ahalpert
Major Contributor
Thanks so much, James. Like the other shots, that one is straight out of camera with no adjustments.
Sony A7SIII = $3500, 10-bit 4K120p internal, 16-bit 4K60p RAW out
- Thread starter ahalpert
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Thanks so much, James. Like the other shots, that one is straight out of camera with no adjustments.
rob norton
Veteran
Great work Abe, those weddings are lucky to have you.
Peter C.
Veteran
Abe I like your gimbal work, especially the photo session. The focusing is impressive from the bride down the aisle and the reception how the camera seamlessly switches from the guests back to the bride. Looks like your using a zoom lens on the Ronin S + atomos? My arms and wrists are tired from watching.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
Thanks Rob! For the rate this client paid me, you're probably right haha....
ahalpert
Major Contributor
Thank you, Peter. I'm a bit addicted to the gimbal. I use a tripod a lot on these as well, and a bit of slider. But I haven't gotten over the liberating feeling of being able to move smoothly whenever I want.
Yes, the focusing - I can manually focus a shot like the bride coming down the aisle. But usually I buzz focus somewhere. I get a little ahead and have to come back. The camera had her flawlessly locked the whole way.
And yes - the reception hugs - I was looking at the person in the background and the camera refocused to the foreground hug before I realized it was happening. I'm pretty good at refocusing on things like that, but not instantaneous and often I overshoot the mark a bit and have to settle back. Or I intentionally pulse the focus to double check that I'm sharp. I do that a lot. The camera just grabbed them. And after I zoomed in in the next shot, the camera had focus before my frame was even set. So, I think there are huge payoffs for doc/event shooting.
Yes to zoom - sigma 24-70 fe. Ronin-S but no atomos, but instead a 7" ikan monitor. So similar weight but internal recording.
My wrist I have to be careful with on the gimbal. If I bend it a lot, I can really strain it. If I keep it locked, I'm ok. The autofocus made it easier on my arms because I could mostly support the rig with 2 hands whereas normally I always have 1 hand on the focus wheel. But my wife appreciates the arm workouts
ahalpert
Major Contributor
Some further testing with the a7siii:
AF and face/eye AF work in 60/120fps both as the time base and in s&q mode. I think somebody said that they don't, but they do. And audio recording works in 120p but not 120fps s&q mode.
Disappointingly, you cant record proxies while shooting 120fps, which I thought would be really useful. But you can record them in every other framerate and they record to the same card as the primary footage.
FCPX now plays nice with externally created proxies. You just select your footage and go Relink -> Proxy footage.
The proxies come out of the camera with the same filename but "s03" added to the end. FCPX only recognizes them with the exact same name, so you have to batch rename the files but it's instantaneous and then FCPX instantly connects them.
So I can record 60p H265 long-gop 200Mbps footage that couldn't play smoothly on my computer to save my life but have a dinky proxy in 720p H264 straight from camera that plays smoothly even with a heavy grade applied. Pretty cool!
I'm experimenting using s-log2 to SOOC by using the Movie color matrix instead of s-gamut and crushing the blacks a bit in camera. So far it looks really promising! I think it may become my default SOOC profile pending further tests. and maybe use Cine2 gamma for lower contrast scenes and the regular Standard profile for very low contrast scenes.
Low light autofocus seems to work way better in s-log2 and s-log3. Like shockingly better, night and day difference with the tweaked standard profile I had been using in terms of speed, accuracy, constancy.
ISO 12800 in s-log is insanely clean. Of course, the stop or 2 below it in the ISO range gets pretty noisy (in log. you don't really notice the noisier stops as much in the other profiles, which have different base ISOs of course).
And s-log3 has an absurd amount of dynamic range.
I seriously gain more respect for this camera every time I use it...
AF and face/eye AF work in 60/120fps both as the time base and in s&q mode. I think somebody said that they don't, but they do. And audio recording works in 120p but not 120fps s&q mode.
Disappointingly, you cant record proxies while shooting 120fps, which I thought would be really useful. But you can record them in every other framerate and they record to the same card as the primary footage.
FCPX now plays nice with externally created proxies. You just select your footage and go Relink -> Proxy footage.
