Sony A7sII - Overheating in 4k?

[DBounce]

 Don, the video you attached is Tony Northrop's first video. He took the camera to Machu Picchu and posted a second video where he comments on the overheating issues. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxxKAJtBnhA.

Hopefully the smaller sensor on the A7Sii will not have this issue.

No, the video link that you are quoting as a follow-up is for a different camera... It's for the A7Rii. The original video is the latest one by TN relating to the A7Sii. Click on your link and read the title.

[Knuck]

 

Thx for pointing that out. Originally I thought Don was referring to Tony's first review of the A7Rii where he claimed it didn't overheat and later corrected himself, after several negative comments, in the video I linked. Lets hope that he doesn't make similar incorrect conclusions with the A7sii. Time will tell.  

No, the video link that you are quoting as a follow-up is for a different camera... It's for the A7Rii. The original video is the latest one by TN relating to the A7Sii. Click on your link and read the title.

Thx for pointing that out. Originally I thought Don was referring to Tony's first review of the A7Rii where he claimed it didn't overheat and later corrected himself, after several negative comments, in the video I linked. Lets hope he doesn't make similar incorrect conclusions with the A7Sii. Time will tell.

[Sekhar]

"Color science" is a made up term, no one really knows what it means.

It certainly has nothing to do with science. Art in the eyes of the beholder maybe, but science, no.

Yeah, when folks say "it has good color science," they usually just mean "I like its colors." It's one of the scientific sounding terms people use to express an opinion as fact and to sound credible. The term "color science" seems to be especially popular with Canon lovers and Sony haters (I do personally prefer Canon colors to Sony's BTW).

[User]

Yeah, when folks say "it has good color science," they usually just mean "I like its colors." It's one of the scientific sounding terms people use to express an opinion as fact and to sound credible. The term "color science" seems to be especially popular with Canon lovers and Sony haters (I do personally prefer Canon colors to Sony's BTW).

Yeah I agree, it's what prompted me to put this together:

Kit. Kitted out. David Hasselhoff tying off down by the Spree. Rig. Rigged out. Rigamortis setting in. Brick. Bricked. Bertolt Brecht. Crop. Cropped. Copping a feel. Color Science. Pseudoscience. Bitched appliance. Baked in. Burnt in. Can I borrow a filter? Game changer. Lame stranger. Grandma take me home. Bit depth. She wept. Red Raw. Redrum. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Backlit sensor. Optical condenser. Magenta. Your girlfriend's placenta in a Chinese noodle house. Highlight. Lowlight. No light. Roll off to light another one up. IRE. Knee. Well maybe, lets see. H264. Noise floor. Back screen door, blowing in the wind. Gamma curve. Gamma globulin. Happy Halloween. 10 bit. 8 bit. 2 bit good for nothing. 2k. 4k. Jonny Holiday. Dynamic derange. A dog with mange. Home, home on the range. Log. Lut. Luddite. Neophyte. Is that a S-curve in your pocket, or are you just happy to BNC me? Coming in to Los Angeles, bring in a couple of RGBs. Out and about. S-login' it out. Node. Teal. Indian hand meal. Color pallet. Cleft palate. Focal. Fecal. We the people. Form factor. Hamstercaster. Should of asked her faster.

[TheRenaissanceMan]

From Art Adams on Reddit:

"So... let's see: I need to think how to say this simply. The sensor has little red, green and blue filters on the photosites. The wavelengths that these filters pass determine how the camera sees color. There's no way for them to perfectly match how the human eye sees color, so there has to be some tweaking.

First, photons pass through the filters and the photosite counts the number of photons that hit it.

That signal is then moved off the sensor where it is sorted into a color signal (either red, green or blue) and then amplified so it's strong enough to be manipulated.

It's converted into digital bits from analog voltage.

It then goes into the DSP (digital signal processor), where the magic happens:

Each color signal overlaps the others. Red filters pass some green and a little blue, blue passes a little red and a bit of green, etc. You need that overlap to get secondary colors (yellows, cyans, purples) but you also can't make pure primaries with those other colors mixed in. There's a thing called the matrix that is a math formula that subtracts color channels from each other to make them more pure while also retaining their ability to render good secondary colors.

Also, the combination of the dye filters, the sensitivity of the silicon and the spectral shaping filters on the front of the sensor (IR and UV cuts) create a color space that's unique to that design of camera. There's a lot of math involved in bending the camera's color space into a color space that we can see on a monitor or in a movie theater, like Rec 709 or P3. That all happens in the DSP.

This is also where gamma is applied. Sensors see in linear gamma, which looks really dark on a monitor, so that's adjusted to look normal. More than that, it can be adjusted to create different looks depending on the setting: boosted shadows, compressed highlights, log/flat, etc. Normal displays are only designed to show six stops of dynamic range and most cameras now capture 10-14, so gamma curves shoehorn that extra information into a range the monitor can see.

Somewhere in there you'll find white balance, where the red and blue channels are adjusted to match the strength of the green channel when viewing a white card reference.

