Andrew Reid

As we get closer to the press conference, more unconfirmed rumours on the A7S have come in from NAB. Read the full article here

NAB 2014 kicks off today (Sunday) with the first major announcements. Here's a look at what could be in store for filmmakers at the biggest video and broadcast trade show of the year... Read the full article here

No poetry on the forums ;)

  For video it definitely does.   For stills, depends on print size. 36MP loses some low light performance but the oversampling makes up for it. Like going 4k to 1080p.   Other thing that matters is the pixel design, micro lenses and gaps between pixels. For example Blackmagic Production Camera has only 8MP but tiny pixels because most of the space on the sensor is taken up by global shutter circuitry.

You know what I mean.   A one shot AF confirm to grab focus quickly is fine, then AF lock, I have used that myself. But the hunting and electronic buzzing of AF is not suitable for cinema. Photojournalists if aesthetics don't matter, then yeah, grab the shot whichever way you can.

First I mentioned 4K (look at the date of the article) then after they say 4K too.   Then I mention XAVC-S, which 5 hours later appears there too.   Forgive me for the paranoia :)   Next I may mention BS-detection mode and XABCXYZ codec and see if it ends up on any other sites too.

By the way Sony Alpha Rumors seems to have copied my info! But they made a mistake which needs clarifying...   They suggested no 'clean' 4K to the SD card.   'Clean' means free of icons and text.   Unless you can't turn the date stamp off I highly doubt the SD card recording of 4K XAVC isn't 'clean'.

On the snipers, it isn't so much the fact they point out an error as the sheer hatred and bitterness in which they do it. I don't want a forum full of people like this, therefore both users have been banned permanently.

Sorry for the 60Mbit confusion. Indeed the codec is not limited to that. The AX100 is. The paragraph should have read as follows and I have corrected it in the article...   I also did some research on the AX100's implementation of XAVC-S. It records in MP4 format but perhaps rather disturbingly it has a much lower bitrate than the GH4's 4K codec. It is just 60Mbit/s vs 100Mbit/s on the GH4 in Ultra HD. I have not yet graded any footage from the Sony AX100 but it will be interesting to see how XAVC-S stands up at that bitrate. It is a very modern codec and bitrate isn't everything.

The AX100 sensor is 20MP though.   This is 12MP and will run a lot faster hence the "S".   Unless that stands for 'slow' ;)

  I'm curious what AX100 footage looks better than the GH4. Really curious.   Was it the bendy trains that did it for you?   And you do realise that 90% of the look is defined by the lens, and with the AX100 you only have one!   F0.95 vs F2.8... hmmm. Quite a difference.   Cooke vs consumer camcorder zoom lens. Hmm.   I'm not convinced AX100 has the imaging prowess over the GH4 and the codec is a full 40Mbit short of the GH4 in 4K too.

  I don't get paid to promote anything.   I do believe I was first to sing the praises of the D5200. When the D5300 came out it was way too small a step to be considered "golden", especially after all the revolutions of the previous year such as raw on the Canon DSLRs and Blackmagic Pocket ProRes.   Now the GH4 is here and all that nice Nikon glass you have can go on the Speed Booster. You could shoot 4K with the same effective sensor size as the Nikon D5300, with an extra stop of low light performance, for under $2000.   Look to where the ball is headed not to where it has been if you wanna catch it.   If you don't want to catch it then stick to whatever works for you, just don't bother us with it :) It's boring.

I've just had some information from a source that may be of interest to those awaiting Sony's NAB announcement. Read the full article here

In theory 4K over HDMI works and GH4 has it.   If this had 10bit 4K over HDMI as well then great.   If not and the internal Sony codec sucks then I will be sticking with GH4, full frame or no full frame :)

I think the rumoured 12MP is a genius decision by Sony. A real gap in the market for low light and lower resolution camera with amazing video.   Just tweeted this but bears repeating...   Nikon D3S is 12MP like rumoured A7S. Horizontal pixel count on that was 4256. Not gonna be a big crop to 4096 4K video on A7S

I must say, Sony should be commended for their approach to adapters. They even display them on cameras in some stores and sell Novoflex adapters in their Berlin flagship store at the Sony Centre.   Perhaps Metabones have found problems with Canon or Panasonic which have delayed it.   I am sure they are trying their upmost to get them done and shipped.

From my week long experience with shooting GH4, dynamic range is at least a match for the 5D Mark III raw.

I still think the 600mm will be sharper obviously, but putting the 600mm in front of a Canon video mode will lose you a lot of sharpness and full frame will lose you a lot of reach, so if you are shooting 1080p at 600mm on full frame, the sharpness and reach of such an expensive lens can get a little wasted.   4K will gain whatever you lose in terms of sharpness with the much cheaper 100-300mm OIS.

5D Mark III is in raw... that is the optimal setting :)

Well a $12k lens is going to be clear isn't it? If it wasn't I'd be very upset ;)   I think you should try the 100-300 in 1080p crop mode (or 4K mode and crop in post) and that 1680mm maximum reach whilst maintaining full HD should satisfy. Last time I used the 100-300mm I remember sharpness was pretty good.   If it doesn't, then fair enough. No amount of consumer gear is going to be good enough.   You might want to consider Sony A7R + the $12k Canon 600mm for stills though... 36MP would help.... and for video wait for the Smart EF adapter for Micro Four Thirds & shoot 4K with the Canon on the GH4.

Well the 5D Mark III here is raw. No compression.   There's zero macro blocking in raw due to no compression.   The GH4 gives you 8x smaller 4K files than the Blackmagic Production Camera, something has to give. It does have macro blocking in areas of the image where space is being saved such on plain skies, very dark shadows, etc.   It does have banding too but this is reduced when you go 4K > 1080p.   Banding isn't a problem with the GH4 like the GH3. It only really appears when you push the ISO to silly levels like here, or do a really extreme grade and you have a blue sky taking up almost all the frame. With a variable bitrate, the GH4 will allocate less bitrate to the sky frames, so the less detail in the shot, the more compressed it ends up being.   When the scene is well lit and detailed the codec does a great job, almost as good as a JPEG.   If the GH4 lacks a fine grain and that's what you want, you can do noise reduction but then add back the film texture afterwards with Film Convert.

Canon 600mm F4 IS is $12,000.   How can anybody complain about consumer stuff topping out at 300mm with a straight face.   With 4K you have extra cropping ability. A 1920x1080 box from the GH4's 16MP sensor gives you same detail as 5D Mark III but has something like a 5.6x multiplication factor on the focal length. So actually 300mm = 1680mm in crop mode on the GH4. Much longer reach than a 5D Mark III video mode with that $12k lens.

  +1

Nowhere am I saying it is in the same league as the Alexa or matching it on how far you can push the grade.   I know it isn't THAT good.   But it's great and Panasonic's consumer 4K codec is clearly a step forward for grading compared the usual DSLR codec.