FS5: FS5 4K color and bit depth

N

naavt

Well-known member
First I have to say that this post is more of an outflow than anything else. Bear with me...

Our team is looking for a sub 5000€ camera to buy for a documentary project that will take 3 years to shoot. Because of that, renting is out of the question.

We have put DSLRs aside because of their various downsides. Big sensors (A7s), lack of decent Slow Motion and DR (GH4).

Lack of a decent Codec have also thrown the C100 out of the equation.

The contender which appealed most of us was the BMD URSA mini 4.6K, but it is some kind of heavy with all the gear, records to stupidly expensive CFast 2.0 media, has no chance of using a speedbooster and low light performance beyond 800ISO is yet to prove it's way (and natural available light is very important for us).

This past week we have done a commercial with a rented FS7. We all have loved the camera but it's still heavy and bulky for the type of shooting we are going to make. Besides all that, it was instantly out of our list due to its price tag. But that leaved us to look into the FS5...

So, it all seemed to work absolutely perfect. Perfect form factor, perfect ND filters built in, perfect lens mount, perfect media storage, perfect everything... Until we found the CRAPPY UHD 420 8-Bit XAVC-L Codec. Common Sony! What the hell is that??? Were you afraid that FS5 would take some share from your FS7? It can only be...

Well, I can only say Sony this much: If you had given FS5 422 10-Bit UHD internal recording capabilities we wouldn't think twice and jumped over it in no time! Now, it's not even an option, unfortunately.
 
If you don't need extensive grading there really is no problem with 10-bit 420. I suggest you test it for yourself and see, it will likely surprise you.
 
starcentral said:
If you don't need extensive grading there really is no problem with 10-bit 420. I suggest you test it for yourself and see, it will likely surprise you.
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For what I've read is an 8-bit UHD codec. Not a 10-bit one. Sorry but 8-bit 420 is not an option for us. It reminds us the long gone days of camcorders and GH2 type camera files. We simply don't want to put our chances in a codec which will break apart as soon as you need - for some reason - to stretch it a bit more than you previously planned to.
 
Ah yes you are correct, UHD is 8-bit 420 but HD will be 10-bit 422.

Maybe the BMD is your best bet in terms of size and quality.
 
If you have to shoot it on 4K, the FS7 is the best bet. If you can shoot 1080p, the FS5 will do just fine at the smaller form factor. I don't really know of any camera that would work at producing 4K at a good codec with a small form factor like the FS5. What about the RED Raven? Is that too big?
 
Chris Langer said:
If you have to shoot it on 4K, the FS7 is the best bet. If you can shoot 1080p, the FS5 will do just fine at the smaller form factor. I don't really know of any camera that would work at producing 4K at a good codec with a small form factor like the FS5. What about the RED Raven? Is that too big?
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Raven and FS7 are above our budget. We really like the FS5 form factor but the codec is a bummer. For now we are looking at BMD URSA mini as our only option. If only Sony's FS5 recorded 10-bit 422 internally we wouldn't think twice.
 
Ursa Mini is about the same weight and bulk as FS7 (perhaps a tad larger). Ursa Mini 4.6K has yet to ship and I would venture a guess it will be at least well into January 2016 before they are readily available. I suspect you will see excellent skin rendition from Ursa Mini and the BMD cameras have always played nicely with EF glass. With no internal ND's, that might require mattebox and ND's or at the very least the dreaded variable ND on your glass. And expensive CFast 2.0 media as you point out. Nobody has made the camera you want. JVC 300 and Panasonic DVX200 are all 8 bit 4:2:0 in HD. The reason here is in good measure the speed bottleneck of SDXC cards. CFast 2.0 cards are faster and can sustain data rates needed for 10 bit 4:2:2. You have unfortunately boxed yourself between codec and cost.

Ned Soltz
 
Well if everyone is just going to suggest you get a worse camera and add a recorder to improve the codec while losing most of the benefits of the fs5, I'll just suggest you get the fs5 with an external recorder... At least an external recorder could just be running in a bag/backpack I suppose though I wouldn't think that ideal either. The main downside is that's just HDMI right now and there is no announcement what will be possible with RAW over SDI yet and HDMI is much more of a pain of a connection to deal with in the field.

You might want to test out the 8bit fs5 codec before you rule it out. Frankly I don't think it's the 8bit or the 420 that's the problem at 4k, its the compression. If you are shooting for 4k delivery on the big screen you'll have trouble, but frankly you might be surprised what you can get away with for just about everything else... 8bit I find to be fine as long as it's implemented well and not pushed too hard (stick to slog2 rather than slog3), and 420 is about the maximum color information you can get out of a non-oversampled 4k bayer sensor anyway. I do shoot in that codec on my A7RII and find it starts to get a little hairy if there is noise in your image since that is the toughest thing for compression algorithms to handle, so sometimes it is better to really overexpose your slog as much as possible or use a gamma curve that crushes out the shadows a bit so the codec doesn't have to waste bits trying to encode the noise in that range.
 
nyvz said:
...and 420 is about the maximum color information you can get out of a non-oversampled 4k bayer sensor anyway.
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4:2:0 is the *minimum* chroma sub-sampled resolution that comes from a not-oversampled bayer sensor.

A camera can compute higher color resolution than is possible from using single 2x2 arrays by using overlapping 2x2 arrays.
 
