Leaderboard

haha! rich posted two pics of the lens he's building for me on instagram today! dying here. can't wait to get my paws on it. the finish looks rad!

This video is a pure goldmine of information regarding the proper use of Sony cameras and their features, but most of this can also apply to any other camera brand. I bow to the man for this kind of simple but thorough explanation of all the features, codecs, gamma curves, gamuts etc., when and how to use them, why not to use some of them in some scenarios... I highly recommend watching this whole video, because even if some of you guys are already familiar with most of this stuff, I'm almost certain that you will get some new useful info.

I never said it was overrated, or terrible exposure issues. I actually really loved everything about it except the macroblocking. But that was when I was testing it with internal + Varicam LUT. Those 2 are not the greatest combo. I totally get that point of view. In fact that was me a few months ago. I love just having something ready to pick up and record. After testing V Log with 10 bit recorder though I loved the image so much that I can now justify using an Assassin alongside as an A cam option. It can easily cut into Epic or BMCC footage.

Improvement over the last edit :

I have been shooting with the A7S II for 2 weeks now. Let's really get under the skin of the camera and see if it is worth your $3000. On my retail model (bought in Europe on day of release, firmware 1.0) sunspots and black holes render it almost unusable. It is a complete lottery whether your shot is going to be ruined or not. The next shot is not even in direct sunlight – the black hole is produced from a specular bounce of light off the floor. Read the review

First impressions of the C300 Mark II: The Good Autofocus and assisted manual focus so far is amazing. The best autofocus I've used. Even more amazing is it works on all Canon (camera-focus-controlled) EF lenses (tested on the 24-105 F4L and 24-70 F2.8 II, will test more soon). It makes a slight sound, similar to IS noise, but quieter. If using an on-camera mic for run & gun, the noise can be picked up (in a quiet room), however I think with a suspended mic mount the noise shouldn't be audible. No issue at all with a boom or lav. Assisted manual focus helps with 4K critical focus.Color is excellent, as expected. Favorite out-of-camera look so far with: Gamma: Canon Log, Color Space: DCI-P3 (or BT.709), Color Matrix: EOS Standard. Adobe CC doesn't have LUTs yet for the C300 II. One of the reasons for using a C300 II is to get excellent color out of camera with minimal work in post- no LUTs need with those settings (just curves, etc.).Audio is excellent with options for 24- as well as 16-bit.So far in the studio (and my desk) the image is very clean, with no visible recording artifacts (even at 50Mbps LGOP 422 10-bit (limited motion)).CFast 2.0 cards copy very fast to the computer over USB3: 300+MB/s to an SSD.Additional Observations Compared to DSLR-sized cameras, it's huge and heavy.The top handle, external monitor and mic assembly, and side handle can all be removed to make a smaller package, though it's still relatively heavy compared to DSLRs.4K is 410Mbps: the files are ALL-I and are huge (compared to the 50Mbps files we're used to with DSLRs, and 24Mbps files from the FS700). There is no long GOP option for smaller files. It appears Canon's processor(s) aren't powerful enough to handle long GOP for 4K.Premiere CC 2015 (latest) can't handle the new Canon XFAVC files very well (4K and 1080p). Playback is slow and choppy, even at 1/2 playback resolution (might also be a 24-bit 4-track audio issue, testing this). Adobe is offering 1 year of Creative Cloud for C300 II owners, perhaps they'll update Premiere soon to fully support C300 II XFAVC files. Note that I found similar issues when writing the Photon app for 10-bit H.264 support: Premiere ran slowly on those files (sometimes with errors decoding).The A7S II with my tweaked settings look pretty good next to the C300 II in 1080p. In 4K the A7S II has lots of macroblocks/artifacts, the C300 II is clean (with 4x larger files). The A7S II makes a nice B/super-low light camera to the C300 II.1080p60 slomo looks decent, likely as it's supersampled from 4K. 120p is clearly lower resolution being a center crop without the benefit of supersampling (which also helps reduce noise and aliasing). 120p on the A7S II looks better.

I'm not a fan of the first A7S. Sure the low light is "cool", but the colour at those high ISO's is bloody terrible.

Just tried the settings reset and camera 'initialise' option and it didn't solve the problem. Well... it made it go away due to auto exposure and auto ISO but as soon as enabled 4K XAVC-S and manual exposure it was back with vengeance. You might be able to under expose to avoid it on a weak LED light but try doing that with the sun, impossible. A7R II has no such issue, this is purely an A7S II thing. Very disappointing!

Hello All, New to the forum! I have been shooting with my A7S II for over a week now and do not have any of the issues you are?? I even took my camera outside immediately after reading this and was not able to reproduce any of the issues..... There may be a bug or bad batch of cameras....

