FS7: Roll your eyes, but what is the most common FS7 setting?

Publimix said:
Ben, I hope your comment will not ignite a flame war.

Are there others using a higher zebra setting?

I came to the conclusion that a bit over exposing (outdoor) gives a better result and less noise. So tomorrow I'll try the 75% zebra setting.
Click to expand...

Mine is set to 61% but I generally 'lift' the exposure a touch. If you look at the WFM it is easy to see when the bottom end need a little help.
 
If I am being 100% honest I don't even use zebras all that much and just run off the WFM . Good to have as a safeguard in difficult environments though.
 
Liam Hall said:
Len, you are talking LUTs. Ben and I are advocating using the underlying Slog to accurately set exposure. The ISO you set only matters when using mLUTs. The OP wanted a simple solution. Zebras and WFM are fail safe if you have a basic understanding of what they do.

Sorry to hear you ill BTW.
Click to expand...

Yes you're right. Thanks for clearing that up. I always use LUT's and set my zebras and waveforms using those. Lots of ways to get to the same place.

Been through a tough bout of throat cancer but I just found out I licked it and I'm clean the other day so I expect to be back in the saddle with my camera soon. Feeling very encouraged over here.

Hey Ben - How come you sold off your beloved contax lenses? What did you replace with?
 
Last edited:
Thanks guys, I'm planning to leave the camera display log-ed and with waveform and use a LUT on the external monitor to get "the feel" for the scene.
You only can display waveform on the FS7 when no LUTs are aplied in camera, right?

@Lenilenapi Happy for your recovery - stay strong!
 
@Lenilenapi great to hear you're on the road to recovery and feel for you having to go through that. Keep strong.


Re the Contax, I have worked almost exclusively with them for about 5-6 years or so and I felt I wanted or needed a change of my owned glass to keep myself evolving and inspired. I still have a bunch left that I'm selling and a bunch I'll keep hold of, but I've been intrigued by the Otus glass for a while now and will dip my toe in that water soon enough.
 
I've no experience of that new 50 but the super cheap hidden gem is the Contax 50 1.7 which is exponentially sharper than the 1.4 or the ZE/ZF 1.4.
 
Ben Scott said:
@Lenilenapi great to hear you're on the road to recovery and feel for you having to go through that. Keep strong.


Re the Contax, I have worked almost exclusively with them for about 5-6 years or so and I felt I wanted or needed a change of my owned glass to keep myself evolving and inspired. I still have a bunch left that I'm selling and a bunch I'll keep hold of, but I've been intrigued by the Otus glass for a while now and will dip my toe in that water soon enough.
Click to expand...

+1 for Lenilenapi, sorry to hear of your illness but glad you gave it the boot.

I've been scoping these lenses for a while and if I had more discerning clientele I'd definitely get a handful of Otus primes. But I don't so I'm going to pick up 2 or 3 Milvus primes down the line the wide, the 50 and the 85.

Here's a pretty comprehensive review with a gallery of Milvus vs Otus vs Planar.

http://www.verybiglobo.com/zeiss-mi...zeiss-planar-851-4-comparative-lens-review-2/
 
Last edited:
I've owned all the ZE/ZF lenses in the past and most of the Milvus lenses are straight rehouses with the exception of the 50mm and 135mm and possibly the 85mm. They might possibly make use of the newest coatings too. Very solid glass capable of great images and for me, a definite step up up from the majority of Canon L glass (with a couple of exceptions).

The Otus lenses are a different proposition. As someone on Reduser stated, they are like owning a set of Master Primes that you can afford and that fit in a bag. Down the line they will almost certainly form the basis of the next range of Zeiss cine lenses.

I find myself with 11 Contax lenses and never bringing them all on a shoot, so I figure better to limit myself and have less glass but better glass.

Anyway we are going way off-topic. Apologies OP.

EDIT: The fact that the top of that article's conclusion speaks about how hard it is to focus with a manual lens means it is probably not the review for me :)
 
Liam Hall said:
No. With the latest firmware, mLUTs work with WFM and you can select the WFM to display the underlying Slog or the mLUT.
Click to expand...

This is most definitely the most useful feature for me, to be able to expose via LUT and zebras while seeing what signal is being actually recorded is a huge plus.
 
I would agree with Liam, or even go more simple.

Really just get the WFM to have a fat band of data around the 50% line and you are good, end of.

Slog is so flexible it is almost raw so the years of paranoia about exposure that us coming from 8 bit thin-o-vision have just kind of goes away.

S
 
Ben Scott said:
I

EDIT: The fact that the top of that article's conclusion speaks about how hard it is to focus with a manual lens means it is probably not the review for me :)
Click to expand...

Ignoring the fact you're too kool for skool, if a camera lens combo doesn't take a picture while making a cup of tea while giving a quick one off the wrist then you'd expect these sorts of comments from stills photographers who haven't manually focussed for decades.

The Otus samples I've seen certainly have the je ne sais quoi expensive lens look about them and a bit of swirly bokeh for good measure. The Milvus are just exceptionally good value for money which suits me better.
 
No idea what your first comment is supposed to mean, but people reviewing a manual focus lens saying it is hard to focus manually is like reviewing a Zenit 12XP and marking it down because you can't put SD cards in it. Hence me saying it isn't the review for me, as opposed to someone like Phil Holland doing deep tests re sharpness, breathing and mechanics etc.

I already have an exceptionally good value for money set. Now I want an exceptionally better set.
 
Thanks for all your help!
And please start another thread for the lens discussions, so this one stays focused on "basic setup" and may help other lost souls in the future :)
 
The issue is the more people that contribute to this thread the more conflicting advice you're going to have.

I'd say you have all the information you need now in here and anything else is going to be extraneous with regards you jumping in and starting shooting immediately.
 
Spartacus said:
Thanks for all your help!
And please start another thread for the lens discussions, so this one stays focused on "basic setup" and may help other lost souls in the future :)
Click to expand...

The get out of jail setup for someone inexperienced with the FS7 is to shoot in Custom Mode with HG7, a fairly WYSIWYG workflow with enough data to massage it in post.

Next level is to Shoot CineEI with REC709 mLUT while recording Slog3/SGamut3.cine and do the magic in post.

Beyond these two options it becomes an argument over personal preferences so I wouldn't waste anymore time than you have to exploring the thread. I'm pretty sure most people gravitate toward CineEI after familiarising themselves with the camera but Custom is a great way of picking it up and using it if you're already familiar with Sony's video cameras.

Once you have set up the camera to your liking do make use of the All Files presets to store it for later retrieval. Using the All Files presets can really speed up work on site when you want to quickly move from one shooting mode to another.
 
OP stated he'll want to be shooting log so I wouldn't confuse the issue with custom mode etc..

In fact unless you absolutely must have some feature in it, I wouldn't ever recommend either custom mode OR Hypergammas. I genuinely don't think Cine-EI mode is more complicated than Custom mode anyway. It's very simple and uncluttered way to work. 1 ISO, 3 WB choices, control exposure with ND and aperture. Done.
 
If your planing on using mLUTs on the FS7's EVF be aware they won't work in S&Q mode. A workaround is to use a 3rd party EVF or Monitor that supports mLUTs.

In case your not familiar with S&Q it's Sony's acronym for Slow & Quick, which is the overcrank/undercrank mode.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top