First, let me thank you all for your insights on this matter. Regarding your comments, I can say:

nsoltz said:
With no internal ND's, that might require mattebox and ND's or at the very least the dreaded variable ND on your glass.
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That is not an issue...

nsoltz said:
And expensive CFast 2.0 media as you point out.
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...But this one is, since we are going to shoot this project over 3 years and the amount of data required.

nsoltz said:
Nobody has made the camera you want.
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Sony's almost got it with the FS5.

nsoltz said:
You have unfortunately boxed yourself between codec and cost.

Ned Soltz
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Unfortunately, I couldn't agree more.

nyvz said:
Well if everyone is just going to suggest you get a worse camera and add a recorder to improve the codec while losing most of the benefits of the fs5, I'll just suggest you get the fs5 with an external recorder...
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Completely agree with you.

nyvz said:
You might want to test out the 8bit fs5 codec before you rule it out.
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You're the second person here to say me that. I think I will call Sony here and ask to test the camera.

Last documentary we have shot was made with a BMPCC. It was a very small project and both us and the network who asked for it were very pleased. We have shot ProRes HQ which gave us the ability to "play" a little in post. One example was the entry scene, which was intended to work one way and ended completely different in the final edit, where our images were intercut with archive footage (not intended at first), and because of that we had to think a way to harmonize the whole scene, and that came in the grade session.

nyvz said:
If you are shooting for 4k delivery on the big screen you'll have trouble, but frankly you might be surprised what you can get away with for just about everything else...
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The above example is only one between others on that project alone, and it was a small one. That is the problem. The next project will take 3 years of our lives. It is intended for the big screen (which that everything turns out well and who knows if all of you are seeing it 4 years from now), and a major issue in my country right now is financing everything art related. Usually these projects rely on state financing but these last years the cultural ministry is dealing with great difficulties to support culture related projects. The only way is to find outside financing and we already are way over our inicial budget for equipment alone, so many things have to give.

Steve Harryman said:
I completely agree with Noah. Unless the big screen, you will be surprised how nice the image is, even at 8-bit.
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Further detailing things, we expect this project to run on 2K DCP for theatre release. Because of that we are thinking that many of the footage will be shot at HD and later upscaled. Nonetheless, we also expect most of the footage to be acquired at 4K, not for screen purposes but to have framing options we don't have any other way. And we are likely going to need it foreseeing the difficulties we are going to experience due to the specificity of what we are going to shoot.
 
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Im perfectly sure you can find a FS7 used somewhere, closer to your bugdet.

But if you have the budget to grade 4K 10 bit 4:2:2, you should also have the budget to buy a FS7... Is my opinion.

Keep in mind you get like, around half the value back after 3 years. So your actual price compencated loss of value will be somewhere like 1500 dollars between FS7 and FS5. Unless you wreck the camera ofcourse.

I owned the FS700 for 3 years, and it only cost me 2000 dollars in that time. But that was due to the norwegian krone plummeting in value from sky-high to very low in the period. So i got lucky. Sometimes currency speculation can also favor filmmakers! :-)
 
I think you are very wise trying to borrow the FS5 for a test of that 4:2:0 8-bit UHD vs HD in 4:2:2 10 bit.

And don't feel so badly about art funding-- it's difficult these days in most places, sorry to say.

Good luck.

Ned Soltz
 
Martin.G said:
Keep in mind you get like, around half the value back after 3 years.
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That doesn't help much if one doesn't have the money to buy it now. Not everyone can (or are willing to) get things in down payments etc.. Me for example, I have a very irregular income and survive at time because I keep my monthly bills at a minimum, only buying gear when I can pay them in full immediately. Sometimes then, the difference of a couple of hundred euros can be huge.
 
Martin.G said:
(...)if you have the budget to grade 4K 10 bit 4:2:2, you should also have the budget to buy a FS7... Is my opinion.
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One of our long lasting crew members is a well known editor with his own edit room + grading suite. So we have that part covered.


nsoltz said:
I think you are very wise trying to borrow the FS5 for a test of that 4:2:0 8-bit UHD vs HD in 4:2:2 10 bit.

And don't feel so badly about art funding-- it's difficult these days in most places, sorry to say.

Good luck.

Ned Soltz
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I suppose you are right but have some friends that migrated to France and UK since things seem much easier there. They didn't had a family though. So "good things come to those who wait", lets hope the saying to be true :)

In the meantime I have emailed Sony professional headquarters in Europe exposing some reasons why they should evaluate the implementation of a UHD 10-bit 422 Codec on their FS5. Let's see what they will going to reply me (if they ever will). Nonetheless, I will contact Sony here to conduct a test on my own.
 
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Is there any way of getting a lease deal on an FS7.. if that solves all your problems?

I find it amazing what demands people are now placing on cameras at these price points. A few years ago the closest you might have come would have been an F3... and that was a lot more money if memory serves... and 1080p.... and 35mbps....
 
JMtheDP said:
Is there any way of getting a lease deal on an FS7.. if that solves all your problems?
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It's a 3 year project. Renting a camera, no matter how cheap, will end up costing 20 FS7 in the end.

JMtheDP said:
I find it amazing what demands people are now placing on cameras at these price points. A few years ago the closest you might have come would have been an F3... and that was a lot more money if memory serves... and 1080p.... and 35mbps....
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Yes. We are very fortunate to live in times like these. I remember my film school teachers ironically asking me: "Are you playing with kitchen appliances again?" when I first started with Betacams back in the old days when everything else was celluloid. Now we can "demand" these things. That is what we call evolution. I suspect that in 3 or 4 years from now your family photo DSLR is recording 10-bit 422.
 
High frame rate got a mention in the requirements but nothing specified regarding resolution requirements for the HFR content. Have you analyzed that requirement in terms of capability of the cameras under consideration, i.e. resolution and speed?
 
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