The dye filters used, where the colors in the dye filters overlap, how pure colors are, how much cross contamination there is between color channels, how the camera's color space is translated into a lesser color space, how the camera white balances... those are all color science. It's a combination of crazy hardware tricks and sophisticated math, and that creates a camera's look.

Even in log or raw these characteristics transferred. Raw doesn't mean that you can do anything you want to the footage, you still have to process it somehow... and that's the color science. The interaction of the dye filters and dynamic range of the camera isn't changed based on how the data is stored, you just have access to it at a deeper level.

Arri's look is very filmic. Shadows are most saturated, highlights are less saturated, highlights roll off very evenly, and the tone mapping is beautiful.

Sony's look is a little more sterile somehow... less soft, less subtle color... unless you shoot in Cine-EI mode on an F55/F5/FS7, where they've done some nice filmic things. (Their previous color science, SGamut, did nasty things to yellows and blues. SGamut3.cine is very pretty, with much softer yellows and accurate blues.)

Canon pushes reds toward orange to make flesh tone look better, and pushes greens toward blue to make them cooler. They don't go for accurate, they go for what they think is pretty.

Panasonic is great with flesh tones.

RED Dragon's color is very good. The M and MX were a muddy mess: color was awful under tungsten light, with pasty red faces and blueish greens. They were okay under daylight, but colors looked a little muddy. Dragon doesn't see much subtlety in flesh tones under tungsten light but it's way better.

Color science is how a camera manufacturer makes its color unique and pretty. Each company has its secret sauce."

[Sekhar]

If a manufacturer tweaks the colors to make them more aesthetically appealing (like as you say Canon making them "pretty"), that by definition is not science but art...that is the point. If you're saying the principles they use to achieve that are scientific, so is every single thing that happens in this universe.

[Jonesy Jones]

 

Arri's look is very filmic. Shadows are most saturated, highlights are less saturated, highlights roll off very evenly, and the tone mapping is beautiful.

Sony's look is a little more sterile somehow... less soft, less subtle color... unless you shoot in Cine-EI mode on an F55/F5/FS7, where they've done some nice filmic things. (Their previous color science, SGamut, did nasty things to yellows and blues. SGamut3.cine is very pretty, with much softer yellows and accurate blues.)

Canon pushes reds toward orange to make flesh tone look better, and pushes greens toward blue to make them cooler. They don't go for accurate, they go for what they think is pretty.

Panasonic is great with flesh tones.

RED Dragon's color is very good. The M and MX were a muddy mess: color was awful under tungsten light, with pasty red faces and blueish greens. They were okay under daylight, but colors looked a little muddy. Dragon doesn't see much subtlety in flesh tones under tungsten light but it's way better.

Color science is how a camera manufacturer makes its color unique and pretty. Each company has its secret sauce."

I'm offended BM's look is not included in this list.... but on a more serious note, I personally prefer BM's look over all the above with the exception of Arri. It would be could to see how BM stacked up next to those, at least in this dude's apparently knowledgeable opinion. 

[jcs]

If a manufacturer tweaks the colors to make them more aesthetically appealing (like as you say Canon making them "pretty"), that by definition is not science but art...that is the point. If you're saying the principles they use to achieve that are scientific, so is every single thing that happens in this universe.

When there is a human being in the loop perceiving the images, and the colors have been tuned for positive human perception, it's science. When I show clients Canon vs. Panasonic vs. Sony (of themselves/their projects), they always prefer Canon and Panasonic for color and skintones. The market (humans) perceive the best colors in this order, more or less (professional videos cameras): ARRI, Canon, Red, Panasonic, Sony. The latest Red color science is looking really good- perhaps they'll pass Canon. Panasonic Varicam has been looking very good for a while. Sony is improving, but still requires the most effort in post. BM is probably between Red and Panasonic (more of a niche camera line- above consumer but not really playing in the same space as the typical pro cameras).

[Damphousse]

 

Actually, I just spoke with one of the top private dealers of Sony products here in Berlin. He told me that they have sold more than 80 A7rii cameras and he has not received one report of over heating. He went on to say that he feels that this is some kind of 'internet forum' issue. So yeah.

I doubt 80+ people bought $3,100 A7RII cameras for serious video.  I think the 42 megapixels are aimed at photographers.

[Gregormannschaft]

So any news yet on the overheating? Maybe someone with the camera already can give it a whirl.

[mikespats]

just got the A7Sii...overheated during a interview at 45min in 4k. fully charged battery lasted just as long.

 

[kidzrevil]

"Color science" is a made up term, no one really knows what it means.

It certainly has nothing to do with science. Art in the eyes of the beholder maybe, but science, no.

??? definitely not dude. Color is subjective yes but color science is how each brand maps/optimizes the color output to suit their sensors. That's the short version

[Joel]

If a manufacturer tweaks the colors to make them more aesthetically appealing (like as you say Canon making them "pretty"), that by definition is not science but art...that is the point. If you're saying the principles they use to achieve that are scientific, so is every single thing that happens in this universe.

There is always some science behind the art. Just because you make art doesn't mean you aren't using science. I agree with you that the term "color science" gets abused but that doesn't mean that when used precisely it isn't accurate.

[padam]

This covers it well I think