I need a B Cam for my A7s

J

jayhawk30

Member
Now that I've used my A7s on a few shoots I think it's time to sell off my Canon gear and get a suitable B Cam. I have an A6000 but it will have to serve as a great C Cam.

I shoot mainly weddings and non-profit doc style work. My wife is my second shooter so I definitely need two full capable rigs. The last two projects I used the A7s and 6D. I didn't find it all that difficult to match up the colors in post but I see a big difference in video quality (morie, mush, etc)

I'm considering getting another A7s, a GH4 (w/ SB) or an NX1. If I'm spending the money I would really like to get a camera that has internal 4k. At this stage in my career not only can I not afford the Shogun, the ergonomics don't match up with my shooting style. I also have a large mainly R&G project coming up this summer in Ecuador and I think 4k would be super valuable for lancscapes, reframing, stabilization etc etc.

I'm leaning towards the GH4 because it's a more established camera. The footage from NX1 looks great but I'm not sure I want to mess with the workflow and lack of adapters. I'm also trying to be conscious of resale and I feel that the GH4 will sell much easier than Nx1. It just seems that as it stands today the GH4 fits into my workflow right out of the box.

Does anyone here consistently shoot with the A7s and/or GH4 - NX1? Any recommendations on the route I should go?

Thanks!
 
I'd still go with a second A7s. Having matching cams is really nice for multicam use. Not to mention they all use the same kind of lenses. And the smaller and cheaper Video Devices PIX-E recorder is coming out soon(ish). So even it's the pain of external recorder, it's at least smaller and cheaper that the Shogun.
 
It depends if you intercut the two cams frequently in the edit or not. I for one hate to constantly have to match cameras in post which is why I will probably buy another A7s
 
dmitrizigany said:
I'd still go with a second A7s. Having matching cams is really nice for multicam use. Not to mention they all use the same kind of lenses. And the smaller and cheaper Video Devices PIX-E recorder is coming out soon(ish). So even it's the pain of external recorder, it's at least smaller and cheaper that the Shogun.
Click to expand...

Oh wow, totally missed that PIX-E5. I checke da few sites and videos online but didn't see an estimated ship date? One of the guys at NAB said "Summer" -- is this what you've heard?
 
I back up my A7S with two FS7s :p
Really though for the price it can be had, best bet is another A7S.
 
Yes, I've also heard summer only, and first the PIX-E5 with SDI/hdmi ($1399, I believe) then the hdmi only PIX-E5H ($1199) followed by the 7" model.
So obviously if you need it NOW, they are out of the question.
 
I'm hoping for an a6100 with perfectly clean 1080p60, XAVC-S and slog2 in the near future. That would be a nearly-perfect B-cam for the a7S.
 
Sorry for going off topic, but does anybody know if the 5" PIX E monitors will allow 4K 200fps/240fps slo mo when combined with a FS700 ?

Looks like my prayers have been answered if it can. A small, light weight monitor, with a great USB 3.0 plug & play hard drive that does 4K and runs on batteries !
 
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CinematicFanatic said:
Sorry for going off topic, but does anybody know if the 5" PIX E monitors will allow 4K 200fps/240fps slo mo when combined with a FS700 ?

Looks like my prayers have been answered if it can. A small, light weight monitor, with a great USB 3.0 plug & play hard drive that does 4K and runs on batteries !
Click to expand...

I don't think the PIX-E recorders will take the RAW signal so the answer would be no, but double check. The O7Q is the only thing at the moment that does that reliably.

The PIX-E will be a fantastic fit for the A7s though, and as soon as i can preorder then i'll have one of those...

cheers
Paul
 
paulcurtis said:
I don't think the PIX-E recorders will take the RAW signal so the answer would be no, but double check. The O7Q is the only thing at the moment that does that reliably.

The PIX-E will be a fantastic fit for the A7s though, and as soon as i can preorder then i'll have one of those...

cheers
Paul
Click to expand...

Real shame if true. The size was perfect. I wish Odyssey would then release a 5" version of their monitor.
 
CinematicFanatic said:
NTSC 240fps.
PAL 200fps.
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Not in 4K.
The Odyssey 7Q will soon do 4K 60p and that is because it has dual hard drive busses.
The FS700 can do short bursts (4 seconds?) of 120p 4K which is recorded from the buffer as 24/25p. So that could technically be done on the Shogun as well, I assume.
It can do 2K continuously at 240p. However, to record those speeds you need the dual bus. The Shogun can only go up to 120p.

Video Devices hasn't announced any support for FS700/FS7 raw on the PIX-E yet (and won't comment on future plans about it either).

But without dual bus, devices are limited to 4K 30p.
 
Samuel H said:
I'm hoping for an a6100 with perfectly clean 1080p60, XAVC-S and slog2 in the near future. That would be a nearly-perfect B-cam for the a7S.
Click to expand...

I have the A6000 and the size is both a blessing and a curse. I use it mainly for photos but when I shoot weddings i leave it set on a slider or shoulder rig depending on where my A7s is. I guess what I really need is a second A cam.
 
dmitrizigany said:
But without dual bus, devices are limited to 4K 30p.
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The Shogun isn't supporting FS RAW yet, on their site they claim april but i don't think there's been any new firmware? Plus i don't think they're claiming any more that 30fps ProRes either, so they're behind the curve compared to CD.

CD will take the burst 4K RAW now and downsample to 2K 50p. The burst mode runs out at 50p, so until there's support for 4K 50p (which is coming) you can't get the full 4K burst mode in ProRes.

You can of course run that to 4K DNGs using both drives.

The HDMI version of the E can't ever run RAW as that's through the SDI. And they've not made any mention of RAW recording via the other SDI monitors either, plus with a single drive they may not have the data rates to do some of it either.

cheers
Paul
 
paulcurtis said:
CD will take the burst 4K RAW now and downsample to 2K 50p. The burst mode runs out at 50p, so until there's support for 4K 50p (which is coming) you can't get the full 4K burst mode in ProRes.
Click to expand...
As I understand it, the burst goes out as whatever you are set for otherwise, 24p, 25p, 30p, 50p or 60p. So you should be able to get the burst on the Shogun as well, eventually, no?
But the other recorders will never be able to compete with the 7Q when it comes to pure 4K frame rates because of technical limitations.
 
Samuel H said:
Does the E even record 4K over SDI? I thought not (4K over HDMI, only 1080p over SDI)
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It does not. But the FS raw signal is not a video signal but a data signal. So I think it should be possible for the PIX-E to record 4K from the FS700 in the future if Sound Devices decides it's worth their while to implement it (and if the PIX-Es got the horsepower to do it). At this moment their stance is "no comment on future development" though.

If you have an A7s only, it makes little sense getting the SDI version at this point though. The SDI seems mostly useful if your using it only as a monitor or recording HD.
And in many ways the hdmi only version seems like the best solution for the A7s, unless you're fine with putting a huge 7" monitor on a tiny little camera.
They also seem more solid than the Shogun. But since they are not released yet, they will probably have to catch up on the software/functions side with both CD and Atomos.
 
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