Liam Hall
Veteran
I’m surprised anyone cares.
FS7: Sony FX9 v Canon C500 mkII
- Thread starter Liam Hall
- Start date
I’m surprised anyone cares.
cyvideo
Veteran
Okay I'll have a go. #1 is the LF or the Venice. How ever it lands I just like the look of #1. From its color and dynamic range to noise profile etc, etc. Whatever camera it is it's my pick of the bunch. Either way it is outside my budget dept. Her indoors would kill me if I wanted spend those sorts of $$$s unless I got another commissioned TV series to do.
Chris Young
Chris Young
Though there are a few issues --
- Remember that if using a pola to minimize reflections on the top of the head (thus typically setting it to reduce reflections from horizontal surfaces) you will be at the same time maximizing reflections coming off verticals -- such as the vertical sides/edges of the face -- so you need to be aware and make sure any edge separation lights don't go overboard.
- When shooting inside many newer offices with glare reduction film on the windows, a pola filter may pick up an uneven light pattern through the window, which may be even more distracting than the top of the head.
- The way the pola works is of course angle-related. So if your subject does a lot of head tilting and movement your results may vary during the shot.
- And of course remember that you are losing some exposure as a result of the pola filter
So although I always have a pola for each lens in the camera case, I also make sure that I have a small 'travel' flag/net/silk kit as well as some blackwrap...
cpreston
Veteran
A little off track, but shine is one of those things that is far easier to fix on set than in post. For what it's worth, a polarizer only really helps with shine from a single direction and it doesn't work well at all with broad sources. It can help with an unintended forehead hit from an overhead light, but otherwise it will just slightly mute your contrast. I used to always carry powder, but I found that some speakers would get a bit uncomfortable if it wasn't applied by an MUA and it could make a mess. Now I rely on oil blotting paper that is easy to carry and I can just tell the speaker to dab the general spot that is shining.
NorBro
Major Contributor
Haha, most people don't.
A nonsensical evaluation of cameras when considering real world production challenges and post manipulation, IMO.
I understand the intended purpose and it's a greatly appreciated effort, but one shot slightly out of focus or a subtle color tint - a variety of parameters, really - could sway brains, focus groups.
They all look good. You can test #4 - which most people seem not to like although it's indeterminable if the general consensus is before or after reading others' comments - again a few months apart in different settings with different people and lighting and lenses, and I doubt the findings (guesses) would stay consistent all across the board.
cpreston
Veteran
This whole thing reminded me of the Zacuto camera shootouts. It seemed like a big deal back when they were comparing film to digital.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzIlPDKJl_A
I remember that a key take away was that you could do pretty well with an iphone if you just lit it properly. This was ten years ago and all of the results were shown in 720p. Now it just feels like we are over the hump where an average person could tell the difference between cameras even if they knew what to look for. We are already reaching the point where cameras are primarily limited by the laws of physics and information storage in regards to DR, resolution, and frame rate and you can pick up an Alexa for under $10,000.
G
Guest
Guest
Yeah, almost more impressive than the over under, was how it handled all the lighting scenes and still came through looking good. On the exterior day shot, all of them looked pretty nice. Wasn’t an extreme lighting situation. Only #4 had a weird look to the LED street light spilling on the ground. Was a little unnatural looking, but also gave it a stylized feel.
I haven’t really use any of these FF or LF cameras, so i am having fun going off what i feel are characteristics of the brand and my brief experiences picking up the cameras.
The only one i have seen in action on set, is the LF. That camera kept surprising me. When the sun was low and bright, the camera just held onto every detail with some lovely composure. Really like the default picture style on the Arri, they wrangled it in nicely. And the extra resolution does add to it. We don’t need resolution to tell a story, but it does look gorgeous.
I definitely don’t know anything about the Alister Chapman Lut on an Fx9. My first guess was 6 was a lut and the 5 was scinetone, but i read on Chapman’s site that they said scinetone was more crushed than their lut, and idk, for the most part 6 seemed to have darker shadows, and 5 had some weird anomalies when pushed, so, i doubled back. I did still like #5 though. If a mirrorless camera looked like that, i’d probably pick one up. If the sigma fp is any of them other than #4, i’ll probably run out and buy one.
G
Guest
Guest
Thanks for sharing. Yeah, i worked for a company that kept powder in their kit, i didn’t go near it. I generally just change the lighting or polarize. The blotting paper is a good one though. Nice middle ground technique, simple, effective. Smart!
G
Guest
Guest
Sure. This comparison is a social study. The OP has a poll asking what colours people like. It is less about the cameras and more about the psychology. It is a nice twist on the camera comparison.
Because i don’t really see this as a way of measuring the true value of each camera, i am having fun with it. Surprised people are taking it so seriously.
G
Guest
Guest
You got it right.
The OP updated the list with camera names to the numbers:
1. Arri Alexa Mini LF
2. Canon Eos C500mII
3. Red Monstro
4. Sigma FP
5. Sony FX9 (S-Cinetone)
6. Sony FX9 (S-Log3)
7. Sony Venice
8. Red Gemini
9. Red Helium
Link to post on reduser:
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showth...hootout-2020&p=1889028&viewfull=1#post1889028
G
Guest
Guest
looks like several people on reduser, as well a couple here, got it pretty right
Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaaa, seriously what we need is camera native rushes to see how we can manage editing and grading. I recently tried native c500mkII 6k raw file on resolve and premiere pro cc2020 to see how my computer can manage them. For the moment CC2020 can't playback properly while resolve can. My computer manage very well sony fs7 Xavc-i 4K 50P on both.
