FS100 advice

jambredz

jambredz

Veteran
Hey guys, i may be DP on a shoot next week using the fs100, however it would be the first time using the camera for me (yes DEF not ideal). I usually shoot with my 7d. I MAY get to see the cam the day before, however is there any advice, tips tricks on using this camera that you think I may need to know. I'll be looking online for some tutorials also. thanks in advance.
 
be strong:P Nah I just got my fs 100 for me there are way to many options hidden in menus.
Coming from panasonic. So before the shoot Get familiar with PP button, shutter and Iris( if shooting with the kitlens).
Coming from the 7d Id change the gain to iso ....its much more familiar
Expanded focus function is great.

Even better try to get your hands on the camera before the shoot...Demand it.
If your on the shoot and Im here and free post your questions ..Ill see where I can help you.

Again Be Calm :)
 
-get a load of ND

-dont use a super flat profile without testing

- expose to protect your highlights

-get a reflector
 
Thanks for the tips so far. I'm also coming from panny @Everts.

There will be someone there who is more familiar with the camera. The info I have gotten is that person is knowledgeable about the camera (that is always debatable) however that's about it. They need someone strong in lighting and camerawork ect and I'm subbing for a friend who is a fellow DP who can't do the shoot and asked me to. So i'll most likely let that dude set up the cam. My friend also said he put a special PP on there for me to use. I'll be using my Zacuto EVF so i'll set exposure using that and focus ect. From what I read here though the fs100 is kinda nasty in the highlights so i''ll be careful there.
 
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Constantly check your settings for WB, Shutter, gain. The buttons on the side get hit accidentally when moving camera.
 
Jam I havent work with it yet on set.

But if your gonna shoot outside .... from what I can say for now with some good ND's you'll get some nice hilight roll off. The Dynamice range amazes me...dont know what its rated at. esp here in the caribbean/south america.. Where we are blasted with sun light :) I must say its better than my Hmc 150 and other pana footage I have here.

Goodluck.
 
Coming from the 7D myself, my recommendation is to get Frank's settings he uses (posted somewhere on here). We just did an 11 hour shoot with a 7D and my FS100 with these new settings compared to what I have before and it was NIGHT AND DAY different. It's the first time I was extremely happy with the color palette out of the FS100 (out of the box the red handling is a pain).

I also use a metabones adapter now and didn't even pull my ND out of the box. I still keep it for bright situations, that said, I am going to switch from VariND to static now.

LOVE this camera.

Pertaining to the switches, I've never accidentally hit mine, but I think it's because of how I hold it moving between things. Good advice anyways in case you aren't sure how you handle your camera :)

I also came from the AF100 so I can tell you, it feels a lot different shooting with it. :)
 
great stuff ..keep em coming :)

I have some time with the camera on Sunday so between that and the stuff online i'm sure i'll get the hang of it. I'll also PM Frank. I know he has a log setting which personally i'd love to use...but the editors dont want it SO flat..so i'll want a PP somewhere in between.
 
I am not using his log setting, just in case I wasn't clear. :) I am using his best what you see is what you get setting, just trying to confirm from him myself which that is so I can direct others to it. He changed it a bit after firmware 2 came out, so I want to determine what he changed.
 
Everts said:
Coming from the 7d Id change the gain to iso ....its much more familiar
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Maybe it's more familiar, but displaying "ISO" is also inaccurate and totally useless. Whatever ISO the camera shows you, I can prove that it is wrong. And what difference does it make anyway unless you are attempting to actually set you exposure with a hand-held light meter?
Zebra is all you need, this ain't no SLR.
 
Doug Jensen said:
Maybe it's more familiar, but displaying "ISO" is also inaccurate and totally useless. Whatever ISO the camera shows you, I can prove that it is wrong. And what difference does it make anyway unless you are attempting to actually set you exposure with a hand-held light meter?
Zebra is all you need, this ain't no SLR.
Click to expand...

I like using ISO myself, so while you might find it useless, other people like to use it. I actually don't find the zebras that great all the time. I think the histogram does a much better job of showing you how much DR you have to work with and where your image is sitting. Although that said, I do miss the waveform I had on my AF100 which was MUCH more useful.

