jcs

Sony's AUTO WB is improved. While I don't really use it, it's an improvement. Metabones IV EF-E adapter: tried first with firmware version before the latest: focused OK but slow. Updated to the latest firmware: focus drive is very fast, but fails to focus almost every time. For stills, best to use a native Sony lens or stick to Canon or Nikon for stills. 4K: viewed fullscreen on a 32" Dell 4K monitor: the A7SII's 4K is good, looks organic and not over sharpened (using stock PP6). If high dynamic range isn't needed, CINE1/2/4 can work OK (to reduce banding issues). For 120+fps slomo, we'll use the FS700. 60p on the A7S worked fine for our needs in HD. Our work is currently online only, and not many people can even view 4K at home (4K being useful for really nice 1080p, reframing/cropping etc.).

Just walked into Samy's on La Brea and picked up an A7S II and 24-240 FE lens. While it looked like they have a bunch in stock, there may be a waiting list, so perhaps call before heading over. The A7SII+24-240 lens replaces the A7S+18-200 as our small run & gun camera. The new combo is quite a bit heavier and the zoom ring is very stiff- not clear yet if it will get smoother with some use. The body did start to get hot after a few minutes of 4K use- haven't used it long enough to check for overheating. Quick 4K test in PP CC: colors in Slog3+SGamute3.cine looked better than SLog2 on A7S, though I did see some banding on a gray background. 4K resolution and detail: will need to do more tests however it appears the GH4 provides more actual resolution. Additionally, PP CC can play 4K GH4 in real-time while the A7SII 4K required 1/2 resolution (12 Core Mac Pro, 980ti GTX, dual 4K displays). Stills- skintone colors appear a bit better than A7S (non scientific test). Will test MB IV adapter with Canon L lenses next.

When there is a human being in the loop perceiving the images, and the colors have been tuned for positive human perception, it's science. When I show clients Canon vs. Panasonic vs. Sony (of themselves/their projects), they always prefer Canon and Panasonic for color and skintones. The market (humans) perceive the best colors in this order, more or less (professional videos cameras): ARRI, Canon, Red, Panasonic, Sony. The latest Red color science is looking really good- perhaps they'll pass Canon. Panasonic Varicam has been looking very good for a while. Sony is improving, but still requires the most effort in post. BM is probably between Red and Panasonic (more of a niche camera line- above consumer but not really playing in the same space as the typical pro cameras).

We use the AL-H198, 672W, 672S, and Light Storm LS1s (all 95+ CRI) and LS1/2 (98+ CRI). Suggest avoiding the bicolor models (not as bright). These are the first LEDs we've used with really good color for skin tones. They are good enough for still photography as well: almost as good as strobes for skin color. Putting gels on lower color-accuracy LEDs will never look as good due to spectral spikes (we tried). The LS1's have barn doors which come in very handy for attaching the included tracing paper to produce excellent diffuse light. The LS1/2 clips the tracing paper much closer (no barn doors); not quite as diffuse- perhaps better to bounce off a reflector if more diffusion is needed.

Nice skintones! Sony sensors/color science do best in natural or full spectrum light. Footage shot with artificial light would be helpful (this is where Canon, ARRI etc., tend to hold up better). Curious how SLog2 was handled in PP CC (new Lumetri panel+Slog2 LUT or ?). Overall nice image quality though slomo looked softer/more aliased than FS700 (internal recording). A nice test would be side-by-side FS700/FS5/FS7 slomo.

Cool congrats! Cost? Footage?

I can tell by looking at the video. It's not CINE1, CINE2, or Slog2. Would guess CINE3 or Off (never use those since they look so bad).

