docmoore

Just lost a HDMI cable ... on a Sony mirrorless ... mini HDMI ... Moving to a cine cam that has SDI ..... too fragile of a connnection to rely upon. Too bad that most of the innovation starts with the mirrorless cams ...

Yes a rather perverse stand on Sony's part ... not like it protects any of the other cameras. The RS was much worse in 4K 24p than I imagined but since I do not shoot action or music videos ... have never noticed it.

Yes ... gotta say that if it is hot enough to shut down the camera ... I would have gone home well before. Honestly ... new battery ... more efficient sensor and processor ... seems to work ... yes PP will hopefully arrive in the A7SIII(?) Or I will add a cinecam ....

OK here is a very unscientific look at the RS A9II .... Clips are 4K 24p then HD 60p for the shutters ... 4K 24p then HD 60p followed by S&Q HD 120p ... but the third fan clip rendered without slowdown ... no idea why ... I am really close to the blinds so the panning speed is very fast relative to the subject ... but there is RS 4K > HD. I would never be panning like this so not sure what I have demonstrated and would be interesting to know how the HD is captured versus the 4K. Does not look like the angle of view changed on the 4K/HD clips so I think it still is using the whole sensor on both.

Yes If I buy another camera ... they will announce one day after my return window closes. I just picked up the A9II and did so rather stupid panning in 4K HD and S&Q ... will drop those in Resolve and upload shortly.

I figure it might be worth waiting to see if the A7S3 is announced this month ... hopefully good RS 10bit AF and color. Although I have been thinking of a FS5 and Shogun 7 as companion to the A9II ... 12 bit Raw and looks like fairly decent high frame rates ... not too soft. The clip at 4:45 on in the video I linked sold me on the A9II ...

AF is very important for me ... with stills ... more birds than sports and at 65 I have given up on any fast focusing ... with DMF and magnification on the Sony MF is very easy ... if one has time. Most of my video stuff is podcast, corporate (church - pro-bono) non-action stuff that looks better with the Zeiss Loxia lenses than most of the newer AF stuff out there. They are slow ... 2 - 2.8 ... but tiny and I like the way they render ... vignette and all. Had the P6K but there are times when a decent stills camera is useful ... and my days of having two or three different systems ... including native lenses are over. I debated the 1DXIII but the size screen and speed of the A9II won out ... and again color seems to be much better than my initial foray with Sony A7S and A7RII ... the A9II supposedly has tweaked the color and processing on the sensor ... same as A9 but some like the A9II a bit more ...battery good for 2.5 hours video ... and I have a dTap to Z battery adapter and a bunch of gold mount batteries ... can hot swap so really limited by storage ... I use VD PIX-E5 with four 1Tb Speed Drives ... may need to upgrade to a Shogun 7 if I add a FS5 / FX6 or if the new A7SIII has decent external rates. RS ... have not seen any video numbers but Jim Kasson measured a full sensor read out of 1/160 second with an analog oscilloscope. So I doubt that if there is much it is sensor limited. And EC stills ... nothing visible.

Fixed

There may be another aspect to the fawning ... Those who are up for all the new stuff ... stay near the head of the line ... express criticism ... no matter how warranted ... and you better have a good relationship with B&H because you will be an outcast at R.. No joy for those who called the Emperor's New Clothes .... So cast a few shillings at the altar to stay in line ... never know when the killer device will surface. But honestly the Komodo ... while I prefer my Primo grill ... looks like a good addition to the RED non-eco system.

I have been using the A9ii for a number of months ... filming a podcast, and services for my local church while in lockdown. Multihour sessions without any heat issues just works ... record to a Video Devices PIX-E5 with a PIX-LR to get around the 4:2:0 internal spec ... but the times I have used the internal 100MB/S codec it has looked good enough. Color is very good, skin tones accurate and DR acceptable. I rarely use AF ... mostly use Zeiss Loxia lenses but for stills outdoors it is perfect and video with the 70-200 GM is very good. Here is a booring look at the garden ... lockdown not rigorous in Texas but too hot to do a lot of outdoor filming after 800AM. Watch in 4K .... It looks like the AF speed is a bit faster here than necessary ... and I will use a slower setting in the future. This camera makes me want Sony to give us the specs for the A7SIII and the FX-6 ... 10bit more robust codec and I would have nothing to complain about ... the new Venice colors work for me.

Gerald Undone has a couple of YT videos about matching cameras and LUTS. Your best bet may be ACES workflow. Better choice would be to sell the FS5 and pick up a Canon .... C100 mk2 C200 with SDI for livestream/ HD or 4K

These threads may be helpful: https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=114047 https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=101253

Can you transcode with Canon utility to something more Resolve friendly? Resolve in the Edit page shows clip length, magnification size and FPS at the top right of the window display of the timeline .... The Radeon VII (non pro) would give you improved preformance over the Vega 56 ... and it is supported in Mojave/Catalina.

