pablogrollan

http://www.mirrorlessrumors.com/sony-a7s-priced-at-1800

In a couple of days we'll know for sure, but for now rumors point to a competitive price: http://www.mirrorlessrumors.com/sony-a7s-priced-at-1800 If it's in the ballpark of that amount, or simply under 2000$, the GH4 is going to have some nice competition... and it would seem logical.

Well, if it overheats after 25 minutes of continuous use in a hot room, I'd hardly call it a problem, more of a limitation, which is a given in pretty much any camera... Some don't overheat but they either have a smaller sensor or a bigger body or a higher price...

Glad to try to help you. It would be easier if you uploaded a clip of the messed up audio and the same clip from the shotgun mic -that way we could see which one is easier to fix, removing the hiss or boosting the shotgun-. In the past I've used programs as Izotope to fix problems that were a real challenge, so who knows... Small tip: always monitor the recording device. Any other monitoring on any stage of the sound "chain" is useless since you don't know what's actually being recorded. Could it have been cable noise/connector noise from the Beachtek to the A99? If you post a Wetransfer link or a Google Drive link for example, I'll try my best...

I'm with both of you guys on this one. It would be curious to see the difference between a rendered clip after dropping the 4K footage on a 1080p timeline and one that's been through the "conversion". Probably not noticeable.

You know that some Nikons (D600, for example) have Sony sensors, right? I agree that the first NEX cameras looked more videoy than the Canons and Nikons of that generation, but if the dynamic range of the A7S is as they claim, it's going to be a very cinematic FF sensor... Neither the GH4 nor the A7S will have "professional" codecs, but I think that's something we have learnt to live with. H.264 and its many variants were supposed to be delivery codecs, not acquisition or editing ones, but the truth is that nowadays that line is very blurry... the C100 and the FS700 use AVCHD and are professional cameras. I'm with Aaron here, in doubt between GH4 and A7S -sorry, the BMPC is an unreliable beta product to me-. Guess it will be a question of waiting for both cameras to be thoroughly tested and available. Right now I can live without 4K and simply rent a recorder whenever the project requires it, and the extra DR is very attractive. On the other hand, the availability of lenses for the GH4, the slo-mo modes and probably cheaper price make it very appealing...

I agree, though I believe the sweet spot for this camera -pricewise- would be 1,999$. A litlle more expensive than the GH4 and right in between the A7 and the A7R. Is it a coincidence that this camera was displayed at NAB in the A7 line stand between the A7 and A7R? 12 Megapixels seems a little too few for most full frame pro still photographers who usually have fast lenses at hand and greater flexibility in post with RAW (therefore, not so concerned with low light sensitivity). IMHO this camera is appealing to a small segment of still photograpers and to a vast majority of video shooters, so its main competitors might be the GH4 and BMPC, not the 5DMKIII or even the A7R.

You're right, it isn't! It just conditions the viability of the product. Besides according to the -very interesting- document you provided the actual cost of processing a wafer is 1,200 $, leaving the production cost of the die to 50 $ per unit. The "value" -11,000$- is a different concept, usually the difference between the cost of materials and operations to make something and how much you can get for that product. It's pretty much the cornerstone of economy: the cost of seeds, water, sun and time is lower than the value of a full grown tomato, therefore the operation generates wealth. In this case, since Sony is making the sensor, the Bionz processor and I imagine most of the parts, the production cost of the camera should not be too high, surely in the ballpark of the A7 or A7R.

That's a very good point you've raised here... Of course one would imagine that Sony would've thought of that and found a way to get rid of the problem BUT, given the secrecy this camera is being dealt with -not only pricewise, because by now we should have more test footage from different filmmakers- I can only imagine that firmware to avoid shortcomings form the camera is not nearly ready. Also, with the exception of Canon, most brands tend to release the camera 2-3 months after the announcement. I expect the GH4 to be out by late April-early May, but there are many questions floating in the air with regards to the A7S...

I agree, though I understand Andrew's point of view, especially because lately I've seen some unjustified personal attacks on him. I don't understand why people expect him to be like the BBC and attack him for letting his personal views show. I always understood EOSHD as an "expanded" blog, and it is precisely Andrew's personal and subjective view that attracted many to the site and forum. There are less "personal" rumour and news sites out there, and anyone is free to go there if they are looking for press releases and such. I personally would hate EOSHD to become just another one of those sites. Here opinion is discussed openly, and that makes a difference, but I would totally understand if Andrew came to the conclusion that it is not worth the rudeness and ungratefulness he has to put up with.

