FS7: Opinion after first shoot

S

surinder

Well-known member
Here are some quick lightly graded stills shot using Custom Mode HG4. This was from our FS7's first outing.

Has anyone else noticed a magenta shift when WB is set to Daylight. We noticed a tint in the sky using the viewfinder and our Sony 17 inch OLED. We had to dial the white in manually using the offsets to get rid of the tint. Would like to hear if anyone else has seen this on the FS7, F5 or F55?
The Matrix was turned off, detail also turned off and aperture was set to 30.

The waveform was a big time PITA as I couldn't get it to come on for the 2 days of filming. Got it back today by doing an All Reset and trying some of the tips and tricks posted by other early adopters here on the forum.

The Grip handle was very nice to use. Although we had the same iris issues as everyone else is reporting with the Metabones Ultra EF adaptor.
We also had the MTF Effect iris controller box that we use on our F3. We just ordered the adaptor only to go E to EF mount and it worked very very well.
Non of the issues the Metabones exhibits. The LED and loupe are okay too. I found I could focus better than I could on the F3 LED.
Overall we are very pleased with the camera and the pictures it can make are very nice. We didn't use Cine EI or Slog gamma for this particular shoot as it needs a fast turn around. I did some testing and found the results in Slog 3 were a little too noisy and we need to get better at exposing Slog before we use it for everything. Another issue showed up while trying to de noise Slog 3 with MB denoiser. It just throws up an error and stops processing saying unable to compile movie. Thats with the latest version of Denoiser. It trips over with all flavours of XAVC :(
Before we can start using Cine EI we either have to wait for Denoiser to work properly or look at Neat Video as an alternative. I'd like also to see noise reduction in Cine EI for a faster turn around in post.


I'll be posting more images and some lit footage over the next few days as there seems to be a lack of that kind of footage being uploaded at
present.




Surinder.






216_0009.00_00_14_20.Still002.jpg216_0114.00_00_00_00.Still003.jpg216_0114.00_02_59_02.Still004.jpg
 
The screen grabs look terrific!

SLog3 + CineEI noise is definitely reduced when throwing a LUT on it to bring back to Rec709 space. I also have had success with Resolve's NR. I have also found that Magic Bullet plug-ins sometimes do behave strangely or even crash hosts. They are very responsive when these issues occur so I would suggest that you shoot RedGiant and email. I'll also try the MB Denoiser and see if I have any similar issues.

Good to hear of success with the MTF adapter.

For curiosity, did you attempt a custom white balance off a white card to see if the magenta shift was still evident?

What is very significant about your results, though, is that when shot properly, Hypergammas in Custom Mode can deliver great results.

Ned Soltz
 
I hada magenta problem with my F3 after it came back from Sony service. It white balanced fine but the daylight preset was a bit magenta and you could see the shift on a vectorscope clearly.
Sent it back to Sony and they didn't see a problem at first. I was lucky enough to talk to the technician though and it turned out he was testing it on his work bench which was fluorescent ! Thus white balance and the preset were both adding magenta and it looked oK. he moved it to the studio and confirmed that indeed it was off. I believe it was a simple setting of a pot on the board and they sent it back repaired.
I suggest shooting some tests outside and perhaps indoors with a Daylight source that you know isn't green (tungsten + CTB is OK), then compare white balance button vs Preset. They should be very close and if anything be off on the Kelvin, not the magenta/green axis. Unfortunately you'll probably need to send it in for repair.
I can't remember why, but at the time I had the impression that it might be fairly common error from the factory.

Very natural looking shots. Hopefully getting my camera Friday or Sat. Unfortunately I just had a hernia operation so I can't lift much and can't really work it for a month.
 
nsoltz said:
The screen grabs look terrific!

SLog3 + CineEI noise is definitely reduced when throwing a LUT on it to bring back to Rec709 space. I also have had success with Resolve's NR. I have also found that Magic Bullet plug-ins sometimes do behave strangely or even crash hosts. They are very responsive when these issues occur so I would suggest that you shoot RedGiant and email. I'll also try the MB Denoiser and see if I have any similar issues.

Good to hear of success with the MTF adapter.

For curiosity, did you attempt a custom white balance off a white card to see if the magenta shift was still evident?

What is very significant about your results, though, is that when shot properly, Hypergammas in Custom Mode can deliver great results.

Ned Soltz
Click to expand...


Thanks Ned.

Yes, I found after CC, even without using a LUT, the noise was acceptable. The shadow areas are quite elevated with Slog 3.

I will be emailing RedGiant tomorrow with my findings and some screen grabs to show whats happening. It only falls over with XAVC footage, all frame rates and sizes.
I haven't tried long GOP though. I'll also see if my PC is doing the same as my Macbook.

