paulinventome

Me too, my left eye doesn't need glasses and it's close to -2 for it to work properly and i'm short sighted in my left but still at -2 so i really don't know what that diopter is correcting for... Also yes, the first time you view a DNG file it takes time to preview it. It's like there's a very low res thumbnail then it gets debayered on demand. cheers Paul

Been away over the break and also shot a bunch of scenes for a longer form thing whilst at it, i'll post some frames later but now i've spent quite a bit of time with the sigma. I'm liking it more as a stills now, i left a summicron 50mm on it mostly and that combination is lovely - the leica is better on it than the A7s - perhaps the lack of OLPF and filter stack has something to do with that. It's the perfect camera for M mount lenses for sure. I brought a limited lens set with me, just what i needed for shots - 21mm voightlander, 50mm summicron and 85mm APO HyperPrime. The 85 is an insanely good 85mm, one of the best i've used and the sigmafp works well, resolves everything the lens sees no problem. In terms of footage i shot some MOS as 23.98 to get 12 bit, sped up to 25 in Resolve is usually not noticeable and i'm working with snow at times - so range with sun and everything is tough. The rest was 10 bit with sync audio. I shot some plates for vfx elements as well. I even ran the camera with a car going over it. Overall it performed really well. The 12 bit cine vs 14 bit still is nigh unnoticeable and 10 bit is great so long as you don't push the shadows up too much. I want to do a dynamic range test - i have a step wedge around here somewhere. I feel the range is the same as the a7sII which is also a 14 bit RAW container. I suspect the range is pretty much the same as all the current sensors like this and in fact 12 bit in cine mode seems very very common too. Issues: Well, i find myself hanging the SSD off a cable sometimes - when moving fast and rigging it's easier to leave it dangle and that's probably bad. My screen exposure seems to change and flicker (in terms of the brightness of the LCD itself) A RAW exposure tool is really vital IMHO But shooting RAW is so damn simple, as filming should be. Just nail exposure and you're good to go. I read in Film & Digital times that sigma themselves recommend interpreting this as Blackmagic Film - i think that's nuts - what does everyone else feel? cheers Paul

I don't think mine is 'loose' as such, you can waggle it back and forth between the steps though but that's not really a problem. Biggest issue is why can't i set it to drive something in cine mode! Like ISO or shutter speed... It's utterly pointless in cine mode right now (unless i am missing something) cheers Paul

Looking at the specs i'd be tempted to say this its the exact same sensor inside the Z6 If that's the case it depends on crop. If it is full width then the image, like the fp, is from a full read out but being scaled into UHD. If there's a crop then one of the modes on the possible sensor is a 14 bit 4K crop. It would be lovely to have that choice But on the Nikon is there an OLPF in it or is it the same as the fp? AFAIK the scaling from full frame to UHD is softening on purpose to mitigate any aliasing. If the Nikon has an OLPF then they could scale that down sharper. It would be nice if sigma gave as some more recording sizes. I'd prefer DCI 4K across and even a 2:1 aspect version. cheers Paul

That worked! I wonder if it's because it's 12 bit whereas the stuff i'd been compressing was 8 bit... thanks Paul

Interesting, am on 16.1.1 and the latest version of SlimRAW 1.8.2 on macOS in this case - does that match with you? Could i get a sample compressed DNG if you have one handy and i'll try that? Paul

Has anyone managed to use SlimRAW on the sigma DNGs and then bring them into Resolve. For me, Resolve doesn't like any sigma files that have been compressed. But Adobe is fine with them... Not sure if that's a slimRAW issue, an issue with how the sigmas are written or Resolve... Just seeing if it's just me? thanks Paul

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Professional-Vloggers-Filmmakers-Photographers-Curators/dp/B07T9JV7K7/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=prograde&qid=1576326422&sr=8-1 They work no problem and are fairly cost effective cheers Paul

They mentioned having a log format but that's not the same as RAW, or BRAW. BRAW appears to part debayer in camera but i don't really know what goes on. To me that doesn't sound like RAW and i've seen it written that it's basically YUV format - I'm sure people here know better. The beauty of this camera is the RAW output - i just don't see the point of a log baked compressed format to be honest. It would be nice to be able to have a lossless compressed RAW and being lossless i wouldn't have thought that stood on Reds shoes. SlimRAW in camera. Compressed anything can cause issues, even in the Red ecosystem. As Lars says, there is a deal with Atomos but i don't think there are any definitive specs on this - is it even RAW? A little 2TB drive is not much or large and you can record to that for an hour or so. Same price as a high spec 256GB card in fact. cheers Paul

Is there not timecode both in the audio and frames. Usually i sync everything via timecode. Ah, i just looked. There's no timecode in the wav files!!! But there is in the video. Surely that's a bug and that's why resolve can't automagically do anything. If you click on a wav and put the starting TC based on the DND sequence and then Auto Sync via TC that audio will be part of the sequence and you can drag it down. cheers Paul