A7S used the wrong profile (or Off). Tweaked ('delogged') SLog2 with Pro color would look much better.

jax_rox it's not about anyone struggling to make Sony color science look as good as other companies ('par' at this point would be Canon, Nikon, BM, Red (latest color science), ARRI). It's about not wasting time, as well as still not getting a Sony to look as good as other cameras with far less effort. Over the years I've purchased more Sony video cameras than any other brand. I was reasonably happy with Sony cameras until I learned that other brands provide much better color with far less effort. I'd rather spend the extra money on a C300.2 than an FS7 as the final product will look better, namely skintones. $8K in a professional setting isn't really that much money. Why waste time with sub-par color science and buggy designs? The most popular professional cameras have the best color science. ARRI has the best color science and for the last few years is used on all Academy award winning films. Red has really upped their game lately (e.g. Narcos on Netflix). I call it like it is, no religious favoritism: Sony currently provides sub-par color science and their designs are currently buggy and harder to use vs. the competition. Sony keeps adding more features and complexity while ignoring the three most important elements for a camera: reliability, color science, and ease of use. Regarding other cameras looking bad: it's easy to make any camera look terrible, it's a different story making a camera look great. The better cameras get used more (Canon, Red, ARRI) as they provide a means to get better results with less effort. Red used to be unreliable and had marginal color science for skin tones (compared to the competition). While Red cameras are still way too complicated compared to ARRI, they have upped their color science to look really good, easily past everything from Sony except the F65. Regarding Ted2- I only watched the trailer and the skintones and overall color looked pretty good. Again, the F65 looks great compared to all the other current Sony cameras. Sony does have a 'look' and I understand your point regarding 'looks similar' to down line cameras. However, similar isn't enough for skintones- very minor changes provide a strong emotional reaction that something's wrong- the "Uncanny Valley" effect. I can get decent skintones out of the FS700 and A7S, it's just that other cameras get there faster, with less effort, and the final results tend to look better. If cost was not an object- what camera would you choose for skintones for an A camera?

A better way to phrase would be "Canon level color or better" (Canon, Nikon, ARRI, etc.). I've found that even well-colored/corrected FS700/A7S footage still can't look as good as 5D3 RAW (even H.264), etc. For stills (skintones), the A7S isn't even considered. Again, the A7S shooting raw stills can look good, however the 5D3 will look better in the same conditions. For run & gun, the A7S is a much better video camera than the 5D3 (especially if shooting RAW video), however if color image quality is the most important factor, especially for people and skintones, the 5D3 is a better choice. As you noted the C100 looks better even after correcting the RX10ii. If you showed a client, without telling them which is which, could they tell the difference? I've done tests where I didn't tell the client which was which, and they strongly preferred the Canon over the Sony. While in this case they may not demand Canon-level color, when given a choice they prefer the better color provided by Canon level cameras or similar/better (Nikon, ARRI, BM, Red Dragon (see Narcos on Netflix), etc.). Sony can do excellent color (F35, F65 (See Lucy, Oblivion)) however they are holding back on the lower end camera. While the FS5/FS7 are much lower cost vs. the C300.2, time is money- how many hours of extra work equates to the extra $8K for the C300.2? Factoring in the Sony's won't ever look as good as the Canon (until or if Sony ups the color quality), the C300.2 makes sense for professional work. Factoring in Sony's slow and buggy UI's and usability issues and the C300.2 looks even better.

As long as clients demand Canon color, the King's Ransom will be paid. ARRI easily fetches an Emperor's Ransom. If Sony could provide something closer to F35/F65 color on these cameras, that might make a difference. Most of Sony's recent promo videos have little skin tones, and even landscape colors can look off. The FS7 can't even match the C300 in basic color accuracy in this simple test: https://vimeo.com/113558024 While it might be possible to grade the FS7 to look better, it's a lot of work. Time is money. Another point is ease (and speed) of use during a professional shoot. Canon's are easy and fast, and reliable (not clear if the bugs or complicated slow menus of the FS7/FS5 have been fixed).

Exp dial: even with manual ISO you'll use the exposure meter- setting the dial to +2 will show '0' in the exposure meter when properly exposed. Cine1/Cine4- I find myself using Cine1 more (Cine2 is basically the same). You need to try them and see how they look for your needs. Stock PP6 can work OK for R&G (Cine2/Cinema). Slog2 has the most stable color.

Use Slog2 and "de-log" it as much as possible with camera settings: use Pro color mode, add some saturation, shooting +2 over (set top right dial to +2).Don't use AWB- carefully set it manually. Do tests to understand how it will look in post vs. making judgments based on the camera displays, especially for skintones.A simple curve in your NLE will make the footage look pretty good right away if using 1-2 above (basically grab a point about 1/4 from the bottom and pull down slightly, sometimes also pull up around 1/2-1/4 from the top).For indoor/darker scenes try Cine1 or Cine4, Pro color, shoot at proper exposure (not over or under- set top right dial to '0').The Sony SELP18-200 is a great R&G all around lens. Better than Canon IS, decent autofocus, sharp, good color, great range. Canon 24-105 F4 also works pretty good. The 24-70 F2.8 II is sharper and faster, but no IS.

