My first shoot with the FS700 was a...

D

dmitrizigany

Veteran
Huge fiasco!
(edit: result is posted on page 3 of this thread)

I recently got myself a FS700R, upgrading from the EA50.

The footage is totally ruined by the edge-contrast issues of the camera.
I was hired to shot a music video and they wanted the complete white background and I guess it was too white, now the edges all look pixelated making the footage look like it's super low resolution. Not sure what to do. I hope I can make it look decent enough and that it looks better if I deliver in 720p and they won't notice...

It was the first time using the FS700 and also first time shooting in a proper studio with proper light. I had my MacBook Pro with me with the intention of shooting some footage and load it into the computer to check it. But because it looked great on the display and monitor both while recording and playing back the clips and things got delayed and time became an issue, I never did. I kick myself so hard for that now.

Because of the white background and the band's black clothes there's A LOT of edges. Any suggestions of how to save the footage?

I can't just waive my money cause there was also studio and light costs.
Damn, I'm so screwed. Not off to a good start with the FS700 :(
 
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Yes, it was recorded to the internal SD card using highest setting.
It's a band playing so pretty much fast motion.

Ive vet been experimenting now with exporting it from FCPX and once exported it doesn't look quite as bad as I first thought. With some creative editing I should be able to save the day at least...

But still, with my EA50 I never had any surprises like this.
 
The main thing that is wrong in this case is the awful aliasing issues that are present from the fs700 when a background is white or over exposed. Expose the background correctly away from white and everything is fixed.

I believe there was a petition to Sony recently about this very issue. Our greatest hope lies in the true 4k downsample coming in the next 7Q update. Hopefully this will alleviate the problem. I was shooting interiors without lighting last week to the internal codec and all the window frames had the same god awful aliasing issues. It just looks super bad!
 
Kyron, yes, that's what's happening here. It's nasty. But to late to do anything about it and can only hope I can get something together with the shots that don't suffer so much from it... Lesson learned the hard way...
 
We too have experienced this when shooting high key OR green screen. When shooting to AVCHD internal OR to Samurai. I can say that after shooting the same scenes on the 7Q in 2K raw mode, aliasing is completely GONE which makes me really anticipate the upcoming update. It's been a HUGE frustration of ours for over a year and now can confidently shoot white background or high contrast green screen again!
 
Sorry to hear. I will say though, please don't just accept that this is the way it is for the FS700 using it's internal AVCHD. Not to say I haven't caught some fringing here and there in random outdoor shots. It definitely happens but it has been much more rare for me than I keep reading about and I have done quiet a bit of shooting with her on all kind of different platforms from Production music videos, live music events, Car commercials that are in and outdoor, etc . Here are two screen shots of a current project I am working on. I filmed this with the native AVCHD and I was using either cinegamma 2 or 3. Sorry I don't remember for sure which one. But, I feel fine with the highlight edges and am not having this problem with the White Background. In the second shot, you can tell by the amount of wrap I have happening on the box table, that I was a even a bit overexposed for that section, which is what is supposed to set off this specific aliasing issue, and the edges still look fine when you zoom in. So, just wanted you to know, it can be achieved with the camera natively and I would explore the cinegammas a bit more.




CRAH 1.jpgSet up and Posture.Still001.jpg
 
The 700 does not create 'edge contrast' issues or aliasing but overexposure certainly does.

Use Cine1 and raise black level to reduce contrast or use Slog2 and do not blast the whites and you will never have this problem.

I'm surprised that you would accept a paid gig without first testing the scene or at least using the available MacBook Pro to check footage.

The '700 has one of the best ranges that I have ever seen in a camera.
 
ScottNelson said:
The 700 does not create 'edge contrast' issues or aliasing but overexposure certainly does.
I'm surprised that you would accept a paid gig without first testing the scene or at least using the available MacBook Pro to check footage.
Click to expand...
Yes, I did overexpose the background a bit to get it white, probably I did that too much.
Not checking the footage on the MacBook was due to time constraints and delays. And also because everything looked great on the display and the external monitor. Both during shooting and on playback. On the EA50, I never saw any footage that was this different from the display to actual files. And in my stupidity I thought that here I am with a much better camera, things should be fine. Bad mistake.
 
You'd have to show some example images of what you're seeing to see if there are ways of fixing it. Let's not assume that something wasn't quite right with the set up. Whilst i've seen the edge issue it's usually in quite specific circumstances. We're also pretty sure it's a function of the scaling from the 4K sensor, which doesn't help you out much now but it's something that could be addressable in the future.

cheers
Paul
 
I had a similiar issue (also known as "I made the similiar mistake") I was shooting testimonial, everything fine so far - but for the last take I was disctracted by heavy noise of an industry in the background and I did not realize that the light changed. Not much, maybe 1,5 f-stops, but enough to have the highlights on the white shirt clipped. Merde! It was one of my first shots with the camera direct out of the box and no time to run a test. Everything was fine - except the last shot. I swear it looked good in the display too. But obviously I got this small 100% line out of sight. It was the hell in post! I had to darken this shot in general and the clipped highlight was more visible. Clipped means clipped.. Since that I set the Zebra to 95% and set Zebra line in display on. Also I bought the blade with vectorform.

As Paul suggested, maybe you can show a small clip that one of our experts can judge it? If it's in Berlin I can recommend a colorist who maybe could help you (send pm pls)
 
Thanks all. I'll try to figure out a way to post some examples. Because of the nature of the project I cannot really post anything publicly on a forum. (The band's in the qualifying competitions for the Eurovision Song Contest.)
Having looked a bit more at the footage, it seems it will be possible to salvage some of it and at least get something done. But the result will most probably only be passable and not as great as I was hoping.

Clermond, thanks for the offer, but the video has to be done by Saturday and no budget for outside help :(
 
As a general rule I'd probably try and avoid clipping on any camera. It's so easy in post to crush the highlights if you need to, why bother chucking away data - you can never get those pixels back and it might just look horrible when you've finished the rest of the grade.

But, for what it's worth, I don't think I've ever had any problems with edge contrast. But then, I honestly don't give a **** about that sort of stuff. In my experience, if the over all picture looks good, nobody notices a few small problems in the details. It's really only editors that get hot under the collar about such stuff, audiences don't notice a thing (apologies to any editors out there).
 
Well, I'm my own editor and it's damn hot under my collar! ;)

Also so the band seem to be fairly knowledgable about video/technology in general.
 
Does anyone think that using the SLOG gamma would have avoided this issue? Is the over-exposure aliasing fixed with SLOG or just reduced?
 
Stuart Mannion said:
Does anyone think that using the SLOG gamma would have avoided this issue? Is the over-exposure aliasing fixed with SLOG or just reduced?
Click to expand...

It would have helped a little because the highlight handling is more graceful. AFAIK the black pixels are a result of a mathematical clipping error with common scaling algorithms when dealing with high contrast areas. It can be duplicated in some software (naturally most software has work arounds so you never see it). The black pixels are not generated by the sensor.

cheers
Paul
 
Have you checked the signal with the parade's in your NLE?

I had the EA50 and upgraded to the FS100. As the display is the same, but dynamic range is quiet different, The picture on it is totally of on the FS100/700.
I always use the onboard histogramm and the zebra at 100% to avoid clipping.

But: Depending on your picture profile, the camera records more than it shows in your NLE. I don't know if you already tried this, but get down your highlights in your NLE with the right tool.
Maybe some clipped whites can be safed.

I always record 8bit up to the max of 255 and put it down in my NLE to 235 (legal value) to gain some range in the limited 8bit space.
 
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