The MTF adaptor and control box has been great from day one on my F3 and has now found a new home on the FS7 :)
For run and gun style shooting it may be the best option currently while the bugs are being ironed out.

I can confirm when custom white balancing on a white card the magenta shift was not present. if I recall when doing a custom white balance the white offsets values change in camera if I recall correctly. I think we dialled in those same values after selecting a daylight balance. It was a bit of a panic at the shoot as I thought there may be something seriously was wrong with the camera itself. But we managed to dial the tint out. Will be testing this thoroughly before the next shoot.

I've been very happy with the Cine Gammas on the F3 and now the Hypergammas on the FS7. I'm sure Slog 3 would have held the pretty much all of the sky in the last letterboxed still and
we would have had a little more in the shadows too. I'm finding the 10 bit 422 files from the FS7 very malleable and lovely to work with in post.

Surinder.
 
Lenilenapi said:
I hada magenta problem with my F3 after it came back from Sony service. It white balanced fine but the daylight preset was a bit magenta and you could see the shift on a vectorscope clearly.
Sent it back to Sony and they didn't see a problem at first. I was lucky enough to talk to the technician though and it turned out he was testing it on his work bench which was fluorescent ! Thus white balance and the preset were both adding magenta and it looked oK. he moved it to the studio and confirmed that indeed it was off. I believe it was a simple setting of a pot on the board and they sent it back repaired.
I suggest shooting some tests outside and perhaps indoors with a Daylight source that you know isn't green (tungsten + CTB is OK), then compare white balance button vs Preset. They should be very close and if anything be off on the Kelvin, not the magenta/green axis. Unfortunately you'll probably need to send it in for repair.
I can't remember why, but at the time I had the impression that it might be fairly common error from the factory.

Very natural looking shots. Hopefully getting my camera Friday or Sat. Unfortunately I just had a hernia operation so I can't lift much and can't really work it for a month.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the reply Lenilenapi.

I've been using the F3 quite a bit and never seen this kind of shift on the daylight preset.

You could be right it may need some calibration. Will try and shoot some more outdoor tests in custom and Cine EI and some indoor stuff with daylight Kinoflos.

Cheers and have a speedy recovery from your op.

Surinder.
 
nice looking skin tones!

By the way I don't feel this is widely known, however the hypergammas HG7 and HG8 on the FS7, F5, F55 are 800% dynamic range curves which is in fact equivalent to the total dynamic range capable on the Sony F3 in slog mode (800%).

So really it means that some of the HG's on the FS7 would not be disappointing for use and the newer slog2/3 offer only a little more in terms of dynamic range - which under proper lighting control might not even show any benefit.

cheers,
 
starcentral said:
nice looking skin tones!

By the way I don't feel this is widely known, however the hypergammas HG7 and HG8 on the FS7, F5, F55 are 800% dynamic range curves which is in fact equivalent to the total dynamic range capable on the Sony F3 in slog mode (800%).

So really it means that some of the HG's on the FS7 would not be disappointing for use and the newer slog2/3 offer only a little more in terms of dynamic range - which under proper lighting control might not even show any benefit.

cheers,
Click to expand...


Thanks Dennis

I emailed you regarding your exposure guide a few days before my shoot hoping to get a little more prepared.

I found today that the link to the guide was emailed out on the 20th but google pushed it into the promotions folder which I rarely ever go into. Low and behold it was there.

So you can pretty much guess what I'll be up to for the next few evenings ;)


Surinder.
 
@Surinder - sorry if I did not reply to you right away and get back to you. But glad you got it eventually.

@Sam Morgan - if you are reading, given you are cinegamma fan on the F3 and not slog, on the FS7/F5/F55 you can shoot HG7 or HG8 and get same dynamic range as F3! I thought you might find that interesting...


cheers
 
I've noticed that Neat Video is a bit less buggy than Denoiser, which can go crazy sometimes while Neat Video has no problems with the same shot
 
starcentral said:
@Sam Morgan - if you are reading, given you are cinegamma fan on the F3 and not slog, on the FS7/F5/F55 you can shoot HG7 or HG8 and get same dynamic range as F3! I thought you might find that interesting...


cheers
Click to expand...

Honestly im doing a flip! The big trouble with Slog on the F3 is lack of supported LUTs in software or camera.

Im thinking the Fs7 is way better in Slog as there is a fully 'controlled' workflow - ie matching luts on and off the camera - that look good to me.

These frames are IMO a little disappointing - the sky in the last looks like a nasty blowout, but a scene like this will need secondaries in post or lighting on location or a flat gamma to hold - that is the nature of the beast - so we are not seeing a weakness in the camera.. of course we dont know what was held in the original files.