I intended to let it go but since you decided to answer to my post twice in two different days, and given that show little knowledege about economy, I'll let you know a few things Marketing does not set the price nor the strategy. Strategy starts long before, with product development. Strategy decides which cameras you are going to develop (F55 or A6000) and therefore the crowd they are aimed at and the mandatory price bracket (set by the consumer). Marketing analyses market behavior, trends and notions to make the most educated guess at what such crowd would be pleased by and how much they are willing to pay for it, not the other way around. Trying to decide the price on your own based on "strategy" to force feed it to consumers, completely unaware of their reaction, is a recipe for disaster. "I'll give you an example: if Sony sell this A7"S" camera at $3,500, that action would cause less sales, bad PR, and much worse, it would invite Nikon to use the very same sensor in a Full Frame Nikon "2". Keep the Nikon "1" the same. And Nikon might sell it for $1,899. " Bad PR?? Let me remind you that it was the price point of the 5D MKIII, which sold a gazillion units. Some people complained that it was merely an incremental upgrade to the MKII and that it was overpriced, but seeing how succesful it's been, maybe they were not so wrong after all. A good product won't produce bad PR, even if priced incorrectly. And who's to say every Sony sensor will be sold to competitors? They may decide to use this one exclusively... "The question from a cost of manufacturing point of view is: how expensive was the new sensor to develop, secondly how expensive is it to manufacture, and thirdly, how expensive are the differences from the A7? The differences from the A7 not that many." Cost of manufacture has NOTHING to do with price. It simply determines if a product is viable or not. Price is based on consumer notions -right and wrong- of how much I should pay. One of those "wrong" notions is that production expenses condition the final price. Levi's jeans cost +100 € in Europe and 30$ in the US, and in both cases manufacture price is below 5$. Now you pay 12$ for a 12 track album on iTunes, pretty much what you paid for a CD, or even a cassette or a vinyl 15 years before. The "acceptable" selling price simply puts a cap on how much you can spend in manufacture, not the other way around. If Sony managed to produce the A7s for 100$, they wouldn't sell it for 500$. They would keep the selling price in tune with what their studies show the target audience believes is the "right" price. "So high prices would be a huge mistake. " And low prices even more... That's why they look for a "right" price. Following your logic, if ARRI priced the Amira below 5.000$ they would take over the ENG market and drive many competitors out of the business -you don't think the Amira's or F55's production costs are 10 times higher than the A7's, right?-. Kodak started a silly price war in the 80's regarding Kodak Color film that ended with them selling the same 24 photo roll for 1.99 instead of 6.99, changing people's notion of the standard price for the product and hurting the whole industry's business for good. The GH4 is aimed at the GH3 crowd, hence the similar price point and the separate sale of the interface unit. A 3.700$ tag for their target audience would have been considered excessive -meaning they would not buy it-. Assuming the A7S is aimed at the same crowd, the GH4 reference has changed our notion of how much is fair to pay for a hybrid mirrorless 4K camera, and Sony would have to take this into account, regardless of production costs. "The fact that the A7S weighs under 500 grams, tells me a lot. Its not costly to manufacture." Give me a break. Low weight means its cheaper to make? Like fruit? I guess that is your "notion". Others believe miniaturization makes technology more expensive since it requires R&D and precision machinery... Still won't matter since production costs (probably below 1.000$, since the Axiom guys without resources put together a 4K global shutter camera for 2.000$) will not decide the selling price. Nor weight... "I don't expect a high price for the A7S. Sony won't be that dumb." I will not pretend to know what the final price will be. I'm pretty sure they have plenty of information and studies. If you think the final price is way too high, either you are not the target audience or Sony made a mistake. Whatever the price tag, it won't be dumb and it will be based on lots of information and analysis. Canon was widely criticised for the C300 and its price vs. features, but the truth is many of those critical voices were not the target crowd and wouldn't have bought it for half the price. In the end, despite its shortcomings and criticism the camera has been a huge success, meaning that in that particular moment and market when it was released, the price was right -even though everyone would have obviously loved a lower price!!-. Allow me to apologise in advance if anything I said sounded offensive or condescendent. It was never my intention, just to have an adult argument.

