Considering going all in Sony- thoughts?

[The Chris]

A problem I have with the LX100 is at 70mm it really isn't long enough to shoot over-the-shoulder shots (which I imagine you'll want too).  It seems to me, two G7s with the 14-140mm would be a good approach.  One can get two of those, with lenses for $2,000.  It would cost $6,000 for similar A7S setups.  

If you're only doing 1080p, cropping a 4k shot to 1080p will give you the equivalent of a much longer lens. It effectively extends the long end quite a bit. Just saying.

[maxotics]

If you're only doing 1080p, cropping a 4k shot to 1080p will give you the equivalent of a much longer lens. It effectively extends the long end quite a bit. Just saying.

I want the 4K to get good 1080, so not an option for me.  Thanks!  I looked at some footage I shot last night with both the A7 and the LX100.  I'm now on Dishe's bus.  I lose resolution with the A7 but the colors and bokeh are out of this world.   I'm going to sell my MFT gear (except for the BMPCC).  Like dishe, I've always had a problem with Panny color... I've forgotten.  The problem I have with the Pannys is there isn't a great upgrade path that uses the lenses I have for the Sony.  The A7 with 55mm/1.8 is a killer setup.  An A7S plus the new 90mm and I'd have a seriously long-shot combo (I also have the KM1 audio adapter and 10-18 for long shots with A6000). Anyway, I can use the lenses on an FS7 if I go full 'tard   My friend's getting one.  The video on the plain A7 is fine for me for now.  This has been the direction I was heading until I did that test shoot last weekend.  

I've always likened sharpness to the "salt" or "sugar" of cinematography.  It easily sways you away from more refined tastes!  I succumbed. If I really need the sharpness later, I'll buy the A7rII or something.  With Panny, I can't upgrade to be saturation and shallow DOF.

 

 

[ntblowz]

I use my GH4 for tripod cams, really love the unlimited hour recording, all other Sony cam overheat except the A7s, don't like rig as they carry extra burden for events and managements, I like to keep simple and fast. It's a set and forget camera for me while I roam around with A7s.

[dishe]

I looked at some footage I shot last night with both the A7 and the LX100.  I'm now on Dishe's bus.  I lose resolution with the A7 but the colors and bokeh are out of this world.   I'm going to sell my MFT gear (except for the BMPCC).  Like dishe, I've always had a problem with Panny color... I've forgotten.  

::scootches over and pats seat next to him:: 
Hop aboard! 

[dishe]

I use my GH4 for tripod cams, really love the unlimited hour recording, all other Sony cam overheat except the A7s, don't like rig as they carry extra burden for events and managements, I like to keep simple and fast. It's a set and forget camera for me while I roam around with A7s.

There's merit to that logic, but I really really (and I can't stress enough REALLY) don't like matching Panny colors to anything else. It may be simple and less burden at the event, but its just not worth the headache in post to make it look good together. At least, not for me. Whatever I'm shooting with needs to at least be the same color science (which is why I've been shooting with 2 GH2s instead of throwing in my Sony with 1). But if I have to pick which color science to go with, I think I prefer the Sony.
Anyway, when I show up to do long-form recording, my GH2 is almost never naked. In order to make it through a 2+ hour event like a concert, I usually have it attached to an external battery supply and at least one coupled with an audio recorder. That means a cage or rig, or at the very least a tricked-out flash bracket on each. The Ninja can actually double as the audio recorder so that just replaces a component instead of adding one. 

As far as overheating- The a6000 supposedly does not, and the A5100 users have said using an external recorder and/or battery supply stops the overheating as well. So, no- it seems like "all Sonys overheat" is somewhat of an overexaggeration, and in my case specifically, unless someone gives me reason to believe otherwise, it sounds like my plan will work!

[sgreszcz]

I've been struggling with trying to get a good two-camera combo since I started getting interested in video with my original Olympus E-M5.  I loved the Olympus cameras for their colour and IBIS, but the video in the older cameras was horrible with larger depth of focus shots or shots with movement or detail.

I switched to the LX-100 and GX7 with P35-100/2.8 lens.  This combo was great for matching shots and covering 24-200mm equivalent range.  However, I couldn't ever get rid of the jitter in the P35-100/2.8 lens when shooting video.

So I swapped the GX7 for the newer Olympus E-M5II to handle my longer primes (45/75) and the P35-100/2.8 zoom.  I still really prefer the Olympus colours (as I struggle with the Panasonic skintones and foliage/grass greens - I'm playing with Inazuma's LUTs now).  The problem here is matching the detailed/crisp Panasonic image and colours with the fuzzier Olympus video and their more natural colours.

I've considered selling most of my micro4/3 stuff and going with two of either the Sony RX100 (compact), RX10 (one-camera events 24-200mm), or A7s with the 50/1.8, a portrait lens and the 10-18mm Sony APS-C for wide (lower light, depth of field).  It would simplify things, but I have never used Sony cameras, and there is the expense of buying/selling...