Okay, so the 12 to 14 difference is in the lower stops. The DNG sets the point at which is EV0, so in the 12 bit that is set two stops lower. You can see the raw data in the files. So Resolve will bring them in based around the EV0 point. But it is interesting at least in this test (outside a window with clipping clouds) that i can't visually really see a difference - when i push the shadows up, and expand that - either on scopes or visually. This makes some sense now that the difference between 14 and 12 is at the bottom of the range and it's filled top down. So really you are missing two stops at the shadows but actually this is really only a handful of code values at that range. What i will do is lock off a shot and shoot 8/10/12/14 and compare. What amazes me about this scene is the level of recovery. The lower picture shows as shot, it's at least 2 stops over. Then pull it down normally and then turn on highlight. This is recovered from the Red channel which hasn't clipped in a lot of places. If you took the image into Lightroom and brought it down the same thing happens automatically. So using Lightroom to judge native dynamic range of an image is not possible (the degree of recovery depends on the scene) Cheers Paul In the i

I've done a bunch more digging. I think you're right however i have errors in highlights now with 12 and 10 bit - compared to 14 bit stills and also magenta single pixels. However i am trying to work out whether this is data or resolve. I have a feeling it might be resolve. I am perhaps going to revise my comments about 14 vs 12 vs 10 bit. Some initial tests suggested to me that the difference was lopping off 2 bits and a couple of stops between 14 and 12. But after some more testing now i simple cannot tell the difference between full range 12 bit and full range 14 bit. My exposure is +1 on sky and shadow. And both 12 and 14 bit (and 10) pull back full detail in clouds despite all showing as fully clipped. As a control i compare to Lightroom and what i've realised is that in lightroom where there is no highlight option actually it is taking full advantage of that ALL the time seamlessly. Resolve and Lightroom match. This is suggesting to me that perhaps the lopping off of 2 bits is in the shadows. Yet between 14 and 12 i cannot break. Whereas 10 is clearly lacking detail. I have no method here at the moment to test dynamic range (aka i can't find my wedge chart) So not 100% sure at the moment and more tests to be done. But 12 bit is very robust - or 14 bit stills are hampered somehow. cheers Paul

Here's a quick comp of a test i did a while back The lamp clips, 2nd row down 12/10 and 8 bit. Clipped waveform under that. So this is sensor clipping. The top row and the bottom row show highlight reconstruction. The DNGs have the non clipped highlights rebuilding clipped (Red) The 12 bit and 10 bit are basically identical, both linear format and that final stop of light in the DNG has tonnes of tonality before clip. The 8 bit with it's linearisation has much less latitude in that final stop (because it has a better distribution in the mids). The knock on effect is that, like the shadows which go green, the highlights go magenta. As @Lars Steenhoff mentions i do wonder if this is a bug/issue or just a side effect of the lack of tonality. But the take away is that 10 bit is the same a 8 in the shadows but does have a better highlight. cheers Paul

But 10 does a better job in the extreme highlights - so expose up a bit? What is it you need to achieve? I'd also consider shooting 24p and playing it back at 25p. An awful lot of film transfers are just sped up in PAL land and very few people notice. Check the running times of UK vs US DVDs... But at the same time Sigma have always been very polite about replying to me and whilst they're unable to comment, i do believe the information is actually going back to the right place. EDIT : I can see you underexposed those samples by around 4 stops to test. But in reality what would you be doing? I mean testing is all well and good but i guess this camera is all about exposing normally - that's where the tonality is. If the shadows are important then double the ISO to grab an extra stop at the bottom? cheers Paul

Well on paper DXO says that 5D3 is as you say, the A7sII is down as 13.3 and side by side with the fp the range is the same or actually a bit greater with the fp. So i'd infer that the fp is going to be tested (in stills) around that ballpark. In fact don't we understand the Panasonic S1 having the same sensor (not sure about S1H) - in which case the tested range is 14.1 (but in a 14 bit container? Hmm) Then the cDNG mode of the fp is a stop/stop half less. So that would put the native range around the same as the 5D3 in cinema mode. Add some highlight reconstruction and you'd be getting 12/13 stops in a typical scene if you expose right. This matches my testing - and compared to the Red (down as 15.2 range) i think it all matches up in real world. So i would say that the fp ought to be capable of producing a better image than the 5D3 technically - at UHD and better noise handling. Of course there's a colour gamut and general feel to contend with, but there has only been a few examples i've seen that i think look good, but that's not the cameras fault! It's all a bit IMHO. I've a shoot in the next month of so, and will be using this as a riggable B cam so i'm looking at it from my perspective. I *wish* it had more than 12 bit cine mode (and if it is that sony sensor that *could* do a 4K crop at 14 bit but i also have to step back sometimes and just look at how much you get out of something so small and cost effective... cheers Paul

