Other: FX9 demo footage and testing

I'm not seeing any real difference in noise performance FX9/FS7 but that's expected when both cameras have the same S/N value. Good test as a start Doug!
 
Damn. Read the answers before I watched the tests...which negates my "neutral" opinion. :-(
But very much appreciate seeing these Doug! Feel free to post more after your grand daughter has worn you out & you need screen time to recoup. :smile:

I do see perhaps a bit more noise between D & E in that 2nd test... but funny - I prefer the look of E to D. (and the noise from my FS7 has never bothered me - but then again shooting above 3200 or in extreme low light is not something I do much.)
 
Wow that's quite a bit of difference between FX9 and FS7 in custom and makes the question of matching the 2 cameras a bit worrisome.

I assume all the custom settings are the same ?
What was the custom setting ?

Did you or will you try to see if you can adjust the settings to match them?

What happens if you shoot S Log3 and use the same LUT for both in post?
I've done that with A7iii and FS7 in SLog2 and they matched perfectly.

Can you make any changes to S-Cinetone- i.e. Black Level, Black Stretch, Saturation, Phase, Gamma ?

Have a good time at Disneyworld !
 
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Doug it would be interesting to see a real low light comparison between the FX9 and FS7. With real I mean low light without any light source in the frame as such light sources tend to mask noise. This is closer to what I encounter during real shoots and this is what I consider the only real test as it puts the sensor and electronics to the test.

ISO2000 on the FS7 and ISO2000 on the FX9 in low and high ISO mode would be nice to see.
 
J.Brown,
Frankly I think we know enough about the FX9 already to know its going to be very clean and the FS7 noisier. At whatever point you think the FS7 is noisy that's where the FX9 will shine - though as Alister suggests in his 3 hour lecture, its a lot more useful to use the DB settings to compare noise than ISO for 2 reasons:
1 - On the same DB setting (& therefore the same amount of noise) ISO will change with the gamma of the camera in custom, so its really not useful.
2- ISO doesn't mean a hill of beans in video except to make users feel like "real cinematographers" . It won't align with a light meter and it won't even align between different gammas or different cameras by the manufacturer. i.e my tests showed with the same ISO and gamma the A7iii was 2 stops faster than the FS7. So what's it supposed to mean?

In Cine EI it makes sense though.
 
Having both cameras set to Cine EI and Slog3 would still be interesting. Then again the power of NR settings on both cameras has to be incorporated in the test. I actually always have my FS7 set to medium NR and it has worked fine since Sony enabled it in Cine EI. Is the NR improved on the FX9? How much perceivable noise difference is there? To what degree does the FF mode compare to the S35 mode?

This goes for resolved detail as well as colour fidelity.

Sure F9 is better but I'd still like to see exactly how much better and if it's worth it or if I'm just going to keep using the FS7. I guess that is the question a lot of us is facing.
 
I tested the camera a while back. The noise difference is significant. When you’re taking a 6K sensor and downscaling it, that alone is going to make a world of difference. I don’t know what they’re doing electronically to reduce noise or if they even changed that from the FS7. Alister has mentioned in a couple of interviews that when they did the DR test with both cameras in a pitch black room, that people were actually gasping at how noisy the FS7 looked compared directly to the FX9. Both were being shown on large screens.
 
Looking at FS7 vs FS5 there's much less noise from the FS7 in LOG but with a custom profile they are much closer. Maybe it's the same with FX9/FS7.
 
LennyLevy said:
Wow that's quite a bit of difference between FX9 and FS7 in custom and makes the question of matching the 2 cameras a bit worrisome.

I assume all the custom settings are the same ?
What was the custom setting ?

Did you or will you try to see if you can adjust the settings to match them?

What happens if you shoot S Log3 and use the same LUT for both in post?
I've done that with A7iii and FS7 in SLog2 and they matched perfectly.

