Leica SL 4K 10bit out - anyone have footage?

CineStill

CineStill

Active member
I am interested in the new mirror less Leica SL that outputs 4K 10 bit 422. There are reviews of its stills performance which is very good but I have not seen much of its video performance. Has anyone had a chance to shoot video with one? If so I would be interested in your impressions or even better some examples of your footage. cheers
 
I got to handle the SL for a little bit and shot a couple of clips....internal 8bit 4:2:0 vlog.....surprisingly good.....at first I thought the internal was 10 bit...tones and color are great....DR is a little limited....noise is not existent at lower iso.....there is just absolutely none....higher iso looks nice, very organic...instead of mushing it all, they worthy take the chroma noise out, so it looks very grain like....I actually ordered one based on what I saw....
 
Paul schefz said:
I got to handle the SL for a little bit and shot a couple of clips....internal 8bit 4:2:0 vlog.....surprisingly good.....at first I thought the internal was 10 bit...tones and color are great....DR is a little limited....noise is not existent at lower iso.....there is just absolutely none....higher iso looks nice, very organic...instead of mushing it all, they worthy take the chroma noise out, so it looks very grain like....I actually ordered one based on what I saw....
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Wow - it must be good for you to order on the spot. Well done. I would be very interested in hearing how you go with your new purchase!
I am very tempted as I love my Leica M9 but the Australian dollar is not strong so for Au $11,000 body only, makes me hesitant.
I applaud Leica for providing 10 bit out and the 4.4 Million dot EVF I bet would make it a joy to focus.
 
CineStill said:
Wow - it must be good for you to order on the spot. Well done. I would be very interested in hearing how you go with your new purchase!
I am very tempted as I love my Leica M9 but the Australian dollar is not strong so for Au $11,000 body only, makes me hesitant.
I applaud Leica for providing 10 bit out and the 4.4 Million dot EVF I bet would make it a joy to focus.
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yikes! i ordered at BH for 7077$ with my discount....
http://www.newsshooter.com/2015/11/...-camera-tested-by-tim-arasheban-and-cinoflex/
i won't have it for another 2 weeks and don't have an external recorder yet....we will see...
 
NorBro said:
Some more info...

http://www.eoshd.com/2015/11/leica-sl-hands-on-first-impressions-review-from-a-video-perspective/

The LOG is worrisome.
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i read that review as well, my experience is pretty much the opposite.....the internal (4K non log) video is terrible, the log clips are pretty great....yes, it is crazy flat and i only had a few minutes to play with the camera, so no histogram on and such and i found exposure a little tricky but the clips grade amazingly well.....
download the clips at eoshd and see for yourself (if you can make any tones fall apart)...i could not get any banding in my clips and i shot my clips like a torture test (extremely backlit silhouette) ....
A7(s,R)II internal slog falls apart pretty easily in comparison......and this leica has clean 10bit 422 HDMI out....
 
CineStill said:
The reviewer seemed to have the camera for a very short time and I suspect made some pretty quick judgments without really having throughly tested it. I look forward to seeing more footage.
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the big issue i have with that short review is that what the reviewer considers worrisome might be the best thing about that camera....download the clips he shot and do a quick grade, see for yourself, the log is pretty amazing....
mitch (convergent design) mentioned here (don't know which thread) that the 10bit output to 7Q+ from the SL gave him some of the cleanest files he had ever seen....
either way, the clips in the eoshd review are available for download, several people did some quick grades in the forum over there, they disagree with the reviewer as well....
 
Andrew (@EOSHD) usually posts some quick initial thoughts, and then comes back with a full page detailed review days/weeks later.

I just posted the link as another resource...but I do have to agree that the LOG is a bit unusual....but maybe they are onto something. I am a really big fan of the body and think the design is beautiful.

I saw the 'clean' comment by Mitch and I trust his opinion 110%, but either way this camera is out for me. But I really hope you post some footage for us!
 
The local camera store just had it and they immediately called for the video nut, me, I went and took a look. The body is beautiful to the eye and to the touch, yet the lack of buttons is frustrating compared to a normal 5D/D810/A7 camera, it's more of form over function here but you'll get used to it. The UI is pretty impressive and tactile and menus are great, a UI Sony and Nikon should take notes from.

The video quality, I didn't bother shooting with the non-log profile as it's horridly ugly kn the camera LCD, and flipping to Leica Log gives a bit of a shock as in, where is the image? The first time you try it especially if you're under sunlight you'll think you had a bug giving a solid gray screen and reset.

But I knew better based on Andrews pointers. The Log is so squished in the waveform + 8bit is a theoritical disaster, but in practise, it just doesn't fall apart when you fill the waveform and get enormous contrast back. Very solid. It's reminicent of the Canon Log 8bit files gradeability and overall ease of grading.

The image quality is normal other than the one unique quality, the low ISO performance. The images are CLEAN. There is NO noise. I've never seen that kind of image aesthetic, there's ALWAYS some noise down there when you underexpose or try to dig up, this one, no, just solid information, NO noise. I think this is what Mitch was talking about.

At high ISOs, it performs admirably, on par with the best, you don't need better. It's D750 league, you can go to 10000 and even 25000 with some NR and be fine. This a strenth of the camera not a downside at all, great lowlight performance.

One thing, there's no colour noise at all and the codec and grain structure is very nice except for one thing, some blue noise in the shadows. It looks ugly, blocks of blue noise that appear randomly, better than to have all the RGB noise patterns but still, I wish their NR system covered it. Neat video completely eliminates it when you set it to Chroma NR and No Luma NR.

Overall. A cracking image and a beauty piece.

Would I buy it if I wasn't a dedicated leica fan and someone who loves aesthetic and craftmanship? No I'd really rather shoot on a 1DC rather than the Leica, I like it more, or a C300 or an FS7.

(BTW juat don't compare it to the a7s/a7r this is a very different league in everything including the image quality but more the league of build quality, it's a much higher end camera and when you hold both and shoot a little you'll know why they don't compare - this doesn't take away from the A7 series, which are great cameras)

Anyway, although the competetion is fierce with the 1DC and FS7 and C100II and FS5 and soon Ursa Mini,

keep and eye on it. It's a high-end video camera from Leica!
 
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