FS7: New Sony F7 XDCAM 4K Super 35mm Camcorder
- Thread starter starcentral
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I can deal with snide comments, I can also deal with other's preferences, over emotional responses, etc.
But, since you've mentioned film, please, show me examples, because here is what film looks like to me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5CkXgcafB0
I see depth, separation, saturation and above all not one single human here looks like a mannequin.
I did not see this washed out mannequin-esque look in Interstellar, did you?
This washed out "film look" is bred from the inability of most digital formats to saturate. It's a lack of sheer bit-depth, color science, and more. This isn't a film look, it might look okay/good, but it doesn't look anything at all like film.
His pics do not look washed out to me, they (other than the ones with a Look) look natural to me. What you showed above I would consider poorly processed film. I shot and printed a lot of 35mm film stills and unlike many others, I prefer natural skintones and natural colors in general. I seldom see natural skintones these days. Most are too red or over saturated. And most pics or video posted online these days is oversharpened.
And I did not say his pics looked like film, I said they were the best I had seen since film. My opinion. My experience. Your Mileage May Vary.
BTW, my notebook monitor has been calibrated and I have a calibrated Eizo as well.
Take care,
Robert
I agree. I think a majority of users won't be effected by these issues, but that's the exact reason I find it disconcerting. The sub-$16k camera range can tend to get pushed to the side in terms of these more "pro" features. For example, the shutter angle setting on the FS700 was completely broken. The degrees were always calculated relative to 24fps, even when you were in 60fps, 120fps, 240fps, etc. Long story short, Sony would never fix that because 95% of users just use shutter speed instead of angle.
So I worry that certain functions like MLUTs are there to drawn in the people who want pro features, but when the implementation is half-baked or buggy, Sony just shrugs and ignores it. A silent way of saying "well, you should have bought an F5."
Kholi, you obviously like your Black Magic so please stick with it, just like we like our Sony cameras so we'll probably stick with it. As for the washed out look, it's just a look. I have an acquaintance who is a director that owns a Red Epic and he does these fashion-ish, lifestyle spots and they are all washed out looking. It's not because he can't push the Epic to saturate, it's because he like the washed out look for his spot.
As for your example being the "true" look of film, that's a very narrow view of film. Film has had tons of different looks from Super 8mm, to Bleach Bypass, to Kodak stock which had a different vibe than Fuji. Furthermore, we are in the digital age, so why can't we do other looks? There's no rules to art.
I personally shot this on 16mm Fuji 60 Daylight about 8 years ago on an Eclair ACL. It looks nothing like what you posted - different grain structure, Fuji leaned toward cool palette vs Kodak's warm, lot less detail; but it's as film as film can get
Good luck with the Black Magic. I'm sure it will serve you well.
https://vimeo.com/22543039
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Lenilenapi
Carbonite Member
Just wanted to point out that we're not looking at "film" here - we're looking at film through a Telecine Transfer and each machine has its own color tendancies as well as each colorist - Bosh vs Rank, etc. I don't know what the machines are like now - I used to hate the Bosch. And then the stuff is graded and put up on the web and looked at on our no doubt completely mismatched screens . As an example - I looked briefly at the Kodak piece above and consistently thought the 5219 looked way too saturated and unreal and preferred the 5218 on my Apple monitor. Neither looked that great for flesh tone to me. But maybe we hate Apple monitor color here…. Dell vs Sony, HP dream color - Panasonic vs Flanders vs TV Logic - they all look different. Likewise - maybe I'm technically naive but I'm very skeptical that anyone's laptop screen is color critical.
Art Adams went ballistic recently at the color on an AJA Cion promo piece, but someone else thought it was the bomb. Were they even looking at the same thing? Years ago Panavision was demonstrating its brand new video camera at a meeting of ASC DP's . Laslo Kovacs famously stood up and said while leaving - "when you can get any 2 of these monitors to look the same, call me back".
