Just returned from a successful shoot in the Himalayas, the second visit to film a doc we're producing out there.
1) The biggest issue I had, one that actually prevented me from capturing a few key moments and therefore a mission-critical issue, was aperture control of both Canon L lenses and the Sony G 18-105/f4. I experienced completely random responses to the turning of both the handgrip dial and the on-camera dial - including a confused response that meant sometimes it would open up when I turned the dial one way and sometimes the opposite. It also would occasionally lose track of the aperture value and sometimes displayed f-stop numbers that didn't exist.
I know the problem of electronic aperture control has been mentioned many times before, but I wanted to reiterate, in case anyone from Sony can be arsed to read this, that it's a significant problem - including on their own E-mount lens, the 18-105. If they can sort it out, it's actually a very nice lens to work with and combines a useful wide end with enough reach for most of my actuality shooting.
For the record, I was using a Commlite adapter on the Canon L lenses (70-200/2.8II and 100-400) - although previous tests with a Metabones adapter behaved the same as the Commlite. I can accept that third party stuff might have issues, but a native Sony E-mount lens should not have these issues as well. Ideally, I want Sony to either fix this ASAP or come clean and admit that this laggy random response can't be resolved and we need to use manual aperture lenses, at the expense of losing IS.
2) One thing to watch out for when using external V-Lock batts (or any external batts): If voltage drops to the point that the camera dies, check your clip metadata after bunging a new battery on. I was being miserly with power, so it happened to me twice. All clips were intact, but I noticed the clip title numbering went back randomly to an earlier number, meaning I had replicated clip names/numbers. Not a huge problem, but can make data wrangling afterwards a PITA. Solution - after changing the battery, click on the thumbnails button and make a note of the last recorded clip number. Then go into the clip naming menu and set your next clip to pick up contiguously.
3) Doug Jensen, if you're reading this - thank you. Your online course came out just in time for me to watch it, literally in the last moments before boarding the plane. There were some nuggets in there that made a huge difference to the way I used the camera. And a big confidence boost too. Many thanks - I highly recommend it to others who are new to the FS7.
4) The Tilta V-lock mount performed flawlessly and proved very tough. I actually ended up sitting the camera on my shoulder between the camera pad and the Tilta battery plate. Not the most comfortable solution, but it ended up balancing reasonably well that way. My neoprene camera strap did padding duties.
5) Get some extra ND - in sub-tropical sunlight, I was shut down to f32, with the on-board ND at 1/64 and a 0.9 ND grad on there to calm down the sky, and I was still over-exposed (zebra set at 60%, SLog2 Cine EI.) I think I just got away with it, but will definitely be getting a couple more 4x4 ND filters.
Ben.
1) The biggest issue I had, one that actually prevented me from capturing a few key moments and therefore a mission-critical issue, was aperture control of both Canon L lenses and the Sony G 18-105/f4. I experienced completely random responses to the turning of both the handgrip dial and the on-camera dial - including a confused response that meant sometimes it would open up when I turned the dial one way and sometimes the opposite. It also would occasionally lose track of the aperture value and sometimes displayed f-stop numbers that didn't exist.
I know the problem of electronic aperture control has been mentioned many times before, but I wanted to reiterate, in case anyone from Sony can be arsed to read this, that it's a significant problem - including on their own E-mount lens, the 18-105. If they can sort it out, it's actually a very nice lens to work with and combines a useful wide end with enough reach for most of my actuality shooting.
For the record, I was using a Commlite adapter on the Canon L lenses (70-200/2.8II and 100-400) - although previous tests with a Metabones adapter behaved the same as the Commlite. I can accept that third party stuff might have issues, but a native Sony E-mount lens should not have these issues as well. Ideally, I want Sony to either fix this ASAP or come clean and admit that this laggy random response can't be resolved and we need to use manual aperture lenses, at the expense of losing IS.
2) One thing to watch out for when using external V-Lock batts (or any external batts): If voltage drops to the point that the camera dies, check your clip metadata after bunging a new battery on. I was being miserly with power, so it happened to me twice. All clips were intact, but I noticed the clip title numbering went back randomly to an earlier number, meaning I had replicated clip names/numbers. Not a huge problem, but can make data wrangling afterwards a PITA. Solution - after changing the battery, click on the thumbnails button and make a note of the last recorded clip number. Then go into the clip naming menu and set your next clip to pick up contiguously.
3) Doug Jensen, if you're reading this - thank you. Your online course came out just in time for me to watch it, literally in the last moments before boarding the plane. There were some nuggets in there that made a huge difference to the way I used the camera. And a big confidence boost too. Many thanks - I highly recommend it to others who are new to the FS7.
4) The Tilta V-lock mount performed flawlessly and proved very tough. I actually ended up sitting the camera on my shoulder between the camera pad and the Tilta battery plate. Not the most comfortable solution, but it ended up balancing reasonably well that way. My neoprene camera strap did padding duties.
5) Get some extra ND - in sub-tropical sunlight, I was shut down to f32, with the on-board ND at 1/64 and a 0.9 ND grad on there to calm down the sky, and I was still over-exposed (zebra set at 60%, SLog2 Cine EI.) I think I just got away with it, but will definitely be getting a couple more 4x4 ND filters.
Ben.