And compared to the 7D, the ISO values are pretty close. All I really use gain/ISO for is to let me know how much noise to expect. When I read +12dB that doesn't really mean much to me either since I don't come from a background where I've used image gain in such a way. Just because an image sensor is 0dB it still doesn't indicate what to expect from how sensitive the sensor actually is. That is a function of the light gathering capability and 0dB doesn't tell you that.
 
Rick Burnett said:
Just because an image sensor is 0dB it still doesn't indicate what to expect from how sensitive the sensor actually is. That is a function of the light gathering capability and 0dB doesn't tell you that.
Click to expand...

I completely agree.
But the exact same thing can also be said for ISO, and that's where the problem lies. Gain isn't supposed to be calibrated to a specific light sensitivity. Gain is just a number the manufacturer arbitrarily assigns. It means nothing. For example, 0db on one camera might be the same sensitivity as +12db on another camera. All you can say about 0db is that it is less sensitive than +6db. It has no scientific basis and isn't supposed to mean anything.

But a specific ISO is supposed to mean a quantifiable, specific, non-ambiguous sensitivity. That is the whole reason that ISO and ASA were created. For example, two cameras that both show ISO 400 should have exactly the same sensitivity to iight. But that is not so with the FS100, FS700, F3, and other cameras that allow you to show ISO instead of gain. That number that it is showing you does NOT conform to the official ISO standards and could be off by a stop or two. Enough to ruin your exposure if you are relying on it.
ISO on a video camera is totally bogus and will vary a lot depending on your picture profile settings. If you want to know what the actual ISO value is of a given camera, you have to rate it yourself for the specific picture profile settings you are using.

For example, may you think your camera is set for ISO 400 because that's what the camera is showing you in the viewfinder. Then Igo in an change your picture profile to a different gamma curve, and suddenly the camera is 2-stops slower. The camera will still show ISO 400, but the camera is now less sensitive to light -- so it cannot be correct. My F3 varies from IS0 250 with my usual Picture Profile, up to ISO 1000 with another, but the display always shows the same ISO.

So, putting an ISO option on a video camera is just a game the camera manufacturer is playing to sell cameras. Go ahead and use the ISO display if it makes you feel better, but please don't pretend it means anything other than a bogus arbitrary number.
 
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I'll be using my Zacuto EVF with false colour or setting exposure and zebras. So i should be ok. Now if they could only get waveform on that thing...
 
Doug Jensen said:
I completely agree.
But the exact same thing can also be said for ISO, and that's where the problem lies. Gain isn't supposed to be calibrated to a specific light sensitivity. Gain is just a number the manufacturer arbitrarily assigns. It means nothing. For example, 0db on one camera might be the same sensitivity as +12db on another camera. All you can say about 0db is that it is less sensitive than +6db. It has no scientific basis and isn't supposed to mean anything.

But a specific ISO is supposed to mean a quantifiable, specific, non-ambiguous sensitivity. That is the whole reason that ISO and ASA were created. For example, two cameras that both show ISO 400 should have exactly the same sensitivity to iight. But that is not so with the FS100, FS700, F3, and other cameras that allow you to show ISO instead of gain. That number that it is showing you does NOT conform to the official ISO standards and could be off by a stop or two. Enough to ruin your exposure if you are relying on it.
ISO on a video camera is totally bogus and will vary a lot depending on your picture profile settings. If you want to know what the actual ISO value is of a given camera, you have to rate it yourself for the specific picture profile settings you are using.

For example, may you think your camera is set for ISO 400 because that's what the camera is showing you in the viewfinder. Then Igo in an change your picture profile to a different gamma curve, and suddenly the camera is 2-stops slower. The camera will still show ISO 400, but the camera is now less sensitive to light -- so it cannot be correct. My F3 varies from IS0 250 with my usual Picture Profile, up to ISO 1000 with another, but the display always shows the same ISO.

