FS5: Is it worth it to hold out for Shogun Inferno, or just invest in 7Q+ instead?

Chadfish said:
I feel we aren't getting a true unbiased comparison of the 7Q and the Inferno here because we have the makers of the 7Q sponsoring the forum. Anyway, I'm sure they are telling the truth about their own products.
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I don't feel that's a fair characterization, especially considering the lambasting I sometimes receive here when things don't go the way people want. Not complaining about that, but I believe the only bias is a lot of happy Odyssey owners who participate on this forum.

I'm not going to go through posts and nitpick points. Both devices must stand on their own.

I will state two things:

- With FS5 we do a lot of stuff and we do it today. 4K60p/2K240p/4K120p burst, all in RAW & ProRes. 4K->HD Supersampling in ProRes. No other device does all of this right now.

- We believe that our tools are the best executed in the business. Others may have False Color, but is it fully programable with a legend onscreen? Comparative spot meter, LUT Routing, 17x9 monitoring, 6 modes of anamorphic desqueeze (and the 17x9 & desqueeze are both output to other monitors on set)single-touch access to monitoring tools such as Focus Assist, Pixel Zoom, Waveform, Histogram, etc. Sometimes you can't just go by a spec that says something is there or not, you need to check out for yourself how it is implemented.

Sure I'm a little biased but I always try to only state facts and do so with clarity. I welcome all to actually compare our product with any other and report their findings and opinions. We believe in our product.
 
Mitch Gross said:
- We believe that our tools are the best executed in the business. Others may have False Color, but is it fully programable with a legend onscreen? Comparative spot meter, LUT Routing, 17x9 monitoring, 6 modes of anamorphic desqueeze (and the 17x9 & desqueeze are both output to other monitors on set)single-touch access to monitoring tools such as Focus Assist, Pixel Zoom, Waveform, Histogram, etc. Sometimes you can't just go by a spec that says something is there or not, you need to check out for yourself how it is implemented.
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As a user of both Flame and 7Q I agree with Mitch. The exposure and focusing tools on the 7Q are far far better and that's really important to me. For me the positive on Atomos is the 1500 nits - its bright enough to use in daylight and that is big advantage. I imagine a future version of the 7Q will incorporate that. It would be nice if that could be a hardware upgrade Mitch - hint.
 
Doug Jensen said:
That is quite impressive. Until now, I didn't know anyone who had spent $500,000 on equipment in 2016. Congratulations!
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LOL. Nice 😉. Far be it from me to put words in anyone's mouth,
but I have said similar things in the past. In my case, my uneducated
self was trying to say that when I only make $45 grand, I can only write off
45 grand and after that I'm losing money. We'll, actually I'm losing money
well before then too. Point is, in my case, it's more that I don't make
enough to to continue to purchase gear as a 'tax expense' as opposed
to truly maxing out my $500,000 in gear. I wish I had that problem!
 
Doug Jensen said:
That is quite impressive. Until now, I didn't know anyone who had spent $500,000 on equipment in 2016. Congratulations!
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Well not quite 500,000. More like 25,000.00. I did spend more on office / gear than I made in my video business, which was slow this year.
 
basspig said:
As some may have read my other thread, I did take a chance on the Inferno and, on the whole, I'm quite pleased with it.


I paid $1695 at BH Photo, even though the 1 day price drop occured a week after I bought mine (they refunded the difference ). Great company.
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That's a great price Mark! I haven't played with my buddy's Inferno yet. I've kind of not been absolutely gung ho to hurry up and get one after watching Doug's comparison video. The difference isn't that great after going through YouTube's compression, and there's noise in RAW, and I assume Prores (though that's an issue for any recorder). I wish they could just have an option to leave on the camera's noise reduction, or have an NR processor on the recorder. It's also a lot heavier than I imagined, especially with the NP-970 batteries I use. You get about 2 hours with those. I'll end up with one. Maybe after I buy my Inspire 2 Pro quadcopter. That shoots raw and Prores as well.
 
Mitch Gross said:
I don't feel that's a fair characterization, especially considering the lambasting I sometimes receive here when things don't go the way people want. Not complaining about that, but I believe the only bias is a lot of happy Odyssey owners who participate on this forum.

I'm not going to go through posts and nitpick points. Both devices must stand on their own.

I will state two things:

- With FS5 we do a lot of stuff and we do it today. 4K60p/2K240p/4K120p burst, all in RAW & ProRes. 4K->HD Supersampling in ProRes. No other device does all of this right now.