I doubt that the battery can be improved to the point that a replacement will not suffer the same problem ... lack of current from a very power hungry camera ... the should have had an external power point ... not just the USB-C input. However ... this may be a potential solution ... https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1316194-REG/tether_tools_crdtap_d_tap_connector_to_usb.html I use this to run from d-tap off my AB Gold mount batteries ... in my case I can go 2.5A to USB-C or use the Tether Tool Case Relay kit to a battery insert ... the advantage of the Case Relay is that it allows hotswapping of the battery due to an inline small battery that charges while you power the camera. They also have a powerbank battery that supplies 26,800mA and 87W: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=tether tools power bank&N=0&InitialSearch=yes&sts=ps Shame to sideline such a beautiful camera ... do not expect that Leica will rectify this ... one of the reasons I sold my SL and replaced it with a different camera manufacturer.

Its a bit confusing ... now that the camera is on its way back to the store I have the PDF manual to consult. P158 suggest that FLog and HLG are available when using a HDMI connected external recorder but can be mirrored on the internal cards. It is available at ISO 1250 to ISO 12800. Having been recently burned with HLG on the small Sony I did not try it. Speaking of Sony :>( I just fried the A6600 that I was using as a temporary bridge until I find the final camera solution for my needs (wants really ...). Connected a battery insert to a DTap Gold mount battery and Voila ... doorstop she be. So I now am discovering what I can do with an A9 .... no SLOG ... but the majority of my pro bono work is in very controlled conditions. Hope that is my saving grace.

Same for both ... but I only shot in FLog ... might be great with one of the film emulations. I just read the manual pp151 forward and there is no crop 35 mentioned so I assume the brochure was extant prior to final specs for the camera.

I picked up a GFX-100 last week ... returned it this week. The stills were unbelievably good ... better that I can describe. AF is a mixed bag in video ... AF-S unusable in that if you push AF on to move the point of focus in video the lens opens fully to focus then closes to the set aperture ... even in Manual mode. AF-C has a distinct shudder in the background at times when the camera hunts ... other times it looks good. My biggest concern for the camera ... I was shooting to an external recorder as ProRes HQ in 10Bit 4:2:2 in FLog .... the color balance had a magenta tint in spite of custom white balance and white bal correction with a Video Passport Checker in Davinci Resolve. The Fuji LUTS made it worse ... skin tones really pink ... not tanned .... I tried a bunch of other LUTS ... moved to ACES ... and rendered the same 20 minute video 5 times ... the last without a LUT and a bunch of RGB individual curve corrections. Skin tones correct but the background bordering on cyan ... pick one or the other as I was not willing to mask each of 4 persons in the video. Ten to twelve hours for something that normally takes me 2 hours. If I were not shooting interviews and just outside ... might have not been an issue ... as the landscapes I tested looked good. No crop in 4K DCI Full Sensor read ... UHD probably trims the sides. Very robust build ... so close.

Page 10 from the GFX100 brochure ....

Potatoes need to take care ....

You might want to look at the following video ... in it the Rasp Pi 4 enables much more robust connections for the iPad Pro ... look at time 8:00 on as sharing and backing up video files from multiple T5 drives is discussed. Sounds like a very portable small addition to obviate the need for a laptop in many cases:

Dump Safari in the Mac ... Firefox has better quality and color sense for video ... does not shift the gamma when you view things on the U or V.

I know many will not connect a SD card to a Mac unless it is physically locked as the OS tend to write files on it that may corrupt what else is there. It may be that the IOS did something similar .... and as far as I know there is no lock state on writing to a T5. If the WD Wireless is accessible through the net can you format the T5 through its connection after you have rescued the files?

Might try this if you can copy the files from the T5 to your iPad: https://www.addictivetips.com/mac-os/mount-iphone-and-ipad-in-finder-as-local-usb-disk-drive-mac/ Good luck ...

Thanks for all the great insights. I am out working on a mission in a Mexican border town and distance has given me a bit of perspective on the Maxx/Nomad choice. Seems like the future with Zaxcom will really be Nova and their ecosystem if wireless is your priority. For me it may be a future need but at present is not so I may be best served by a Mixpre 10 II or Zoom F8n ... enough inputs for add on wireless as that need grows. Davinci Resolve Studio has been a bit hit or miss with TC sync and the present TC bugs in the new Mixpre II series does not help but I assume that they will sort it soon enough. Thanks again!

Loved the information and your discussion of reasons and perspectives on the SD versus Zaxcom Nova. Really dark at the end .... ? I know that your vision probably accomodated for the dropping light levels and it did not seem so as the evening progressed. So between the F8N and the Maxx ... not enough difference to keep one over the other ... and is the transmitter in the Maxx not an advantage when you want a smaller bag? Just interested from a personal perspective ... I have found a Demo Maxx Block 21 that is very tempting ... but probably should consider a Nomad / Nova for full Zaxnet if I go am spending that kind of money. Any move to wireless has constraints ... either spend a lot and have a solid connection or spend less and risk having dropouts.