Sony A7sII Initial Impressions

paulcurtis said:
IMHO because i see better rolling shutter performance in HFR which has less compression overall then i do wonder if the limiting factor is actually the compression stage, not the read out stage. But all these VBR formats exhibit blocking, even ProRes in certain situations. Only when we can pull RAW off these things will that be a none issue. Also if you're just hand holding or moving slowly the internal quality will be very good. It's whilst panning across a subject that is detailed and moving - that's when these things fail.
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I tested the A7s extensively against the 5DMk3 raw. I concluded that the 5DMK3 raw produced a more filmic graded image up to 6400 ISO. Shooting in 2.39:1 mode the 5D rolling shutter is 13.6ms. The 5D raw image is sharper than the A7s 1080p image and the 5D destroys the A7s shooting skin tones. From what I've seen from the A7sII so far it produces better skin tones than the A7s, and looks slightly sharper. I didn't have a 4k recorder to compare 4k on the A7s to the 5D but from what I've seen I think they'd be quite close detail wise. The Sonys record higher dynamic range off the sensor but I didn't notice much over the raw 5D files graded. I still have the A7s on hand for any time I need to shoot something over 6400 ISO, but the 5DMK3 raw is still top dog. Sony could easily enable raw recording but they expect us to pay over 10k for that. 8bit is a very poor cousin to a 14bit digital negative.
 
squig said:
I tested the A7s extensively against the 5DMk3 raw. I concluded that the 5DMK3 raw produced a more filmic graded image up to 6400 ISO. Shooting in 2.39:1 mode the 5D rolling shutter is 13.6ms. The 5D raw image is sharper than the A7s 1080p image and the 5D destroys the A7s shooting skin tones. From what I've seen from the A7sII so far it produces better skin tones than the A7s, and looks slightly sharper. I didn't have a 4k recorder to compare 4k on the A7s to the 5D but from what I've seen I think they'd be quite close detail wise. The Sonys record higher dynamic range off the sensor but I didn't notice much over the raw 5D files graded. I still have the A7s on hand for any time I need to shoot something over 6400 ISO, but the 5DMK3 raw is still top dog. Sony could easily enable raw recording but they expect us to pay over 10k for that. 8bit is a very poor cousin to a 14bit digital negative.
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Completely contradicting other reviewers, like this one:

http://www.eoshd.com/2014/07/evolving-sony-a7s-review/

"The A7S resolves slightly more detail in 1080p than the 5D Mark III can manage even in raw 1080p "

Not to mention that raw on 5DIII is a third-party very buggy hack (camera freezers, no time code) with very slow workflow with and unnecessarily large amount t of costly data.
 
evilthought said:
Completely contradicting other reviewers, like this one:

http://www.eoshd.com/2014/07/evolving-sony-a7s-review/

"The A7S resolves slightly more detail in 1080p than the 5D Mark III can manage even in raw 1080p "

Not to mention that raw on 5DIII is a third-party very buggy hack (camera freezers, no time code) with very slow workflow with and unnecessarily large amount t of costly data.
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Nothing is contradicting, Raw has a larger file size yes and therefore cost more hdd, but allows great control over sharpening / color / and noise reduction in post.
If you want a sharper file you could sharpen the raw a lot before it breaks up. I say very sharp images is not what is needed on most of shots, great color and dynamic range are more often needed.

Workflow is a breeze with a decent computer and MLVFS, you can edit the DNG's in resolve directly.
 
FWIW, there are a bunch of SII reviews now on YouTube, with the bulk of them coming off that Sony press junket in New York.
 
evilthought said:
Completely contradicting other reviewers, like this one:

http://www.eoshd.com/2014/07/evolving-sony-a7s-review/

"The A7S resolves slightly more detail in 1080p than the 5D Mark III can manage even in raw 1080p "

Not to mention that raw on 5DIII is a third-party very buggy hack (camera freezers, no time code) with very slow workflow with and unnecessarily large amount t of costly data.
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Andrew's entitled to his opinion, but his tests weren't as thorough as mine. I stand by the results of my tests. There are buggy builds and there are stable builds. The workflow isn't slow at all. If you haven't done your homework you're liable to just be disseminating misinformation.

@lars steenhoff Right on.
 
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squig said:
Andrew's entitled to his opinion, but his tests weren't as thorough as mine. I stand by the results of my tests. There are buggy builds and there are stable builds. The workflow isn't slow at all. If you haven't done your homework you're liable to just be disseminating misinformation.
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I shot with 5D3 raw for close to a year, and I don't see how you can say the workflow isn't slow, especially when comparing to shooting on the a7, which we are here. It's 80% of the reason (disk space inclusive) why I stopped, even tho I prefer the overall image due to color reproduction. And even stable builds were buggy, and I've lost plenty of footage due to crashes on "stable" builds.
 
Here's some more info and a hastily thrown together video as well.

