starter Doug Jensen
- Start date
Doug is testing the FS5.. a camera that I have access to but don't own. The raw may be equally as 'substandard' as the FS7 or not.. hence the need to objectively test
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Doug Jensen
Carbonite Member
I keep hearing negative things about RAW from the FS7 but I've never tested it myself. I'm skeptical that it is as crappy as people say it is, so I can see a new round of tests brewing . . . FS7 RAW vs. FS5 RAW.
Doug Jensen
Carbonite Member
Thank you, Nirv. That is exactly the kind of specific suggestion for a test shot that I was soliciting in my earlier posts. I will do my best to create that type of scenario if the sun ever comes out around here again. Maybe later in the week the weather will cooperate.
morgan_moore
Major Contributor
You will be aware of linear vs log distribution and how linear 12bit can struggle to contain many stops of brigtness variance. My own guess on FS7 raw is that it is excellent for about 7-8 stops of picture dynamic range when exposed absolutely ETTR, but falls down when one needs to dig into shadow detail
IMO it is critical when testing raw to bracket ones shots.
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Liam Hall
Veteran
I shot FS7 RAW to O7Q+ for 8 weeks on a doco. 4K RAW to ProRes has more detail, more dynamic range and a flatter, more organic look than internal XAVC.
The issues arise if you are shooting 2K or S&Q where the internal recording is generally much better (though the O7Q has improved here a little).
It's not a massive difference, but you really have to ask if the extra pain required to shoot RAW on the FS7 is worth it. In my case, the post house stipulated ProRes, so that meant using XDCA, V-mount batteries and O7Q+ along wth a heavier tripod.
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Nirv
Carbonite Member
Doug,
ChristopherA did quite an extensive look at external recordings from the FS7 particularly RAW. I haven't downloaded his footage as we do not have Torrent Clients on any machine.
His summary is interesting and I think it is fairly representative of the feelings about FS7 RAW from this forum. http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...-Tests&p=1986611141&viewfull=1#post1986611141
He suggests HDMI -> 4K ProResHQ yielded the best results for him. RAW was marred by very noisy dark tones which meant rating the camera at 500 iso and losing headroom with the bonus of huge files. It'll be interesting to see if the FS5 is better than the FS7 in terms of shadow noise.
Any time you can spend increasing the pool of knowledge on this subject is much appreciated.
Cheers
Harry Lime
Well-known member
Speaking of Sony and RAW recording does anyone have an inkling as to why Sony doesn't offer internal RAW recording to memory cards?
Someone once told me that this is a patent issue with RED, but if that is the case then that has not stopped Black Magic Design, Arri and even now defunct Bolex from implementing that feature.
I really wish Sony offered internal RAW recording on a camera like the FS5/FS7. Adding something like the Odyssey 7 dramatically increases the size and cost of the package. The FS5 goes from being a unobtrusive, compact unit to something considerably bigger and high profile that in a way defeats the purpose of making the camera so small in the first place. Same for the FS7.
Someone once told me that this is a patent issue with RED, but if that is the case then that has not stopped Black Magic Design, Arri and even now defunct Bolex from implementing that feature.
I really wish Sony offered internal RAW recording on a camera like the FS5/FS7. Adding something like the Odyssey 7 dramatically increases the size and cost of the package. The FS5 goes from being a unobtrusive, compact unit to something considerably bigger and high profile that in a way defeats the purpose of making the camera so small in the first place. Same for the FS7.
SamEdwards
Well-known member
I work in VFX on Hollywood movies and TV shows. This level of post manipulation is not rare in my market. As a matter of fact, it's integral to getting the Hollywood look.
VFX artists complain about prores compression in he Alexa making their job harder. I alway shoot my elements RAW to CDNG, but an hour of footage would be a huge day for me. Most days I shoot about 5 minutes of CDNG and dump it straight onto the company server.
VFX artists complain about prores compression in he Alexa making their job harder. I alway shoot my elements RAW to CDNG, but an hour of footage would be a huge day for me. Most days I shoot about 5 minutes of CDNG and dump it straight onto the company server.
If you're using RAW very selectively wouldn't a days hire of a RED be the order of the day instead of crippled expensive RAW from the FS7?
I'm hoping Doug's test can put a lot of the arguments to bed.
@Doug, Below is an cropped example of XAVC-I keeping the detail in the trees blowing the the wind while heavily compressing the sky. Would it be possible for you to replicate a similar scene while recording ProRes externally? This might be one area that an external ProRes recorder is better? The compression artefacts are not normally visible unless a contrast adjustment is made. These artefacts do limit how far a grade can go before the sky becomes noisy with mechanical looking noise. In the example below there is an extreme amount of contrast pulled to clearly show the compression artefacts.
The crop comes from a clip that was 75% trees moving in the wind with 25% skies and clouds. XAVC-I is impressive at keeping detail where you need it.
Cheers and much appreciated you taking the time to do the side by sides, very informative.
^ Another interesting perspective - and thanks for sharing. I, however, do not do much in the way of heavy vfx - and for my purposes thus far (only own the FS7) I have found and agree what Nirv posted (orig from ChristophA) in #46 post above.. that the HDMI out to 4K ext recorder ProResHQ suits my workflow best - but only if I need just a bit of extra quality over the internal XAVC.
