jax_rox

You're saying they're 'worse than Canon' (what does that mean? Worse than a company who didn't innovate for years and then brought out a camera with few modern features?) purely for the omittence of a small feature that has little effect on the product's target market. Not only that, it's possible the feature will even be implemented down the line. At the end of the day, Sony, as with every company we discuss here, are still a business - and businesses' main goal is to make money. If there were no video mode, I might agree with you. If Slog and other Picture Profiles really made a night-and-day difference on the A7 series, I might agree with you. But as far as I can tell, they've omitted a feature that is often complained about by the same people now complaining it doesn't have it, has never made sense to me anyway given the 8-bit codec and really doesn't increase the effective usable dynamic range all that much... There are certainly times when Slog and Cine profiles are very useful. But I'd be interested to know how many who are complaining about this have personally tested it themselves, know how the curves work and when and why you'd use them. Every single sub-$5k camera launch, I know there'll be complaints on here unless it's downsampled 4K 10-bit 422 ProRes internally, raw externally via HDMI, an image that looks like an Alexa, Canon colours, 100% perfect AF, log (but not really log, just a log-ish mode that increases DR but has a magic button in Resolve that will turn it into beautiful imagery), noiseless images up to at least 12500 ISO, and a battery that lasts for at least three days on a single charge.

You know that targeting specific markets with a product is a completely viable business decision...? If you like the camera, buy it. It's still going to give you incredible footage despite not having Picture Profiles. There's still a huge pro photography market that doesn't use video, or at least not to the extent of Picture Profiles... I'd posit that 90% of people complaining about lack of PPs don't even really know what PPs do, or why you should use them in the first place anyway... People do really just love to bash Sony hey... it's become somewhat of a sport...

To be fair, FCPX transcodes to proxies too (though you can feasibly not do that), it just does it in the background and allows you to edit while it's doing it... FCPX is super fast though

There won't be an A7sIII this year at least. And when there is, the A7sII will still be an extremely viable camera. Not really. Most of the reps at trade shows and events like this have a fair idea of what's going on - they need to, as generally the shows are populated not by Joe Blows but by professional users who have specific questions and specific use cases they need/want to know about. Sony reps would/should at least know whether an A7III series or A9r/s is at least in the pipeline, and whether it's due for immediate release or only very early stages of development. As an example, I attended a Panasonic event in March last year and was told that the GH5 would be 'more likely IBC time'

? you mean except a $2k price difference...? Why does not having Picture Profiles make a camera incompatible with video shooting...? Sure, having log etc. might have been nice. But even A7s/II doesn't really perform all that much better necessarily in log or Cine, especially considering it's 8-bit. If you really want to see an improvement, get onto Sony about implementing a 10-bit codec. Lack of Picture Profiles is really neither here nor there. Spend your time shooting rather than complaining about tiny barely relevant features that a camera does or doesn't have.

Available from June http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/FAQ/Media-Composer-First-FAQ

Avid publish recommended specs: http://www.avid.com/media-composer/specifications But you could get away with less. I've personally never had much issue. Given you can get a (admittedly crippled) version for free, I'd definitely recommend anyone download it and give it a go. There is a learning curve, but stick with it... Avid also tend to listen to their users (for the most part), which is a good thing. Unfortunately, I don't think the market for NLEs provides enough money to make it as most would want....

It can if you want it to, but Avid released their AMA framework years ago for playing files natively. The best thing about AMA is it's based around AMA 'plugins' to support file types - so when a new camera or codec is released, you can quite simply download the AMA plugin for that codec, without having to update (or wait for an update) the entire software. I like the newest version of FCPX, but Avid is far and away my preferred choice for cutting. And once you learn it, you can cut really fast. Plus its in-built colour correction is heaps better than FCPX.

The Japanese market is very different. I had discussions with Panasonic at the release of the VaricamLT and there are definitely features in that that are there due to other markets' persistence that the Japanese just didn't think was important. Interesting to see what transpires. Panasonic and Sony obviously get it now, and 'got it' a lot sooner than Canon

These days, if you can't justify your purchase within 8-12 months, you'd be hard-pressed to get a recommendation from me to buy something. Gear, software, whatever. If you can't make your money back on the purchase price relatively quickly, then it's not worth buying. Alternately, if you're happy to just throw money at something you want, that's fine too. But then you buy it at the price you buy it, and have enough money to justify the purchase. Assessing re-sale value is a good idea with gear, but your purchase decision shouldn't be made mostly on resale value. If you can't justify a piece of equipment's worth off your own work, then it becomes a struggle to justify the purchase IMO. There's always Avid. I would call that a more than viable alternative, and many would call it a first option with PP/FCX the 'alternatives' By the way, Avid just released a free version of Media Composer....., Well, it is still in beta.......