No. Can't argue with the box office.

Thanks for the tip on Ardour, it looks decent and so is Reaper (more on the midi/recording side; not quite free but almost). However my working professional colleagues won't give up Protools (and can't really- required for high-end features). If Ardour was as good as or better than Protools they'd drop Protools immediately and start saving money. If Libre Office was better than MS Office, the same thing- anyone in business would save money and stop paying MS. That hasn't happened. If GIMP was in the same league as Photoshop, all the professionals would save the now monthly fees and stop paying Adobe. That hasn't happened. Open source hasn't taken over solely due to FUD? Can you share a double-blind study showing that is a statistically significant hypothesis? When I work in Ubuntu, the UI looks like something designed by non-professionals. It works, but it's clunky and was clearly designed by folks with little or no cognitive science background. OSX has issues as well; Windows surprisingly is looking the best these days. As a developer I use them all, and call the best the best based on design and functionality, no agenda or religious attachment; as close to the scientific method as possible. OSX and XCode development tools are far advanced compared to Android Studio (mobile Linux). Android Studio's emulator is so slow it's necessary to use a third party solution (Genymotion, etc.). Linux is great for backend (webservers, etc.) and tools (ffmpeg etc.), OSX and Windows are currently better than Linux for desktop apps. If that changes, I'll stop paying Adobe and switch too. Who wouldn't? When debating the merits of open source and free software vs. commercial software, the topic of content piracy comes up frequently. Many folks who are ardent supporters of free software don't believe in paying for any content either, and happily pirate everything. Especially as a software developer and content creator, I believe it's important to pay for software as well as content. Do you believe it's important to pay for content or should that be free too? How do you propose independent software developers and content creators make money to pay for food and shelter? The little guys putting out quality software and content without any bloat? The simple answer was if open source software was better than commercial software, everyone would immediately stop buying commercial software and there would only be open source software. This may happen someday, but as of 8/20/15 it's not even close.

Money isn't real- it's simply an accounting system to track who puts valuable energy into the system of society. Work is converted to energy (money) which may then be converted into goods and services, or back to work by others. In the case of open source software, written by people in their spare time or contributed to by professionals using the software in commerce, there isn't currently any open source software which matches or exceeds purely commercial software for productivity and/or business applications. If GIMP works for you that's cool, but it's not nearly as powerful as Photoshop. For NLEs, Premiere is the fastest and most powerful right now, with FCPX being the best bang for the buck. Avid is still very valuable in some markets. Resolve is pretty cool, but still a long way from being able to replace Premiere or FCPX (unless one is doing fairly simple edits and audio). Audacity is a long ways from Audition and Protools. There's still nothing that can compete with the Microsoft Office Suite. The online google apps are pretty cool, but unfortunately buggy. If there's a single open source / free package that matches or exceeds the best commercial software, it would be interesting to hear about it, as it would put the paid software out of business. Designing and writing quality software is hard. Open source software is very useful, however the code quality and especially the product design can't match paid professionals. If this was possible, all commercial software would become obsolete. This could happen with a worldwide change in 'accounting for work exchanged for energy (money)', however software developers still need to eat and can't do so working for free software. Google makes its money from ads, so a side effect is being able to work on software which it can give away for "free" except it's not really free. Everyone pays for it ultimately through products and services they must pay for, which uses advertising and those costs are factored into the purchase price. Resolve isn't free either- it's advertising for Blackmagic's software and hardware (the full versions cost $$$). If one invests time and money (energy) into a film, with the intention of recovering their costs and them some (to pay for food, shelter, etc., and fund future movies), it makes sense that they would seek to sell the work vs. giving it away. Many people feel it's OK to steal music, movies, and software too. Because it's easy to do so and the chances of being caught are negligible. How would such people feel if armed men came to their homes and started taking their food, material possessions, and kicked them out of their homes? In some parts of the world this happens and there's no stable order to protect the citizens, so the people deal with it the best they can (ultimately risking their lives to fight the 'pirates'). It's not honorable to steal, since possessions and money are only held via accounting, there's no difference between stealing physical objects or digital objects, as people put energy into the system to create them, and it makes no difference if there is no cost to 'copy' vs. haul something away in a truck. If everyone adopted a pay for nothing attitude then no one would be left to do any work to create anything interesting (such as movies, music, software) or necessary (like food, water, shelter). I never stopped using Linux for work projects. I currently using Ubuntu and Debian, working with the ffmpeg libraries and other video and image processing libraries. This is where Linux and open source shine. For productivity and desktop apps, Windows and OSX provide much higher quality software, especially for image, audio, and video content creation. Free is an illusion. Just like money. Nothing is free and money isn't real.

