Is 100mbps 1080p possible On Sony A7s ii....

T

tankbullock

Active member
Ive been making use of some aps-c lenses I have using clear zoom in 4k recording mode on my Sony A7s ii. This may have been discussed here before but I can't track it down, so... I noticed that my 1.5 zoomed in final image still registered 100 mbps approx in Quicktime inspector. So it got me thinking, if I zoomed in from 4k at 100mbps, with zoom applied it 'appears' that the 100mbps information has been recorded/applied onto this 1.5 zoomed image.

It's probably just me being a dumbo and missing something glaringly obvious, but if you zoom into a cropped image and are recording @100mbps, is it possible that information is all being applied to the zoomed image losslessly at this new zoomed size? As in, if I zoomed to a 1080p size in 4k 100mbps mode, will i be gathering the extra MBPS compared to shooting standard 50mbps in normal 1080p recording mode?
 
As in, if I zoomed to a 1080p size in 4k 100mbps mode, will i be gathering the extra MBPS compared to shooting standard 50mbps in normal 1080p recording mode?
Click to expand...

I think, yes, the extra info would be there, but you might have negated any benefit because the image might be softer from the clear zoom function. Maybe do a test and compare the two.

Edit: I just did a quick unscientific test. To me it looks like 4K 100 mbps with 1.5x clear zoom on is sharper than 1080p 50 mbps with aps-c crop turned on.

I don't know what use the extra 50 mbps is good for though...maybe grading headroom?

Btw, Full size 4K 100 mbps cropped 1.5X in post with editing software looks identical to 4K 1.5x clear zoom in camera....so there's that to think about.

Anyway, I'm sticking to full size 4K because of the pan, crop, tilt, editing options.
 
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Thank's for taking the time to reply. It sounds like the clear zoom lives up to Sony's hype. It would have been interesting if the option to crop even further in to the sensor was available. Shooting 4K 100mbps files with super 16 lenses etc. Obviously the full frame sensor on the A7 series is what most people are after and will use, but for those with a wide range of glass, it's nice to have the option to experiment. The prospect of one camera being capable of multi sensor format 100mbs 4K in camera is pretty cool.

From your reply/tests I've realised that 100 Mbps 1080p files aren't possible how I was initially thinking (quite wrongly) about this. You are simply cropping the sensor but still retaining a 4K 100mbps file, just at the new sensor cropped size. You could do exactly the same in principle in either 4K (@100mbps) or 1080p (@50mbps) but never achieve a 1080p file with 100mbps as my brain was initially hoping. If the clear zoom could go further into the sensor, you could in theory use full frame, APSC, 16mm, 8mm lenses etc to generate 4K 100mbps files in the lenses native field of view. Probably pointless to most people, but for me, that would be quite exciting.
 
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If I understand it, clear zoom is not truly cropping the sensor the way aps-c is--I think clear zoom is just zooming in on the whole sensor's 4K image and the camera's processor is doing calculations to refine the pixels. In that case, there is no gain from the extra mbps. I think clear zoom wins the test vs. aps-c because it's starting with a 4K image vs. 1080p.
 
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