If you really want to compare cameras - shoot the same shot and give them to the same colorist and look at them on a bunch of different monitors. Again I suggest resurrecting those camera shootouts that Zacuto ran a couple of years ago - of course the cameras are all out of date. Or there was that comparison between Alexa and F55 Slog3 that Sony presented a while ago. I don't remember any enormous difference there. Alexa looked a little better but it was subtle.
I'm not saying you're wrong about the Sony look, might be something to it, and you've got me thinking - just haven't seen anything here that means anything to me -too many variables.
Lenny
Art Adams went ballistic recently at the color on an AJA Cion promo piece, but someone else thought it was the bomb. Were they even looking at the same thing? Years ago Panavision was demonstrating its brand new video camera at a meeting of ASC DP's . Laslo Kovacs famously stood up and said while leaving - "when you can get any 2 of these monitors to look the same, call me back".
If you really want to compare cameras - shoot the same shot and give them to the same colorist and look at them on a bunch of different monitors. Again I suggest resurrecting those camera shootouts that Zacuto ran a couple of years ago - of course the cameras are all out of date. Or there was that comparison between Alexa and F55 Slog3 that Sony presented a while ago. I don't remember any enormous difference there. Alexa looked a little better but it was subtle.
I'm not saying you're wrong about the Sony look, might be something to it, and you've got me thinking - just haven't seen anything here that means anything to me -too many variables.
Lenny
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starcentral
Veteran
+1 and well said.
I might add that no here ought to be offended just because one's personal preference or idea of what is "filmic" might vary from person to person.
My personal preference are the images Kholi posted over the lightly-saturated washed out ones we often see. maybe due to lack of saturation, color resolution or bit-depth but if the Sony's could just provide "both" types of "film-look" I'd be happy. But over on the F35 threads you'll be hard pressed to find an F35 shooter who has been able to replace that look with the F3, F5 or F55.
Of course the F35 was a quarter million dollar camera at some point in its life, but the images reveal why if you ask me.
It's getting a little heavy here with the inherent limitations of forum posts and their inability to convey nuance. So I hope we can simply get back to FS-7 discussion.
But I am perturbed-- someone is leaking the Gruntmaster. I've been under NDA and we were going to break that story in the April 1 edition of DV. Hint-- it's at least as filmic as a GH4.
To bring us back to topic, could those experiencing firmware quirks on the FS7 list them in point form. Still don't have my camera yet so very interested in what others are finding so that I can check it out either in a loaner from Sony or in my own (whenever it turns up).
Thanks
Ned
But I am perturbed-- someone is leaking the Gruntmaster. I've been under NDA and we were going to break that story in the April 1 edition of DV. Hint-- it's at least as filmic as a GH4.
To bring us back to topic, could those experiencing firmware quirks on the FS7 list them in point form. Still don't have my camera yet so very interested in what others are finding so that I can check it out either in a loaner from Sony or in my own (whenever it turns up).
Thanks
Ned
Lenilenapi
Carbonite Member
Ned - I just started a thread for those problems only . This one is way to wild to find useful info.
Do you have a contact at Sony? I know they probably get sick of feature requests but off the bat I have two questions: Is it possible to have an MLUT on/off toggle shortcut like the F5/F55 have?
The second one is pretty huge to me: it would be nice if the S&Q button toggled through slow and super slow modes, like on the FS700. Right now, it's fast to jump between 1080p24 and 1080p60 w/ the S&Q button, but going up to 72-180fps requires going into the menu and enabling the "Full Scan" mode for super slowmo. Now that the shutter angle properly sticks at 180-degrees, toggling slowmo modes is almost perfect. Additionally, the FS700 let you hold the S&Q button (in Super Slow mode) to select your frame rate (120/240/480/960). As it stands on the FS7, you have to go several layers deep in the menu just to change from 100fps to 120fps, even though you're staying in the same shooting mode. I honestly can't believe they changed this functionality from the way it was on the FS700, it seems like they added hurdles, especially when they resolved my biggest nitpick on the FS700 (having to reset my shutter speed every time I changed frame rates). I think having to dig into the menus to change frame rates takes LONGER than double-checking my shutter speed.