Here's something to try: shoot raw stills (or even compressed video) with the 1DC, then try to match color to the reference stills/video with the A7S in post. I've done this with the 5D3 and it really helps to have Canon colors as reference to help get excellent skintones with the A7S. That said, after having done this (color matching A7S to 5D3), some clients still prefer the look of the 5D3 (including H.264!). Slog2 with Pro color (exp. +2 over) has provided by far the best skintones on the A7S. CINE1/4 seem to have strange color nonlinearity with exposure. Canon does a better job preserving color throughout the exposure range- that's one reason why it can be easier to deal with in post. The A7S really benefits from using a gray card to get white balance right. Mixed lighting is tricky- it's best to make sure not too much green, especially for skintones (requires pulling a bit of green / adding magenta in custom WB, etc.).

Maybe Sony could team up with these guys and offer a discount coupon for an A7R II version? http://www.pixcellent.com/Kadel_LN_01.html Would improve low light performance too

While there are diminishing returns as the price goes up, the most important element of a camera is color science. Spec-wise, the F5, F55, Red Dragon, etc., all look pretty good compared to an Alexa (which only recently added "4K" (around 3.2K scaled up). ARRI cameras have been pretty much exclusive recently for all academy award winning films. For professional work, color is king. If for one's personal/hobby projects cameras with lower quality color will work, then all is good. When people are paying for the work, they want the best color they can afford. Even for personal/hobby projects, "fix it in post" gets old after a while, especially when one realizes that there are better color science cameras available. The C300 II will likely be very solid and stable. The FS7 and URSA are still buggy. For paid pro work, an extra $8K up front is worth it for more profit and less headaches later.

For professional work, the C300 Mark II is looking really good- look at the clean detail and skin tones, little or no RS or aliasing, excellent DR: Focusing in 4K is challenging, especially for a moving subject and/or camera. This is especially true without a focus puller. The C300 Mark II autofocus is looking really good: 15 stops DR, excellent autofocus, and of course superb color science and skin tones make the C300 II look really good compared to even the ARRI Alexa/Amira. It's not out until October, and at $16K it might seem expensive compared to an FS7 or Ursa/Mini. However I haven't seen any footage from anything short of Alexa with such nice color and skintones. The 'killer app' exclusive feature is the autofocus- no one else has something that works as well. The C300 II looks to be the best bang-for-buck pro 4K camera on the horizon.

Canon has perhaps only one very significant advantage over the the A7RII- color science. Sony does OK with natural light and full spectrum indoor lights (though Canon & Nikon are better), however they really have trouble with LED and fluorescent lights (spikey color spectrums). Looking forward to seeing A7SRII studio portrait stills to show what it can do with the best indoor lighting available with skintones. While we can make the A7S look decent for video, the 5D3 is still the go to stills camera for people and skintones (and less work for video when shooting H.264 (though a bit soft compared to the A7S). 5D3 RAW smokes the A7S in every way except resolution (not by much), slomo, and lowlight (DR difference isn't a big deal- it's easier to deal with 14-bit linear RAW and highlight recovery vs. 8-bit Slog2)). When Sony starts working on and promoting their 'new updated color science' we'll take another look at Sony cameras for stills and video.

