FS7: Music concerts/Stage lighting and Sony FS7

D

dooflexible

Member
Hi,

I was asked to choose a camera to shoot a music concert. I've never shot with an FS7 before, but I am familiar with a lot of issues shooting LED lighting, highlights etc. with other Sony cameras like A7S, FS700.
Assuming there would be a lot of that purple/blue/red LED lighting, is there anything particular I should be aware of? Is shooting SLOG3 a good idea? ISO settings?
I will not have the opportunity to test the camera at the same conditions before the shoot.

Thanks
 
I think S-Log3 will do fine. I shot fireworks last night, which are the extreme torture test for point light sources and the camera did well. With a proper LUT on the editing side, S-Log3 is actually less noisy than A-Log2 and a lot quieter than REC709 modes. The key here is not to overexpose too much. If you have access to a waveform monitor, either on external recorder or in 1080P mode, in your viewfinder, watch the points of light and let them clip a bit but not too much, but more importantly, make sure the faces of the performers look good. They take priority, so if you overexpose the lights somewhat, it's less of a problem than if you have bad looking facial exposure.
 
Thanks for the extra information. I am quite familiar with this though, exposing for the right using the REC709 800 LUT in the viewfinder should be the convenient way. I will have access to a WFM anyhow.
I just wanted to know what to expect performance wise with aliasing on exposed highlights, sensor patterns with direct intense lighting into the lens, LED lighting roll off etc.
I've had very bad results shooting live events with the FS700 which I've owned for a few years.
 
I can't give you first hand advice about this but I having encountered the intense blue LED backlighting it can be a real problem. First of course if you can have any control over lighting or get a monitor to the lighting board person and try to sit with them during the show - that can help enormously. There were a couple of informative threads on both the Sony Community Forum and DVXuser forum for the A7S that specifically addressed the LED saturation issue so I would search there.

My guess -just a guess - would be to go Slog3 and make sure not to overexpose since you don't want to oversaturate so be wary of exposing to much to the right though of course you don't want noise either.. Log would presumably be better than 709 because it records less saturation.
 
Lenilenapi said:
I can't give you first hand advice about this but I having encountered the intense blue LED backlighting it can be a real problem. First of course if you can have any control over lighting or get a monitor to the lighting board person and try to sit with them during the show - that can help enormously. There were a couple of informative threads on both the Sony Community Forum and DVXuser forum for the A7S that specifically addressed the LED saturation issue so I would search there.

My guess -just a guess - would be to go Slog3 and make sure not to overexpose since you don't want to oversaturate so be wary of exposing to much to the right though of course you don't want noise either.. Log would presumably be better than 709 because it records less saturation.
Click to expand...


I have heard that if you shot at 5000K or higher white balance....regardless of if you want tungsten...it will solve the blue LED issue. Then re-white balance the log in post.

I do not own a Sony cam personally. I'm a RED / Canon C guy for now. I have heard that this is the "fix" though.
 
The 'aliasing' (actually dark outlining) around bright sources seems to occur when using S-Log3 S Gamut. But S-Log3 Cine Gamut doesn't exhibit this problem. Someone posted a comparison of the two when shooting a sunset. The wide gamut produces the artifact for some reason.
 
That's a great tip on shooting at 5000 , where did you read about that?
Oh yeah forgot to mention , if you shoot Slog3 - EI 1000 is probably about right.
 
Quite a few Sony cameras, including this one seem to have problems with LED blue - and indeed, so do real eyes, but I'm starting to come to the view that the problem is over sensitivity to the UV component, which seems to soften the image.

If you want the lighting to be adjusted, then you will need to be there for the rehearsals. I've done a dance show today, and they started rehearsing each number at 8.30 am, and the lighting was plotted and balanced number by number. The public were let in at 5.30 for a 6pm show, and the video people turned up at 5pm, while the theatre crew were on their break. The first time the video people saw the show was with the audience. The organisers brief to the LX people was based around a base colour, and for most segments this was blue, with many fluorescing costumes. It's no good asking the LX people to change their plotting at this late stage, but sadly, many video people ask for exactly this. The way control equipment works nowadays, changing that base colour is not a case of pressing a few buttons. For instance, nowhere in today's show was green required, but plenty of red, blue and magenta - plus yellow and gold. most lighting is now palette based, so changing the colour of a state is not something that is simple to do, without wrecking what comes next. Most people operate in tracking mode, and 'removing' colour is very difficult - it's possible to do, but makes the result of the next state very difficult to predict, and this is why most operators are happy to change during the programming phase, but strongly resist last minute requests - and sometimes they physically do not enough fingers free to be able to do the reprogramming if they are operating in 'flashy=flashy' manual mode.

The notion of colour temperature is also not as valid as it could be if there is no white, or lots of different whites. Today, for instance, had 'white' light at 3000K, 3200K, 6000K and one that was still white but didn't match any of the others! For lots of the show - there was a little 3000K face light, and everything else was RGB sourced, making proper colour temperature settings somewhat random. LX did include this face light in most states, which looked rotten to the audience I thought, but the video people were reasonably happy.

