Sony F55 footage-Mahout

dustylense

dustylense

Veteran
Just so it's easy without posting in the Sony event thread, here is the F55 elephant story, Mahout.
I think it looks fantastic!
 
I know that I am going to get killed for it here. But the Sony cadence video look is still there. When the image is a bit static it is very very good. But once you have a lot motion, something is not right. As if there is smearing or more motion blur, looks very video then.
 
Yes I noticed something with motion but don't know whether to attribute that to the Vimeo compression, shutter angle, or something with the electronic global shutter itself. I would only venture a judgment based upon more knowledge of how it was shot as well as seeing it in 4K

Ned
 
Danielvilliers said:
I know that I am going to get killed for it here. But the Sony cadence video look is still there. When the image is a bit static it is very very good. But once you have a lot motion, something is not right. As if there is smearing or more motion blur, looks very video then.
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nsoltz said:
Yes I noticed something with motion but don't know whether to attribute that to the Vimeo compression, shutter angle, or something with the electronic global shutter itself. I would only venture a judgment based upon more knowledge of how it was shot as well as seeing it in 4K
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It's as simple as somebody left the shutter at 360 either on purpose, or accidentally. It's not throughout the entire Mahout piece, either. Just parts.

None of the other footage had it at the event.
 
Danielvilliers said:
I know that I am going to get killed for it here. But the Sony cadence video look is still there. When the image is a bit static it is very very good. But once you have a lot motion, something is not right. As if there is smearing or more motion blur, looks very video then.
Click to expand...

Some other people mentioned that in the vimeo comments. I feel like I can see what they are talking about but it seems to me like it is just a combination of changing shutter speeds, occasionally going to what looks like an open (360deg) shutter or nearly open shutter, and use of wider angle lenses and closer perspectives than I would normally want to see in a narrative. There is one fairly conventional narrative camera style going on but then in every scene there seems to be a handheld wide angle shot or two with the lens relatively close to foreground objects, making it feel a lot more perspective-ey than we normally see in narrative fiction, and it looks more like ENG. Both of those thrown in there makes the short "feel like video" every once in a while. That, along with a fairly saturated and contrasty look make it easier to see it as video. That's my take.

I also notice whatever fluid head they are using seems a bit jerky, the transition into movement is not very clean... Might be the operator or just bad equipment.
 
Danielvilliers said:
I know that I am going to get killed for it here. But the Sony cadence video look is still there. When the image is a bit static it is very very good. But once you have a lot motion, something is not right. As if there is smearing or more motion blur, looks very video then.
Click to expand...

For once it wasn't me first! xD

This is always the look Sony has, to my eyes. =[ The DR is pretty nice, the clarity, but the color and motion I'd like to get some time with first hand to make sure.
 
It certainly wasn't all of the film, just some shots that had the strange motion cadence - let's hope it's just shutter angle choice for those shots. When the F65 was released, I couldn't get over just how 'video-ish' the promotional footage looked - yet it doesn't seem to be an issue in any of the other F65 footage I've seen since then.

Those 'lightening' shots sure showed off the global shutter!

What really impressed me was the F3's launch, Jason Wingrove's short film about the Sydney sea-baths looked wonderfully cinematic - and that was before SLOG even existed - but the fact of the matter is, we're not going to get that 'wow' factor anymore.

I think we have to keep in mind these days, that we've already reached a point of diminishing returns with the image quality of these cameras. A rusty old SLOGged F3 spits out an image that gives you a good 80% of the Alexa's mojo - so we're talking beautiful images here, and we've had them for the past 2 years now. Which means that nothing from this point on is really going to make us go 'WOW' image quality-wise, because we're already used to seeing images that look REALLY nice. It's down to what we put in front of the cameras from this point on.

Which (coincidentally) is what makes the F55 so exciting as a camera IMO - because with it's global shutter, recording options, high fps, and wide dynamic range; it's going to be making great images for a long, long time to come - it's future proof in a way that we haven't truly seen before (in a relatively affordable camera), which means the need to upgrade from it in 2 years time when the next big thing comes out - is going to be far less prevalent than it's been with cameras up to this point.

Finally a camera you can actually get some mileage out of!

It's a bloody exciting time to be making motion pictures for a living.
 
Grug said:
I think we have to keep in mind these days, that we've already reached a point of diminishing returns with the image quality of these cameras. A rusty old SLOGged F3 spits out an image that gives you a good 80% of the Alexa's mojo - so we're talking beautiful images here, and we've had them for the past 2 years now. Which means that nothing from this point on is really going to make us go 'WOW' image quality-wise, because we're already used to seeing images that look REALLY nice. It's down to what we put in front of the cameras from this point on.
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And how they're used, and how they're taken care of in post. I agree wholeheartedly.

