FS5: Sony make official statement on ‘perceived’ FS5 image quality issues

Do we no longer know how to soften lights and take the edge off them, even in a documentary setting? Isn't this sort of thing the absolute basics of our craft after learning where the record button is?

What on earth is this idea that you can't set up lights to give you a decent exposure and the shot a bit of depth and still not travel lightly and set up super quickly and not distract the subject? I did jobs on the FS7 in 2015 travelling the country with just me, one camera bag with a couple of lights in it and a tripod bag. Often times I'd just stick up a single Icelight (or Chinese ripoff of) for nice soft wraparound and leave it as is. Took all of 20secs to do. Prior to owning those I'd have a couple of F&V RV300s in my camera back and chuck them up.

Even a pop up reflector can give you back a stop or so.
 
OK, I know I'm going to sound like the old codger that I'm becoming, but these kids today are spoiled by being able to shoot with no light. When I started college production classes, in 1976, it took about 3K of light to even think about shooting inside with a tube camera tethered to a Umatic 3/4" deck.

The very first thing I ever shot was a documentary in high school on a Super 8 film carmera. It was impossible to shoot inside without extra light, so it camera with a plug in camera top light about as bright as a car headlight. As you can see here, it was still not nearly bright enough (although it looked brighter on the projector screen than it looks on Youtube)


I still maintain it often takes more than ambient light to create a really pleasing image.
 
Last edited:
Ben Scott said:
Do we no longer know how to soften lights and take the edge off them, even in a documentary setting? Isn't this sort of thing the absolute basics of our craft after learning where the record button is?

What on earth is this idea that you can't set up lights to give you a decent exposure and the shot a bit of depth and still not travel lightly and set up super quickly and not distract the subject? I did jobs on the FS7 in 2015 travelling the country with just me, one camera bag with a couple of lights in it and a tripod bag. Often times I'd just stick up a single Icelight (or Chinese ripoff of) for nice soft wraparound and leave it as is. Took all of 20secs to do. Prior to owning those I'd have a couple of F&V RV300s in my camera back and chuck them up.

Even a pop up reflector can give you back a stop or so.
Click to expand...

While I agree that there's often an easy way to do a quick setup with simple lights to make a scene look better (in documentary shooting), sometimes that is not the case at all. I just finished shooting a documentary over the course of 2 years on the AF100 (talk about highlight issues!), and there were very few times using any lights or modifiers would have worked in any way. However, that's ok in my book. If you're shooting in a situation that makes it too difficult or disruptive to set up anything, then that likely means the scene is already quite harsh/isolated/interesting/amazing, so the audience will both likely forgive any lapses in perfect lighting and exposure, and hopefully be too focused on the unique content to care. Of course it's always worth trying to improve a scene with some simple lights, but if it doesn't work, then I wouldn't worry about it.
 
Fair point. Also I am insanely jealous. Aircraft Carrier and submarine are two of my bucket list filming locations.
 
I've done a few carriers, but turned down a doco shoot on one of our Trident subs, they smell terrible and I didn't fancy hot-bedding for three months!
 
I have to say the £100 bi-colour knockoffs I have have a really lovely daylight mode with weirdly accurate colours and little to no cast, which was a surprise. I imagine I got lucky because QC won't be as good on this range as opposed to the originals. I think the genuine Wescott Icelight 2 puts out a lot more light but these guys I have are ace for the money, weigh next to nothing, fit in the tripod bag and have about 1.5hrs charge on their rechargeable battery. Great for lifting the ambient somewhat.
 
Ben Scott said:
Out of interest, what situations would preclude you from having a light on the camera?
Click to expand...

No particular situation would preclude me from using an on-camera light in a technical sense (i.e. can't fit it on the camera rig, no power, etc.), so in theory that could have been used in any situation needing more light. However, my visual preference and filmmaking style would be not to use such a light in any case where it might be needed. I don't like the look an on-camera light creates. Here's an example - I was shooting an intimate scene in a dark church in rural Mexico on Christmas eve. The ambient light was coming from candles and strangely enough, tacky flashing christmas lights above. It was a pretty dark scene, and a stretch for the AF100 to capture without bumping up the gain. However, using an on-camera light in this situation would have affected the look of the scene negatively, as well as potentially bother the people I was filming. I can think of many more examples like this. But in the end I think the scene is much more authentic and beutiful because it was only lit with candles and flashing Christmas lights, ultimately creating a more immersive experience.
 
Nirv said:
Design of any product is a compromise. I don't think Sony offer 100 Mbps XAVC-L in HD so that would break their codec guidelines and probably mean NLEs wouldn't support straight off the bat. If they were to offer 100 Mbps XAVC-I then that would likely mean more power, more heat i.e. a bigger FS5 which wouldn't that different to the FS7 which would be a rather strange thing for Sony to do.
Click to expand...

I'm sure 50mbps XAVC-I would solve a lot of problems and could be implemented (if it could be recorded to fast SD cards?) and the FS5 would still sit far behind the FS7.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top