FS7: New Sony F7 XDCAM 4K Super 35mm Camcorder

At the end what one guy looks for the other might not so really they're at an unfair advantage no matter what.
 
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I don't think there are any surprises here. We have a responsibility to test and learn how to use these cameras. I think the potential for "bad" footage really reflects the amount of flexibility built into a camera such as the FS7. In my mind this is a very good thing.

When shooting log or RAW much of the final outcome is figured out in post. Engineers provide as wide a range as possible for acquisition and it's up to the cinematographer in collaboration with post to realize what's best for the project . There's so much room for interpretation in post that it's just easy to screw it up which is why the early RED and AF100 footage was summarily slammed. I say good. Let us have the tools and we can figure it out. It takes time and experience to find the possibilities and limitations.
 
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This is a load of Pony.

There should be some sort of standards - ie a card with values.

One would expect to shoot the card with a certain exposure, add a specific LUT and get to the official values.

One can then 'art about' on top of this but IMO a camera is a science tool.

If one shoots a grey card at 50% (or 38 etc as dictated by the settings) one expects the image to show 50% 50% 50% on the scopes after the official LUT is applied.

S
 
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morgan_moore said:
This is a load of Pony.

There should be some sort of standards - ie a card with values.

One would expect to shoot the card with a certain exposure, add a specific LUT and get to the official values.

One can then 'art about' on top of this but IMO a camera is a science tool.

If one shoots a grey card at 50% (or 38 etc as dictated by the settings) one expects the image to show 50% 50% 50% on the scopes after the official LUT is applied.

S
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I would say that 1 in 50 interested buyers would have any idea as to what they were looking at with such a demonstration.
 
morgan_moore said:
This is a load of Pony.

There should be some sort of standards - ie a card with values.

One would expect to shoot the card with a certain exposure, add a specific LUT and get to the official values.

One can then 'art about' on top of this but IMO a camera is a science tool.

If one shoots a grey card at 50% (or 38 etc as dictated by the settings) one expects the image to show 50% 50% 50% on the scopes after the official LUT is applied.

S
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Which card? What values?
 
(Mitch)

Yep but 3/5 people doing a test might get some sort of a look that kind of represented the camera.

Fundamentally Sony go in a tricky place with no "official" workflow - even their new own brand software does not appear to have a delog lut.
 
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morgan_moore said:
honestly I don't care. Arri provide luts and Sony afaik don't - just leave you delogging with the fine (but amateur) luts invented by users mainly on this board.

What is the "official" workflow for a cam like this?
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I see. That would go a long way to providing an objective performance standard for the camera, a baseline. Ok. That makes a lot of sense.

Maybe I'm missing some part of the discussion but I thought we were still talking about the picture quality of the "demo" videos out there which appear unsatisfactory. So one solution is to do the expensive Dig or Varicam demo. So are you suggesting that a better demonstration would be to shoot the swimmers or whatever in slog, apply this normalizing LUT, and then show that as the demo?
 
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hscully said:
I see. That would go a long way to providing an objective performance standard for the camera, a baseline. Ok. That makes a lot of sense.
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Such already exists, in so far as it can - https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/tech/tech3335.pdf . Even that may not be perfect, but at least it provides an objective start - a level playing field, regardless of camera.
Maybe I'm missing some part of the discussion but I thought we were still talking about the picture quality of the "demo" videos out there which appear unsatisfactory. So one solution is to do the expensive Dig or Varicam demo.
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But unless you have the same subject, same lighting conditions, etc, etc what really does an incredibly expensive "demo video" tell you about the camera? A camera may have certain foibles or deficiencies - well, no problem, we'll just avoid shooting any scene which will show such up. Two cameras may give similar pictures from a given scene on screen - but it may be that camera A got such very easily, camera B was far more difficult.

Demo videos are frankly USELESS for making objective camera comparisons, and it amazes me that anyone would buy a camera or not on the basis of such. I can only repeat what I said before: " They {demo videos} show quite a lot about the skills of the operator, lighting, subject material, budget...... but very little about the basic camera itself. Any image differences may be far more down to grading, post, even online compression, than anything fundamental to the camera."
So are you suggesting that a better demonstration would be to shoot the swimmers or whatever in slog, apply this normalizing LUT, and then show that as the demo?
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Any such will still be so dependent on operator skill, lighting at the time, etc etc, let alone choice of original subject. The *ONLY* way to do any meaningful comparison between two cameras is for each to shoot the same thing, under the same conditions. Realistically, that means either having both available at the same time, or having a fully repeatable test setup.

If it's just a film shot using a given camera, it's fundamentally just an advert - not a "test". How good, mediocre, or even bad the results are is far more likely to be down to a host of factors nothing to do with the camera itself.

To Mitch's point - that few buyers would be capable of properly interpreting a test such as that prescribed by the EBU - then yes, but a test along those lines should come with it's own objective analysis and conclusions. If you can't understand the science behind it, just skip to the conclusions. It's also why they brought in the tiering system to make the fundamentals of "is this camera good enough for me?" even more idiot proof. It becomes a case of "what work am I doing?", "what Tier should I be using?", and "does camera X suit that Tier?" Far from perfect - but far better than getting something because the promo had a big budget!
 
morgan_moore said:
honestly I don't care. Arri provide luts and Sony afaik don't - just leave you delogging with the fine (but amateur) luts invented by users mainly on this board.
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Sony does, now. But there is no easy, clear place to get them. They are buried on the official Sony forum. There are 4 of them. 2 of them are useful.
 
harddrive said:
Such already exists, in so far as it can - https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/tech/tech3335.pdf . Even that may not be perfect, but at least it provides an objective start - a level playing field, regardless of camera.