Absolutely amazing review. all reviews are the same and here we get some real info. I am so happy I got the A7r2 instead. But it has a non acceptable issue as well that I will describe in another post.

Lofote, on every new Sony body the Metabones adapter has had issues and required a firmware fix or hardware update. Basically Sony's new firmware keeps breaking it and making it unstable. And I for one am sick of it! That has nothing to do with the EF mount protocol which hasn't changed in years. Sony should get together with Metabones and TEST the stuff... Metabones didn't even get an A7S II early... they had to wait until it was in the shops!

The only possible benefit from permanently removing mirror and box from Full frame canon dslr to accommodate speedbooster optics would be when shooting crop mode with Magic Lantern Raw. Then the heavy crop mode would be optically reduced to around s35 (or slightly under) but will allow higher resolutions to be recorded (for short periods). The optics would have to be professionally installed and would effectively restrict the camera to ML crop mode only.

Doesn't look like a bad copy, because people have been telling me on social media that they are having the same problem with theirs. Some aren't, but it isn't isolated to just one faulty camera unfortunately. One helpful guy told me he rented two of his out, both had the sunspots, but a 'reset to default settings' in the menu solved it. Maybe it is a bug with a certain option. I'm going to try the reset and hope it goes away.

Well, grading (not color correction) is a personal thing, so if you like high contrast, then you go for high contrast...what the rest of us think means squat. Having said that, you do need to watch the whole clip for the lows and highs. E.g., you say the lows are at 10 mark, but that is only at the beginning; if you scrub forward, you'll see the level touch 0, and that part is going to be too dark if you corrected for the beginning. Anyway, if your goal is to increase contrast, once you set the lift/gain to adjust low/high levels, you might want to try reducing gamma for the lows and increasing it for highs. That will increase contrast, but in a much more subtle way. E.g., see below for for what happens to your clip if we do that (I also increased the saturation a bit). It is for illustrating the gamma adjustments only and may be nothing like what you want or meant to be pleasing in general.

s-log and a proper LUT from Adobe. I agree, it looks lovely.

Hi all, so in the same vein as a previous post in this forum. Here's another video for the Sony No Limits competition! Be awesome if you guy could give this a watch... And a like if you like it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Brvi7Zv-F2o&feature=youtu.be In exchange for your time and patience for my blatant self promotion I am more than happy to answer any and all questions you have of my experience shooting footage with the A7rii. I use it as my main camera for all my work. I still have a Canon 5dmkiii as backup but that'll soon be replaced with an a7sII when funds allow! To give you a little breakdown of this particular film, main lenses and equipment used: Sony A7rii ( 4k Slog-2 )Sony FE 55mm 1.8 SonnarSony FE 28mm f2Tamron 24-70mm 2.8 ISCanon 70-200m 2.8 ii ISSigma ART 35mm 1.4Metabones IV AdaptorDJI Ronin-MBackacheAtomos Ninja AssassinIt was shot, edited, graded by myself. More info on a blog post: http://www.alexpasquini.com/blog/2015/10/30/no-limits-a-short-film-for-the-sony-fs5-competition Again, apologies for the blatant self promotion but as said i'm more than happy to share any experience if anyone is interested, cheers!

Description states S-Log and Adobe Lumetri to grade. I'm a fan of the look

Yeah, I have the NX500 and I have experimented with nearly every possible setting. My current set up is -4 saturation -10 sharpness and -5 contrast. Not sure how the colors are with the nx1, but I find the colors on the nx500 to be off. If I don't desaturate in camera, the yellows oranges and greens just don't look right. But I am a newbie, so it could be user error. Btw, love your videos man... Top notch!!!

Keep in mind that with most of these "BMPCC sucks" "Nikon 750 is useless" posts - that's the entirety of the post. No examples or actual information. They both can make great images in good hands. I've seen some beautiful work from the pocket, once you get around that tiny sensor...

