Sony A7s & Gh4... What if...

V

vincent thomas

Well-known member
The Sony A7s delivers what we expect. I plan to buy one, considering i like and need to be able to move light, would i still need my GH4?

Is it reasonable to imagine that the Sony A7s could eventually cover all my needs?

Thanks

vincent*

________________________________________________________________
Vincent Thomas
Creative Art Director & VFX supervisor / Senior Lighter & DigiMatte Painter / Concept Designer
http://fr.linkedin.com/in/vincentthomas
http://www.stranger-than-paradise.book.fr/
 
I guess that depends on your needs :) Do you need to record 4K internally? Do you have a lot of m4/3 lenses?

For me the A7s is probably better for what I do, which currently is travel photography and video. I want the awesome low light capabilitues for both video and stills, I shoot a lot of night markets and such. I also want the insane dynamic range for shooting tropical destinations.

What do you want to shoot with it?
 
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For me the 4K external recording debate is not so important. All these small form factor cameras need professional monitoring assistance. I was going to get a monitor for it anyway. The Shogun covers that with an added 4K bonus.
 
As nice as 4K is, this camera's HD potential is pretty off the charts if you look at the lowlight, sensor size and dynamic range. 4K acquisition is nice, but nobody is watching anything in 4K yet and it's effectively an 8mp sensor readout just like the C100.
 
I'm on the fence. All my glass is m43. As much as I like the stills I have seen from the A7 I am not too excited about buying new lenses. My favs at the moment are the Oly 75, 45 and SLR 25. I almost pulled the trigger on a GH4 but holding off because of the A7s. Besides the GX7 is a lot of fun and probably all a hack like me needs :)
 
ReelWorksMedia said:
For me the 4K external recording debate is not so important. All these small form factor cameras need professional monitoring assistance. I was going to get a monitor for it anyway. The Shogun covers that with an added 4K bonus.
Click to expand...

It's unfortunate that the Shogun only does UHD and not 4k DCI.
 
I guess im looking at something in the same way as you. Im one man army and i want to take the best use of natural light with a camara as discrete as possible...
For now, all my lend, mainly leica R ans contax zeiss germany lens are full frame , then i have as well medium format lenses which maybe good be a good match with a camera like the a7s?

It's also important for me to have better highlight rolloff than what i could see from the c100 or gh4, i hope the sony cam could do something here even with internal recording.. But for now , how to know?

Im wondering how to rig the shogun without having rods or a shoulder rig..?

dfreerider said:
I guess that depends on your needs :) Do you need to record 4K internally? Do you have a lot of m4/3 lenses?

For me the A7s is probably better for what I do, which currently is travel photography and video. I want the awesome low light capabilitues for both video and stills, I shoot a lot of night markets and such. I also want the insane dynamic range for shooting tropical destinations.

What do you want to shoot with it?
Click to expand...
 
Just pre-ordered two A7s's to go along with my GH4. We use three cameras for our shoots and my big debate was do I get a 3rd a7s or do I just get two and keep the GH4? The GH4 is mostly our wide camera. We use it with the 7-14mm lens and often shoot in 4k to push in in post if we want later. I actually haven't edited any of our footage yet...but it looks great on-camera. The downside I see is that if we are really cranking things up to like 25k or 50k ISO on the A7s, there's no way we'd ever be able to match with the GH4 as anything close to those ISO ranges would be awful on the GH4. That's my big debate. I can't decide. I may end up selling my GH4 once we get the a7s's if this is a real problem. Besides, I get a nice 25-40% off sony products (brother's employee discount) which helps. I will miss the 4k but soon enough we'll have that ability with either the Shogun or the 7Q or something similar. Someone will then get a great deal on a pretty new GH4 with the 12-35 f/2.8 and 7-14 f/4 lenses. Guess I'll have to wait until July to decide. I'm pretty much 50-50 right now.
 
Part of the issue for me with the external recorder is just on principle. The A7/r already output uncompressed 4K in playback mode. How confident are we that also enabling it during "video recording" (live view) mode was more than a firmware change? How much work beyond switching out the sensor (btw, why is a supposedly mostly-video-focused sensor still apparently having so much jello trouble?) have they really done here?

Now, a few years ago, when Red DSMC with all its huge cost, and fans, and (relative to a mirrorless CSC) large size was the only internal-recording 4K+ game in town, I wouldn't have busted Sony's chops too much over external recording (overlooking that those fans and size got us 4K@150fps and who knows how small it could've been if it'd stopped at 4K@30 like the A7s). But now, with the GH4 showing it can definitely be done at mainstream price and size...Sony's asking us to give them an awful lot of money for not trying very hard.

ReelWorksMedia said:
For me the 4K external recording debate is not so important. All these small form factor cameras need professional monitoring assistance. I was going to get a monitor for it anyway. The Shogun covers that with an added 4K bonus.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say necessary. Nearly so, in many situations, but not completely. I stuck a 2.5x Z-Finder right on the back of my A7 with one of their adhesive frames, and it's an enormous help. Yeah, its weight can pull down an articulated screen, but remember how people were complaining that the Really Right Stuff plate for the A7 partially blocked the screen's downward articulation (not so much blocked it as made it a little harder to do)? That turns into a feature with a Z-Finder attached; a little shelf! That just holds it level, though. What we really need is a little accessory to hold it at an upward angle; I'm thinking about designing my own.
 
The Irish TRex said:
Just pre-ordered two A7s's to go along with my GH4. We use three cameras for our shoots and my big debate was do I get a 3rd a7s or do I just get two and keep the GH4? The GH4 is mostly our wide camera. We use it with the 7-14mm lens and often shoot in 4k to push in in post if we want later. I actually haven't edited any of our footage yet...but it looks great on-camera. The downside I see is that if we are really cranking things up to like 25k or 50k ISO on the A7s, there's no way we'd ever be able to match with the GH4 as anything close to those ISO ranges would be awful on the GH4. That's my big debate. I can't decide. I may end up selling my GH4 once we get the a7s's if this is a real problem. Besides, I get a nice 25-40% off sony products (brother's employee discount) which helps. I will miss the 4k but soon enough we'll have that ability with either the Shogun or the 7Q or something similar. Someone will then get a great deal on a pretty new GH4 with the 12-35 f/2.8 and 7-14 f/4 lenses. Guess I'll have to wait until July to decide. I'm pretty much 50-50 right now.
Click to expand...


2014 first quarter sales to panasonic…second quarter sales to sony…third quarter sales to canon..nikon..???…..2015…2016…business as usual
 
If my coal mine documentary pitch gets funded, I'll buy the A7S... otherwise I'm happy sticking with my original budget plan of buying an improved portable light kit this year.

I think it'll be an excellent HD camera and a top choice if I need to replace anything due to breakage or theft... Otherwise I'm good for 2014.
 
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