Hi all,
Last week I've attended an Alister Chapman workshop where he present his view on the Sony FS5 and FS7 cameras.
I've questioned him on the 4K XAVC-L 8bit 4:2:0 FS5 gradeability, since I find it to be the camera's true Achilles heel and the only thing that keeps me from buying one for my next documentary project.
He told me that I'll be hard pushed to see real world differences between grading that 8bit files when comparing them to 10bit ones from the FS7 (a camera that I know relatively well).
He stands for that assumption since he says that the XAVC codec, no matter I or L, is deciphered on a frame basis, contrary to other H.264 codecs that assume a single reading from the first frame and applies that reading to all other frames within the same shot.
This is all very cleaver and beautiful on paper, but I wonder if it really works in the real world. I find it difficult for a 8bit 4:2:0 file to compare to a 10bit 4:2:2 one. There's a thing called physics and no way to go around it's basic principles.
But then again, Alister told me that there's no true 4:2:2 in any of these cameras, since the Bayer pattern on their sensors are not arranged in a true 4:2:2 configuration but in a 4:1:1 one.
I'm curious to hear what do you FS5 and FS7 owners have to say about all this.
Last week I've attended an Alister Chapman workshop where he present his view on the Sony FS5 and FS7 cameras.
I've questioned him on the 4K XAVC-L 8bit 4:2:0 FS5 gradeability, since I find it to be the camera's true Achilles heel and the only thing that keeps me from buying one for my next documentary project.
He told me that I'll be hard pushed to see real world differences between grading that 8bit files when comparing them to 10bit ones from the FS7 (a camera that I know relatively well).
He stands for that assumption since he says that the XAVC codec, no matter I or L, is deciphered on a frame basis, contrary to other H.264 codecs that assume a single reading from the first frame and applies that reading to all other frames within the same shot.
This is all very cleaver and beautiful on paper, but I wonder if it really works in the real world. I find it difficult for a 8bit 4:2:0 file to compare to a 10bit 4:2:2 one. There's a thing called physics and no way to go around it's basic principles.
But then again, Alister told me that there's no true 4:2:2 in any of these cameras, since the Bayer pattern on their sensors are not arranged in a true 4:2:2 configuration but in a 4:1:1 one.
I'm curious to hear what do you FS5 and FS7 owners have to say about all this.