Can you make any changes to S-Cinetone- i.e. Black Level, Black Stretch, Saturation, Phase, Gamma ?

Have a good time at Disneyworld !
Click to expand...

1) In test 2, yes. All HG8. In test 1, see my notes above.
2) Coming.
3) Yes, S-Cinetone is just a gamma choice that Sony calls "Original". All other paint menus are still available for customizing.
4) Had a great time.
 
J.Brown said:
Having both cameras set to Cine EI and Slog3 would still be interesting . . . Sure F9 is better but I'd still like to see exactly how much better and if it's worth it or if I'm just going to keep using the FS7. I guess that is the question a lot of us is facing.
Click to expand...

A completely fair test would put S-LOG2 on the FS7 vs. S-LOG3 on the FX9. But no time to do that amount of testing. I still dislike S-SLOG3 because of the way it clips at 94 IRE. I still contend S-LOG2 is the superior version of S-LOG. But S-LOG3 is the way everything is moving and I have no S-LOG2 options on the latest cameras. It's one of those things I was talking about earlier (maybe in another thread) that you just have to accept and move on. Nothing to be gained my wishing for something I'm not gonna get.
 
J.Brown said:
Doug it would be interesting to see a real low light comparison between the FX9 and FS7. With real I mean low light without any light source in the frame as such light sources tend to mask noise. This is closer to what I encounter during real shoots and this is what I consider the only real test as it puts the sensor and electronics to the test.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I didn't do that test and I sent the camera back on Tuesday.
I only had the camera for 3 days and one of those days was basically wasted troubleshooting two issues with Resolve compatibility. Footage has been uploaded to Sony and I'm still waiting to hear if they can confirm there is an issue or tell me it's my problem. But I don't think it is me. I'm not going to talk about it publicly, so don't ask. Part of my duty when Sony loans me a pre-production camera is to be a beta tester and that can chew up tons of time. In this case, a whole day was wasted (12 hours) trying to narrow down two issues that would cause Resolve to crash.
 
LennyLevy said:
Wow that's quite a bit of difference between FX9 and FS7 in custom and makes the question of matching the 2 cameras a bit worrisome.

I assume all the custom settings are the same ?
What was the custom setting ?

Did you or will you try to see if you can adjust the settings to match them?

What happens if you shoot S Log3 and use the same LUT for both in post?
I've done that with A7iii and FS7 in SLog2 and they matched perfectly.

Can you make any changes to S-Cinetone- i.e. Black Level, Black Stretch, Saturation, Phase, Gamma ?

Have a good time at Disneyworld !
Click to expand...

1) In test 2, yes. All HG8. In test 1, see my notes above.
2) Coming.
3) Yes, S-Cinetone is just one of many gamma and matrix choices that can be mixed and matched in millions of combinations with all the other paint menus.
4) Had a great time.
 
Doug- This is a minor thing, but on the Fx9 does the red light remain when disabling the rest of the display or go away along with everything else but the crosshairs, as on the Fs7?
 
JPNola said:
Doug- This is a minor thing, but on the Fx9 does the red light remain when disabling the rest of the display or go away along with everything else but the crosshairs, as on the Fs7?
Click to expand...

Someone else had that same question last week. Unfortunately it works just like the FS7.
 
Doug, is 18db gain as clean as it looks on my iPad? I really want to watch this on a giant monitor but I don’t have access to Vimeo on there. It looks too clean at such a high gain, but in assuming it’s my small screen.
 
Newsguy said:
Doug, is 18db gain as clean as it looks on my iPad? I really want to watch this on a giant monitor but I don’t have access to Vimeo on there. It looks too clean at such a high gain, but in assuming it’s my small screen.
Click to expand...

Yes, it does look very good. I've got more tests to upload that will show it even better.
I want to upload some real footage first that isn't charts and table top stuff.
 
Thanks for the third test Doug. To me noise in FX9 FF looks the lowest but I think noise would show even better in a test without light source in the frame.
 
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