My personal opinion is that the F5/55 has the sensor/latitude/raw chops, it's just going to take a little effort to get the most out of it. That means care in application of LUTs to SLog2 material in post, and learning how to work the raw decoding tools. You're not going to get the most out of it if either you don't have sharp people working in your post, or if you're doing it, you're afraid or unwilling to dig into software and get your hands dirty.

On a unrelated note, my Vimeo app on my iPad is showing Martin Scanlan's "Dig" in a F55 search, undoubtedly as a mistake. I suspect he has it set to private until Sony UK gives him the go ahead. Shows it was uploaded 5 days ago, but won't let me play it. Given the quality of "Convergence" 2 years ago at the F3 launch, I expect we'll have some apprehensions alleviated as to shutter issues, etc etc. Steve Lawes is A-list all the way.

[edit: Sam Nicholson/Dana Christianson are class acts too, but I think they had crazier conditions and I could see some things slipping through the cracks under bad conditions and local ACs]
 
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Grug said:
I think we have to keep in mind these days, that we've already reached a point of diminishing returns with the image quality of these cameras. A rusty old SLOGged F3 spits out an image that gives you a good 80% of the Alexa's mojo - so we're talking beautiful images here, and we've had them for the past 2 years now. Which means that nothing from this point on is really going to make us go 'WOW' image quality-wise, because we're already used to seeing images that look REALLY nice. It's down to what we put in front of the cameras from this point on.
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I agree with this, this isn't like going from SD to HD, or 1/3" to super35mm.

Yeah fine it looks great. Nice, sharp, excellent contrast range... now move along folks, nothing to see here.

:-Laugh(DBG)-1
 
I just pinged Martin Scanlan by email, he's trying to get "Dig" on Vimeo working while traveling.

Sounds like we'll all be able to see it soon.
 
I think that here we have mishmash from different compressions and even mix from both F5 and F55. You can clearly see this when some shots look more plastic and some are really muddy.
What Sony can do ( I strongly recommend ) is to make breakdown of all the shots in the movie to explain codecs/cameras used.
 
What are we supposed to judge from vimeo? The real benefit of the cameras are about what are they like to work with, what's the footage like to grade. Nice short film, but if you're going to get picky it's not very cinematic and shot to shot grading was all over the shop. Some stunning shots of the train leaving, cutting to what looks like a different time of day with bright green foliage - i wonder if this is subconsciously affecting the idea it's not 'cinematic'.

I know i could shoot most of that with the FS700 and on vimeo it would look identical, but that's not the point. The point is the 55 should be more forgiving and when viewed properly should be considerably better. I'd love to see full res uncompressed frames of key scenes and/or RAW frames. That would tell me a lot more about the camera and how it would be to work with.

Kholl, not you first with the motion either :)

Is that just the shutter being open, or more than that do you think? I never got to the bottom of quantifying what you see. Afterall this is a global shutter now so it ought to change the cadence totally?

cheers
paul
 
If you were there you may have heard the DP talking about how some shots, which I think are all the ones people are talking about, were played with quite a bit and had shutter timing adjustments. Probably not a good idea for a demo film. He stated that some of those shots were blown up tremendously to frame-out all the people they had interfering with the shots. Funny how no one noticed a resolution difference, just the crappy smear that comes from open shutter.

There is certainly no more weird motion than any other digital cine cam when using typical settings. Sony should let other guys (hint hint) do some alternative short films that will really show what they can do. If you want to show off your new shutter, I can arrange plenty of gun fire, action and no playing with shutter angles.
 
Ok to the DP's of now.. Please stop messing around with the shutter angle/speed... You're all driving me nuts, it doesn't help the story! Specially when cutting from one angle to another. Just because its easier to adjust the angle now (as opposed to film where you had to actually change the mirror size) doesn't mean you should now just keep changing it.

Also, whats surprising me is no one is talking lenses now... What lenses were used??

And I do NOT like the lens choices on this at all in terms of focal length. I feel its in documentary style, not narrative. Just some odd stuff that I didn't like. This is mostly due to DP choice, not the camera. I'd like to see more work from other more classical style of shooting.
 
FilmDude said:
And I do NOT like the lens choices on this at all in terms of focal length. I feel its in documentary style, not narrative.
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That's the main issue here. The camera is great, the lens choice was not. Totally felt like I was watching National Geographic, which is what gives it that video feel. Not good seeing as Sony is so subject to this criticism.
 
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