Okay, rant over. Sorry about that, my mind is just boggled why you'd fix one problem and then add obstacles that weren't there in the first place.
Liam Hall
Veteran
Yes.
It depends what you mean by issues. Changing aperture is a lot clunkier than on the C300, but then again I get a full frame image and my sensor stays clean from dirt.
I've had a couple of issues. Nothing like you've had and nothing more than I'd expect from the first run of cameras into market - disappearing waveform was the biggest issue, but I solved it with a full factory reset. I'm not using LUTs though, just CineEI mode and rating the camera at 2000ISO.
Liam Hall
Veteran
Absolutely right. I had no time to test the camera fully before going off on this current shoot. I found a way that works for me and I've stuck to it.
cinemasteve87
Active member
Here's another Doritos spec commercial I shot on the FS7. There are a whole bunch of various skin tones being tested here and I think the camera handled them very well:
https://crashthesuperbowl.doritos.com/gallery/submission/3993?filter
On another note, I helped shoot a short film over the weekend and the primary cameras used were two Black Magic 4k and the FS7 for pickups/b-roll. Every time I'd pull out the FS7 it was so much easier to set up and the dynamic range really helped me pull off some fantastic shots. Even though the Black Magic 4k has a nice image I thought it was a PAIN to shoot with and not practical at all in my opinion. We had to rig the hell out of the Black Magic 4k while the FS7 just comfortably plopped on my shoulder or on sticks in a matter of seconds. The FS7 was very enjoyable to use and the footage looked amazing while watching the dailies.
https://crashthesuperbowl.doritos.com/gallery/submission/3993?filter
On another note, I helped shoot a short film over the weekend and the primary cameras used were two Black Magic 4k and the FS7 for pickups/b-roll. Every time I'd pull out the FS7 it was so much easier to set up and the dynamic range really helped me pull off some fantastic shots. Even though the Black Magic 4k has a nice image I thought it was a PAIN to shoot with and not practical at all in my opinion. We had to rig the hell out of the Black Magic 4k while the FS7 just comfortably plopped on my shoulder or on sticks in a matter of seconds. The FS7 was very enjoyable to use and the footage looked amazing while watching the dailies.
Yeah this is what I'd like to see as well.
Someone on Facebook posted these FS7 S-Log 3 S-Gamut3 shots and I just ran a quick pre-set using FilmConvert. Looks nice to me for a no effort / pre-set grade. I like the vibe, the colors are rich and the blacks on the ungraded S-Log 3 are far less noisy than S-Log 2 I've been getting on the 7Q which is surprising because I was under the impression that S-Log 3 is way noisier than S-Log 2.
Here's a full sized version since DVX user makes all .jpgs so small.
www.builtbyugene.com/images_client/pix.jpg
FrameFarmMedia
Veteran
Thanks for posting Gene.
You are right about the noise levels on the unprocessed Slog3. I think the Slog3 samples hold tons of potential in the grade. Even the quick grade turned out pretty nice.
You are right about the noise levels on the unprocessed Slog3. I think the Slog3 samples hold tons of potential in the grade. Even the quick grade turned out pretty nice.
nyvz
Veteran
Yes I mentioned this to Juan Martinez at the Photoplus Sony booth a few weeks ago. What's worse is that if you are shooting XAVC-L 4K, if you want to go past 60p you have to manually switch to 1080p in the menu and then turn on S&Q. If you want to go past 120fps, you have to also manually switch you the XAVC-I codec. And some of those options require a restart as well. I can't remember which ones. It's certainly not as easy as pressing the S&Q button once or twice like on the FS700.