It would force you to transcode to 8-bit, with the ability to re-link to the original 10-bit footage if you decide. Alternately, you could transcode to a different codec that the free version does support. A minor inconvenience that can be avoided pretty easily... it's not all that long ago that Standalone NLEs cost $2k+ and Resolve cost $10k+ $300 is pretty damn cheap.

Of these, Blackmagic's really the only company that has traditionally announces camera slates at NAB. Usually these companies prefer their own event or IBC. The new Panny looks good but perhaps they're not ready and/or are after an audience a little more in-line with who they're but targeting. Also, most of these companies already have relatively new cameras, and usually camera manufacturers don't supersede or replace particularly quickly anymore (unless you're BM), especially when there's not all that much more to offer in the grand scheme. And btw, Arri did release a new camera. And Sony released the A9. I think there's heaps of exciting stuff from NAB this year, and I'm looking forward to seeing Panasonic's new cam. I wouldn't call it a bust at all. Sure, there are significantly fewer new cameras announced, but you just can't have a slate of new cameras every single year.... Took them long enough! Seems they're finally hitting their stride. Hoping for good things. They've always made really good cameras, they just went through a weird and incredibly slow-to-adapt 5ish-year phase...

I highly doubt there will be an A7sIII until there's at least an A9II

Fair enough. That one does suck then. Though I don't know how you use a gimbal without a monitor...

I may be wrong but doesn't this only happen if you're in Manual mode rather than Video mode...?

Great rant, but you have little to no understanding of how these products work or are used. None of these things are real issues. At the end of the day, as a shooter you should be going for image quality first. Sure, depending on what you're shooting minor annoyances can make a difference, but I honestly cannot see how a record button in a position that you can't easily accidentally push to turn off, and a screen that darkens if you happen to be in the wrong shooting mode are anything even close to deal-breakers. As for colour science and AWB, I've never had an issue with either, though I have an A7s, and I've heard reports that colours and AWB may be worse on the A7sII...

Look at the current Sony line-up and pricing and then see if something else fits in there: A7II $1600 A7sII $2600 A7rII $2900 A9 $4500 FS5 $5750 Where do you put an A9s that doesn't eat into both A9 sales and FS5 sales? Where do you put an A9r that doesn't eat into A9 and A7rII sales? Where do you put an A7III range unless you supersede what you currently have and introduce at similar price points? What features do you offer that still provide the A9 as the high-priced flagship...? Sure, there's a small gap in pricing between A7rII and A9, but given the features of the A7rII, the A7sII and the A9, how can you possibly pack more features than the A7r/sII, whilst still crippling enough to not eat into A9 sales...? Sony won't have an A7III or A9s/r series - not this year anyway. And frankly, the Sony pro line-up is positioned in such a way at the moment that it would take a huge announcement from a competing company to really make a dent in Sony's line-up. And really, I just don't think there's that much of a market for a $5k video-oriented DSLR/DSLM. Anyway, I don't really understand why Picture Profiles and/or S-log are so crucial to shooting video. It's 8-bit. And, really, the vast majority of log or Cine-profile shot stuff on the A7-series ends up being 'graded' to look exactly like PP-off, and then complained about because funnily enough shooting log or Cine in 8-bit didn't hold up as well when it came to grading....

Adobe's pretty much lost me. I'm over the subscription pricing, I'm over the bloated software... If I could find some genuine replacements for AE, Photoshop and Lightroom I'd be happy to get rid of Adobe once and for all... Maybe it's time to try Fusion..

Anamorphics are significantly more complex than spherical lenses in their construction, whilst also having a more limited market - which means an anamorphic at that price point is unlikely for quite some time; or at least at a quality that anyone would find acceptable. It's hard to come by even decent spherical lenses for too much less than $2k each, so I don't know how you'd expect anamorphics to be available at that price point...

Seems about right for SDI ports... The problem is the FS5. The a9 is already only ~$1k cheaper than an FS5. What do you put in a video-oriented a9 that warrants you purchasing that instead of an FS5...? And how do you then protect FS5 purchases?

You can still do this. You can also add gels to your lights to get them to the right temp (as I always do with green LEDs for example). Define 'correct' WB. Personally, I prefer to dial in my temp and green/magenta bias as I do on high-end cameras. I'm not particularly worried about getting it absolutely perfect. Don't you want to 'bake in' your desired look, rather than a 'perfect' white balance? I assume we're talking about narrative shooting here? If you're talking events and/or news gathering, that's a different thing.