So, putting an ISO option on a video camera is just a game the camera manufacturer is playing to sell cameras. Go ahead and use the ISO display if it makes you feel better, but please don't pretend it means anything other than a bogus arbitrary number.
Click to expand...

And here is where you are absolutely wrong. The FS100 did not have ISO settings originally. I, along with a lot of other people, asked them specifically to add ISO display into the camera. I sent a full list of requests to the engineering team of the FS100 specifically, and know they received it.

No one is pretending anything. Just because it doesn't make sense for you to use it has NO RELEVANCE on anyone else in the world. Sony can only attempt to make the ISO values as close as possible as to what one were to expect relative to changeable parameters. I don't switch profiles when I shoot because I have a setting that works great indoors and outdoors, and the only thing that gets modified is my white balance. When I shoot and vary my ISO value, pertaining to my profile, I know what to expect. It's very simple for me. At the end of the day, it's the results and simplicity of my shooting that matters, and given I think in ISO differentials easier than gain differentials, I prefer it. This is NO different than what a DSLR shooter does as well, because curves are changeable within them as well.

I would NEVER expose an image to ISO or GAIN value alone EVER. Not with a DSLR, and not with any video camera I have ever used. Why? Because ISO or GAIN cannot tell you how the gamma curve is going to affect your image. It's not going to tell you how clean you are in the shadows. It's not going to tell you how the highlight roll-off responds. It's not going to tell you where skin tones sit relative to exposure above and below that target point. Therefore, I use ALL the tools inside the camera to help me determine the exposure I want. What ISO does tell me is gain in terms of ISO, that's it. Also, it's a relative measurement that not all manufacturers agree on even in the DSLR world. But for me, I like it better than gain because it attempts at being correlated more than an absolutely arbitrary starting point of 0dB. It's that simple.
 
Rick, you say I am wrong, but then the rest of your post proves my point.
I stand by my original post 100%.
 
Doug Jensen said:
Rick, you say I am wrong, but then the rest of your post proves my point.
I stand by my original post 100%.
Click to expand...

No, I said you are wrong in that you are accusing the manufacturers of adding ISO as a marketing gimmick. Like I said, the FS100 did not have ISO till a huge number of people asked Sony for it. I know this because I talked with Sony SPECIFICALLY about it. Many other people here asked for it as well. And sure, many of those people have come from using a DSLR, but a DSLR has the same limitation. It doesn't make it wrong. And if people enjoy using it and understand it, then it's a good tool for them. Myself included. I don't like working in gain values, but I don't think they shouldn't be there. Some people come from a video camera background and that's what they like. Use whatever you like.

I mean, I can make the same argument as you with zebras, they don't represent the gamma curve either, just because they represent a specific value. Even further, ask people about specific colors being blown out but the zebras not showing you that? I put my Zebras at 100% but it doesn't mean I don't blow out a scene anyways when I feel it makes sense. There is no one answer.

Nothing gets around learning the camera and the curves you are shooting, but again, it doesn't mean ISO is not a unit that people like to work with. It gets you into a ballpark and I like that. Programmable curves make a hard target to hit, but right now, this is the closest comparison point we can make until someone comes out with new nomenclature, and even then, it's going to be complicated. I use one set of curves so it's pretty easy for me.

I mean, I don't get what you are arguing. ISO gives you the SAME information as dB WITH the addition of a ballpark sensitivity. It's more than dB alone gives you. So while you might not think ISO400 is the same as another camera, the relationship between ISO400 and ISO1000 is the same in terms of gain in the sensor. If you change your curves, the same discrepancy exists between the dB values and the ISO values. You have a limitation I don't have, because like I said, I don't change curves as I have a setting I like for everything.
 
Rick, I don't really care how you set exposure. There are many ways to skin a cat. Whatever works for you -- do it. My original point is that ISO (unlike db) is actually supposed to conform to an international standard. It is supposed to mean something that is repeatable, measureable, and comparable to other sensors and film stocks. Otherwise "ISO" is just a bogus number pulled out of the air by the camera manufacturer to satisfy the demands of customers who don't know any better and wanted it on their cameras. BTW, there are many features on modern cameras that fit that description.