The proxies come out of the camera with the same filename but "s03" added to the end. FCPX only recognizes them with the exact same name, so you have to batch rename the files but it's instantaneous and then FCPX instantly connects them.
So I can record 60p H265 long-gop 200Mbps footage that couldn't play smoothly on my computer to save my life but have a dinky proxy in 720p H264 straight from camera that plays smoothly even with a heavy grade applied. Pretty cool!
I'm experimenting using s-log2 to SOOC by using the Movie color matrix instead of s-gamut and crushing the blacks a bit in camera. So far it looks really promising! I think it may become my default SOOC profile pending further tests. and maybe use Cine2 gamma for lower contrast scenes and the regular Standard profile for very low contrast scenes.
Low light autofocus seems to work way better in s-log2 and s-log3. Like shockingly better, night and day difference with the tweaked standard profile I had been using in terms of speed, accuracy, constancy.
ISO 12800 in s-log is insanely clean. Of course, the stop or 2 below it in the ISO range gets pretty noisy (in log. you don't really notice the noisier stops as much in the other profiles, which have different base ISOs of course).
And s-log3 has an absurd amount of dynamic range.
I seriously gain more respect for this camera every time I use it...
puredrifting
Major Contributor
I just sent mine back to Sony. I liked it, the images are great and the specs are good. But I still have some complaints...
1. Menus are still a convoluted mess but more intuitive than the FX9 menus, Sony gets a few points for at least trying to de-lame their menu system but it's still a long way from intuitive. Even the Fuji menus are convoluted but somehow easier and faster for me?
2. With the 24-70mm f/2.8 G lens, the thing might as well be a DSLR, it's relatively large and heavy for a mirrorless rig. I realize it's an f/2.8 lens
but this rig would be a beast on a one handed gimbal as far as weight and size. Reminds me of the 5D MKIII with the EF 24-105mm f/4.0 IS II, it's a chunk.
3 I still stand by there is something very computer like about working with the camera. It's not bad but it's not as friendly and tactile as the X-T3 or R5
in the way the camera feels and responds as you shoot with it.
4. Pictures looked clean and pretty, not bad for a Sony at all for SOOC if you mess with the settings.
5. Full sized HDMI output. Thank you Sony!
Overall, a nice camera but it wouldn't be my first choice for a mirrorless personally but I don't think it handicaps you in any way, it's an A-list camera for sure.
We are at the point of all of the cameras on the market are pretty good, it's down to just buying feature sets and ergonimics really.
scorsesefan
Veteran
How did you find the color/DR, Dan? Does it have any of the FX9's S-Cinetone-like magic?
ahalpert
Major Contributor
Well, you can get great lenses from Tamron if you want lightweight zooms. And f/1.8 primes from Samyang. All of which have great AF.
The last rig I had on my Ronin-S before switching to the A7SIII was the GH5 + viltrox ef-m2 + laowa 12mm. My A7SIII with sigma 24-70 fe (which is a beefy lens) weighs only .2 lbs more than the GH5 set-up (thanks to the A7SIII being so light). I shot a wedding with a serious amount of time on that rig with no problems.
But yeah, if you're barehanding the combo it's definitely front-heavy. But I dont do that a lot.
I actually really like the menus. There are a couple things here and there i have to think about where I'll find them, but most of the functions are supremely easy for me to find thanks to the 3-layer organization.
Definitely something computer-like. I'm also not crazy about the build quality of the battery and card doors. I like the design and the way they work. But somehow they feel like I'll break them.
I really feel like the A7SIII combines all the features and performance enhancements of all the mirrorless cameras, except for higher-than-4K recording or a 4K APS-C crop. I'm happy with the color. The framerates, codecs, bit-depth, raw out, sensitivity, AF, DR...it's all there. IBIS is a little weak but whatever.