If I could get Olympus with video quality equivalent to what the GX7 and more recent cameras give (excellent 1080p) I would just get two of those cameras - the IBIS and colours are excellent.  If Panasonic fixed their 35-100 OIS jitter, I'd probably get a cheap G7 as a second camera and find a good LUT to give me more natural-looking colours. 

The extra step of correcting/naturalising colour or matching cameras is a lot of extra work.

Thanks for this discussion, I might just get an Sony RX10 to try and then see how I get on with it before buying any more Sony.

 

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

Why? Have you had a bad experience with the A7S? I'm gathering a lot of nay sayers are referring to experiences with Sony's older cameras like the Nex5 which was infamous for overheating. The A7s? 

unfortunately yes. I was hoping that my newly purchased external recorder would give all my camera unlimited recording time, but in practice the only camera that really did give that to me without issues is the Panasonic GH4. I sold it though because I don't like the image. Very video-y. Colour are decent, better than a7s, but worse than Nikon. 

My shooting is the best candidate to provide information on the overheating of equipment, being in the middle east with tempratures above 130° F. The A7s just cannot handle being powered on for as long as about 1 hour, then needs to cool down in my car with AC. The other big problem (the first one is fine) is the battery life of both the Atomos and A7s. This makes the practice of recording long conferences, weddings, speeches, events, a far less ideal solution that a Panasonic GH3/4 camera which somehow have no overheating under straight desert light and have ridiculously long battery lifes. 

The a7s has a very very unique colour palette that doesn't exist on any other camera so if you want to match it effortlessly you'll need another one. 

If you need unlimited recording, as in ''need'' it, don't jump on the a7s recorder and dump the GHs before you try them and see how the glitches and overal experience works. I really suggest selling one GH2 and replacing it with something with a better image (A6000, D5300) and keeping one GH2 for those specific niche applications. 

Oh and sorry the A6000 and D5300 and 60D all overheat at a certain point too unforunately, nothing is with a large sensor stills sensor records reliable continuous shooting expect the GH line (I know the 3 and 4 but not the 2). Matching any camera to the A7s is going to be a work anyway, even the a6000 or Nikon or Canon, all massively different from the A7s unique colours. So keep a GH for the continous recording and spare yourself the headaches that come with trying to force one of these cameras to record externally unlimited periods. 

If you really really can't stand shooting with the GHs at all anymore, look at camcorders, the only other viable options for uninterepted recording. I think there must be a few great models from Sony and Canon to cover that price range, with good colour and resolution. You'll just lose the shallow depth of field ability you get with the GH.

[Sebastien Ross]

No problem for unlimited recording with sony. 

 

I have the sony a7s and the shogun (had a ninja star before too). A client wanted 2 hours+ long real time video in 4k for a slow tv channel concept. Never had any issues with overheating and been powering this setup with goal zero batteries all day (sherpa50 or yeti400). Very easy setup with the official sony AC adapter. I've always set my cam to viewfinder only when it come to long takes(as they wanted static shots), the viewfinder will go on when your face get close to the eye sensor (to verify my exposure was still right and all.) ..and off once your off the cam. Shogun have a neat option to black out the screen when you don't need it.

 

Biggest take I did so far is 3h30 of 1080p prores LT feeding the ninja star...witch is a big stupid amount of data. 

 

The a6000 should be a perfect partner in crime to your a7s, and would be much easier to color match. Sell those panny/canon, i'm sure you won't regret it. 

[Adl]

For more than one year I'm using two of the A7S for live streaming. HDMI out to HDMI-SDI-converter and to Matrox VS4 capture card. The cameras sometimes run in warm indoor environment for 10+ hours per day and I never had any problems! But I have to say that I use external power supplies (no heat from batteries) and I tilt the display.

If you are thinking about recording to Atomos from HDMI out, please keep in mind that (as opposed to internal recording) no noise reduction takes place on the HDMI out. Although the A7S is a low light monster in certain ISO levels there is some noise. Quite normal without any noise reduction. But noise reduction in post (neat video...) demands CPU power and time for hours of footage. Don't know yet how the A7S Mark2 behaves in terms of noise reduction on HDMI out.

[dishe]

unfortunately yes. I was hoping that my newly purchased external recorder would give all my camera unlimited recording time, but in practice the only camera that really did give that to me without issues is the Panasonic GH4. I sold it though because I don't like the image. Very video-y. Colour are decent, better than a7s, but worse than Nikon. 

My shooting is the best candidate to provide information on the overheating of equipment, being in the middle east with tempratures above 130° F. The A7s just cannot handle being powered on for as long as about 1 hour, then needs to cool down in my car with AC. The other big problem (the first one is fine) is the battery life of both the Atomos and A7s. This makes the practice of recording long conferences, weddings, speeches, events, a far less ideal solution that a Panasonic GH3/4 camera which somehow have no overheating under straight desert light and have ridiculously long battery lifes. 

The a7s has a very very unique colour palette that doesn't exist on any other camera so if you want to match it effortlessly you'll need another one. 