In terms of rolling shutter, it's pretty much the same at 4K FF. I recorded UHD on the A7sII and HD on the A7s, the video shows them side by side and then a difference between them, if you single frame the difference you can see they're pretty much identical. I also recorded APS-C on both and it's same again. Then i did 100 fps on both and this is a bit more interesting. I think the A7sII is literally taking 1080p out of the centre of the full sensor so actually the crop is greater than APS-C but it is full 1080p, albeit compressed to hell. The A7s is doing only 720p from a APS-C crop. Rolling shutter on 100fps is pretty much non-existent IMHO.

I'm guessing about the sensor crop but basically 100fps on the A7sII is cropped more than S35 mode.

I thought i'd done 50p side by side but couldn't match those files, so i will look again.

But UHD will always be FF when recorded internally. The A7s allowed APS-C to be recorded at UHD via HDMI before, i don't know yet what happens with the A7sII and HDMI as i haven't been able to try that. On the A7s the UHD is upscaled from that APS-C crop but even so it's a bit better than 1080p.

I will start looking at scenes to compare resolution and range next.

What was also important to me and the main reason i upgraded was the stabilisation. So there are a couple of comparison tests, one with static shots and one with running around a bit. I had the two cameras mounted together, one above the other. The handheld shots i elected for a 90mm on the II and a 75mm on the I - a torture test. With the running i had 50s on both although the II focus was not at infinity, i must have knocked it, so the II is soft because of focus.

I'm very impressed with the stabilisation though. One of my bug bears with the A7s was that hand holding anything created micro jitters that IMHO makes footage unusable. I've been in situations where i've just not been able to use it. So far this appears much better and on a practical shooting point this is a big win for me.

I've not really been through dynamic range, Slog3 and colour yet. Initial impressions are that it is better overall. Even in the test shots where i was not really looking into that i feel that the A7sII recorded more range.

The rolling shutter is to be expected. It's a bit of a pain but with the micro jitters gone then that's excellent. I need to mount this on a car soon, and testing the A7s in the same situation i threw out all the footage because of engine vibration. Will be interesting to see if this works now.

I think that 50p also reduces shutter, so perhaps it's possible to shoot that and throw half the frames away in fast motion. Perhaps 50p can be recorded over HDMI at 1080p and bypass compression too. So lots to look at.

In terms of the 5D and RAW. Well, the tonality in those RAW files is going to be much better than XAVC but resolution and aliasing in those 5D files is pretty terrible on a practical level. Don't forget if you record UHD, and downsize then your 8 bit UHD will increase in tonality as the image is reduced. I've demonstrated this on our blog.

Anyway, video is

EDIT: I rather stupidly mistitled the APS-C as 4K APS-C where as the other labels indicate it is 1080p, so please ignore that and i'll see if i can change it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPyKTtIe2CY&feature=youtu.be

It has a production value of zero and youtube said it looked shaky, would i like youtube to stabilise it for me. I didn't before you ask :)

cheers
Paul
 
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squig said:
A reviewer said you can assign the record button to a custom button.

Has anyone noticed any IQ/noise improvement over the A7s in APS-C mode? 1080p highlight aliasing gone?

Despite the improvements we've still gotta put up with circa 2008 macroblocking and rolling shutter. Sony could easily increase the bitrate and include a 2.39:1 shooting mode to reduce the roller shutter. This is a camera primarily marketed for video capture after all.
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You can assign MOVIE to a custom button, just tried that.

I haven't seen any highlight aliasing but i haven't looked. Do you have any samples of a situation that created it, or what it is you're looking for?

I'd agree about the rolling shutter although ALL 4K dSLRs have terrible read out rates. So maybe there's something going on there.

cheers
Paul
 
llirik said:
I shot with 5D3 raw for close to a year, and I don't see how you can say the workflow isn't slow, especially when comparing to shooting on the a7, which we are here. It's 80% of the reason (disk space inclusive) why I stopped, even tho I prefer the overall image due to color reproduction. And even stable builds were buggy, and I've lost plenty of footage due to crashes on "stable" builds.
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As lars mentioned, you can open MLV files up in resolve with MLVS, no conversion process. To get the best results with the A7s you transcode to prores which is obviously a longer process.
 
paulcurtis said:
You can assign MOVIE to a custom button, just tried that.

I haven't seen any highlight aliasing but i haven't looked. Do you have any samples of a situation that created it, or what it is you're looking for?
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Good news about the button, that A7s record button really sux.

Easiest way to trigger the highlight aliasing is with something strongly backlit. I noticed some in the APS-C camera store footage of the traffic light. Looks like Sony haven't made any changes under the hood with the APS-C pixel binning process, which is a shame because it's the only mode with lowish rolling shutter.
 
evilthought said:
"The A7S resolves slightly more detail in 1080p than the 5D Mark III can manage even in raw 1080p "
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No. Way. I just shot a shortfilm with the 5d raw and some b-camera stuff with the a7s and rx10 ii. The 5d raw blows the other cams out of the water. We even shot in very low light (5d raw was at max 6400 iso, the sony had to be ramped up to 25600 while shooting some of the same scenes - different lenses though so not completely fair). And even in low light the raw material was just easier to grade and the processing free image the raw gives you is just... it's high-end guys. Really high-end. It approaches red / alexa levels in everything except dynamic range (which is still good). No macroblocking, no compression artifacts, no smearing from noise reductionm, no higlight aliasing...just beautiful, absolutely beautiful material. You can also knock off a couple of ms from the rolling shutter using magic lantern on the 5d.

