tomsemiterrific

Not really. Most players understand very, very little about their own playing experience, cause and effect in regard to equipment, and have very little knowledge about the relationship of playing mechanics to the acoustical realities of the instrument. Further, I can't see what your comments, how ever correct they may be, have to do with what I said. I wasn't talking about becoming a professional colorist. I was talking about basic information about how best to use the features offered. For instance, can you imagine getting an advanced piece of audio equipment with about a dozen dials for adjustment of various aspects of the sound, and not a single one is labeled and the users guide offers no meaningful information to help you? That would infuriate the vast number of audiophiles. But that is what we video people put up with all the time. And the result is enormous amounts of time spent researching, testing, and trying to separate the good information from the "experts" from the bad information. People in other disciplines would simply not put up with it, but it is SOP among the camera companies. As far as I can see, nothing I said would lead someone to think I was talking about being a special creative person or an aspiring colorist for some production company, and I don't know where you got that impression.

Exactly. My company produces clarinets of my unique acoustical design. I have over 100 videos sharing information that help clarinetists to make more informed analysis of an instrument's performance capabilities---I want the player to know more so he or she can get the best results possible with our products and better appreciate their virtues. It's crazy but the various video camera companies seem to do the very opposite. Shouldn't they want to do every thing they can to insure those who use their products can get the very best results from them? Yes, some effort is made, but it seems pretty inadequate verging on pathetic.

You may be on to something, but in some degree I think it may be a red herring. I have noted discrepancies in WB from cam to cam in the Sony line. I owned an FS100 and EA50, and white balancing them gave significantly different readings. But the issue is more than colour (as in skin colour)--it's skin tone. I don't have the technical lingo to describe it in precise terms. I use Color Finale to do most of my colour correction. The vector tool feature in Color Finale isolates colours, enabling you to do fine adjustments of the six colours on the wheel. And no matter how I toggle between yellow and red I can't make the Sony's achieve the tone and colour in skin tone that comes virtually out of the camera on the Canon. I also note the X-rite Color checker goes haywire on the Sony cams, and doesn't work dependably. On the Canon it works like a champ. Equally as frustrating to me is how Sony, Canon, and most all the manufacturers provide the scantiest information on how to best use the features they provide to get the best results. This means countless hours of individuals trying to figure it out for themselves. Such time can't be avoided altogether, but surely it could be minimized with the proper information. But, this subject really is another post, isn't it?

My sentiments exactly. I have used Sony for years and recently bought my first Canon cam: c100 mk ii. And boom, out of the camera I get the skin tone and colour I've tried to get out of Sony cams for years. It blew me away. Yes, the c100 mk ii has wimpy bit rates, and the usual AVCHD codec--but the Shogun solves all that. When you're shooting out and about precise colour is not a total deal breaker, but with skin tone and colour it's a very different story. I think to myself, "If I could only get the FS5 features with a "look" like the C100 mk ii--what a delight that would be. Why do you think Sony will not offer such a look? Pride? I can't think they're incapable. I am a professional musician and designer/acoustician, having designed instruments for one of the great French wind instrument manufacturers. I know these musical instrument factories often will not adopt and adapt and embrace improvements do so out of nothing but pride---because they did not come up with the improvement. I find this especially true of the French companies with long traditions--one of which I worked and designed for. Could Japan be like that as well? It is a strongly pride based society. I don't know. I'm just spitballing here. But I do know $$$ can buy a lot of pride, ergo... Sony, in my view, could win a lot of converts if they could offer that great, warm look you get from the Canons regarding skin tone right out of the camera--just as one option among many in a given camera. I would buy an FS5 like that in a heartbeat---and I know I'm not alone. People do all sorts of shooting, but if you primarily do talking head educational videos like I commonly do great skin tone and colour is not just an important thing; it's the only important thing (besides sound).

Meeting the needs of the users in the market--the ones who put the "pay" in your paycheck---it's a crazy idea but it might just work.

So, I remember when the US fw update will be released? It would be really great if there were a place we knew we could go to get update information. It probably exists, but I haven't seen it yet. Of course I'm speaking about us across the pond. Ah. Maybe Facebook.

Wouldn't that depend more on Atomos than on Sony?

I note that JVC is also pretty good at responding to customers. I purchased a JVC GY-LS300---wrote two rather extensive reviews on B&H about it, vociferously complaining about no histogram, among other things. Apparently, I wasn't alone. Within a few months JVC came out with a fantastic firmware upgrade (v. 2) with a number of great features not available of any cameras in that price range, along with terrific technological innovations. Unfortunately, JVC cannot fix the down right terrible EVF on the LS300. It is all but unusable, and no internal image stabilization belies their "run and gun" claims for the camera. But otherwise, price and feature wise, the GY-LS300 is a feature rich 4k camera that JVC continues to improve with firmware upgrades. Hope springs eternal. Let's hope that Sony continues to improve the FS5 and has abandoned the policy of abandoning cameras (and the customers who own them) in mid-stream. You post, Andrew, is very encouraging, and I'm personally glad to read your report. Definitely glad I've kept my FS5.

