Is the Sony A7S good for Event Videography??

T

theprestige

Active member
I've got £3,500 budget and was initially planning on getting this A7S because of it's superb low light features (I shoot a lot in low light) and full frame cinematic view. However, people say that the battery life is abysmal. Is it true? I mean, the first DSLR I used for video, the Nikon d3200, I thought the battery life was pretty weak with that too as it only allows for shooting for up to a little over an hour. I've gotten used to the process having gotten an extra battery for it - if the A7S battery last at least an hour, i'll be fine, if it last a lot less, I may consider another camera??
 
theprestige said:
What's that about, mate?
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Just researched it, sounds awful. I hope this is only with a few select cameras??? Man, I can't believe I have to reconsider getting the Sony A7S...it was the only full frame camera in my budget that had great picture quality and wonderful ISO...even had a crop sensor mode where I could use my Tokina 11-16mm..annoyed.
 
Unfortunately many Sony cams are plagued with this. Its across the entire A7S line. There has been speculation that a workaround is that you are forced to shoot above 5000K.

I personally think its just silly.
 
theprestige said:
if the A7S battery last at least an hour, i'll be fine, if it last a lot less, I may consider another camera??
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Shot a live show last night. One hour continuously (well start/stop twice due to the 29 minute limit). 28% Battery left. Which means it probably does close to 1h20m. Comes with two batteries in the box.
 
I think A7s is okay if you can get around the blue issue (which I never encountered in any of my situations using the camera). One think you probably don't want to do is shoot in crop mode on this for stills. It's only a 12 megapixel camera at FF (Which is fine) but drops to 5 megapixel when in crop mode. I'm curious if the Tokina would work in full frame mode on the 16mm side. I bet it would.
 
The a7s is fine. There are only two issues you'll encounter for event videography, one being the battery life, which is solvable by getting a couple of extras to last all day, the second is that yes it does blow out blue colours that come from certain LED lights that are especally in weddings and night clubs, anything else it's not an issue and I've shoot in these situation and still didn't see it. Third issue is might be the 29m recording limit if you're shooting a long continuous talk in an event or such.

Not really much issues, just get the a7s, it comes with two batteries, buy extra two and a charger at purchase. Buy the suitable adapter for your lenses and enjoy shooting. Experiment with S-Log2 and if you have the skill to grade it well go with that but not there are tons of other normal looks (Cine 4 and PP Off look great without grading at all).

Yes shooting internally FF HD is as sharp as s35 crop HD. So you can use any crop lens fully.
 
1:20 mins seems like a little better than the D3200 battery life I already have! So that's good for me! I guess most other SLR cameras have really long battery lives in comparison if people are properly complaining about the battery life of an A7s which isn't as bad as I was led to believe?
 
chrisbernard, I will give the Tokina a try on FF mode to see if it works at 16mm. That would be awesome if it does. However, if I want the other lengths, shooting crop mode for VIDEO would be fine, right??
 
Ebrahim Saadawi said:
The a7s is fine. There are only two issues you'll encounter for event videography, one being the battery life, which is solvable by getting a couple of extras to last all day, the second is that yes it does blow out blue colours that come from certain LED lights that are especally in weddings and night clubs, anything else it's not an issue and I've shoot in these situation and still didn't see it. Third issue is might be the 29m recording limit if you're shooting a long continuous talk in an event or such.

Not really much issues, just get the a7s, it comes with two batteries, buy extra two and a charger at purchase. Buy the suitable adapter for your lenses and enjoy shooting. Experiment with S-Log2 and if you have the skill to grade it well go with that but not there are tons of other normal looks (Cine 4 and PP Off look great without grading at all).

Yes shooting internally FF HD is as sharp as s35 crop HD. So you can use any crop lens fully.
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You know what, Ebrahim? You've just made me finally fully decide on the Sony A7S. I don't know why I was letting all these doubts cloud my judgement, it makes sense for what I do and it just has too much going for it to not get it at this point. My budget loan won't come till Oct, so won't be able to get it then, but when I do, I will be sure to test the Tokina 11-16mm.

You guys are awesome in the info you share. Thank you.
 
I did test the 11-16mm. It covers fullframe generously and works as a FF 16mm f/2.8 prime.