- We believe that our tools are the best executed in the business. Others may have False Color, but is it fully programable with a legend onscreen? Comparative spot meter, LUT Routing, 17x9 monitoring, 6 modes of anamorphic desqueeze (and the 17x9 & desqueeze are both output to other monitors on set)single-touch access to monitoring tools such as Focus Assist, Pixel Zoom, Waveform, Histogram, etc. Sometimes you can't just go by a spec that says something is there or not, you need to check out for yourself how it is implemented.

Sure I'm a little biased but I always try to only state facts and do so with clarity. I welcome all to actually compare our product with any other and report their findings and opinions. We believe in our product.
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Fair enough Mitch. It's not that I think anything shady is going on. It's just that few who knows much about the Inferno have been around to represent it since it only just came out. The conversation has mostly been one sided, so I'm hoping to get more info on the other as people use it.
 
Atomos just released the first firmware update for the Inferno.

Still no mention of the HFR options which were supposed to be there from release.
 
In favor of C-D is will say this: over a year after purchase I discovered a hardware defect with my O7Q+ unit's HDMI output that may or may not have been present since purchase, but upon describing the issue to Convergent Design they were quick to offer to repair the unit, and the only charge I incurred was shipping the unit to them. I had a separate issue with a battery adapter plate, and Convergent Design made right on that twice: first sending me a cable that provided me an immediate alternate power solution, and second they sent me a replacement for the original defective battery plate once they had corrected units in stock.

I'm hard pressed to think of another company in the sector that is as responsive and honorable as Convergent Design.

As for any complaints about what features exist on a unit and which don't - I suggest you never buy a product based on future promises, but rather buy solely on what the unit is capable of today.
 
It may be worth noting that if you want to burn in LUTs and record anything other than Slog, atomos does that and CD does not. That said, CDs featureset and support is generally better though atomos's full HD panel and high brightness are tempting as well.

I own a 7q+ and shogun and the 7q is ideal for my fs5 but shogun is in some ways better designed for hdmi recording and I use it for my a7sii which is my B camera.
 
Doug Jensen said:
That is quite impressive. Until now, I didn't know anyone who had spent $500,000 on equipment in 2016. Congratulations!
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I hit the limit too last year. The exemption expired last year, so the max deduction was lowered from some ridiculous six figure to the low five figures. I decided to amortize my FS7 purchase over the next 3 years as a result.
 
I finally bit the bullet and purchased a Shogun Inferno. Not sure about the USA but here the price difference from the O7q+ is about $1100 once you factor in the RAW license, and even more once you purchase the batteries etc which are already included with the Inferno. I just couldn't justify the price difference when for now I'll only be using it for ProRes recording anyway.

I just hope they actually deliver on the 240fps recording in the next firmware. CDNG Recording is not something I'm really interested in yet, but I guess it would be nice if they did finally get around to implementing that too, just so it's there if I need it.

It's gonna take a few weeks to arrive but I'll try to post some field reports here once I've used it on a few shoots.
 
Chadfish said:
That's a great price Mark! I haven't played with my buddy's Inferno yet. I've kind of not been absolutely gung ho to hurry up and get one after watching Doug's comparison video. The difference isn't that great after going through YouTube's compression, and there's noise in RAW, and I assume Prores (though that's an issue for any recorder). I wish they could just have an option to leave on the camera's noise reduction, or have an NR processor on the recorder. It's also a lot heavier than I imagined, especially with the NP-970 batteries I use. You get about 2 hours with those. I'll end up with one. Maybe after I buy my Inspire 2 Pro quadcopter. That shoots raw and Prores as well.
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Yeah, it was apparently a one day deal, and I was lucky they retroactively gave me the deal (I guess because I buy so much gear from them every year, they did this as a nice gesture--they certainly didn't have to).

Yeah, the unit is heavy, and with larger batts, I would imagine quite a lunk to carry around. I've yet to use it on a hot day. It gets quite hot! The amount of heat is like what you get from a heating register when the furnace is on. I worry about life of the semiconductors, to say nothing of the short battery run time. Often, I carry a 12V 7Ah SLA with a barrel plug to power my Shoguns in the field.

I haven't had any issues with noise when recording off the HDMI out. RAW would be a different story, because no NR there. The one reason I want to try RAW eventually is HFR. 240FPS would be useful in some instances. Mostly, the Prores gives me the stringent quality that I'm after. Images that can be printed to poster sized prints and that look fantastic.
 
basspig said:
Yeah, the unit is heavy, and with larger batts, I would imagine quite a lunk to carry around.
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How are you mounting the unit? I'll be putting it on rails and using it as a counterweight on the shoulder, so big and clunky is a benefit for that! It means I won't be using the Shogun's screen a lot of the time, so I've purchased a Kinotehnik EVF for shoulder use.