Nice dog! and the sensor does a great job. We mustn't loose sight that this is a really good sensor in here. Steve Huff seems to be favouring it over the Leica SLs I don't see why alternate lines at a different ISO would reduce resolution but maybe it's not what i imagine, i don't know how many sensors let you set iso on a per line readout basis. Is it the same line being read out with two ISOs? I am using a 2TB SanDisk extreme at the moment, lighter than other SSDs i have and seems no issue on performance: https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Extreme-Portable-SSD-Read/dp/B078T9SZ3K?th=1 Rugged as well. I was planning on velcro'ing it to some quick release clamp. Anyone know when the small rig fp cage is due? cheers Paul

I'd just read that natively it was around 11.5/12stops but they have a cool approach of varying the ISO on different lines to extend that at the expense of vertical resolution. That's a neat approach - especially if the debayer takes that into account. So i guess that's how it's done. I saw some samples and it looks like it will work in certain situations. cheers Paul

Sure. All i meant was it doesn't matter how big the bucket is (14 bit) but is it filled by the sensor properly? I don't know anything about the 5D3, can you get a cDNG out of it, is there any sample footage around? cheers Paul

I wonder what the difference between the cameras is then. My power setting was 1min. Do you have an SD card in? I wonder if it writes settings to that as it sleeps? What about ECO setting? (I tried on and off but it still worked). I have no idea what ECO mode even is! Paul

Yes it did. I did it a few times - (i didn't realise there was a power save sleep!). I set that to 1min and let it sleep a few times and changed settings within. And also the audio stayed as well. So that's odd right? Paul

In that case there's something up with yours. I just found the audio adjustments, changed them, turned it off. Came back turned on and it was all as expected. That's odd. You are running off the normal battery? Is there a setting or something? cheers Paul My Zebra settings persist between turning off and on too... The fp has a full 12 stops as far as i can tell but of course that's somewhat dependant of your tolerance for shadows. Running in full 12 bit cDNG it's very good. As you say, you'd need to side by side them. I would be very very surprised if that canon sensor was doing 14 bit in motion, regardless of the depth of the final files. cheers Paul

For the money it is incredible what you get. The sensor is better than the A7sII in terms of overall image. So remember in all modes the dynamic range is the same. 8, 10 and 12. The brightest and the darkest point are identical. The difference is how the steps in-between are recorded. And the potential is for Sigma to do a 10 bit version that distributions the full 12 bits from the sensor up to 30fps. And that would be perfect. As for comparison with the 5D3 does that do RAW video? Most sensors *do* alter their range in motion. So if you have a RAW file from it, a DNG, of a full range scene with clipping then we could look at the data and work out what the range really is. When you do comparisons with other cameras that aren't RAW and you use step wedges you really don't know if those other cameras are using highlight recovery internally. I guess most of them are in which case those greyscale wedges are such an easy target to tweak for. I suspect the sigma would give another stop or two on wedge charts if done properly in RAW. I personally think a lot of the dynamic range stats floating round are meaningless because it's really about what channels clip when. Ideally wedges should be R, G and B not grey and you'd get a better understanding of what's happening. Commonly green is less sensitive than the others. And yes 1080p is 12 bit to an SD card as well, it is close to 12 bit from UHD but as the sensor is being run in a different mode it is *slightly* different. The image is softer though, it's binning pixels. Cheers Paul

As an aside, i did a quick bit of comparison with an SSD plugged in now. I think it was pretty expected: 12 bit DNGs, the best quality both in Shadows and Highlights - the shadows are also not biased green 10 bit DNGs, these are identical to 8 bit in the shadows, band for band. However the highlights roll off with more data in so they match the 12 bit and work with highlight reconstruction better 8 bit same shadow performance as the 10 bit and the highlights reach the same overall range but the values in the highlights are less tonal and this yields magenta tints. So highlight reconstruction not so quite as good as the others. In all cases i found it near impossible to 'break' the midtones I wonder whether that linearisation curve in the 8 bit is a little off with respect to each of the channels, with green tint in shadows and magenta in highlights or (more likely) that's a result of just not enough discreet steps. cheers Paul

Mine doesn't... Or at least i've not noticed this. Can you give me a specific setting that you lose after power off? Mine keeps recording format, ISO, shutter, etc. What about timecode? Mine keeps timecode running too... I'm not sure how accurate the TC is, i ought to test with some tentacles but on the face of it i am not loosing anything. I'd go crazy with frustration if it did! cheers Paul

I got some progrades off amazon the 128gb version and has worked no problem. Was a bit more cost effective than the others. I think they benchmarked higher than others and are rated 300MB/s (which is above 25p at 8 bit) cheers Paul