FS7: FS7 RAW woes & data distribution between: 12-bit RAW, 16-bit RAW, & 10-bit S-Log

For me Sense8 is the best looking F55 show I have seen. Daredevil is the best looking Red Dragon show I have seen. And both of them far more down to cinematography and art direction than the choice of codec :)

For sync footage, Raven/Dragon at 3:1 4K is pretty special. Aside from using some wider than usual lenses, that's better quality than Prometheus was captured at. A gazillion indie flicks will be shot on it.
 
Thinking aloud...

As the FS7 is built on the same platform as the F5/F55 could it be technically possible that Sony could open up 16 bit RAW with a firmware update for the FS7?

Technically possible doesn't mean it'll happen but worth thinking about the possibility, even if it's a paid upgrade.
 
DLD said:
This was shot on Red (250 TB worth of disc space used)

Click to expand...

Looks fantastic, really cinematic. Which camera version and what lenses?

Nirv said:
Thinking aloud...

As the FS7 is built on the same platform as the F5/F55 could it be technically possible that Sony could open up 16 bit RAW with a firmware update for the FS7?

Technically possible doesn't mean it'll happen but worth thinking about the possibility, even if it's a paid upgrade.
Click to expand...

I doubt it. We all begged Sony to implement a real codec in the F3 and we never did get the V5 firmware. If your not happy with the FS7 why not sell it and move on to the F5 or whatever else takes your fancy? Better to sell now while the FS7 is popular. Only you know if the FS7 is a keeper or not. I'm very happy with the F5 and it wouldn't make sense for me to sell it and buy a Raven.

Sure the RED footage looks better but those cameras cost $$$$$$. I do think with S-Log 3 and RAW that we can come close to RED. The RED Dragon test I posted, I think it looks great due to the lighting and the models make-up & complexion, so perhaps it's not just down to the RED colour science. Those Impulz LUTs really help with S-Log and make life easy just like the RED LUTs do for that Dragon footage. No easy choices with this stuff and so many options it makes my head hurt.
 
In case it gets lost in everything I have been saying championing Red's image quality I will reiterate here.

The FS7 is a brilliant little camera and for 90% of people out there is pretty much all the camera they will ever need to create great images for many years to come.

It's only when you start looking at the next tiers of production values up that you start to push what it can deliver and on occasion exceed it.

That's why I'm not suddenly thinking about selling my FS7 - Just the bits I won't need when I buy a Red, like the extension back and the 7Q. It will have a life for a long time yet. Even if an FS8 is announced at NAB.
 
Its not rocket science is it.. never shoot custom.. shoot Cine EI Slog3.cine ..with or without baked in LUTs.. massive variables and potential with 3D LUT,s .. make your own or pay someone to go into resolve to make something you like.. get some good lenses ..pan tilt and invoice..
 
I agree but the arguments prevail because there are still many who can crank out great images from custom mode, or the F3 which had the same color science as custom mode on FS7.
 
Nirv,

I haven't actually used the Raw back on an FS7, but looking at the info online, am I right in thinking that it feeds out Raw via an SDI BNC?

If so, there is a likelihood that the SDI interface would cap the depth at 12-bits.

Probably equally unlikely, but another option would be to feed out log-encoded raw instead of linear. At 12-bit depth that would provide oodles of image data and make realistic the 14-stop range which kicked off this thread.

One other thing that places limitations is that Sony gear is built for efficiency power-wise; offhand I think that my F55 with the viewfinder on draws about 35W, whilst an Alexa or Amira is more like 90W. I recently worked with both a RED Dragon and an Amira and I really noticed that the batteries were getting changed a lot more often tham I'm used to.

It's likely that a big portion of that is down to specialised electronics, the downside of which is that there are limitations to what can be achieved (or achieved reliably) with firmware updates.

I'd love to see the larger Sony-F cameras get long-GOP like the FS7. Not because it's a beautiful codec, but because I have clients who use it and that number may very well rise. Speaking with a cameraman who had discussed this with a Sony engineer some months ago, the extremely non-committal answer he got was that it might be possible, but that you would likely need to lose something else in order to keep the recording operation reliable,

Ben
 
Nirv said:
Thinking aloud...

As the FS7 is built on the same platform as the F5/F55 could it be technically possible that Sony could open up 16 bit RAW with a firmware update for the FS7?

Technically possible doesn't mean it'll happen but worth thinking about the possibility, even if it's a paid upgrade.
Click to expand...

Can't squeeze 16-bit RAW through the SDI unfortunately even though technically it's more efficient than YCrBr.

ie. Remember you need a single 3G-SDI just for HD, and four of them for 4K.
 
Well, the XDCA unit is on Ebay now and the 7Q soon as well so I guess we'll see what the market rate for one is. I shoulda never got involved in this thread before offloading! :)
 
Wish Sony offered a more compact version of the XDCA that lacked the ProRes encoding & Raw out, but accepted Time Code, & V-Lock batteries.
 
Did you guys see this article from Cinema5D.com?

https://www.cinema5d.com/sony-fs7-raw-issues-found/

Nothing particularly new in terms of the 'issues' found through their relatively scientific testing of the FS-7 with XDCA, but this was fairly interesting to me:

"Three weeks ago we contacted Sony Japan about these issues. The Sony FS7 product managers and technicians were very attentive to
the concerns we raised and immediately responded by starting tests of their own. Eventually in a collaboration with cinema5D
they were able to reproduce and confirm the issues we found and last week they came back to us with this statement:​

“Cinema5D has feedback these issues to Sony. Sony has confirmed the issues and is currently studying how to fix.”"

​


Will be even more interesting to see if/when Sony actually manages to find and implement a fix. Sounds like we could well have meaningful FW updates beyond V3.0 after all.

Also, gotta love the tongue-in-cheek timepiece ad that Sebastien shot to test/illustrate some of the shortcomings of FS-7 raw:

https://vimeo.com/146398258

Nice one,

jason
 
I have been asking Sony about this since Feb this year. The idea that they just discovered the issue is an outright lie.
 
Ben Scott said:
I have been asking Sony about this since Feb this year. The idea that they just discovered the issue is an outright lie.
Click to expand...

Yep, I've got heaps of emails with Sony about this issue going back months. Convergent design know about the issue too. Also, the article states, "Frame duplication happens when shooting at 200fps (PAL). This happens only at 200fps, it does not happen at 240fps"

You can't shoot 240fps in PAL mode.
 
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