Hobbyists benefit from accurate and pleasing skin tone color by not having to deal with LUTs, which are very specialized and only work as intended with a known input color space and proper levels. For professional paid work, we don't want to waste time color correcting inaccurate+unpleasing colors from the camera. Time is money. Also very important is showing clients straight-from-camera footage. For pleasing skintones, Sony looks comparatively terrible compared to Canon, Nikon, BM, even Panasonic. It's really puzzling since the F35 and F65 look so amazing (but not the F55, F5, FS7, FS700, A7 series and so on). In controlled situations, the F55 (even FS7) can look very close to the Alexa using LUTs, however in practice folks still choose Alexa over F55 etc. if they have a choice. At the high end the ARRI cameras (Alexa, Amira) have class-leading accurate and pleasing skintones, so hiring a colorist isn't needed. For episodic TV, fast high quality production is very important. For film production, colorists are hired to help set the mood and tell the story, not so much to fix broken color from market trailing color science cameras (which won't be used very often except perhaps as crash cams or other limited-use specialized applications). Since Sony works closely with Nikon, why not license Nikon's color science for these cameras? Perhaps that's a question for Nikon ;). Color science is the most valuable element of a digital camera.

Perhaps there are patent issues preventing Sony from getting good, natural and pleasing skin tones straight from the camera? 4K, IBIS, decent DR are nice however we won't be buying any more cameras that don't at least match Canon 5D3 (H.264 or RAW) or Nikon (D810 etc.) skin tone color science (even BM is looking pretty good compared to Sony). Color for skin tones is #1 for a camera, above all other specs (unless doing landscape/product perhaps, though even there the color must be color-chart accurate).

I rank developer tools in the following order: Windows (by far the best), OSX, Linux (by far the worst for desktop apps). Linux is valuable for business, especially back end projects (no GUI), due to no licensing fees. As a desktop replacement, it's still very rough and has an amateur / unpolished look and feel compared to Windows and OSX. Desktop business apps are also far behind Windows and OSX. I first used Linux when it initially came out (mostly Redhat)- it was pretty cool being able to use a Unix-like OS on a PC. After a while interest wore off as it wasn't that useful except for mostly back end tasks or Unix-only apps. Cygwin brought Unix elements to the PC, and OSX is a Unix flavor (Mach/Darwin). I think the reason the Hitfilm developers are 'not interested' in Linux is that most Linux users don't want to pay for software. Lots of work and no sales isn't good for business. As a developer, I think it's important for people to pay for software, even on-going 'rental' fees as long as there are frequent updates. We need to pay for rent/mortgage/food/insurance/utilities/gas etc. too. While it's possible to 'get by' with free software, the best software is paid software (Resolve is pretty cool, however it hasn't caught up to FCPX or Premiere in overall usefulness. BM uses it to help sell hardware- they couldn't give it way for free if they were a software-only company).

The 'Killer App' for the C300.2 is the autofocus with all Canon lenses. Having fast + accurate autofocus is a huge time saver. Canon's color science for skin tones is also excellent. While I've learned to grade the FS700 to look decent for skintones, for the last couple months I've been shooting lots of stills with the 5D3 and really appreciate the excellent skintone quality compared to Sony color science (I'd never use a Sony for stills for a paid shoot (other than perhaps landscape / not skintones)). For pro/paid work the C300.2 is probably worth the extra $8K over the FS7. An excellent comparison would be the C300.2 vs. FS7 where time to color grade skintones is also factored in. Time is money, and over time the extra cost of dealing with funky color science reduces profit. Additionally, there are cases where it's just not possible to get great skintones from Sony color science when one has limited time to color grade. If tests show that the FS7's skintones can hang with the C300.2, that will make the C300.2 less appealing, however Sony's autofocus on Sony lenses doesn't appear to be in the same league as Canon's C300.2 autofocus. Getting great skintones with faces in perfect focus in 4K with little hassle are very strong features with no competition at any price right now. Regarding a video-look: I noticed that too- would expect a different grade to look more cinematic: it's really about lighting and light response+behavior, not lenses and sharpness. An overly sharp image with too much brightness in the mids & highs along with lack of grain makes an image look like video. Provided the highlights aren't clipped, this can be quickly fixed in post (with a preset / LUT (+ grain if desired)). Canon lenses can look very cinematic: 24-105 F4L and 5D3 ML RAW: https://vimeo.com/92437795