It's a pet hate of mine - the fuss made about LED lighting, but the real truth is that (as I've banged on about before) that theatres can now throw bucket loads of saturated light at a stage and create intense states they could never do before. Magenta is a very often asked for colour, but received badly by some DSLRs, blue looks either sparkly or soft. Red tends to sparkle , and green looks like Wicked. Yellow and cyan seem pretty good, and white is passable on most LED sources with an white LED channel, but sickly on LEDs using R+G+B to create a white.

Depending on the scale of the event, be aware that many LDs for music use lots of back light, lots of into the lens air effects and of course blinders and strobes. Lots of the newer LED kit can do very good strobing. Again, it's common to have lower colour temperature specials from the front for face light, but the colour coming from all sorts of angles. Today's rig had 8 big, bright light sources aiming at the audience from upstage, doing mainly air effects in the haze.
 
basspig nailed it - your only bet is going to make sure you stick in the sgamut3.cine mode period. It will reduce any chance of crazy artifacts around light sources, highlights or other.

You can do some tests too in advance to make sure.

The F55 does really really well in these conditions, I'm assuming its the CFA but difficult to say...
 
Lenilenapi said:
That's a great tip on shooting at 5000 , where did you read about that?
Oh yeah forgot to mention , if you shoot Slog3 - EI 1000 is probably about right.
Click to expand...

i asked this same question on one of the A7s threads. Not exactly sure where now as it was a while ago. One of the more experienced Sony shooters gave me this answers. So I can't validate it myself...but I believe I got this answer 2 or 3 times. Might wanna search "A7s blue LED" on this forum....or Google. It will probably come up.

If if this does work, please post the outcome. I'm definitely still interested in this solution. I expect the A7rii will have this same issue. Would love to have the confirmation that it works.

Best of luck.
 
basspig said:
The 'aliasing' (actually dark outlining) around bright sources seems to occur when using S-Log3 S Gamut. But S-Log3 Cine Gamut doesn't exhibit this problem. Someone posted a comparison of the two when shooting a sunset. The wide gamut produces the artifact for some reason.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice.

Lenilenapi said:
That's a great tip on shooting at 5000 , where did you read about that?
Oh yeah forgot to mention , if you shoot Slog3 - EI 1000 is probably about right.
Click to expand...

Interesting, 5000k should indeed reduce some of the blue channel saturation. Will try that too.
Isn't EI 2000 the way to go with Slog3 when shooting at extreme dynamic lighting conditions like a concert?
 
EI 2000 is noisy . Most people shoot at 1000 or below unless you plan on noise reduction in post . For a concert that could be time consuming.
 
I've never understood this EI setting. I see no change in apparent luminance and the scope on my Shogun doesn't detect anything different about the levels, either, no matter whether 2000, 4000, or 6000 is selected on the Gain switch. The only mode that seems to have a definite effect is Custom. I've suspected that all the EI offset does is alter the metadata stored with the video.
 
Lenilenapi said:
EI 2000 is noisy . Most people shoot at 1000 or below unless you plan on noise reduction in post . For a concert that could be time consuming.
Click to expand...
Isn't EI when shooting Slog is only for exposure reference? the sensor is always at ISO2000. means I would rather shoot at EI2000 if I have a lot of light and filters with me. then at low light I would rather lower the EI and light things up.
 
EI only affects meta data and also applies an exposure transform to the onboad monitor if you are using a LUT. It does not affect the image file. The meta data is not read by most NLEs.

2000 IE is 'noisier' than 1000 EI as 1000 EI means (all other things equalised) a noise crushing push down of the file in post.

S
 
morgan_moore said:
EI only affects meta data and also applies an exposure transform to the onboad monitor if you are using a LUT. It does not affect the image file. The meta data is not read by most NLEs.

2000 IE is 'noisier' than 1000 EI as 1000 EI means (all other things equalised) a noise crushing push down of the file in post.

S
Click to expand...

so setting the EI at 2000 shooting lets say a bright sunny day in the desert would give me plenty of dynamic range but at a noisy trade off.
is the noise overall that bad? especially at mid tone range after applying a LUT?
 
Many variables - such as where you put your mid grey and white points, do you expose to retain all highlights or let speculars blow etc etc.

Id 'rate' Slog3 at 800-1000 personally.

You gotta do some bracket tests, pull the files into your NLE or grading suite, apply various LUTs and/or corrections and draw your own conclusions.

Anyone who does not perform controlled bracket tests will not really understand their camera.

S
 
If you're not under exposing EI 2000 then it looks great.

EDIT: Noise-wise. Your shots are your own problem :)
 
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LED lights are the bane of my existence. I shoot lots of live stuff. With FS700 and A7s. I hate the look of LEDs when not filming and even more when I film! Especially at small stages when the performers are close to the LEDs. On bigger stages when the lights are further away and in best cases even filtered through some smoke it can be ok.

I also heard of the 5000K white balance. But am yet to properly try it out.

I can't wait to go on tour again so I can put "no LED lights" on the rider, just to mess with venues! ;)
 
The current attitude is that anyone who has non-green riders can jump - unless you are Kanye West. Hire stocks of LED are massively increasing, and old stuff is being almost dumped. I've scrapped the old MAC 550s and 600s. resale value is zilch too! LED is king, long live LED!
 
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