Leaderboard

It’s been a bit of a trend for Nikon shooters to jump ship to Sony, Fuji and Panasonic in recent years. I even know a few myself. I am hearing rumours that Nikon might be about to finally wake up – to offer a broad range of filmmaking camera equipment (and lenses) for professionals. New blog post: https://www.eoshd.com/news/has-nikon-got-a-cinema-camera-range-in-development/

In 99% of cases there seems to be little benefit to using 10bit other than more difficult to edit, larger file sizes. 10bit is one of those easy to get excited about specs on paper. It’s a bit like the amount of memory in your PC or the speed of the CPU. The higher number, the better! What actually makes the difference when it comes to image quality? Well it’s a bit complicated. RAW is the ultimate codec, and the ultimate pain in the ass. LOG is great, no question. Lots of dynamic range, small file sizes, easy to edit and to apply a LUT. And for great LOG you need 10bit, right? Well it seems that on the A7S III the difference is much of the time impossible to even see. Not that this was not already proven by the Canon 1D C and that infamous MJPEG codec. The 8bit Canon LOG mode on that was incredibly nice. Fast forward nearly 10 years and there’s far less difference between 10bit 4:2:2 and 8bit 4:2:0 on the Sony A7S III than you might expect. New blog post: https://www.eoshd.com/news/sony-a7s-iii-10bit-image-quality-vs-same-camera-in-8bit-with-surprising-results/

The more I learn about each aspect of the image pipeline, the more I realise that everything matters. If you have a camera like the A7S3 where it's a good sensor, good image processor, and good codec, then the fact that it's 8-bit isn't too bad because the other things are fine. I've run into issues shooting 8-bit C-Log with the Canon XC10. This should be a reasonable example of 8-bit done well as it's a Canon cine/video camera with 4K 300Mbps 8-bit codec, but alas.... Here's this shot, which I will admit is underexposed: which gives us this when we convert the colour space: but unfortunately, if we zoom into the seat in the bottom left: Is this an 8-bit issue? Is this a poor codec issue? I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader. Let's take another example: Which after a transform gives this: and look at the noise! Now, is that ISO noise? 8-bit quantisation? a "poor" 300Mbps codec on a Canon cine camera? This is the vector scope, which clearly shows the 8-bit quantisation: Yes, this is an extreme example with a low-contrast scene, a flat log profile, and 8-bit codec, but this was a $2K Canon cine camera with a 300Mbps codec. So, I replaced it with a GH5, with the decisive factor being the internal 10-bit. Let's take this image here, a 10-bit HLG frame with almost zero contrast: and actually try to break it by applying more contrast than you would ever use in real life: and it holds together. Is that the 10-bit? Is that the 150Mbps 422 codec? Is that the fact it's a downsampled 5K image? Who knows, but it's a night and day difference where with an 8-bit example I struggle to get a good image from a real world shot and a 10-bit image where I can't break it even if I tried. I like to think about it like this - 8-bit can be good enough if you have a good enough implementation of it (unlike the XC10) but a good 10-bit implementation will give you security that you're not going to run into bit depth issues, so for me it's a safety thing.

Ah - now that you mention it, both the hire lenses I was using had IS engaged! I'd forgotten that because I generally own manual, non-stabilised glass, so I had mis-remembered the setup. Apologies!

it seems to vary camera to camera, the whole 8-bit vs 10-bit thing, Like Panasonic S1H the 8-bit in vlog has the weird banded magenta thing and can render it unusable, Sometimes even in non-vlog profiles, but the 10-bit is great. But the 12-bit BRAW for the Video Assist is just excellent! Such a huge jump up if you're going to do keying and heavy grading and so on.

CLOG3 / BT.709 can be nice though. You don't need a LUT and it is easily gradable by just adding contrast. You don't actually gain any information in the highlights, just way way down in the shadows.

I agree that weight is nice, but this camera does not have enough. I added a cage and monitor with a battery and it feels a bit better. I still think IS lenses are clutch. My C70 with the cage (no monitor) is only 10 ounces less than a stripped down C300 Mkii. Kind of interesting. The C70 is still a better gimbal camera and easier to pack around, but it's not exactly a light weight DSLR. The big bummer is the lack of EVF. You lose that point of contact. It was on purpose so people would be forced to buy a C300iii for a true documentary camera.

You'd really have to add the Atomos Ninja to the R5 at least to make it somewhat of an equal comparison

The weight is a good thing in my view. I had to do some off-the-cuff hand-held shots with no rig. No micro-judder! None! I decided to build some more handheld into my project. Built like a mirrorless, but really handles like a camcorder. eta: I was using the A60 (or whatever the larger battery is called) though.

you probably need 3/8" to 1/4" adapter for the center hole for default plate.

Spec sheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GPtPEuCoz-1HNyGaH-FPu93S-RnvD5ud/view Same sensor as original GH5, IMX272 https://www.sony-semicon.co.jp/products/common/pdf/IMX272AQK_Flyer.pdf