Well, when I asked for a source I wasn't even remotely trying to imply that. I simply imagined that Andrew maybe knew quite a few NAB attendees worhty of his trust and that one of them had had a chance to hold/play a little with the camera...

"Already I am hearing reports that the rolling shutter on the A7S is really quite bad" Source? I believe we are all very curious about rolling shutter skew in this camera compared to the known Canikons...

Correction. Just saw another video in which the Sony rep said the camera can record 4K in APS-C mode with some internal upscaling. Seems like they wanted to include such a possibility in case you had to shoot 4K and were stuck with APS-C lenses, but... Will the upscaling be good enough to make the use of those lenses worth it?

In a way... price is actually decided by the consumer (how much you are willing too pay). The marketing department's task is actually trying to find out how much is that, how much an average potential target buyer would consider reasonable or appealing. The already known price for the GH4 has lowered the amount we consider appropiate. When the BMPC was the affordable 4K cam, 3.000$ would seem reasonable in spite of having to buy an external recorder. Now that the GH4 is almost half of that price doing 4K internally, Sony would have to carefully re-think the price because most of us would consider it overpriced. Thay are obviously aimed at the same crowd, and FF + extended DR + lowlight sensitivity hardly justify paying double... The reason behind not disclosing the price -yet- may be that they have a pricing range but are still fine tuning it according to reactions from NAB and forums like this one. Consumer feedback is a must...

The info on that picture clearly says "both resolutions available at both full-frame and APS-C", but it contradicts what I've heard Sony reps say in other videos. Besides, 4K is actually 12Mpixels, which is the whole sensor in full-frame stills mode. I'm afraid 4K is going to be full frame only... Still, this camera has the potential to make my working life so much easier and better. If only we could see some real life tests regarding rolling shutter -my biggest fear with this camera-, dynamic range and usable ISO. No point having 400.000 expanded ISO if only up to 32.000 ISO is acceptable -would still be great, though-.

John D, are you talking about renting or buying? If you have 3.000$ per project, there are many cameras you could rent (Alexa included) I don't have much experience with BM cameras, but it seems to me they may not be the best option to record 90 minute-long events. The same could be said about pretty much any DSLR... Not only they have recording limits (that you can circumvent) but also they get way too hot and stop working. Events are usually recorded with TV cameras (small sensor, that is). Grass Valley are supeb, though you could have a very acceptable quality with more affordable XDCAM or P2 cameras. Dynamic range is on par with DSLRs (11.5 stops or so), but without the shallow depth of field. Cameras such as high end Panasonic P2s or Sony EX3, EX1 are still over 3.000€ (maybe cheaper used, since they are discontinued), but the daily rental rate goes for about 200$/day or less. They already have a very versatile and decent lens (the EX3 is lens-interchangeable, the P2s not usually) and a very reliable, edit-friendly recording format. Just think about 90 minutes * 2 cameras = 180 minutes of rushes in RAW or even Pro-res HQ: mostly unmanageable... Unless you are planning a live multicam, be very aware of file sizes! The cameras I mentioned are available used all over the net.

I agree. Even though they are really good, I'd stay away from the iMac since it limits your GPU choices. You can still get an Nvidia GTX 650 or 660, which is a litlle older but almost as powerful and cheaper (120-180 €), at least 16 GB of RAM (24 better), a Core i5 minimum (i7 better if in budget), at least 3 separate HDDs or SSDs (system, footage, and previews/exports), 750W power supply. Put that in a nice enough gaming motherboard (Asus, for example) with a good sound card and plenty of USB3 ports, toss it in a good compact case and you got a great budget editing suite. I'd personally stay away from Premiere Elements and use Premiere CC or CS6 (the subscription is affordable). You can get a rig like that for about 1.000 €

Has a date been announced for this firmware update?

I agree. Nevertheless, those are silly lies, the consumer is not stupid and Blackmagic should know better. It's closer to traditional 1.85 35mm format, which is not use for a long time. Nothing to do with APS-C either, which sports a much taller sensor. In my opinion, it is more like a beefed up M4/3 sensor...

It is true that tests are the only way to see differences changing one variable at a time. There are many commercials and other professional productions shot on those cameras, but you'd never know to what extent the merit of how they look is on the DP/cameraman, colorist, etc. Since you are an enthusiast, chances are that you wouldn't get the same look with those cameras without a crew (people specialize in specific tasks of filmmaking for a reason!). I've seen commercials shot on a t2i that looked gorgeous. Having said that, you'd probably experience an improvement in the look of your videos provided you had a better camera and the time to get the most out of it.