I suggest that you look into what ISO is all about. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_speed#ISO And then check and see if the ISO number shown on your camera at any given time really represents the actual sensitivity of the camera. I will wager that it almost always does not, and that is my point. Being in the "ballpark" as you put it is not what ISO is supposed to tell you.

Anyway, you can have the last word because I don't have the time to explain it to you in simpler terms. This is my last post in this thread no matter what you respond with.
 
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Doug Jensen said:
Rick, I don't really care how you set exposure. There are many ways to skin a cat. Whatever works for you -- do it. My original point is that ISO (unlike db) is actually supposed to conform to an international standard. It is supposed to mean something that is repeatable, measureable, and comparable to other sensors and film stocks. Otherwise "ISO" is just a bogus number pulled out of the air by the camera manufacturer to satisfy the demands of customers who don't know any better and wanted it on their cameras. BTW, there are many features on modern cameras that fit that description.

I suggest that you look into what ISO is all about. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_speed#ISO And then check and see if the ISO number shown on your camera at any given time really represents the actual sensitivity of the camera. I will wager that it almost always does not, and that is my point. Being in the "ballpark" as you put it is not what ISO is supposed to tell you.

Anyway, you can have the last word because I don't have the time to explain it to you in simpler terms. This is my last post in this thread no matter what you respond with.
Click to expand...

Doug, even though I know you won't read this since you are leaving the thread, it's not a matter of making it simpler. If you had ANY clue as to my technical capabilities then you'd know that I am already familiar with the multitude of ways that have been SUGGESTED for measuring ISO in the digital realm for quite a few years. In fact, if you get down to it, the real truth is the sensor (in most cases) has ONE NATIVE ISO value, and any gain values are used to approximate different ISO capabilities like film. So which of the MULTITUDE of methods is the correct one then since they all produce differing results?

You have provided zero evidence that Sony has pulled these numbers out of the air. You have provided zero evidence that they didn't use one of the multitude of methods that others are using.

It's your "opinion" that it is people that don't know better, and I am telling you, with regards to me, you are wrong. You act as if exposing for motion is something special beyond what a person does when exposing on a DSLR. Just because there is motion doesn't mean it's different. People have been using ISO on DSLR cameras with different curves for a long time, and in case you didn't realize, no one is having a problem with it (except you apparently). I can change settings on my 7D and see the image get brighter or darker in the same way. So what? *I* realize that with digital there is a ton of freedom that film doesn't offer that trying to "standardize" on exposure is hard to do with complex image processing. If it was easy, there wouldn't be so many different methods that people accept as being used to approximate ISO in the digital realm.

Being in the "ballpark" is good enough for me with digital. It's not like I have ANY OTHER OPTION other than dB, and I don't relate to dB because it's not even based on a ballpark. It tells me NOTHING about the sensitivity of the camera AT ALL. It just tells me the gain. When people ask about a sensor and it's sensitivity, what do they normally ask? What is it's native ISO. We have no other way of describing it at the moment that people either (a) understand or (b) accept. So I applaud Sony for measuring these difficult things and providing me with a better representation of NOTHING for the sensitivity of the FS100.

You really think the Arri Alexa or the Red Epic are just using ISO values because of unknowledgable consumers? Yeah right.

And in case you didn't know, the ISO settings on the FS100 do change depending on what gamma curves you select in your picture profile, so Sony has tried to accommodate for the gamma differences: (Although with as much configurability as it allows, I am sure with the right settings it's easy to break)

http://di.update.sony.net/NEX/u3gfjEk6xh/4428091021.pdf

(Page 7 of the GB section)
 
ISO/Gain/oranges whatever - it's just a scale, that let you know where you are, in the range of the cameras specs.

The false color function of my TVLogic pretty much replaced my light meter. Especially because you can dial it in for your needs and preferences.
But I only use it to set up my shot and try to keep everything within 5 or 6 stops.
During shooting I pop the waveform in the lower left corner of the TVLogic.

Frank
 
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