It's such a badass little gimbal cam. My favorite body handling? No, but not by a huge margin.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
Here are some more SOOC shots from my wedding yesterday, all uncorrected and all shot with the "Movie" color matrix. I have 4 profiles set up to SOOC at different scene contrast levels. Most of the day I was on modified s-log2 and the only profile I didn't use was the most contrasty.
modified cine2:
modified s-log2, which I shot on most of the day - this shot was with my new samyang 85 1.4:
modified s-log3. the bride here was radically darker than the highlights outside:
here's a few selects all shot modified s-log2 on gimbal with the samyang 85 at 1.4:
PS my shutter speed was super high in this video because I didn't have the ND that fit the 85 with me
modified cine2:
modified s-log2, which I shot on most of the day - this shot was with my new samyang 85 1.4:
modified s-log3. the bride here was radically darker than the highlights outside:
here's a few selects all shot modified s-log2 on gimbal with the samyang 85 at 1.4:
PS my shutter speed was super high in this video because I didn't have the ND that fit the 85 with me
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G
Guest
Guest
These are looking really good. How are you liking the colour science for your work? Is the camera just getting out of your way, or are you finding a nice sort of synergy?
ahalpert
Major Contributor
I really like the "Movie" color matrix, whatever is going on there. I don't really like basically any of the other color settings available, which look a mix of ugly and/or inaccurate. I'm sure they could all be worked with. I don't feel like I have to work with "Movie". I mean, you could take it wherever you want to go. But it's a very accurate yet pleasing starting place.
I like the colors a lot - they're rich and punchy (granted that I added a bit of saturation in-camera). I don't think it necessarily changes how I shoot. There's less of the Canon skin-warmth added which is, in a way, too bad. But might be a good thing for all the things you shoot that aren't skin. So, I suppose I need to be extra careful to get a good color cast on skin. But I haven't shot anything with it that looks horrid to me yet or feels like it needs to be worked with. Yay. The SOOC shots I posted are a bit low-contrast for their scenes (which is natural if you want to capture the whole range of brightnesses), but they grade so easily with just slight exposure adjustments.
And I'm really digging the approach of using the "Movie" color matrix with the s-log3 gamma because you can grade from scratch very easily. You get the benefit of all that DR and yet the colors are quite accurate to begin with. I suppose that if I encounter some extreme or unusual colors, they'll be represented inaccurately by being remapped within my narrower gamut, right? Not something I'm worried about at the moment.
I did some quick tests shooting s-log3 and s-gamut3.cine and I wasn't crazy about the results using the LUTs I had on hand. Maybe I need to do more tests or need to find better LUTs designed specifically for this camera. So, that's still a question mark for me about how much I'll like it, although I did some tests with example footage online before getting the camera and they looked alright.
Nothing beats "Movie" color!
And yeah, in general I feel towards this camera much like I did towards my S1. i don't have to baby it and it does its job. Good battery life, reliable unit, easy-to-navigate menus, lots of recording options, tons of dynamic range and great in the dark. Add in this amazing autofocus and no-crop 4K60p and yeah it's just a super easy-to-use camera, and low weight to boot. For how I want to use it, I am feeling mightily satisfied. The C70 would be less suited to this task and whatever better cameras come out from Sony or Canon in the near future will probably not be enough of an improvement to tempt me because this is pretty much good enough. I just wish I had 2, but I'm going to hold off on that for now.
G
Guest
Guest
This shot came out really nice. the gimbal move had a nice feel.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
thanks, James. It's not a Hollywood movie but I can try to pretend.
definitely some interesting things can happen on gimbal with a telephoto, although it's much harder to aim the thing
Bassman2003
Veteran
Thanks for sharing Abe!
ahalpert
Major Contributor
Awesome Film Abe! Putt breaks sharply to the left!
Yeah the chuppah was just past the 18th hole and there were definitely some balls headed towards me as I was setting up...oy. originally, they were going to get married at a fancy club in downtown Manhattan (cipriani). Gotta roll with the punches...
groveChuck
U-matic Member
Really nice grabs and selects, Abe! Love the colors and skin tones SOOC, and look forward to your grade!
ahalpert
Major Contributor
Thanks, Chuck. I'm not actually editing this video, I was just doing a post-mortem to see how the exposures and color looked while my settings were fresh in my deteriorating memory. But I'll post a link once the company finishes the videos.
Of course, they may not grade it much at all, which is why I need to deliver decent SOOC. We'll see what they cook up...