I'm considering also adding V-lock batteries to power everything too, but I'll wait and see how the rig handles first, once all the pieces arrive.
 
I'm using a small articulated arm I got from eBay (Chinese seller). I have two of them and they work well. Less than $20 each.

If you go with the XDCA adapter, V-lock becomes mandatory, as that is the only way to power the rig.

The biggest problem with shoulder mounting is that the pad is too small, so it rocks around too much on the shoulder. I find it near impossible to hold the camera level and do a pan. This camera begs for a baseplate with a really good-fitting shoulder pad.
 
I'm on the FS700, not FS7, so shoulder mount and V-lock options will all be aftermarket.

So you have yours mounted in place of the FS7 EVF using the friction arms?
 
deltoidjohn said:
I won't be using the Shogun's screen a lot of the time, so I've purchased a Kinotehnik EVF for shoulder use.
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Just be prepared for the quite substantial lag/latency the FS700 has via HDMI (but also SDI). I personally can hardly use the Odyssey because of this. And my Aperture monitor via HDMI is even worse. It obviously depends on what you shoot. I do a lot of music/performance related stuff and it's unbearable seeing the image behind the beat. But I'm also a musician so might be extra sensitive because of that. But even just people talking and the lips not moving in sync of what they're saying drives me nuts... so I prefer watching the FS700 monitor once it's rolling...
 
An urgent question to Mark (@basspig), and any other Shogun Inferno users out there:

I have just a couple of days before Christmas for completing the list of equipment I'll be buying this year (have a very good offer for the A7Rii or A7Sii which is going to serve me as the B-camera; would like to add some expensive stuff to the Order as financing is very attractive). I'm debating with myself which to buy:

1. The SmallHD 1303 HDR monitor (no recording, but a nice HDR monitor which could help me set up the FS7 and A7 for possibly most compatible pictures with my Resolve HDR10 grading in mind)

-or

2. Shogun Inferno (for similar HDR monitoring, plus the recording option)

Now, since we're still unsure whether the FS7 HDMI-out provides 10-bit with high fps UHD/4K, I'm afraid that to use the Shogun recording capabilities fully, I'd also need to buy the XDCA-FS7 extension unit :(. I hate to spend $2,000 on XDCA unless it's absolutely necessary for my Shougun Inferno purchase to make sense.

So is it, or is it not ecessary? I'll stress it that I'd probably never use any other functionalities of XDCA; I'm considering it purely with Shogun recording in mind... Thanks for all and any advise,

Piotr
 
moldcad said:
An urgent question to Mark (@basspig), and any other Shogun Inferno users out there:

I have just a couple of days before Christmas for completing the list of equipment I'll be buying this year (have a very good offer for the A7Rii or A7Sii which is going to serve me as the B-camera; would like to add some expensive stuff to the Order as financing is very attractive). I'm debating with myself which to buy:

1. The SmallHD 1303 HDR monitor (no recording, but a nice HDR monitor which could help me set up the FS7 and A7 for possibly most compatible pictures with my Resolve HDR10 grading in mind)

-or

2. Shogun Inferno (for similar HDR monitoring, plus the recording option)

Now, since we're still unsure whether the FS7 HDMI-out provides 10-bit with high fps UHD/4K, I'm afraid that to use the Shogun recording capabilities fully, I'd also need to buy the XDCA-FS7 extension unit :(. I hate to spend $2,000 on XDCA unless it's absolutely necessary for my Shougun Inferno purchase to make sense.

So is it, or is it not ecessary? I'll stress it that I'd probably never use any other functionalities of XDCA; I'm considering it purely with Shogun recording in mind... Thanks for all and any advise,

Piotr
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From what I have heard from Sony, the HDMI out of the FS7 is 8 bit 4.2.0....and only up
to 30fps. So if you want more than that, you will need either the Odyssey or Inferno (or
the other Atomos recorder Shogun?). Additionally you will need the extension unit. Don't think
there is any way around that if you want more than the internal XAVC recording. Not
sure how much better the 'non raw' external recording would be, the FS7 can record 10
bit internally at a pretty high bit rate. I guess the downsampled HD from the Odyssey
might be a bit better as that is some of the best HD video you will see in this price range.
Not sure it is worth it just for ProRes/DNXHD....?..
 
I would only for for the extension unit if you need 240 FPS recording and 2K/4K format recording. It is the only way to record 2K. HDMI out is HD 1080, not 2K. So the RAW option is the only way to get 2K recording and higher frame rates than 180.

I, too, am skeptical of the HDMI bit depth. I see banding artifacts in my Shogun recordings sometimes where there is soft bokeh, that is not apparent on the internal recordings. It's in rare instances, but it's there.
 
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