FS7: XDCA RAW OUTPUT HELP needed- need examples and footage - pushing the subject

A

alohype

Veteran
Hi everyone!

So I contacted prime support asking if raw output will be fixed, if there are any plans to make it 16bit etc.
Their reply:
Hi,
Our engineers asked:
"Improvements were made to the RAW image quality with V3.0 firmware. Is that the one that you are using?"
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Me:
Yes, I'm talking FM 3.0. Improvements were made to high frame rates (missing frames and image quality boost) but it's still nowhere near raw from F5 or even FS700. There's no info in shadow area due to 12bit and it's linear nature, it has to be exposed way higher than internal XAVC.
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Them:
Hi,
We are going to query your issue to Japan, could you please send a hi-res original clip (+ ALL FILE) & a clear description of the problem so our technician can directly send it to our headquarters?
Thank you!!
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Is there a chance they didn't know about 12bit raw response and lack of image data in shadow area? Maybe!
What am I asking you is to provide as much examples as possible. I will forward everything to them. Unfortunately myself I do not have XDCA, so all hope with your help guys.
 
I've been trying to talk to them about it for over a year. They 100% know about it. After all this time no chance of them suddenly releasing a magic fix as opposed to just releasing an FS8.
 
I just rented the Ody7Q+ and extension back myself this week to test out FW's 3.0 "improved image quality of 240 FPS FS RAW recording". Can't compare it to what it was before the update (my first time using it) - but I can confirm after some quick tests, I decided to shoot 180 internally rather than use the raw out. Just too much noise in the shadows. Will try to upload a sample for you over the weekend.
 
Grab a copy of RAW digger, open up the DNGs and look at the original grey values. You'll see a black level of 256 and they will go up to 4096. Now in the past the lowest bit of every grey was 0. That's 11 bits padded into 12. This may not be the case any more hence taking a look with v3 firmware. But actually you may find it's not even 12 bit... In fact there are certain situations in the past where the least significant 2 bits were 0. That's 10 bits padded into 12. Again this was a long time ago and things may well have changed.

cheers
Paul
 
paulcurtis said:
Grab a copy of RAW digger, open up the DNGs and look at the original grey values. You'll see a black level of 256 and they will go up to 4096. Now in the past the lowest bit of every grey was 0. That's 11 bits padded into 12. This may not be the case any more hence taking a look with v3 firmware. But actually you may find it's not even 12 bit... In fact there are certain situations in the past where the least significant 2 bits were 0. That's 10 bits padded into 12. Again this was a long time ago and things may well have changed.

cheers
Paul
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4096 - 256 = 3840. So if you're scale runs from 256 to 4096, you have 3840 discreet value possibilities.

When we say "8 bit" or "10 bit" or "12 bit" we're referring to the number of binary flip-flops used to store a value. If you have 8 bits, you can reflect a total of 256 discreet values, typically represented at 0 - 255 for unsigned integers. With 9 bits that number doubles to 512. For 10 bit, it doubles again to 1024. For 11 bits, you can express 2048 discreet values, and at 12 bits, you can express 4096. This is a long winded way of explaining that an integer range of 256-4096 requires a minimum of 12 bits. You can't do it with 11, and it's not "padding it from 11 to 12 bit". Is it using all 4096 values? No. But it's using more values than 11 bits can convey. (3840 being larger than 2048)
 
If you have an 8-bit dslr file and you transcode it to 10-bit pro res, you technically have a 10-bit file but you do not suddenly have 10-bits worth of discreet values.

My experience with Sony FS7's 12-bit linear raw was the same. Due to the allocation/ distribution of those discreet values as soon as you were 2-3 stops under middle grey that info turns to blocky mush because not enough values were being assigned to that image range.
 
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