Andrew Reid

Someone really needs to prove the difference between 8bit and 10bit with images and not theories. I'm tired of putting 8bit and 10bit from the same camera, say the GH4, on the timeline in Resolve or Premiere, grading the hell out of it but having them both respond exactly the same to the grade! It's not what'd you'd expect. In Joe Simon's recent test of the FS7 it did keep the sky intact with no banding in 10bit, so XAVC-L can't suck that much. We need more examples like this. I speak highly of 8bit most of the time. There's a reason Canon's JPEGs are 8bit not 10bit... they look superb in 8bit. We keep getting promised smooth gradation with 10bit and a lack of macro blocking at high bitrates but it never really materialises in the footage. FS5 10bit and 4K 8bit, even 8bit AVCHD 1080p, they all seem to grade similarly. Same with GH4 10bit over external recorder. All very disappointing. Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera in 10bit ProRes even, in most situations grades the same as the GH4 in 4K 8bit. Most cameras have more noise than smooth roll off in their gradients. I am confident Sony will fix this in a firmware update and because Alister has suddenly decided to get nasty and personal in his blog post comments regarding my article, when that firmware update materialises and the edge fuzziness is no longer there, I will do my damnedest to remind both him and Sony of just what an unnecessarily unhelpful situation he created with THAT cover-up post - blaming the users. He should be quite frankly ashamed of himself for his behaviour and wilful ignorance to the evidence online. And some of the stuff he comes out with is just fundamentally wrong. It depends. It's not as simple as *always* going to a Cine profile in low light rather than using SLOG. It depends on the light distribution and density in that given situation. It depends on the LUT you need to use and matching shots across different cameras on the same low light scene. It depends how the Cine profile you might use respond in the grade and whether it will look consistent with your other SLOG scenes in better light. Most of all it depends on if the audience will even notice if you have 5 shades of grey instead of 3, or whether they will notice the window covering half the frame completely blown out from not having enough dynamic range in your Cine profile to render it properly!! There are no invalid techniques in filmmaking. If that's what someone wants to do and the look they want to create, just let them get on with it. It's not right or wrong creatively. Poor grading can also amplify the wrong information in the image. Yes good lighting will help you capture more higher quality information. But poor lighting is not the only reason why there's a bucketload of bad footage from SLOG cameras on Vimeo. It's all important. The whole lot. Not always practical. The most important thing is to train your eye to see the best existing lighting and composition given the limits of the available natural light you have in any given situation. For me the 10bit internal 1080p 4:2:2 on the FS5 was a nice selling point, one of the reasons I bought it. I expected that 10bit 4:2:2 to clear up the image, but instead I see no advantage over the 8bit 4K and instead a ton of macro blocking. It simply isn't good enough for Sony to market this mode as having "nuanced gradation" when it actually does not. Yes you're right the external recorder is not an ideal solution as it makes it more of a tripod based controlled set camera rather than a grab and shoot / run and gun / whatever the current politically correct term is for a handheld camera! The edge tearing doesn't go away on the HDMI or SDI via uncompressed output. The macro blocking should do in theory, let's see if that's the case. To me, uncompressed HDMI never looks uncompressed. The only truly uncompressed image is a raw one.

It's not as fuss free or as light as the OSMO, which is basically a tiny stick in a backpack. It's fantastically easy to grab shots with it on foot. You don't have to spend 10 minutes before every shot fiddling with the rigging bolts, balancing the gimbal depending on your lens, and so on. With the X5R you would stick a Micro Four Thirds 15mm F1.7 or pancake on it and just shoot instantly with a setup time measured in the seconds it takes to remove it form a bag.

