FS7: I've just ordered an FS7

R

robster180

Active member
Hi
As the title suggests I've just ordered an FS7 for my corporate gigs.
The camera's been out for a few months now and I wonder how the owners are finding it after living with it to date and how their gigs are holding up to using it under the pressure of paid jobs etc.
Any niggles, faults or is it smooth running?

Thanks
Rob
 
There are plenty of minor faults. I think your question is way too broad - just read this forum - you'll see plenty of FS7 issues raised, debated, juryrigged, and solved.
 
robster180 said:
Hi
As the title suggests I've just ordered an FS7 for my corporate gigs.
The camera's been out for a few months now and I wonder how the owners are finding it after living with it to date and how their gigs are holding up to using it under the pressure of paid jobs etc.
Any niggles, faults or is it smooth running?

Thanks
Rob
Click to expand...

Great camera and getting better with each firmware update. Lots of little quirks to the camera but most have fairly easy workarounds with a fix in the pipeline. Use the search tool on the forum and you will find lots of threads about some of the quirks of the camera etc. It really is like two different cameras in one and each mode (Custom vs CineEI) has very different methods of achieving the best image and where to be used with best results. The images out of the camera are fantastic but it might not work out of the box as you had used other cameras depending on your experience and style.

I highly recommend Doug Jensen's guide to the FS7. Its well worth the investment for someone just setting hands on the camera for the first time.
 
Thanks guys, yes Doug Jensen's guide is already on the To Do list

...are the menus frustratingly laggy or do you get used to it? Or not as bad as everyone makes out
 
robster180 said:
...are the menus frustratingly laggy or do you get used to it? Or not as bad as everyone makes out
Click to expand...

You do get used to it but it still is a little frustrating if your trying to do something fast. Best thing you can do when you first get your camera is set up the custom user menu with commonly accessed things so that you reduce the number of clicks it takes. The side dial is far more responsive (2 turns = 1 menu move) than the dial on the hand grip. Neither is as responsive as it should be but you get used to the turns quickly.
 
It's a lot like getting a different car that is a bit quirky. Irritating the first day or two, no big deal after that. I second getting Doug's tutorials. I'm about to shoot a feature this Spring and deliberating on whether to use S log. Last night I followed Doug's instructions and set the camera up for Cine Ei- S log3 (with a 709 monitor lut) for one of those routine "business profile" jobs that I shoot in about an hour. I found it easy to walk through the business using the 3 white balance presets to approximate WB. Shooting in low light was easy with the native 2000 iso rating. Not a lot of menu navigating once initially setup. It actually works well as an R & G camera for this type job, I just carry a 50mm F1.8 for shallow focus shots and a 20mm for wides, covers the situation quite will. Got home, imported the footage, dropped a 709a lut on the footage and it looks great. I'm feeling better now about this workflow for the feature.
 
I find the lagging in the volume controls to be more troublesome than the menu lag.
 
Does Sony have any track record to show that they can fix the laggy menu/controls?

(Not that it's a deal breaker - it's an incredible amount of camera for your money)
 
As mentioned lots of bugs, but I love the image. Finally, a really great out of box look with LC709a, as good an out of box image as Canon or Black Magic which is a first for Sony.

The camera defaults to Custom and Slog 3. I would say take it off that unless you really know how to grade. I'd even suggest maybe just baking in LC709a for the first few days as you will get great images with no effort.
 
robster180 said:
Ah ha I've just found an Alistair Chapman interview where he say's that the 2.0 firmware upgrade should make the camera work as it was supposed to - as in ironing out all the kinks and glitchy bits.
Nice to know...

https://vimeo.com/120950318
Click to expand...

Well that's alright then... phew...

My 2p: I've found the shift from a C100/Ninja Blade combo quite a tricky one.

I felt compelled to go SLog/Cine EI etc, after reading lots of advice. After all, why would you buy a camera capable of 14 stops DR etc etc if you don't use them?

Real men shoot SLog...

Hmmm.

Yesterday, I made the mistake of daring to step out of my comfort zone and shoot a corporate interview in UHD, to give me different frame sizes, in case I need to jump cut. I would then go back to HD to capture the actuality. What could go wrong? My head said don't do it, this camera has too many gotchas, my heart said go on, step out of your comfort zone...

24 hours later and I realise I've shot 80 Gigabytes of material with no shutter. And I remembered vaguely that there's a bug that causes the shutter, when set to speed, to reset when you change the recording format (frame size.) Great - should have set the shutter to angle...

I just hope this camera experience doesn't end up along the lines of my AF100/101 experience 3 years ago. Yuck. I hated that camera.

I'm at the start of my relationship with the FS7 and at the moment, it feels a bit like taking your new girlfriend home to meet the parents, only for her to burp and fart a lot at the meal table and steal your mum's best cutlery. I want it to work. I really do. But it feels challenging at the moment. Hopefully it will change.

I don't think Cine EI/SLog etc is ready, with the current bug-set, for anything but carefully controlled environments, perhaps in the hands of someone who is obsessively conversant with the camera. For me, with my busy production company and lots of other stuff going on, I need this camera to just work out of the flight case in most situations and to see what I'm getting in the EVF, rather than crossing my fingers that the flat SLog image will look great. I also find I'm getting less creative results, compositionally etc, than I did with the WYSIWYG C100/Ninja Blade. When things look fab in the EVF, I find it much more inspiring.

Well that's what I'm thinking today - I thought I had this cam sussed after a week of docco shooting. But yesterday's experience reminded me that the FS7 is not yet perhaps the easy tool that Sony's "hand-held verite solution" marketing might have you believe.

Roll on the firmware updates... I'm still a believer...

Ben.
 
bengiles said:
I don't think Cine EI/SLog etc is ready, with the current bug-set, for anything but carefully controlled environments,
Click to expand...

Its a camera with two personalities you just have to bring the right sister to meet the parents ;)

Cine EI is designed for carefully controlled environments like film
Custom is made to react like a 'typical' video camera. WYSIWYG

I you like WYSIWYG then throw it on a Hypergamma 7/8 setting. You still get the same DR as Canon CLog and its not a log gamma.
 
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