Sony Cinema Line & FX6

Grug said:
Here's hoping it's an A7Siii in a video body (with an SDI output on there somewhere)!

The 4k sensor would keep it from treading on the toes of its 6k-sensored big brother. And with all of the 10-bit 4:2:2 codecs of the A7Siii (and the proper 120fps option) ideally alongside the same Prores Raw output via HDMI.... well, that'd be a wonderful little video camera.
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Do you think that highly of the A7SIII or you have just bought a FX9 and don't want the FX6 to be too good ?

I personally have not seen anything from the A7SIII that is impressive, apart from the specs on paper.
 
The best thing about the FS5 is the great hand held operation and that's the usp of the FX6 as well. I'm loving my FS5 for that reason but UHD recording is lacking as is the not so good S-log noise levels.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed Sony put 10-bit UHD inside so it'll run nicely side by side to my FS7.
 
Sttratos said:
Do you think that highly of the A7SIII or you have just bought a FX9 and don't want the FX6 to be too good ?

I personally have not seen anything from the A7SIII that is impressive, apart from the specs on paper.
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I don't own any of them. But spec-wise the A7Siii offers most of what you'd need for most situations, and I think there's been some really nice sample footage from it.

The form-factor makes it unusable for me, however if you could take what it can do and put it in a form-factor that makes it usable for video work. I think that'd be a really appealing camera, in some ways more appealing than the FX9 (in others less so).
 
Grug said:
I don't own any of them. But spec-wise the A7Siii offers most of what you'd need for most situations, and I think there's been some really nice sample footage from it.
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Which sample footage in particular speaks to you? Nice nice or nice for a mirroless? I hear you though. Spec-wise it indeed looks very appealing.
 
Sttratos said:
Which sample footage in particular speaks to you? Nice nice or nice for a mirroless? I hear you though. Spec-wise it indeed looks very appealing.
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I thought Brandon Li's stuff looked really nice:


And Phil Bloom's stuff too (particularly the edge-lit stuff out on the water):



It's all destroyed by youtube compression obviously, so I can't speak to how dense the negative is or how well it would hold up in a grade compared to a "proper" camera. But the colours are really nice, the dynamic range is good, and the detail is what I'd expect to see from a 4k-for-4k sensor.

Put all that in a compact video camera with proper I/O (and proper variable frame rates), and you'd have a really appealing camera for a lot of work.

I'm perhaps mostly excited excited for the dual-native 16,000 ISO mode (which overexposed a stop, should be pretty clean) - because I want to pair that with my Laowa 24mm Probe Lens (which is a T/14 when wide-open). 120fps 4k at T/14 becomes a HELL of a lot easier to light, when you've got 4.3 stops more light (than 800 ISO) to play with!
 
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What have you shot with your Laowa probe lens, Grug? Do you use it often?

Also, isn't it effectively 3.3 stops more light to play with if you're rating the camera at 8,000 ISO? Still nice.
 
ahalpert said:
What have you shot with your Laowa probe lens, Grug? Do you use it often?

Also, isn't it effectively 3.3 stops more light to play with if you're rating the camera at 8,000 ISO? Still nice.
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I'm with grug on this, used it (the probe lens) on a few shoots this month, all food and product shoots. With the A7S III I was sad about it as a hybrid camera with 12mp for the stills side but for motion the 240 fps with autofocus and crazy high dual native had me really interested for tabletop work on a budget.

The lens is a bit soft but for the price you don't really have many alternatives and like slow motion its great if used sparingly. I'm honestly surprised how many projects it's come out on these past two months vs the rest of the time owning it. I've rented it out more than I've used it, but every time I bring it out for a shoot it produces some cool work (sadly still can't share any yet)
 
ahalpert said:
What have you shot with your Laowa probe lens, Grug? Do you use it often?

Also, isn't it effectively 3.3 stops more light to play with if you're rating the camera at 8,000 ISO? Still nice.
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Yep, 3.3 if you overexpose a stop.

I rented the lens for one job, and literally bought one for myself that night. It just opens up so many interesting shots that you couldn't do otherwise (even with a more conventional periscope system). I've used it to fly between chess pieces as a game is played out, to magically pull out from a CU of a baby inside a crib (passing through the slats), I even used it crane up out of a actor's throat as he roars with rage!

I love it.

