richg101

definitely. it's not just about resolution. The entire image makes up perceived optical sharpness or more accurately 'detail'. the 24-70/2.8 closed down to f4 will be miles better than the 16-70/4 wide open. mainly due to the reduced unpleasant artefacts like CA, coma, reduced contrast, etc that lenses usually exhibit when used wide open. The 24-70 will have the advantage of being 1 stop further away from it's maximum aperture. it's likely the 24-70 may actually outperform the 16-70, even when set to f2.8.

That's like going into an art shop, claiming to the owner and fellow customers that you're an expert and need top quality art supplies, then looking at the top grade canvasses and complaining that they're all white and none of them have been started already. then going over to the tubes of artist quality oil paints and complaining that the paints don;t automatically mix into your favourite shade of blue and make a photorealistic image at the touch of button. If you want everything done for you, buy a canon and make pictures just like everyone else. if you want unparalleled ability to tune your image, get a sony a7rii/a7sii So far I've seen lots of talk, lots of moaning, and only one person who has shared anything visual!. Less talk, more action. without something visible your points are less than useless.

+0.5 diopter = 2000mm max focus distance when lens set to infinity and minimum focus distance half the original +1 diopter = 1000mm max focus distance when lens set to infinity and minimum focus distance quarter the original +2 diopter = 500mm max focus distance when lens set to infinity and minimum focus distance one eighth of the original +4diopter = 250mm max focus distance when lens set to infinity and minimum focus distance one sixteenth of the original

Neutral is a picture profile. Just because it's not labelled as one doesn;t mean it's not a profile. A film scan overlay just provides grain. it can be overlayed with settings to not change the image colour or contrast. I wouldn;t have posted my sample if the film overlay had changed the image any more than film texture.

forum etiquette

a7rii tested on TRUMP88 with a 1.5x oval aperture. camera was set to AWB, neutral picture profile, -3,0--3, auto exposure for 0.0ev, multi mode exposure metering. No grading. Just a film scan overlay from cinegrain. no ibis

you shouldn;t have had to do ANY grading on the log footage - just apply a contrast curve. grading is a creative process, for colour accuracy no colour adjustment should need to be done if white balance is set correctly. but onto the main point.. judging by the noise on the side of the face in shadow you;re at least 2 stops under exposed on the slog2. You only get shadow noise like that when you;re under exposed. no clever grading will help under exposure of real log footage.

Right, so I downloaded my original file from vimeo (a 1gb file lasting 7mins, so you do the bitrate mathematics - lots of the original 50mbs xavc-s data lost in the original export). The original file had seen no adjustments at all. just an interpret from 50p to 25p. - as we all know the 50p mode on the a7s isn;t as good as the 25p mode, so the sony was at a disadvantage in bitrate terms from the moment i pressed record. Camera was set to auto exposure, and auto white balance. s-log was disabled. i was using neutral creative style with contrast and sharpening dialled down to -3. I just put the vimeo downloaded file into premiere and applied a contrast and saturation boost using 'ProcAmp'. - this provides a 32bit workspace adjustment of brightness -24, contrast +146, and saturation +140. No grading was applied. if this was shot in s-log all I;d have to do to get the same contrast is to adjust contrast and brightness in procamp more strongly. The biggest problem with users is that they overcomplicate things. if accuracy is important an image doesn't need ANY colour correction if the wb is set correctly at the start. all it needs is a change to the levels to provide the blacks and whites, then finally a midtone adjustment. a flat rec709 profile just needs less adjustment than a log profile. Anyway, I'm done with this thread. go use your nikon if it makes things easier.

Some people will never have the drive to persevere and succeed with things. You find it's often these people who blame the equipment rather than finding a way to make it work and yield the best from something. I just think it's madness to go to a vastly inferior camera (if only the fact that the lens mount is limited, let alone the poorer overall image quality) just because it has a picture profile that gives a desired result without any effort.

Please share some material of yours that backs up the counterargument to the one I'm making. and also read the video description before coming to conclusions. if you can see blacks and whites in uncorrected flat material then it's serious under or over exposed. This is correctly exposed, with a overcast sunlight so contrast is naturally low anyway. so there are no whites or blacks Download the original file and apply a contrast adjustment and the colour looks right. We're not talking about contrast, blacks or white. we're discussing colour accuracy. this was shot auto white balance with no adjustments. If you can;t get a good image from this original file It's your fault not the camera.

