FS5: "My response to all the FS5 artefact issue complainers."

My concern has always been the edge tearing issue that the FS5 has. And Alister acknowledges it in the comments:

Alister:
"I believe the edge tearing artefact reported by some is due to the temporal noise reduction that the camera uses. As you pan or tilt the camera the areas around edges will change from frame to frame while large more solid areas of the picture change little. Because of the differences from frame to frame you won’t get any noise reduction in these areas so edges can become coarse and “fuzzy” or jittery as there is on the one hand a marked increase in noise on the edges and at the same time a ghost image from the adjacent frames. At 0db this is barely visible and certainly not an issue with real world shots but ramp up the gain and this increases rapidly. These are fairly typical side effects of temporal NR."

Where I disagree with Alister is that shooting 3200 ISO (or +9db) is a completely real world situation. Lots of documentary shooters film indoors at those settings. All I want is Sony to acknowledge the issue and tweak the noise reduction on the camera to reduce the tearing artifacts. These artifacts don't appear on other Sony cameras like that.
 
Moved to this thread -> On the same page with what maxjw is saying about the artifacts not appearing on other Sony cameras like that.

I think the main complaint is not that 8-bit highly compressed footage can end up having some issues, especially when pushing it etc... but more what you're getting for the price vs what else you can get for less money.

I haven't seen complaints like whats being seen on the FS5 when it came to the A7sii or A7rii (maybe I'm wrong?) Those cost less, have a more 'consumer codec', but don't have the complaints. The FS5 is meant to be a more heavy featured 'video' camera, that delivers more than the 'non-video-camera' products... so when thats what its meant for, and how its been promoted... and sold at the price that reflects that, yeah people are going to ask what the heck is going on there.

Sure an 8-bit heavily compressed codec will break apart if you push it. It seems to be breaking apart quicker than it does on cheaper cameras offered by the same company, which I would certainly have an issue with as well.

My deal-breaker was the ridiculous output.. or lack of ..on the FS5.. but thats another thread.

I think complaining about the 8-bit XAVC-L on a $5600 camera performing worse than the XAVC-S on a $3000 camera is justified. Definitely correct me if I'm wrong on that, but would certainly be annoying for anyone in that scenario I would think. I definitely use 3200+ ISO every weekend on weddings!
 
What's a completely real world situation is when the cost of entry for a camera is less than $10k people don't bother to budget for a $3,000 light kit, but back when a Betacam was $70k spending 3k more on a light kit was a no-brainer.
 
I own plenty of lights, but bringing in a 3-light kit isn't realistic or desired when you're trying to get natural "fly on the wall" documentary footage. That's just now how it works in many situations.
 
You're right, some people need to shoot in unavoidably high-gain environments. But not all cameras, even expensive professional ones, are good high gain performers - nor should they be obligated to. Choose the right camera for your work environment. No single camera is perfect for every challenge.
 
Yes, but Sony sells the FS5 as a "run and gun" camera perfect for documentary filmmakers. +9db gain on the FS5 is clean, very low noise... except the tearing edges when the camera moves. That's the problem, they're too aggressively applying the noise reduction. We're talking about this issue to gain awareness and encourage Sony to make some tweaks.
 
Can anyone argue that the FS5 is squarely aimed at the C100II and its target markets- documentary, news, run & gun, wedding, etc? It's ridiculous to put out the "well you should be lighting your shadows anyways" or "well no camera will ever be good for all things" arguments when these artifacting and noise issues are the biggest problems for the very shooters the camera is intended for. The freaking marketing tagline Sony itself has attached to anything having to do with the camera is "Grab & Shoot"- not "Carefully Light, Meter Your Ratios & Shoot" or "Avoid Gradients & Shoot". It's completely appropriate to hold Sony's feet to the fire on this. If you ask me, Sony shills like Alistair Chapman and Philip Bloom should be getting a bit of heat too.
 
chappelldigital said:
... I haven't seen complaints like whats being seen on the FS5 when it came to the A7sii or A7rii (maybe I'm wrong?) Those cost less, have a more 'consumer codec', but don't have the complaints. The FS5 is meant to be a more heavy featured 'video' camera, that delivers more than the 'non-video-camera' products... so when thats what its meant for, and how its been promoted... and sold at the price that reflects that, yeah people are going to ask what the heck is going on there....

I think complaining about the 8-bit XAVC-L on a $5600 camera performing worse than the XAVC-S on a $3000 camera is justified. Definitely correct me if I'm wrong on that, but would certainly be annoying for anyone in that scenario I would think. I definitely use 3200+ ISO every weekend on weddings!
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I concur, which is why I think Raw recording out of FS5 will be enabled sooner rather than later.

As a side note - FS5 did succeed in getting all iterations of C100 prices lowered.