It does skew super-warm, like 5600k becomes 4500k warm. But that's easy enough to deal with once you know about it.
 
Grug said:
Yep, 3.3 if you overexpose a stop.

I rented the lens for one job, and literally bought one for myself that night. It just opens up so many interesting shots that you couldn't do otherwise (even with a more conventional periscope system). I've used it to fly between chess pieces as a game is played out, to magically pull out from a CU of a baby inside a crib (passing through the slats), I even used it crane up out of a actor's throat as he roars with rage!

I love it.

It does skew super-warm, like 5600k becomes 4500k warm. But that's easy enough to deal with once you know about it.
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Very cool, I've never heard of the this lens but I think I might pick one up. I read it was waterproof up to the USB port so that creates a number of interesting possibilities.

I don't usually buy from Amazon but when I went there to check pricing there was in the lens listing to visit "Visit the Venus Store." I think Amazon has gotten their wires crossed because the link takes to you a menstrual cup product page. I just wanted to see what other lenses they had.

https://www.amazon.com/Venus-Optics-Laowa-Cine-Mod-Version/dp/B07Q1K5PRX?th=1

Venus.jpg
 
Can confirm super warm but easy fix. And yeah I've shoved mine in beer and lake water for shots before, its a fun lens for sure just needs a ton of light.
 
Pretty cool uses of the Laowa probe, you guys. I dont think I would use it often enough to justify dropping $1500 but I'm mentally rewinding my last 10 shoots to consider where I might have put it to work
 
Here's a fun little calculation.

At 16,000 ISO you can shoot @ 120fps and T/14, with the same exposure you'd need for 24fps and T/7.1 @ 800 ISO. That really does make the Laowa Probe a MUCH easier beast to wrangle.

My first shoot with the probe, I had two 6,000w Tungsten Spacelights literally right on top of the table we were shooting, and even then we were still pushed for exposure. That A7Siii sensor (if the 16,000 holds up as well as we're told it does), suddenly makes lighting that no big deal.
 
markfpv said:
Are you talking about "raw" output here? Or is this a limitation of the Ninja V? Because I send 3840×2160 23.98P clean 10-bit HDMI signal from my FS7 to my PIXE5 recorder to record ProRes files all the time. Perhaps it's 4:2:0 ?? I'm not sure Sony ever confirmed or denied this??
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I think the FS5 could only do 4k 8-bit 4:2:0 out HDMI, but I'm not certain. We got an FS5 and it simply wouldn't work with the Ninja V (for regular 4k ProRes), so had to get a Shogun 7 and use SDI. There's an SDI adapter for the Ninja V but that wouldn't work for this case; I don't know why. I didn't do the investigation, so don't know the details.

My point was *IF* there's a similar limitation and if that's carried forward to the FX6, that would increase the cost, size and weight of using an external recorder. My team will probably get at least two FX6s either way, but it would be nice (in certain cases) to interchange Ninja Vs between A7SIII and FX6.

The S1H and A7SIII have really changed the landscape. Previously mirrorless cameras were good for low-light, mobile, gimbal, covert, etc -- but they were generally 8-bit, had dynamic range limitations and couldn't do RAW (with narrow exceptions). Now the S1H and A7SIII can (in theory) more-or-less compete head-to-head with an Ursa, while retaining IBIS, low light, etc.

Re concern over having to build a "Frankenstein" rig for mirrorless to equal a cinema-line camera, with proper planning it only takes 30 sec to snap on a Ninja V & cable using a NATO rail, Tentacle is already velcro'd in place. We have a dedicated sound tech so we don't need XLR on every camera. For outside there is the added complexity of a screw-in variable ND, but the BMPCC cameras also face that. So the total set-up time is about 60 sec. With practice it's really no slower than pulling the DVX200 out and booting it up.

In my team I don't think this will displace "pro" cameras, except at the margins. We'll still use our DVX200, Ursas, FS5 and will get some FX6s, although probably not FX9. Due to E-mount, if anything the A7SIII makes it more likely (not less) we'll stay with Sony and get more Sony cinema-line cameras over time.

The question remains about exactly what the FX6 feature set will be and how it fits into this scenario. In an interview, Panasonic's head of VariCam said he felt the S1H did not hurt VariCam sales, but rather cultivated customers who would stay with Panasonic. It's starting to look like Sony may have made the same decision.
 