I expect there are lots of finished pieces shot on Sony Alpha series where colour is to your liking, but not everyone lists the camera they used in the description. And usually the best work never has the camera listed because it's the last thing they think to include. I think if I ever find myself in a position where I have the time to shoot material for myself rather than to show a specific lens character (for business purposes) I'd also not include the camera used - as a result the views obtained will be for the quality of the work rather than for consumers and forum users to use for reference before making a purchase. It so happens that if i list the camera in my descriptions it brings more hits from those looking for samples of a camera, and sells more lenses to those not aware how much impact the lens has on the image. I keep putting this up as an example. But to me I see ZERO problems with colour here. We have proper light, good, clear and healthy skin, and a naturally pleasing lens for skintones. If i gave this footage to any colourist worth talking to they'd have no complaints about the image. This sample footage is exactly why so many colourists and post experts seem to be interested in the dso lenses. if it chimes well with real colourists then it's good enough for forum chumps like us. Anyway, I'd like to see some of the so called bad footage from the thread starter before I make any more comments. Let's see the image he got from the a7rii and the image he gets from the d750. I know for a fact that the flaws he left the camera because of were user error and nothing to do with the camera.

It looks really nice. great that it's the new x-pro. wonder if the film grain effect for jpgs works on video mode?

Part of the reason there is such debate regarding camera 'colour science' is that often the cameras are subjected to less than perfect light. My concern with the slew of diy light panel tutorials is that usually the tutorials quote total costs of making a unit with cheap led strip. the diodes provide poor cri's usually and the silicone protective layer also interferes with the light. the multiple shadow effect from such things also needs so much diffusion that the light output isn;t nearly as good as you;d expect once diffusion is added. I'd much rather invest the money and effort into making a point source lighting setup with the high power 10w+ diodes now available in good cri ratings.

six 19w 90+CRI LED heads. With CREE XT 4000k diodes. each on a flash tripod, and each with 10meters of cable. 3 of the heads are 30 degree spots and 3 are 140 degree floods. works out at under 120watts for the whole setup, but I recon this kicks out the same usable light as 2 or 3 500w halogen worklamps. Worked out at just under £400 for the entire setup. so way more expensive than halogen floods but I recon I;d get 2hrs run time off a 18hole sealed lead acid golf battery.

Very rarely do the colours in hollywood films represent exactly how the scene looked. Unless you have been to that exact forest, at the exact time he shot the film you can't make judgement on the accuracy of the colour. I simply posted that sample to show that both pleasing colours and motion can be achieved by a skilled camera person and careful grading. Most dslrs would fall apart if you tried to pull images around as much as he has done to get this look.

It's a little more complicated than that.

The a7rii doesnt have bad colour science. it's just different to canon and nikon, which are different to red which is different to arri, black magic, etc. subjective. There is nothing that careful rgb curves can't sort out. If specific colour is important it's probably best to learn how to set and use white balance bias, tweek profiles, and learn rgb curves rather than discard a superb imaging machine with such potential for glass. Glass is way more important than the camera. - being able to select from any type of lens is worth the effort of learning how to get the required results from a camera in my book. 'awful' motion is subjective but assuming you are getting unsatisfying motion and rolling shutter you're probably not rigging the camera properly. fitting a cage to add weight to the camera and learning how to shoot with it to avoid micro wobble is a very good way to remove rolling shutter - as is the ibis. perfect example of a piece of work by someone who got to grips with how to get the most from the a7rii. lots of hand held stuff.. no motion issues. lots of colours, no colour issues.

A Nikon D750 could outperform an Alexa but it's still limited by the Nikon lens mount and focus direction. A nikon dslr has about 1/10th of the optics selection that the 5dmk3 has at its disposal and around 1/100th of the selection that the a7rii has. Go to a almost any video rental house and there aint no Nikons to be seen - all because of the lens mount! I'd take the ability to run any cinema or stills lenses (and I mean any lens) on the a7rii in exchange for the quirks and more often the learning curve faced by most who jumped on (and jumped off too quickly) the a7 bandwagon without taking the care to learn how to get the best from it.