So, Andrew you wrote about a new sensor developed by Sigma called "Foveon X3 Quattro"??? What camera(s) will use this sensor? What piques my interest personally is your remark that the skin tones are better than Canon. Do you have any more specific information you can share?

I agree with you. And I thought you might say the skin tone was too orange. Bringing the image back to "Porange" is simple with the vector controls of the Color Finale program with Canon colours---child's play. But I pushed the image toward yellow which created the orange tone because, unlike the Canon, what shows up if you go very far the other direction is more magenta rather than red (and, no, I'm not allergic to red--just magenta because i find it not just an ugly colour, but a colour utterly foreign to any skin tone I know of--something that looks totally unnatural). Beyond that, your sage advise it taken to heart, and I really appreciate what you say about 10 bit. Thanks so much.

Do you agree (with the exception of the crappy lighting) that the colours of the X70 screen shot were decent?

You can get some really great image results with the JVC LS300. It's sharp and works great with a variety of lenses, and is feature rich. But somethings are to be noted. Electronics are not consistent regarding lenses. There is no way to predict which canon lenses will work, and my LS300 never worked with my best lens, my Sigma 1.8 zoom lens. It was crazy. The other issues are no internal stabilization---so the cam is only good tethered to a tripod. The LCD is just so-so, and the EVF is all but totally useless--you might as well not have one--it is terrible and tiny. To effectively use it you must have an external monitor at all times. If you're down will all those issues then you just might have your camera, because there's a lot to love here, including the price. my 2¢

Axel wrote: "This is the solution. It's hard to do just by trial and error. Maybe the settings exist already in another forum or blog. For our old EX-3, we copied settings from BBC experts which set our minds at rest. As I wrote, I don't own the FS5, I just googled and found this. You might not finde these settings appropriate for your taste, and you will need some patience to find the right ones." Axel, first thanks ever so much for taking the time to explain all this. It clarifies a lot for me. I did try this pic profile---and the result was a pretty drab set of colours, with very little vibrance and poor saturation. The best I can say the result was not offensive---which actually is kind of a left-handed compliment for Sony footage. It just kind of boggles my mind at how much better Canon colours look; how much more vibrant--and I'm not talking about the EOS standard profile either--just the basic out-of-the box image--so easy to make it look good and then go on living a quasi-normal life. With enough study, experimenting, and cajoling I may be able to get something that looks decent out of the FS5 in regard to skin colour--but the effort reminds me of a saying we commonly had back in the mountains of eastern Kentucky where I was reared. "Trying to do that is like trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear." For someone like me, who is clearly not a professional, who has a LOT of stuff on my plate running my own business, this is doubly frustrating. I'm not familiar with all the makers, but I don't find the ones I do know, panasonic, canon, and JVC, to have anything close to this problem of what seems to me to be a magenta cast that dominates over red in the color mix and makes is super difficult to get a warm image out of the camera. Canon is the best as far as I can see, but none of the others are nearly as bad as Sony. I've owned several Sony cams and have never been really happy with the colours, and now I have some idea of why.

The FS5 does 10 bit in 1080p. and 422--in camera. I'm pretty sure. Here's the quote from B&H: "The XAVC Long allows you to encode from HD to UHD using Intra-Frame or Long GoP compression with 10-bit 422 for HD and 8-bit 420 for UHD." I did some experimenting with the global colour adjustment tool in FCPX, using both Canon and Sony footage. Refraining from any commentary on how the colors in the images compared (the Canon kicked butt), what I noticed as I shifted the global adjustment is when you cross the skin line on the vectorscope, moving from red to magenta with the Canon you see the colour red--push it further you get magenta:duh! But when you do the same with Sony footage pushing the global adjustment away from yellow, across the skin line to red, you almost skip over red altogether and go direct to magenta---personally, I HATE magenta in skin colour. But because the actual colour red exists with some prominence in the Canon footage you can use Colour Finale to toggle back and forth to get a really nice balance between a true red and yellow. In contrast, toggle back and forth with "red" and yellow to balance skin colour on the Sony you end up with a lot of magenta as a red colour substitute---and it looks friggin' awful to me. It's almost as if red doesn't exist, or exists in such a small quantity it might as well not be there. Am I out in left field here? Oddly enough I experimented with a pic profile in my Sony X70 XD cam and was quickly able to get a more acceptable image in regard to skin tone. The X70, FYI, does shoot 422 10 bit 1080p and 50 mbps. I posted a screen shot of the X70 below, with very little color correction, relatively speaking. What's up with that when I get better skin tone out of the X70 (with the v. 2 upgrade) than the FS5. But the distressing thing for me was to see with the FS5 how red almost vanished as a colour left of the skin line and magenta is almost immediately the obvious colour. So, here's my question. Is there an adjustment or set of adjustments in the picture profiles where a true red can be emphasized and magenta be subdued? Or am I asking the right question?? x70 screen shot.tiff