Adobe has really bad coding tho. Resolve plays H265 natively while Premiere Pro stutters like its talking to Cameron Diaz in her prime.
Currently having a blast doing stock coloring in Resolve Studio. Upgraded to Ryzen 3900x and RTX 2070 Super a couple of months ago, almost no performance gain in Premiere. While Resolve is just cruising at high altitude taking everything i throw at it, like sharpening, tracking, stabilizing, coloring, masking. Doesnt slow down at all.
Also got 2x NVME SSDs so speed really cant be an issue even with big raw files. Would be nice to try tho!
Grug
Veteran
The highlights don't go prettily on her either, that's for sure.
Super interesting results though. Venice was the standout to my eye - I know it's a great camera, but I wasn't expecting that.
Kinda shocked by how well the LF handled the 6-stops underexposure test too. With the lower resolution I was expecting it to block up more than the higher res cameras, I guess those fatter photosites are just better under pressure than the rest, and it's hard to see any real advantage of the 6k and 8k cameras over the measly 4.5k of the LF.
The Venice does a noticeably better job of keeping the colours pure under pressure though (under and overexposure), which is more useful to me overall.
I'm starting to suspect that whilst the dynamic range of the C500ii is really wide, it doesn't quite have the latitude of the other cameras, you can't push and pull it around as much. I'm guessing the key is set your ISO (in intervals of 800, where it re-clocks itself at each stop) and make sure that you have you details within a suitable IRE% range for the final image.
cyvideo
Veteran
Seeing as the whole premise of this "shootout" was based around the question:
"Which cameras COLOR do you prefer from the Full Frame Cinema Shootout 2020?"
I would take it then that the colorimetry "look" of the cameras is what voters made their final choices on. Not the ability to recover from over or under exposure. If the above question was indeed the basis of the poll then in the popularity stakes the results when broken down percentage wise are:
#1 Arri 73.36%
#3 Monstro 13.04%
#7 Venice 4.35%
These three cameras the Arri, Monstro and Venice account for 90.75% of the vote.
Cameras in positions #4 to #9 then split the remaining paltry 9.25% of votes between them with an average "color" popularity of 1.45% each according to RedUser's figures. The remaing cameras being as follows:
#2 Canon C500 II 1.45%
#4 Sigma FP 1.45%
#5 Sony FX9 S-Cinetone Rec 709 0%
#6 Sony FX9 S-LOG3 S-709 LUT 1.45%
#8 Red Gemini 1.45%
#9 Red Helium 1.45%
Bye the bye I guess the remaining cameras should total 9.25%. Minor detail they don't... but hey who's counting?
All said and done considering these cameras in their basic forms range in price from under $2K to just on $100K all of us should be pretty amazed that we live in times where we can deliver pretty high quality results with cameras priced to suit almost any budget.
These days no camera person can really blame their tools if working with any of the cameras in this "color" popularity test. Sure the other dynamics of production such as the workflows, ergonomics, functionality, file handling, reliability, support etc are all part of the bigger picture but as time wonders bye the differences in the end results are getting closer day by day. It's interesting that the three most popular cameras in the order of 1 to 3 also represent the most expensive cameras in that same order of 1 to 3. Do I take it this that that you get what you pay for? That really used to be the case but as this camera comparison shows that these days even the much lower priced cameras can deliver some very satisfactory results. Even humble cameras shooting straight to 709 color space with not a RAW pixel in sight.
Chris Young
Grug
Veteran
I think "you get what you pay for" still rings perfectly true.
None of the rest can quite touch the three big cameras at the extremes - and that's really what you're paying for.
I was really interested to see if the C500ii (with it's huge specs and tiny price) would take the fight to the big boys at a 1/3 of the price, but (perhaps unsurprisingly) it doesn't quite get there (though it's about on par with Monstro for highlight handling, which is still very good). Maybe it's not much of a step down, but it's still going to break before they do, and depending on the needs of your project, that could well be an issue.
Either way we're spoilt for choice, both in the mid-range and the high.
None of the rest can quite touch the three big cameras at the extremes - and that's really what you're paying for.
I was really interested to see if the C500ii (with it's huge specs and tiny price) would take the fight to the big boys at a 1/3 of the price, but (perhaps unsurprisingly) it doesn't quite get there (though it's about on par with Monstro for highlight handling, which is still very good). Maybe it's not much of a step down, but it's still going to break before they do, and depending on the needs of your project, that could well be an issue.
Either way we're spoilt for choice, both in the mid-range and the high.
Grug
Veteran
The clue is the name "Full Frame Camera Shootout". The S1H would have been interesting to see as the "crash cam" option.
G
Guest
Guest
@cyvideo,
It is difficult to ignore the tone curve, as that is part of the colour in many ways, and total available dynamic range influences that.
Even then, i preferred the colour on #1LF over #3Monstro and #7Venice. Mainly because i didn’t like how the Venice looked on the woman in the studio. The LF looked kinda of right in every situation.
I’ve seen the LF at iso3200, and i don’t think it can really handle that, without some heavy NR. So, perhaps the Venice, and as the OP mentioned, the Gemini, are exciting new options.
It is difficult to ignore the tone curve, as that is part of the colour in many ways, and total available dynamic range influences that.
Even then, i preferred the colour on #1LF over #3Monstro and #7Venice. Mainly because i didn’t like how the Venice looked on the woman in the studio. The LF looked kinda of right in every situation.
I’ve seen the LF at iso3200, and i don’t think it can really handle that, without some heavy NR. So, perhaps the Venice, and as the OP mentioned, the Gemini, are exciting new options.