But not below 16mm, maximum 15mm if you don't mind a bit if viggentting/softness in the corners. So with the a7s it'll work normally as an 11-16mm f/2.8 zoom in s35 crop mode and a 16mm f/2.8 prime in fullframe mode.

Both modes have the same image quality/resolution but the fullframe one has more rolling shutter. So for scenes moving the camera around go with s35 crop mode definitely, for beauty shots/faces nothing beats the fullframe aesthetic and shallow depth of field.
 
For that money I would say that the canon c100mkii would be a better buy. The two main issues with the a7s for events are Battery life and the 30 minute recording limit
 
Ebrahim Saadawi said:
I did test the 11-16mm. It covers fullframe generously and works as a FF 16mm f/2.8 prime.

But not below 16mm, maximum 15mm if you don't mind a bit if viggentting/softness in the corners. So with the a7s it'll work normally as an 11-16mm f/2.8 zoom in s35 crop mode and a 16mm f/2.8 prime in fullframe mode.

Both modes have the same image quality/resolution but the fullframe one has more rolling shutter. So for scenes moving the camera around go with s35 crop mode definitely, for beauty shots/faces nothing beats the fullframe aesthetic and shallow depth of field.
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That's amazing. Thank you for testing!!! 16mm on a full frame is very well wide and I like the idea of imitating Kubrick so the temptation to not use that on a full frame is tough. The shallow depth of field thing is nice...but in doses for me. I'm on of the few DSLR equipped guys who are prefers a lot of depth, hence why I love the use of wide angle....but i'm not naive, I know clients and such love the bokeh thing and it can add value to production. But I love depth more than anything. Guess it's good to mix and match both? Like use the Tokina 11-16mm for sweeping steadicam footage and the 70-200 macro Tamron macro for the beauty shots??
 
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jideobi said:
For that money I would say that the canon c100mkii would be a better buy. The two main issues with the a7s for events are Battery life and the 30 minute recording limit
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Thank jideobi, but I don't think i'm going to go with a traditional camcorder. One, the camera you mentioned is faar too expensive for my budget. Two, I actually find using DSLRs much more fun and engaging than I did using those dodgy camcorders 13 years ago....I know the camera you've suggested is not that old, but I just don't like the overwhelmingness of a proper video camera. I don't like the bulk, and it can appear confronting to clients. Attracts too much attention and the quality doesn't even justify the price tag. Maybe before DSLR video was becoming a thing, but certainly not now.

The battery life is fine if i'm to believe what the other user said...I can deal with 1hr -120 mins of battery life if I need be as i've been doing it already with my Nikon. And honestly, the 30 min timer isn't an issue at all. I can't think of any reason why that might be an issue unless you are filming an awfully long wedding speech or something, and even then you simple reclick the record button....in fact, I often find myself stopping and starting the record button as I like to have multiple clips to import in my edit workflow.

I'm going for A7s. I'm not a comfortable colour grading, but i'm learning. Just been using lemutri colour grading pre sets, but have advanced to RGB curves, so I think i'll handle the grading fine for A7S
 
I shot a BTS video using the a7s for a 16 hour shoot and really didn't enjoy myself. The image is just so flat in the viewfinder that I had a difficult time getting focus quickly - something I normally pride myself with. The battery life is definitely horrid and I wouldn't recommend shooting with less than 4 fully charged batteries at your disposal and a charging set-up near by. That said I was really pleased with the image quality at the end of it all.
 
GhostCat said:
I shot a BTS video using the a7s for a 16 hour shoot and really didn't enjoy myself. The image is just so flat in the viewfinder that I had a difficult time getting focus quickly - something I normally pride myself with. The battery life is definitely horrid and I wouldn't recommend shooting with less than 4 fully charged batteries at your disposal and a charging set-up near by. That said I was really pleased with the image quality at the end of it all.
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For 16hr shoots? Yeah, you're gonna need 3-4 batteries. But most event videography don't last any more than 3-4 hours, unless it's a wedding or something.

The battery life is actually better than what you'd get with a Nikon, so it's really not that bad. I imagine the people who really find the battery life poor come from proper video camera background.
 
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