S
 
No secondaries on any of these pics Sam. Only the fast colour corrector in PP CC2014. Just clawed back some highlights and got the black levels down a little. Was eager to get something out there to show the virtues of the Hypergammas. But as Dennis says above HG7 and HG8 would have performed better. Slog3 or 2 would have held much more of the sky and more detail in the shadows. Will be doing a proper grade with secondaries when the edit is locked down.
 
Are hypergammas on the FS&/F55 different than Cinegammas on the F3/EX-1? I do understand how they work and the difference between the various gammas. What I've never heard is any explanation as to whether there is any noticeable difference between similar curves on the hyper gammas & cinegammas.
although I do use them when I need to , I've never been too big a fan of the cinegammas as I don't like what they do to flesh tone, so I'm wondering if the hypergammas might be more pleasing.
I assume there must be some reason Sony changed the name.
 
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Did your grade blow the sky - or did the camera/exposure choice do it? It would be interesting to see if it comes back. A scene like that seems to want holding the highs, some scenes im happy for the highs to be off the chart way better than holding them with the dreaded knee!

S
 
Lenilenapi said:
Are hypergammas on the FS&/F55 different than Cinegammas on the F3/EX-1
Click to expand...

Some are the same, some are missing, and some are newer.

Basically if you look in any of the manuals for the camera and look up the cine/hyper gammas you can tell the dynamic range of the gamma, the grey value, and where white clips. ie. HG2 4600G30 means its a 460% dynamic range curve, clips at 100% and the grey value is 30%.

I really liked using the Cine4 gamma on the F3 because it really boosted up the lower range by placing middle grey at 55% IRE but that gamma is no longer available on F5/F55.
 
morgan_moore said:
Did your grade blow the sky - or did the camera/exposure choice do it? It would be interesting to see if it comes back. A scene like that seems to want holding the highs, some scenes im happy for the highs to be off the chart way better than holding them with the dreaded knee!

S
Click to expand...

We set the exposure to split the difference between the talent and the sky. No HMI's on this job. I've pulled the highlights down overall in that pic and there's certainly a bit more info in that blown out area to be recovered. But it's not totally recoverable. Next shoot I'll be trying out HG7 and 8 as per Dennis's suggestion. Then move onto Slog 3 with MLuts etc. I'm really quite eager to try the LC709 Type A lut out. If it truly does what it says on the tin I think most of the stuff I shoot will be Slog3 Cine EI, rating the camera at 1000 ISO, using the Rec709/800 MLut for monitoring. Will start post with the LC709A LUT and take it from there.

Very exciting times indeed.

To me the 4k footage out if this camera looks like I'm viewing RAW high res still pictures from a DSLR playing at 25 or 50fps. I also get the same tingling feeling when looking at Red Epic or Alexa footage. I love my F3 but this camera is just on another level. And I have so much more to learn and try out yet.

Surinder.
 
DR isn't everything. That's why i'm wondering if anyone has compared the hypergammas to the cinegammas. Its possible the curve itself might be different or it might do something different with saturation along the curve.
 
surinder said:
We set the exposure to split the difference between the talent and the sky. No HMI's on this job. I've pulled the highlights down overall in that pic and there's certainly a bit more info in that blown out area to be recovered. But it's not totally recoverable.
Click to expand...

That blown out sky is a perfect illustration of why the FS7 desperately needs S-LOG2. The FS7 is always going to be hobbled until we get it. S-LOG3 might be terrific for close-ups of faces and controlled lighting situations, but it sucks for outdoor, daytime, bright sun, shooting. After having shot some more test footage the last couple of days in bright sun, I can tell you that I'll be using the hypergammas for outdoor shooting (unless it is overcast) until I have S-LOG2.
 
Same problem today waveform lost :(

I'm may have to go with an small external monitor until this gets sorted. Can anyone suggest a monitor capable of loading custom LUTs or the Sony LUTs? Thinking of replacing my Marshall 7 inch.

Had to do another All Reset but luckily I saved the a couple of scene files to the SD card so not too much time lost dialing thing back in.

Love IQ can't wait for the bugs to be ironed out.
 
I'm sorry for having different experiences with SLog3.

I shot some footage now - mostly outdoor, daytime, bright sun and I love the
footage as it turns out after quick grading. When I switched to the HG, I lost
several stops depending on the HG type.

Some examples here: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...ntrols&p=1986496820&highlight=#post1986496820

There's still enough room for heavier grading to your personal taste.

Remember: SLog3 and SLog2 have the same DR - it's just mapped to different values
before written. SLog2 has more values in the highlights in is therefore more forgiving
if you overexpose. SLog3 has more values in the shadows and is more forgiving if you
underexpose.
If you expose right and don't have more than 14 stops of DR in your frame both will
look very similar after putting the values back to normal via the dedicated LUTs of
your preferred custom curves.
 
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