I honestly would love for Doug (or someone) to show some really awesome results with the raw out - from FS7 or 5... that really make it shine above internal recording (assume heavy VFX might be one of these). The raw out is really one of the small disappointments (if you can even call it that) that I've had with my camera in almost 2 years now.
I honestly would love for Doug (or someone) to show some really awesome results with the raw out - from FS7 or 5... that really make it shine above internal recording (assume heavy VFX might be one of these). The raw out is really one of the small disappointments (if you can even call it that) that I've had with my camera in almost 2 years now.
David Kudell
Active member
Raw is a pain in the butt to work with, with the exception of Redcode Raw which is compressed. Except you can't really see the compression unless you crank it up too much. It's pretty awesome.
And yeah, it's patented. I'm pretty sure Arri and others license it from Red. Sony got sued by Red, so that's probably why they still don't do it in-camera.
Doug Jensen
Carbonite Member
Oh geez! I'm embarrassed by my performance on this kind of ad-libbed video. Not my forte at all, and it shows. But it did get me motivated to start a diet!
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Harry Lime
Well-known member
Maybe for an SD card, but there are faster options like CFAST2.0 and SSD based cards.
Chadfish
Veteran
I think you came off alright Doug! Maybe wear long pants next time though.
Nirv
Carbonite Member
The blue sky in the clip was very pale blue as a sea mist was rolling in behind those trees so there was an obscene amount of gamma applied to a very tight key just to get some contrast to break up the compression posterisation. In VFX land this would've been a sky replacement job.
Shooting CDNG for VFX elements is a whole different ball game from shooting an hour of a tedious marketing hooray Henry opine about his vision going forward....it's just a waste of bandwidth to shoot in anything other than XAVC. The b'stards don't even deserve that...
Harry Lime
Well-known member
Not really. Redcode is very nice, but it's essentially Cineform and uses wavelet compression. Yes, it has RAW properties, but it is not a lossless RAW format. Obviously RED footage is used in VFX, but it is not the preferred capture format for that work. The compression becomes noticeable when you are pulling green screens etc. ArriRAW, Sony RAW etc are far more preferable.
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Harry Lime
Well-known member
Depends. I usually shoot RAW, but then again I treat it like I'm shooting film and don't just let the camera run, which results in massive amounts of useless data. For me the benefits of RAW outweigh the troubles.
I like Redcode and think it's probably the best compressed format out there, but I would avoid using it for a VFX shoot.
I think RED's patent pertains to the internal recording of RAW footage andI'm not sure what happened to the lawsuit etc. But it does makes me wonder how a tiny company like BOLEX got around that.
But regardless even if it involved a patent held by RED I would like to see Sony offer internal RAW recording in their cameras. Like I said having to use an external recorder is a PIA.
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Careful now. Those keep the lights on & food on the table.
rogar-BigGrin(DBG)Tobias Brummer
New member
I’m not sure if it is appropriate to post this in this thread but I think it fits the theme. So if it is not, I’ll sure delete this post.
I own a Sony FS5 and I stumbled over a few problems regarding the image quality. That’s the reason I was reading this thread. Basically I have shots where it seems that the codec can’t keep up. I tested the clip in Resolve and After Effects to be sure that it’s not a problem of one of them and on different machines, but it’s always the same result. I attached an example, one in full resolution and one enlarged part of it. This one I imported into After Effects, made a new 16bit comp, adjusted the exposure and applied a SLog3 LUT. I exported it as an PNG. This is the first link. I then imported the PNG to Photoshop, enlarged the said part and saved it again as PNG. I also can give you a link to the original clip.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxSh6YKgd8ZAeGxoYnRKQmFvTkE
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxSh6YKgd8ZAUHF1UjZvOGhEWFk
The settings were: XAVC HD 1080p, 10bit 4:2:2, SLog3, 50fps and 50MBit/s. The firmware version is 2.0.
I have two questions. Is this normal behavior or is my FS5 flawed? And would an external recorder prevent such artifacts? As I said it’s not only in this clip. There are clips with much less going on in the image and the problems occurs there also.
Thank you
Toby
I own a Sony FS5 and I stumbled over a few problems regarding the image quality. That’s the reason I was reading this thread. Basically I have shots where it seems that the codec can’t keep up. I tested the clip in Resolve and After Effects to be sure that it’s not a problem of one of them and on different machines, but it’s always the same result. I attached an example, one in full resolution and one enlarged part of it. This one I imported into After Effects, made a new 16bit comp, adjusted the exposure and applied a SLog3 LUT. I exported it as an PNG. This is the first link. I then imported the PNG to Photoshop, enlarged the said part and saved it again as PNG. I also can give you a link to the original clip.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxSh6YKgd8ZAeGxoYnRKQmFvTkE
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxSh6YKgd8ZAUHF1UjZvOGhEWFk
The settings were: XAVC HD 1080p, 10bit 4:2:2, SLog3, 50fps and 50MBit/s. The firmware version is 2.0.
I have two questions. Is this normal behavior or is my FS5 flawed? And would an external recorder prevent such artifacts? As I said it’s not only in this clip. There are clips with much less going on in the image and the problems occurs there also.
Thank you
Toby