If you're going to go DSLR, you probably need to get something external for focus, unless you go mirrorless with a peaking VF, etc. Supposedly the NX1 has a really nice EVF. For Nikon and Canon, I've relied on loupes and small monitors for years now. Too many times the focus looks crisp on the LCD but soft on a desktop monitor. My strategies: I keep a pair of reading glasses (magnifiers) in my pocket. That alone is a big boost in dealing with an LCD and they're a few bucks at any drug store. they're in all my camera bags. Really handy when you have to tighten some tiny screw or something, too. Even a cheap loupe helps. Find one that doesn't block controls, can come off easily when you want, etc. I've never had focus issues with a loupe, even though you're really seeing the screen pixels. Since the T2i I've managed good focus with only a loupe. I prefer a loop to an articulating screen in fact and never owned a DSLR with a movable screen. I usually use a 5" Marshall HDMI on set - they go for as low as $200 used. If it's a planned, locked-down shot, I use the DSLR monitor for framing and the Marshall at 1:1 pixels with peaking. You'll get good focus that way and still be able to watch framing and color. Really necessary for a lot of specialty shots, like straight overheads, floor level looking up, etc. AND I CAN TUNE THE MONITOR WITH ANY SOURCE OF BARS… it's more accurate than the camera screen by far. In studio settings, I often use a powered HDMI splitter and stick a 20"+ HDTV on a rolling stand, too. Generally for clients, makeup, crew, etc. Only expense was a VESA mount and a $10 splitter (and a soft case for the TV which cost more than the TV, but that's not absolutely necessary). I use the TV in my edit bay so it was already purchased. I got one of those chinese HDMI viewfinders for like $270?? Really, really greatness for out in the sun, esp. with a crane or oddball rig or positioning.

Indeed. Or Shane Meadows. Good 1080p doesn't look soft when it is thrown at an epic cinema screen to an audience of 200... It only looks soft on a laptop screen with your eye 1mm away! The D750 and BMPCC I rate as pretty good 1080p personally!!

don't go shooting that lovely stuff in Candle-light now old chap ;)

I dont

It sounds brilliant! id love C300 ii but I'll probably hire for now. also, JCS, I hold up my hands and say you were right in the other thread FS5 vs C300 ii when you said ease of use would trump spec for me despite what I thought. As much as I want Slog to be the best, I just find Canon much less work to get a nice result. Canon are like some dude you're jealous of because of his success and want to hate, but can't because he's a nice guy too! Or something... I think this report serves to back up the idea that 5D Mk iv will not have the crazy video specs everyone wants. No 4K, as that's reserved for their video offerings. no high frame rates at decent quality, since even their flagship won't do this. yeah I could be proved wrong, but I'd put a pound down on what I say above. The exception to the pattern was the 550D and successors. at the time the 550D gave the same video as the 7D for far less cash. But even as everyone else moved on Canon smelled the dollar in maintaining the split between C line video and D line stills. until someone challenges 1. Their colour and 2. Their ease of use and menu design, this will remain the case. conpetition forces the hand in free market, no one has quite caught up yet and managed to gain market traction too.

That's one of the big reasons I want to see NX1 footage shot with an external recorder, but for some reason, no one seems to have done it. At least judging by the lack of any test clips online.

To be a bit more specific, and not that he's the arbiter of good taste, but Philip Bloom shoots daytime with Cine 4 / Cinema Color -- and nighttime with Cine 2 / Cinema Color and -4 Detail. He did that with the original A7S and he has posted recent A7SII footage which also uses those settings (although it's hard to know if his approach has changed with more time spent with the v.2 camera). Bloom Quote: "Picture profile wise, I shot mostly the same as the A7s. Daytime Cine 4 with Cinema colour and night Cine 2 with same colour and detail to -4." And as for Brandon Li, he shoots with Picture Profiles set to off and Creative Style: Autumn Leaves (-3 0 -3) with the original A7S. Again, not sure if he has migrated to the A7SII or if he has changed his approach. Li Quote: "I now use the Autumn Leaves Creative Style (-3,0,-3 DRO 4) instead of picture profiles. I find this setting gives me the punchiest, warmest colors straight out of the camera while still leaving plenty of room for grading". Andrew, as most of us do not have a 1D C at our disposal (or even a Canon camera) for an 'apples-to-apples' comparison, I do think it would be a very illuminating test, if you have the time and inclination to do it. Thanks

Your last two posts are very helpful Andrew. So it seems S35 of R2 is as good as FF of S2. Definitely last problem remaining is the 120fps (but my girlfriend just ordered today the rx100 IV so it seems this problem is solved for me as long as I don't have a new GF!) concerning the colors, could you please do the same test as above but with a7s in cine4 pro and cinema colors , and also no PP and autumn leaves? a lot of people like Philip bloom, Brian lee and so on made amazing video with those profiles and colors seem better than slog. People seem to always thune slog only but I think it is a bad reflex because it does not suit well those 8 bit codecs

check out Macgregor's short

buy it back for about $200

You're right. It does perform like a webcam more than a proper phone camera. Also, if the blackness of the material is significantly proportionate to its light (and presumably heat -- cooling must be a pain) collecting abilities, I'd be interested to see what they'd make of the blackest man-made material, carbon-nanotube that absorbs 99 percent of light.