FS700, a7S, and a6000.

F

freiheit

Well-known member
hi,
since i've asked by Sony Japan for small test with new products and stuff like that, this time i asked them to get upcoming camera, Sony alpha a7S.

this full frame mirrorless camera has amazing performance for video shooting and many FS700 user might have interesting because of that S-Log2 function. so i did couple of small test with them, FS700, a7S, and a6000 for checking 1080P resolution, color, moire, and yes, highlight aliasing.

unfortunately Sony Japan does not allowed me to uploading test footage until 20th of June, the releasing date in Japan's market.

after 20th, you will see tons of footage from a7S by Japanese user anyway.

here's my first impression of a7S:
"the best, state of the art sensor with few years old body"

that whatever the crazy number of ISO (low light performance) and dynamic range S-Log2 give us, it's just so hard to handle in the world of 8bit color depth.


anyway, i will post more detailed review and the footage for you guys later, i mean after 20th of June. :)


FS700_A7S_A6000.jpg
 
freiheit said:
that whatever the crazy number of ISO (low light performance) and dynamic range S-Log2 give us, it's just so hard to handle in the world of 8bit color depth.
Click to expand...

This is the million dollar (actually $2500) question I really want to know is the usable DR possible in 8bit slog2
 
i think a7S with S-Log2 will give us at least 1stop more dynamic range FS700 has.

this means it's even harder to handle in 8bit...maybe Rec.709 800% with fine tuning will do better job for a7S but i couldn't get enough time to tweak it.

the power balance between the sensor and everything else, i'm pretty sure this is another very unique camera for video shooter.

the footage looks great though.
 
Sonys smart. They'll recoupe RD with the A7s and then put the technology into other higher end cameras. The rest is gravy. This sensitivity, at 12 bit 4k 120 fps, with a small form factor will certainly get my attention.
 
vincent thomas said:
Could we hope that sony give us an 10bit output to external recorder with a futur firmware update?
Click to expand...

i think that "8bit to 10bit" kinda upgrade is not so easy to do. i have no clue that why they keep pushing 8bit camera so hard...frankly i don't get it. :(

we all know the history of the one camera with massive improvement from "8bit to raw", our FS700. but it was already scheduled at the time in 2012, when the camera announced.

let's see what's gonna happen with a7S.
 
From my experience with S-Log and 8-bit AVCHD on the FS700, it's use is very limited for grading. Falls apart real fast. S-Log 2 needs to be at least 10-bit. The 7Qs implementation of 10-bit is top notch. I wonder if Sony will be able to make it that clean. With the AVCHD FS700, I never got the sense that Sony put their best effort into getting the best possible image, especially after seeing what CD did with 4K2HD. I hope Sony does better with the A7S.
 
Freiheit, will Sony allow you to put any of the slog2 A7S clips up for us to download after the 20th? I would love a chance to really test some in-camera footage before buying.

Looking forward are to seeing your tests!
 
Looking forward to your findings once again freiheit!

in general i think the A7s has very limited use as a 4K camera, nice 1080p and lowlight insanity with great DR - Yes. But 4K bulk with an ER in 8bit - No. Maybe the 4K can afterwards be converted to 10bit 1080p, as it was done with the gh4.
 
I thought it could do 10 bit to a recorder such as the new one from Atomos or possibly the 7Q in the future? I personally want nothing to do with 8 Bit as once you've tasted 10 bit, you just cannot go back.

Seems like the A7S would be cruelly crippled if Sony left it at only 8-Bit, even to a recorder. If so, this is a job for A1ex and the Magic Lantern crew :) Seeing their past track record, they would have something amazing in 3... 2... 1...
 
I've agonised over the A7s, i have one on preorder but will make my mind up when it arrives.

For me i need a new stills and this can do everything the FS100 could do too.

From what i've seen the high ISO is a bit meh, it's pretty noisy, even at 12000 ISO which is even more apparent at the meagre 4K stills resolution it does. There's a japanese site with a bunch of stills at various ISOs.