Ha I know that feeling. We're all searching for a permanent camera partner in this crazy gear dating game, then just when you think you've found it boredom sets in and a new sexy blonde comes along! I want to get the amount of gear I own down, so I can appreciate what I've got more. You're right about not having one grand compromise solution but, say, 3 really good ones at specific things. For me the FS5 is good at shot getting, comfortable and reliable to shoot with, you know it is going to run and run on one charge through the day and not fill up all your cards. The 5D2 is there when I want perfect skin tones, beautiful film like rendering, a fine noise grain. I find the 5D2 with no VAF filter even more cinematic and analogue looking than the superior 5D3 which is cleaned up and therefore a bit more modern looking. The 5D2 has a life and soul to it which is very Red ONE / old school. Then I have the A7S II on low light duties. I'd like to keep it at that but I'm still in love with the others too... The 1D C, the GH4 for anamorphic, the E-M5 II for handheld shooting. If the D5 has 4K but the lovely codec / flat profile of D750 then it will be a winner... oh no here we go again!

Plus with raw you get much nicer motion cadence than with a Long GOP codec. It will really improve drone and OSMO footage. Any idea how much the media costs for the X5R?

I think it's very interesting. Like a RAW shooting GH4, but small enough to go on the OSMO, which remember offers better stabilisation than the IBIS of the E-M5 II we are all in love with. Raw + that kind of stabilisation + GH4 sensor = win! Yes it is still expensive but I think it's worth it. Definitely on my list to try out in 2016. And if you don't want raw just the 4K H.264 like the GH4 it works out around $1600 including the X5 gimbal. Not bad at all.

The thing which is most annoying about Chapman's headline is that it's basically covering up for the ripped edges bug by suggesting that our expectations are too lofty for 8bit and compression. The ripped edges bug as Alister even admits himself has nothing to do with compression or 8bit and everything to do with flawed temporal noise reduction specific to the FS5. You can't shoot a serious project at high ISOs with this being the case. You'd have to swap the camera out during a shoot for the A7R II or A7S II. Hardly an ideal situation especially when you have paid close to $6k for your A-cam. Cine gamma at base ISO 800 or 1000 doesn't have the edge ripping bug. Presumably because at low ISOs the camera uses a different NR technique or turns it off altogether? Anyway no matter how many excuses Chapman comes up with or how much advice he gives the shooter on how to get the best image out of the camera, the fact remains it's not acceptable for Sony to put out a worse performing codec and a buggy noise reduction technique on a pro camera, when their much cheaper consumer cameras work fine. I see it a bit in your 1080p clip too, though not as bad as in 4K! Thanks Cliff. Sony are aware of the problem, let's hope they respond with a solution soon. I wish they had a version of S-LOG with minimal in-camera processing for noise, etc. Then we could apply noise reduction in post instead for superior results.

Wasn't in the info they gave me, but we can sure try asking for it! Panasonic certainly listened to us!

Sometimes we can concentrate on the camera 100%, really work it like an artist's paintbrush. Sometimes we have to apply our focus to the actors instead, to the lights, the other stuff. Therefore, unless we have a crew with many people, different roles, you are going to have to split your focus. I would love to have a crew to do all the directing, lighting, carrying my 10kg camera and sticks around for me, making me breakfast, cooking me pie, slipping me a glass of wine in-between shots with my RED ONE! But the real world doesn't often work like that does it?

Sony Independent Certified Expert Alister Chapman is a freelance videographer and runs workshops on occasion for users of Sony's pro video cameras. You can check out his response to the FS5 problems widely reported by users. Its 's his blog here. Now you can read my post about why he's wrong! Read the article here

Here's the 4K and 10bit 1080p Drop it into Premiere and give it a grade. Enjoy! http://we.tl/yQO2ZM4HdA Doesn't the FS7 already use that flavour of XAVC? I remember once the GH2 shot H.264 at nearly 150 Mbit/s long GOP. What took Sony so long to bring it to a pro camera?

What I am saying is, whilst we know the raw cameras and F35 are the benchmark for an analogue film look on digital, how close can we get to that with the more practical cinema cameras. What is the magic sauce, the secret workflow, the crafty lighting, the best lenses that can get the C100 II and FS5 closer to the Red One in look and feel? I think time invested in that would really pay off big time.