Most of the options on the lower end sony stuff are there to fulfil the needs of forum consumers who hanker for such options then never have a need for them. There are a handful of people who delve into the menus and understand what everything does based on their experiences with the higher end gear, being colourists, etc. Most of the advanced stuff in the alpha range is there for creative people who might wish to make use of the options and are also willing to experiment and learn for themselves. As a general rule, those who need step by step guides with stuff relating to creativity, self learning etc won;t ever really take advantage of such features or functions anyway. It's a bit like a motherboard manufacturer. the instructions you get with a motherboard/ram/prosessors are basic. the true potential from a motherboard and the rest of the components are only attained by those who seek to delve deep. Most people pay through the nose for a squeaky clean apple macbook pro which costs twice the price and is capable of half the processing power of a tuned desktop made by a 17yr old geek. since they are unwilling/unable to understand the more complex aspects of cumputer technology and simply have no need for the added performance. I like to think of it as a quality control thing. If it were easy, everyone would be a dop/colourist. when it comes to acoustic instruments i expect your online guides are serving as a buying guide rather than a user guide - so people know which to buy based on their particular playing style, personal preference to the sound, etc. usually those who invest in a musical instrument do so for a different reason than most who buy a camera. a musical instrument like a clarinet is not a consumer/throw away purchase in the same was a sony alpha camera usually is. With a purchase of a clarinet comes dedication, investment in professional music lessons, etc - things that can;t be learned from youtube tutorials.

I expect an F3 and some PL adapted lomo primes would be a stunning setup with real cinema image

I believe when it comes to colour, S-Log was way better implemented on their Cinealta range than on the Alpha range. ie. the implementation of S-Log on the f3, f35 and f65 was more carefully undergone and delivers more trustworthy results. I expect @Ed David could shed some insight on the Cinealta range from the era of the F3. Looking at the F3, I can't see a reason not to go for it at the current price. as long as you can budget for an aftermarket fz mount adaptor or PL mount glass, as well as rigging and the external recorder for 4;4;4 you'll likely not find a more powerful camera. I'd take 4;4;4 1080p from the F3 over any 4k dslr.

Please don't for one second suggest that it's just about the story for Hollywood productions. If it were they'd be shooting on handycams. My point is nothing to do with lighting and locations. it's about the fact that I thought the film would benefit visually from a bit more optical variation, some different focal lengths to provide variation. If No Country was shot in a winter environment it would have zero effect on the beauty of the film. From someone who goes by the name 'Kubrickian' I'd have expected more empathy towards what I was trying to get at. Kubrick and Alcott would have seen many occasions while shooting Fargo where a change in focal length would assist in making for a more visually rewarding end result.

I absolutely love Fargo, but I have always thought the actual photography was the weakest element of the whole thing. could never out my finger on why but I always felt it lacked something on the visual side of things. IMO comparison to how No Country was shot and the photography looks ugly to my eyes

the main thing about anamorphic for most is the defocus character rather than the flares. using an ultra wide lens on full frame and cropping wont give you the falres or the defocus character, but will in some way get you nearly there. Main considerations is that a true 'wide anamorphic' lens is approximately a 25mm/28mm with a 2x horizontal squeeze, and is used on a 4 perforation 35mm negative. so effectively they provide the same fov as if you shot on a 12.5mm or 14mm spherical lens on 2perf uncropped or 3perf s35mm cropped to 2.40;1. even at f1.4 a 14mm lens has very deep dof meaning the anamorphic defocus will only be visible if you were to shoot with the wide lens from under 0.5m. any further distances and most of the image is adequately 'in focus'. The point is that in real situations using a wide anamorphic lens doesn;t actually look much different to a wider spherical lens cropped to look the same. and in resolution terms you'll probably get more res from a cropped spherical lens than you would from a wide anamorphic so to clarify, if you were to take a 16mm fish eye like the zeiss distagon 2.8 or cheaper a 20mm flektagon and use it on full frame a7s (36mm wide sensor) and crop to 2.40.1 the actual fov would be very similar to what you;d get from an unsqueezed 4perforation 35mm negative and a 25mm 2x anamorphic. if anything you'll want to increase distortion a little on a 20mm flektagon (since most 25mm 2x anamorphics have around 20% distortion!, and i expaect the flektagon is sub 12% at most). come to mention it the distagon 16mm fish eye cropped to 2.40:1 will have very similar distortion levels to a real wide angle 25mm 2x anamorphic.! Final note... I;d stack a few UV filters over the front of a spherical lens in order to increase the number of glass faces in the optical pathway. a 25mm 2x anamrophic will have a huge number of elements so the uv filters will in some way create the look of there being more elements and more interactions between each surface.