Axel, this is a very interesting statement, and it rings true to me on an intuitive level. Would you be kind enough to expand more specifically about the lack of warm colours and what you mean by quantization in this instance? I will certainly take this suggestion and work with these adjustments. But, again, I ask, should it be this complex and convoluted a process to achieve something as simple as a pleasing look? You have it out of the camera with Canon; you begin with something decent you can easily adjust and get good results, rather than something unpleasant, even down right ugly at times that is difficult and time consuming to work with.

Autumn leaves and portrait mode and other similar modes are exclusive to the DSLR type cameras as far as I know. What we find in the FS5 are picture profiles. To my knowledge that's all that's available. If I were more skilled with adjusting the profiles perhaps I could come up with something decent, but it simply should not be this hard. The colours are just not pleasing to my eye, and always require grading for skin tones---a LOT of grading. And I agree, what I consistently have to deal with is a real lack of warmth, with an emphasis on magenta and blue. And, no offense, but magenta is such an ugly colour for skin tone...tending toward what I call the Porky Pig look. The best results I've gotten so far is to nail the white balance and exposure, and then shoot with a colour checker that provides a white balance you can implement during editing with a few clicks. That, at least, gets the colours in a place you can grade reasonably quickly so the skin tones look decent (by decent I mean "not horrible". But it's still far from the kind of warmth and richness you can easily get out of the Canon with minimal adjustment--a kind of richness that is so pleasing and full without looking over saturated and unnatural. There's a time for that kind of cold look magenta and blue will provide, but the kind of warmth should not be hidden away in some special setting like "autumn leaves." It should be part of a standard picture style. I don't know how many here saw the promo video Sony put out for the FS5 with the guy and two gals in a VW bus at the shore. There were several problems with that video (some I'm hoping the coming update will address) but the unattractive skin tones were very evident in that video. Is Sony blind to this issue? I can't tell you how happy I am with what Canon provides. I only wish I had begun using their cams years ago. I'd love to have a 4k cam, like the C500, but they're so expensive--and only record 4k externally--which would be fine for most of what I do. Anyway, thanks for all your thoughtful and helpful responses. I don't feel like I'm so alone in my dissatisfaction. It's such a shame, because otherwise, the FS5 is fantastic to use, with a lot of great breakthrough features that make getting great focus and exposure very easy.

I own both a Sony FS5 and a Canon C100 Mk II. I love both cameras. Both are easy to use with fabulous features and ergonomics. But try as I might I can't get skin tones on the Sony to look right. In contrast, colors in general and skin tone in specific come out looking great on the Canon. Researching this on the internet I find I'm not alone. So, I guess my question is this: are there any adjustments or settings in the pic. profiles than can improve skin tone in the Sony? There seems to be a magenta cast or tint that I just can't seem to get rid of. I struggled with this for years with Sony cameras and thought that was just the way things were supposed to be...until I purchased my first Canon. It knocked me out. There it was, virtually out of the camera, everything I'd tried to achieve on Sony cams, but could not. I really love every thing about the Sony but this issue--and the big problem is I do mostly talking head type educational videos, so skin tone is super important. So, if I can't solve the issue by some reasonable means I think I'm going to have to sell the FS5 and get another Canon as a back up/b camera. Any suggestions regarding how to improve Sony skin tones out of the camera?

I really hope something can be done to improve things. I do a lot of recreational shooting, but the serious part of what I do is talking head shooting for my company's educational movies, and there face skin tones are critical.. So much is so good about the Sony, but skin tone is the one critical thing that, for me, is a must have. If you find out how to fix it I'd love to know. Thanks for your response.

Good luck with that. I've shot Sony for years, and finally gave in and bought a Canon 5D MKII and a Canon C100 Mk II---both SOOOOOO much more pleasing in the images, so easy to make things look good---and the C100 is much easier to shoot with than the FS5. Put a Ninja Star on it and you're got your 422 10 bit recording for grading. If Sony doesn't get rid of the magenta cast and poor, over-processed skin tones I'm afraid I'm going to give up on them altogether---all those other great features notwithstanding.

Andrew, I love everything about the FS5 you outlined here and have no intention of selling it. But I do have an issue, not just with the FS5, but with Sony cameras in general I would like to hear you common on. Sony skin tones in talking head shooting is not nearly as good as Canon. My C100 MkII has fantastic skin tone that requires very little adjustment to look very good. But the tendency toward magenta in the Sony makes skin tones look over processed and artificial by comparison. Am I way off the mark in saying this, if so, why, and if not, is there a way I can bring the Sony colors, especially skin tone, to be more like my Canon cams?