I also disagree with the "slow workflow" stuff. Davinci Resolve goes through dng files like a hot knife through butter. But I'm a post guy anyway, that's what I do.

I do have the a7s II pre-ordered and will be selling of the original a7s.
 
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paulcurtis said:
I'd agree about the rolling shutter although ALL 4K dSLRs have terrible read out rates. So maybe there's something going on there.
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The car test will be interesting. If the stabilization has the micro jitters all under control then rolling shutting isn't a major issue, all you're left with is the skew. I'd be more concerned about the compression falling apart with crazy movement than the skew. Samuel might be able to get some rolling shutter numbers from your test.

@maarek All the raw workflow whingeing is pretty much null and void now. MLVS is instant. Hard drives are cheap. Fast GPUs are cheap. Fast CPUs are cheap. Resolve is free! You're right about the 6400 ISO vs 25600 ISO thing. Once you've shot raw it's very hard to go back to crappy 8bit files, especially crappily compressed 8bit files. 4k prores downscaled to 2k is a lot better but still no match for raw. The Sonys are great for commercial work but for filmmaking nothing compares to a digital negative.
 
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Do we know if this is the exact same size as the a7rii? Say if I have a tight fitting cage that fits one camera would that fit the other as well?
 
maarek said:
No. Way. I just shot a shortfilm with the 5d raw and some b-camera stuff with the a7s and rx10 ii. The 5d raw blows the other cams out of the water. We even shot in very low light (5d raw was at max 6400 iso, the sony had to be ramped up to 25600 while shooting some of the same scenes - different lenses though so not completely fair). And even in low light the raw material was just easier to grade and the processing free image the raw gives you is just... it's high-end guys. Really high-end. It approaches red / alexa levels in everything except dynamic range (which is still good). No macroblocking, no compression artifacts, no smearing from noise reductionm, no higlight aliasing...just beautiful, absolutely beautiful material. You can also knock off a couple of ms from the rolling shutter using magic lantern on the 5d.

I also disagree with the "slow workflow" stuff. Davinci Resolve goes through dng files like a hot knife through butter. But I'm a post guy anyway, that's what I do.

I do have the a7s II pre-ordered and will be selling of the original a7s.
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ive been shooting bmcc 2.5k raw with the a7s and a7s doesnt hold a candle to the raw or even prores.
however, saying a7s has bad colors is inaccurate. is it far from Raw? absolutely but its nowhere near **** quality :)
 
alohype said:
Overheats or not? That is my biggedt question :( Would love to soneone test it with ibis on and off.
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I mentioned in a previous post that i recorded for the full 29 mins with IBIS and normal temp and the manual actually states that you should be able to do that up to 30 deg C and higher than that the time may decrease. This is just a physics thing but it appears better than the A7rII at the moment.

Of course if you're doing long form then a FS5 would be ideal?

cheers
Paul
 
squig said:
Good news about the button, that A7s record button really sux.

Easiest way to trigger the highlight aliasing is with something strongly backlit. I noticed some in the APS-C camera store footage of the traffic light. Looks like Sony haven't made any changes under the hood with the APS-C pixel binning process, which is a shame because it's the only mode with lowish rolling shutter.
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I will try something this evening. There's a difference between strong backlight and very saturated colours. The colour issue is true of most sensors but lets see...

cheers
Paul
 
Very interesting!

* RS: I expected it would be identical to the a7S, and that's where it seems to be. Not a big deal for me (it wasn't on the a7S, and would be even less now with IBIS taking care of the microjitters).

* Overheating: I expected it to be just as bad as the a7R II and it seems it's A LOT better, so, good news!

* IBIS: it seems to be working great!

* Sharpness: I haven't seen a proper test yet. I would expect it to be A LOT better than 1080p. Just like when the a7S 4K is recorded externally.

* DR: compared to a7S slog2 ISO 3200, a7S II slog3 ISO 1600 should have 1.33 stops more range in the highlights, and cleaner shadows worth maybe the other 0.66 stops.

* Highlight aliasing: check this thread for examples with the a7S.


5D3 RAW: It's sharper than the a7S or not depending on how you process the footage on each of them, and what you look at. If you're looking at textures -which is what I try to do lately-, you can't beat uncompressed RAW. And the colors of the 5D3+RAW are absolutely perfect. Then again, the a7S II should be even sharper thanks to 4K, and should have very nice colors as well thanks to sgamut3.cine. And it should have one-to-three stops better DR than the 5D3+RAW*, so there's that...

* One stop if you don't mind desaturated highlights in the 5D3+RAW (or if you use better software than I did: no idea if Resolve has that issue or not, I tested on AE) and don't see an improvement in the shadows on the a7S II, three stops if you think those desaturated 5D3+RAW hightlights are not "usable" and see an improvement in the shadows in the a7S II wrt a7S.
 
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