Oh and Alister is very defensive here. He is not generally incorrect on the technical aspects - though the bit rate attack is overstated - but, as Kyle mentioned above, FS5 currently doesn't stack up well visavis C100 or even more budget friendly A7S/II and A7RII from Sony's own cabinet.
 
And its not Complaining its Reporting Alister. We all know the lower bit rate of the FS5 etc. But as DLD and Kyle states it doesn't stack up well on the cheaper A7RII etc.


Sorry I should be posting this on XDCAMUSER :Drogar-Kriz(DBG):
 
"Where I disagree with Alister is that shooting 3200 ISO (or +9db) is a completely real world situation. Lots of documentary shooters film indoors at those settings. All I want is Sony to acknowledge the issue and tweak the noise reduction on the camera to reduce the tearing artifacts. These artifacts don't appear on other Sony cameras like that."

Since when .. Ive dont think I have shot at 9 DB gain ever.. that would be total last ditch attempt to get a shot .. Have had Sony camera,s from beta SP 400AP.. and you would get plenty of problems from 9 db.. and would never use it unless you had to.. the above statement is just plain wrong..I dont go over 4000 ISO on my F5 .. there may well be problems with this camera NR it seems.. but all these people complaining about 6000 ISO etc .. you really have to wonder what they have been shooting on and how long they have been doing this job..you dont use ISO like an Iris setting.. and 9DB gain has never been normal on doc shoots..
 
Donny 123 said:
"Where I disagree with Alister is that shooting 3200 ISO (or +9db) is a completely real world situation. Lots of documentary shooters film indoors at those settings. All I want is Sony to acknowledge the issue and tweak the noise reduction on the camera to reduce the tearing artifacts. These artifacts don't appear on other Sony cameras like that."

Since when .. Ive dont think I have shot at 9 DB gain ever.. that would be total last ditch attempt to get a shot .. Have had Sony camera,s from beta SP 400AP.. and you would get plenty of problems from 9 db.. and would never use it unless you had to.. the above statement is just plain wrong..I dont go over 4000 ISO on my F5 .. there may well be problems with this camera NR it seems.. but all these people complaining about 6000 ISO etc .. you really have to wonder what they have been shooting on and how long they have been doing this job..you dont use ISO like an Iris setting.. and 9DB gain has never been normal on doc shoots..
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I agree. Shooting in anything over6400 iso starts to get sureal looking. Shooting high iso is a bit like high frame rates, in reality we need it less than we think. However, i am really loving cameras that are so sensitive. Shooting 6400 does come up, and it is nice to have it noiseless.
 
Not really understand why few Sony evangelists tries to convince everyone that everything is fine with those cameras, do not ask for ANYTHING, use it and shut up! It was with FS7 now is with FS5 as well. Instead what I am kindly asking you is to acknowledge that some improvements could be done to make those products better and help us to get that message to Sony and push those cameras a little forward! That's it, really!
 
alohype said:
Not really understand why few Sony evangelists tries to convince everyone that everything is fine with those cameras, do not ask for ANYTHING, use it and shut up! It was with FS7 now is with FS5 as well. Instead what I am kindly asking you is to acknowledge that some improvements could be done to make those products better and help us to get that message to Sony and push those cameras a little forward! That's it, really!
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Well, for my part, it's more like "don't preorder - the marketing is always better than the product, and only buy gear for it's existing performance, not for what it might do later. If a product doesn't meet you needs, get a different product. There will not always be a product that meets both your desires and your desired budget."
 
The condescension and contrarianism on this forum is staggering. Simple facts are: Sony FS5 has overly aggressive noise reduction at +9db that introduces bizarre artifacts-- something that doesn't appear on any other current Sony cameras (that we've seen) and I believe that it should be fixable by Sony. That's the only thing I've been trying to get Sony to address. It's 2016, +9db looks great on many cameras (it even looks great on the FS5, the problem is it tears to shreds when you move the camera). +9db on the FS5 is 3200 ISO in most gammas and it's currently unusable in UHD. Whether you personally prefer to use that gain level or not is irrelevant.
 
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maxjw said:
The condescension and contrarianism on this forum is staggering. Simple facts are: Sony FS5 has overly aggressive noise reduction at +9db that introduces bizarre artifacts-- something that doesn't appear on any other current Sony cameras (that we've seen) and I believe that it should be fixable by Sony. That's the only thing I've been trying to get Sony to address. It's 2016, +9db looks great on many cameras (it even looks great on the FS5, the problem is it tears to shreds when you move the camera). +9db on the FS5 is 3200 ISO in most gammas and it's currently unusable in UHD. Whether you personally prefer to use that gain level or not is irrelevant.
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Well said.
 
For now its an issue to be aware of and it should keep some buyers away since low light is really common in docs.
 
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