Manual lenses won't give you a film look per se. They will simply allow greater control (just like manual settings in your camera) so that you can shoot how you want instead of how the camera wants. Autofocus still doesn't work properly for video, so using a follow focus (or the focus ring if you're skilled enough) is the way to go to rack focus between different subjects in the frame. A good and fast voigtlander m43 is a great lens. Micro four thirds has a x2 crop, which not only affects the field of view -that appears "cropped" or "zoomed"- but also the depth of field. A full frame lens + metabones speedbooster will reduce that crop and give you a shallower depth of field. Therefore, It is easier to keep everything in focus with a m43 sensor and an m43 lens. With enough practice, it won't matter if you use a full frame vintage lens or the voigt. As long as you use a good lens... Nevertheless, you can increase the depth of field of any lens by stopping it down. An aperture of f22 will give much more depth of field than f3.5 (at the expense of light). If you are shooting outdoors in a sunny day, you can stop it down without needing to use a high ISO. Regarding shutter speed, you should always use 1/50 for a film look. According to the 180º shutter rule, your shutter speed should be "double your framerate", and considering film is shot at 24fps (1/48 shutter speed), I would choose the closest shutter speed to that (1/50) to have the "natural" motion blur of cinema, even if you are shooting 30p. A stabilized lens or stabilized sensor helps a lot. For handheld or shoulder mounted, use a wide lens (not a fisheye, just a regular wide angle, from 18mm to 35mm in FF format) There is no IBIS in cinema cameras, but a professional operator would resort to a steadicam if such smoothness is required. I would usually recommend a rig. A stablized lens will not help you with "picth" jitter -rotation of the camera on its own axis pointing up or down-, which is the most akward of jitters, the one that reveals it was shot with a smalll camera. A large shoulder mounted camera does not pitch up or down, hence a shoulder mounted rig helps. Bend your knees a liitle to counter your steps and try to move smoothly. Moving right + stabilized lens + shoulder rig + a bit of stabilization in post = pretty decent and smooth camera moves. If you plan to do heavy stabilization in post, use a shutter speed of 1/150, because the stabilization software will remove the jitter, but cannot remove the motion blur associated to that jitter, but then again a shutter of 1/150 is not as usual in film as 1/50. Hope I helped...

I believe most of what's been mentioned above accounts for a "filmic" look... after all, the properties -and advantages- of footage shot on film and on a 35mm film camera are those, with variations depending on the film stock and lenses used. But I believe there's something else that has to do with what Andy Lee has said. Some people look for narrow depth of field because otherwise it's not filmic. I call BS!!! or maybe just ignorance... Long establishing shots in traditional movies -modern filmmaking likes to break traditional rules- have mostly been shot on wide angle lenses and F11 or above. Descriptive shots are meant to show, and as much as possible. Regrettably -IMO-, you find many amateur videos with close ups shot with very wide angle lenses, long shots with teles and narrow depth of field, etc. that do not quite look right. The fundamental item for a filmic look is a proper DP. After all, shows like House (Canon 5D) or Californication (7D) had entire season shot on cameras that are now are said to be not nearly good enough for a filmic look... yet a good DP, a Gaffer, a nice set of lenses and proper lighting made that footage look on TV nearly as good as 35mm film.

Well, it is worth some thought IMHO. Even though it may be called S35 -though hardly- differences are not that negligible when you account for sensor area, no just width, affecting field of view and depth of field. Differences between a C300 (369 sq. mm), an APS-C DSLR (332 sq. mm) or an Epic (345 sq. mm) are normal, but the BM 4K (250 sq. mm) is in the ballpark of a GH4 (225 sq. mm) or any other M43 rather than S35. It's not about being picky, it does have an effect on the choice of lenses and the actual way to shoot with it. Also, not so important to me -but maybe for some- I've read comparisons with the GH4 stating sensor size as a big plus for the BM, as being a "more professional" format. Regardless of how you judge it, both cameras are going to be very similar in that particular aspect.

The only thing I don't really like is that huge crop factor on a supposedly S35 sensor... The 1DC already has an APS-H crop factor in 4K, so the BMPC seems to be around x1.85 from full frame -as announced sensor size suggested-. That's closer to a M4/3 filed of view than S35.