However it has a totally silent shutter, this is pretty awesome IMHO and makes taking photographs in certain places much easier. It will be interesting to see how the sensor copes with the various lenses out there, the A7 and A7r each has their limitations.

The Slog2, the claim is 15 stops of range but i doubt that is in video mode, Slog2 is designed to hold around 13.5 to 14 stops but actually the Slog2 in the FS700 isn't technically accurate, it appears to have an S curve on top which is why it looks more contrasty than 'real' Slog2. In low bit depths this helps a lot, i'd expect this camera to do the same which is good thing (until you have to post the stuff!).

If you can capture 8 bit Slog2 at 4K and denoise and downsample in post you'd basically get 10bit HD from it. It is such a shame that the internal HD codec isn't the 10 bit version of Xavc though.

If only Sony were to chuck the RAW out of the HDMI, sigh... Wouldn't be difficult, data rate is manageable and there's less CPU work for the camera to do, so cooler running...

cheers
Paul
 
If you can capture 8 bit Slog2 at 4K and denoise and downsample in post you'd basically get 10bit HD from it

Can you explain this? 4k downsample to 1080p will become like 10bit??
 
NMSK said:
Freiheit, will Sony allow you to put any of the slog2 A7S clips up for us to download after the 20th? I would love a chance to really test some in-camera footage before buying.

Looking forward are to seeing your tests!
Click to expand...

yes, i will upload few sample for you guys. and i'm pretty sure that you will see tons of review / sample video right after 20th so dont worry about it. :)
 
the time i did test with a7S, i only had a chance to do it with "APS-C" mode with genuine E mount lens and EF mount (Canon L) lens with Metabones Smart Adapter ver.2 i've own.

and that APS-C mode didn't gave me the best resolution i've expected. it had minor moire and bitter highlight aliasing, and once i switched to 1080P/60fps, the footage had kinda strong moire...some sensor readout issue doing on, i think.

to get full potential the a7S has, better get using with FE mount lens, or your lens collection with Metabones Smart Adapter "ver.3 or 4", not with ver.1 nor 2.

with full frame size lens, a7S must have beautiful moire free 1080P and UHD footage.
 
Alan Ting Judson said:
Thanks for the link, it is something interesting.
So if want to grade it better we need to export the 4k to 1080p first to become 10bit and grade it or we need to grade in 4k before export to 1080p?
Click to expand...

The 8 bit from black to white contains the full dynamic range of the image, it's just that the steps between black to white are limited. If you take a higher resolution source and work in a higher bit depth when you scale that down you are creating in-between pixels which can become, say, fractions of 256 steps. Hence higher apparent bit depth. Is this *true* bit depth? Not really. But what it will do is to reduce the banding that might be visible in smooth areas which at the end of the day is really the biggest issue with 8 bit capture.

You could grade anywhere in that step but i'd guess the easiest way it to batch process down to 1080 with all the de-noising and scaling in then grade on the 1080p

cheers
Paul
 
freiheit said:
the time i did test with a7S, i only had a chance to do it with "APS-C" mode with genuine E mount lens and EF mount (Canon L) lens with Metabones Smart Adapter ver.2 i've own.

and that APS-C mode didn't gave me the best resolution i've expected. it had minor moire and bitter highlight aliasing, and once i switched to 1080P/60fps, the footage had kinda strong moire...some sensor readout issue doing on, i think.

to get full potential the a7S has, better get using with FE mount lens, or your lens collection with Metabones Smart Adapter "ver.3 or 4", not with ver.1 nor 2.

with full frame size lens, a7S must have beautiful moire free 1080P and UHD footage.
Click to expand...

Well that's a little concerning. The A7s is supposed to read out the entire 4K sensor and downsample that properly to 1080p. I wouldn't be expecting moire anywhere. The OLPF would be designed for 4K so it should really be producing a very moire and aliased free image.

I would really love to see samples of this....

The APS-C would be using a centre crop, so you can argue that the downsampling wouldn't be exactly half (as it is in the 4K-HD). Perhaps sony are binning on the APS-C mode.

thanks
Paul
 
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