If the FX6 is really meant to be the official successor to the FS5 then I'm wondering why nearly no one in this thread cares about the missing EVF. I think the EVF is an essential part of the FS5's design as a grab and shoot camcorder and personally I don't want to miss it. To be honest, I use it on nearly every shoot e.g. when I need another point of contact for stabilisation or the the sun is shining and the LCD is unusable (even with a hood). I know, the FS5's EVF is not very convincing at all because of its low resolution and its general flimsiness. But it's better than nothing. I had high hopes Sony would improve it for their FS5 successor.

What do you think: May it be possible they release an EVF as an optional piece that can be attached to the back of the camera (like the EVF-V50 for the Canon EOS C300 MKIII)?
 
Freeze

I agree an EVF is a super simple solution to mean you can compose in blaring sun*. The more we rely on AF the more a tiny EVF becomes super useful as the computer is looking after critical focus.

So you are correct the missing EVF is a blooper.

However the EVF on the FS5 was so small that to my experimentation it just poked me in the eye (!) and was actually therefore dangerous. The C200 having a far more usable EVF being actually large enough to surround the eye.

Its the same with other small cameras (Z90 and canon 400) - having an EVF is a good idea on paper but the cheap implementation of them makes them actually useless and therefore not worth bothering with.

Its a shame that off the shelf EVFs seem mostly to be the wrong shape and drag wires into the shot. Hopefully that basic design flaw of zacuto, portkeys and the new Zcam will be solved by the lanuch of thsi camera.

*which is a 'requirement' to me - one cannot go on a professional gig if one cannot compose in the sun.
 
Personally I could care less about the EVF if it was anything like the one on the FS5 which I considered useless. I mean I agree it stinks they removed it but I personally didn't find it acceptable quality. I'm honestly curious about the z cam EVF that was just announced as it might pair well with the Fx6. yeah I know it's not built into the body but it also might actually be usable. Hell even the external monitor on the FS5 that I came with I thought was pretty piss-poor.
 
freezeframereality said:
If the FX6 is really meant to be the official successor to the FS5 then I'm wondering why nearly no one in this thread cares about the missing EVF...
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Excellent question. Technically the FX9 doesn't have a built-in EVF, it has a snap-on optical loupe for the LCD. Maybe the FX6 will also have this or maybe it will be an option. If executed properly a loupe on an LCD can be pretty good. I formerly used Zacuto's Z-Finder EVF Pro, and it worked very well: https://www.zacuto.com/zfinderevf

OTOH Sony has the EVF tech -- the A7SIII EVF is probably the best one ever. Why not put that on the FX6? Unknown, but things do change over the years. I loved the Zacuto EVF and the big eye cup. But that was before 3000 nit LCDs like the Shogun 7. I don't know the nit numbers on the FX9/FX6 panel. I guess if you want a really good one there's the Zacuto Gratical Eye, but it's expensive, and it's one more device, but maybe you could leave it rigged: https://www.zacuto.com/gratical-eye-sdi-evf

IMO a key advantage of a "pro" EVF is the big eye cup and articulated mount which provides a 3rd contact point to stabilize the camera on a hand-held shot. It also allows hand-holding a shot at lower-chest position with upper arms hanging vertically, which is less strenuous. Even the A7SIII super-EVF if mounted camcorder-style at the rear wouldn't allow that.
 
Thanks guys for your valuable feedback on the missing viewfinder. Well, I guess it's a dealbreaker for me. Which is no problem because my FS5 still works fine, but it would be nice to see an e-mount-based upgrade path in one or two years.

Attaching one of those big solutions like the Zacuto Gratical undermines the whole concept of this small camera, I think, at least for the way I shoot. This camera is not made to sit on your shoulder like the FS7/FX9, it's made to be held with your hands in front of you. And I don't like all the hassle with cables, different batteries, lag etc. that comes with an external EVF.

I really hope they are going to implement a smart and modular solution like Canon did it with the EVF-V50 (look here: https://i1.adis.ws/i/canon/oled_electronic_viewfinder_evf-v50_313898831331809). This thing is tiny, does not need any cables or batteries and fits perfectly to the ergonimic design of the camera. And I'm absolutely sure that qualitywise it's lightyears ahead the FS5's EVF.

For the first generation FX6 it's obviously too late, but some day there will be a mark ii.
 
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