I think the point is - you're grading (in this case) for an 8-bit screen. Or at least the majority of people here are anyway. Yes, most people don't really understand much about bit-depth etc. but overall if you're grading on an 8-bit screen for delivery on an 8-bit screen, there's no issue. If you grade 12-bit footage on a 10-bit screen, it's most likely going to look wrong on an 8-bit screen. You don't need an 8-bit screen to grade, and whilst most colour suites will have a high-end properly calibrated (and maybe 10-bit) monitor, client monitors are almost always 8-bit consumer screens, as that's what the content will end up viewed on. The exception to this, of course, is grading for cinema delivery. *depending on what you shoot on and how you shoot. Shooting with a logarithmic gamma curve does nothing more than compress more dynamic range into 10, 12 or 16 bits of information than would otherwise be available if shooting with a linear (or REC709) gamma curve. Whether that equates to 'more creative options' depends on what you shoot on, what you're shooting and how you shoot among other things. For example, shooting log vs REC709 on an Alexa can actually provide you with less creative options unless you test appropriately and shoot based on where you want to place your dynamic range (and ideally using a LUT designed for the look of the project). I'v e always questioned the.. erm... sanity... of shooting log on anything less than 10-bits... the 'pseudo-log' that was popularised on Canon DSLRs isn't actually log, it's just a contrast adjustment. Log on an A7s, for example, holds up okay but only due to a custom implementation of Sony's codec. Actually, I think LUTs are used mostly because people have no understanding of log other than hearing that you should shoot in it. Hence, when it comes time to grade, they have no idea how to actually turn that footage into something that resembles what they actually wanted, so end up using a generic LUT that turns log footage into something. It may not be what they want, but at least it's not grey and washed out... I agree (although I find the difference between A7s external vs internal to be small overall - certainly useful depending on what you're shooting... although overall I rarely shoot Slog on my A7s anymore and only ever do if I'm recording externally). I'll also add the caveat that whether ETTR is an appropriate way of exposing depends a lot on what is actually in the frame, and what you're shooting on and how it places things. Placing things where they should be on the waveform shouldn't provide much issue when grading overall. Agree - though again, depends on what you're shooting on. Actually, no. Understanding how your camera (or the one your shooting on) behaves in log, and where you want your exposure to sit; basically testing cameras and understanding digital exposure is the best way to get good image quality from log footage. -- Log is, or can be, very useful - depending on what you're shooting. Most importantly, knowing what log is, how the camera you're using behaves in log, how it grades, where the noise floor is, and testing to see how you want to shoot and expose with it is the only way to get accurate images in log space. And then, understanding how to colour grade, understanding how to use the waveform and colour theory etc. is how you get that log stuff looking good (and understanding waveform is important too in this day and age of digital exposure)

Given that modern SLRs/SLMs and large sensor video/digital cinema cameras are digital attempts at mimicking the film cameras that came before - it makes absolute sense to me. There was no 'custom white balancing' off a white card in the old film days. Such a process was reserved for a small subset of video cameras. You might shoot a grey card and/or colour chart on a roll of film, but the colour temperature was (and still is) 'baked in'. To that end, the fact that you can dial in a custom WB temperature is significantly more advanced than what used to be. As custom WB off a card is more of a ENG/Doco/Corporate thing to do, it doesn't bother me that it's stashed away in a menu somewhere. I'd rather dial in the temp anyway. You can't WB off a white card on an Alexa...

Lot of talk here about content vs art. I'd posit that both are forms of content. Anything that has an intended audience is a piece of content. And in fact, if you take the vloggers you spoke to as one extreme, and arthouse filmmakers as the other, there's actually a broad range in the middle (including those here) that many people will sit along. I think preoccupation and obsession with gear is silly regardless of the type of content you're making. I think it's very easy to forget that gear and equipment are there to support the procurement and production of the content. You can have an audience shooting on an iPhone and you can have an audience shooting on an Alexa. The audiences may be different (and there's potentially some crossover), but they're both viable. Making a video and making a film are inherently different as well. Figure out what you want to make and make it. Personally, I think as audiences we connect to what we relate to. Yeah, maybe sometimes we like to watch stuff that looks nice as well, but overall if you can make a connection to your audience - whether that's through the way something is framed, the lighting within, the performance of the person in front of the camera or otherwise - that's when you know you're doing a good job. Both extremes connect with their audience, they just go about it in slightly different ways.

Me Sony F65 or Alexa are IMO the best you can get colour-wise on a digital camera.