But unless you have the same subject, same lighting conditions, etc, etc what really does an incredibly expensive "demo video" tell you about the camera? A camera may have certain foibles or deficiencies - well, no problem, we'll just avoid shooting any scene which will show such up. Two cameras may give similar pictures from a given scene on screen - but it may be that camera A got such very easily, camera B was far more difficult.

Demo videos are frankly USELESS for making objective camera comparisons, and it amazes me that anyone would buy a camera or not on the basis of such. I can only repeat what I said before: " They {demo videos} show quite a lot about the skills of the operator, lighting, subject material, budget...... but very little about the basic camera itself. Any image differences may be far more down to grading, post, even online compression, than anything fundamental to the camera."

Any such will still be so dependent on operator skill, lighting at the time, etc etc, let alone choice of original subject. The *ONLY* way to do any meaningful comparison between two cameras is for each to shoot the same thing, under the same conditions. Realistically, that means either having both available at the same time, or having a fully repeatable test setup.

If it's just a film shot using a given camera, it's fundamentally just an advert - not a "test". How good, mediocre, or even bad the results are is far more likely to be down to a host of factors nothing to do with the camera itself.

To Mitch's point - that few buyers would be capable of properly interpreting a test such as that prescribed by the EBU - then yes, but a test along those lines should come with it's own objective analysis and conclusions. If you can't understand the science behind it, just skip to the conclusions. It's also why they brought in the tiering system to make the fundamentals of "is this camera good enough for me?" even more idiot proof. It becomes a case of "what work am I doing?", "what Tier should I be using?", and "does camera X suit that Tier?" Far from perfect - but far better than getting something because the promo had a big budget!
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Yeah. I agree with all this. It's up to us to get our hands on these cameras, when they hit the ground, and test for ourselves. Don't get too excited about the advertising videos (I still do. I loved Dig) and definitely don't judge negatively based on the tester videos because you can screw up nicely with just about any camera.

It just bugs me that the reputations of cameras can be so easily sullied by the negative talk generated by the tester videos. We should give the camera a shot first.
 
It's always a gamble to put new products in peoples hands. They might used them the wrong way and frack up things. As far as demo goes for the FS7 I think the official Sony video tells what can be expected.
 
hscully said:
It just bugs me that the reputations of cameras can be so easily sullied by the negative talk generated by the tester videos. We should give the camera a shot first.
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It works both ways! I've seen mediocre cameras raved about purely because films shot with them were of fantastic locations, were well lit, and excellent camerawork. OK, but all that equal, a better camera may have produced an even better product.

The EBU criteria I linked to is undeniably techie, and (as Mitch says) not for everyone. What if you're not a broadcast engineer?

Personally, I think a single review by Adam Wilt is worth a hundred "demo" videos - he has the knack of getting to the technicalities in a repeatable fashion, but also balancing that with a sensible look at features, ergonomics etc etc. I googled if he had anything yet about the FS7, and found this preview look - http://provideocoalition.com/awilt/story/122-slides-on-the-sony-pxc-fs7 . Mostly slides from Sony, but maybe the best overview I've seen of matters like framerates, codecs and such like as apply to this camera.
 
"Personally, I think a single review by Adam Wilt is worth a hundred "demo" videos"

Exactly, and ditto for Alistair Chapman. He owns an F5 and says the pictures look identical. That's all I need.
 
hscully said:
So are you suggesting that a better demonstration would be to shoot the swimmers or whatever in slog, apply this normalizing LUT, and then show that as the demo?
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The would be pointless. A "normalizing LUT" just means you are taking the S-Log and turning it into standard REC709. So why not then shoot in REC709 in the first place? Why not then grab ANY CAMERA that shoots REC709 and use one of them, because they'd all pretty much look the same.

The point is to show what the camera can actually handle, and a gray card tells only a tiny fraction of that story. How is the noise in the blue channel? What happens to secondaries during overexposure? How does it handle magenta in the highlights compared to in the shadows? Where is the acceptable noise floor for each color channel and how much crosstalk is there as you get near the toe?

Those are just a few tests I'd do, and that's just off the top of my head. If I chose to dwell on this for a few more minutes I could come up with at least 50 more. The only test I can offhandedly say I would never care about is to test taking a Log signal and sending it through a properly calibrated REC709 transform and then judge those images. That's a waste of time.

This is why demo pieces are so damn hard. You have to know what you are shooting and why you are doing it, and then you have to know what the hell you're looking at afterward. That's especially why I hate any published camera "shootout" tests, as they invariably get it all wrong.

Rant over. I feel better now. ;-)

If you want Sony to spend a few hundred thousand bucks on a short demo reel then you better be prepared to pay a lot more than $8K for this camera. The money has to come from somewhere. I have been involved with several such productions in the past and I can tell you it is no picnic. You don't just waltz into a room and hit record.
 
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