Uploading now, 250MB zip with following: Scene 1 4K 8bit SLOG 2 (Color mode: Stills) WB 3200, 1/50 4K 8bit SLOG 3 (Color mode: S.Gamut3.Cine 3200K) 1/50 1080p 10bit SLOG 2 (Color mode: Stills) WB 3200, 1/50 Scene 2 4K 8bit SLOG 2 (Color mode: Stills) WB 3200, 1/50 1080p 10bit SLOG 2 (Color mode: Stills) WB 3200, 1/50 If there's anything else you guys want to see let me know.

Magic Lantern raw, 16mm film, RED One, Sony F35... What do they all have in common? They are all a pain in the ass! All fantastic yes. But definitely a pain in the ass. Magic Lantern fills up your 64GB card in 12 minutes. Sometimes it just stops in the middle of a shot. 16mm film is hardly a day to day practicality for most people. The RED One takes as long to boot as it does to go through your brick of a battery! Sony F35, don't even get me started on that hulking beast!! ---- What I would like is a bullet proof reliable camera which shoots with an image similar to Magic Lantern raw on the 5D Mark II but 10:1 compressed raw, runs on a small battery for hours and has a codec as easy to work with as the Red cameras. Blackmagic are likely to get there one day but not just yet. Then I want that putting in a C100 II or FS5 style body, with variable ND and the 5 axis IBIS from the A7S II. Give it the low light chops to match. Then we can finally at long last say... NO MORE PAIN IN THE ASS!!

Funny. I agree with you!!

Here's the rumour - http://nikonrumors.com/2016/01/04/nikon-new-zealand-prematurely-announced-the-d5-on-their-facebook-page.aspx/ All prior ones say it features 4K video. Not long to wait now...

And now another quick shot Again the 5D2 supremely film-like but I really do think the FS5 edges this one for mood. You can bring the shadows up A LOT in S-LOG 3 without noise being a problem. Ignore differences in DOF, I don't have my Speed Booster with me. 5D2 Magic Lantern 14bit RAW at 24p, ISO 200 - 35mm F2.0 (1856 x 1004 upscaled to 3840 x 2160) Sony FS5 SLOG 3 8bit at 25p, ISO 3200 - 24mm F2.8 (3840 x 2160)

That's pretty much spot on now. Shame it could not quite hold onto the sky and trees, but I think pretty good for space saving 8bit convenience versus mighty 14bit raw.

Interesting and wrong.

One of the universe's great mysteries is how Canon manage to go from that RAW image in the camera's memory, to the piece of poo on the SD card masquerading as "1080p" in H.264. The fact is, compressing raw sensor data down to tiny files is hard. I think the FS5 will get closer in the hands of a pro colourist. The FS5's raw output will allow us to apply any LOG curve we like to the data inside the Odyssey 7Q+ And get 4K LOG ProRes out of the other end. Pretty appealing to me!! SLOG 3 is easier to grade. Maybe I should have shot it in that, but I didn't want any banding.

Won't have to touch an exposure control ever again.

No, it's not the same. There's a visible heat sink in the camera, it's very large and there's a fan. Different voltage on the battery too. The LCD is not the same. The EVF panel maybe. The 4K image and codec are significantly sharper than the muddy one in the RX10 II. And even if it shares codec or image processing similarities, everything else is dramatically different such as the sensor, fact it is interchangeable lens, totally different ergonomics, not to mention all the extra stuff on the audio side. Maybe not. You will have to ask Atomos on that one.

Here are the originals. Only included a couple of Cinema DNG frames as the whole sequence would be too big to upload. The original MXF file from the FS5 is in there. http://we.tl/HOACsCROeZ

Thanks for having a go. However it would be better to use the original files. I'll upload them. By the way, this one was exposed to benefit the interior rather than the window. Remember this is a very challenging high dynamic range situation too, especially for 8bit.

Link fixed! Yes hopefully they will address the 10bit mode at least, you can't really justify 50Mbit/s and macro blocking on a 10bit codec as it makes it a bit pointless, especially in situations where it will be used instead of 8bit, like with a green screen shoot.

Starting to get there on the grade now, close to final... Pretty good for 8bit compressed vs 14bit raw I think. The blacks aren't as noisy on the FS5's sensor. I exposed for the window and had a bit of headroom remaining actually. FS5 - 5D Mark II Magic Lantern 14bit raw -