If you need unlimited recording, as in ''need'' it, don't jump on the a7s recorder and dump the GHs before you try them and see how the glitches and overal experience works. I really suggest selling one GH2 and replacing it with something with a better image (A6000, D5300) and keeping one GH2 for those specific niche applications. 

Oh and sorry the A6000 and D5300 and 60D all overheat at a certain point too unforunately, nothing is with a large sensor stills sensor records reliable continuous shooting expect the GH line (I know the 3 and 4 but not the 2). Matching any camera to the A7s is going to be a work anyway, even the a6000 or Nikon or Canon, all massively different from the A7s unique colours. So keep a GH for the continous recording and spare yourself the headaches that come with trying to force one of these cameras to record externally unlimited periods. 

If you really really can't stand shooting with the GHs at all anymore, look at camcorders, the only other viable options for uninterepted recording. I think there must be a few great models from Sony and Canon to cover that price range, with good colour and resolution. You'll just lose the shallow depth of field ability you get with the GH.

This seems to be a highly opinionated and somewhat subjective post. 
As far as colors, the A7S color to my eyes easily beats the GH4 - I'm still a fan first and foremost of Canon colors, but the A7S offers me a close enough second that I don't miss it, and I've never been a fan of Nikon's green cast color science. To each their own, I know a lot of people who love their Nikon colors, but its never been my style, and most of the people I work with feel the same. That being said, I've never had my A7S overheat- I'm not shooting in the middle east, but even covering an event in a baseball stadium for 5+ hours, my camera never overheated. Granted I rarely left it on for the full 30 min clip recording, but this is the first I've heard of it even being a concern! And it was running for 3.5 of those hours on a sizeable Sony camcorder battery with an adapter that I built. So, longevity of battery is a non issue for me. The Atomos can run on the same batteries, I believe, so I'm not worried there either.

In fact, reading about your complaints with color science being unique to the A7s, I'm starting to wonder if perhaps you have a faulty unit! I've never heard of the colors being unique (many youtube tests showing it getting along almost identical color-wise with an A6000 side-by-side) or units overheating! Oh, are you talking about Slog or something to that effect? Yes, that is unique. But turn picture profile off? It looks like most Sony footage. At least, to me. I just got my A5100 to tinker with, so I'll see for myself how well they match. 

No problem for unlimited recording with sony. 

 

I have the sony a7s and the shogun (had a ninja star before too). A client wanted 2 hours+ long real time video in 4k for a slow tv channel concept. Never had any issues with overheating and been powering this setup with goal zero batteries all day (sherpa50 or yeti400). Very easy setup with the official sony AC adapter. I've always set my cam to viewfinder only when it come to long takes(as they wanted static shots), the viewfinder will go on when your face get close to the eye sensor (to verify my exposure was still right and all.) ..and off once your off the cam. Shogun have a neat option to black out the screen when you don't need it.

 

Biggest take I did so far is 3h30 of 1080p prores LT feeding the ninja star...witch is a big stupid amount of data. 

 

The a6000 should be a perfect partner in crime to your a7s, and would be much easier to color match. Sell those panny/canon, i'm sure you won't regret it. 

Thanks! I actually just bought a used A5100 from another forum. Anyone want to buy a couple of GH2s or a Canon Rebel?

 

For more than one year I'm using two of the A7S for live streaming. HDMI out to HDMI-SDI-converter and to Matrox VS4 capture card. The cameras sometimes run in warm indoor environment for 10+ hours per day and I never had any problems! But I have to say that I use external power supplies (no heat from batteries) and I tilt the display.

If you are thinking about recording to Atomos from HDMI out, please keep in mind that (as opposed to internal recording) no noise reduction takes place on the HDMI out. Although the A7S is a low light monster in certain ISO levels there is some noise. Quite normal without any noise reduction. But noise reduction in post (neat video...) demands CPU power and time for hours of footage. Don't know yet how the A7S Mark2 behaves in terms of noise reduction on HDMI out.

Ok, see, this is stuff I need to know about. For real, no in body NR? Not as concerned about it on the A7S, but if I have to push the A5100, this could get annoying. Anything else like that I might not be aware of? I've heard something about a skin smoothing bug in certain model cameras that only turns off when recording is also enabled in the body, but I can't seem to find any conclusive information on this. What else should I know about?

[dishe]

So, someone on another forum told me he's been using his a5100 with a Ninja for a while now, and says he reliably shoots well over 30min speeches at a time with no problems. The internal battery even lasts a heck of a lot longer without running the internal encoder! 
He has not noticed any extra noise when using the HDMI out to record- where can I read more about that? Is that really a thing? He admitted to not having done a controlled experiment, but he did send me a sample of something he shot with it in an auditorium with available light, and it didn't seem noisy to me at all. 
However.... upon closer inspection, I DID notice what might be the waxy skin thing. I can't tell if its just bad youtube compression, but the subject's eyes and hair seemed sharper than her skin. I probably wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't read about this elsewhere, but her skin looked unrealistically smoothed out.
In a nutshell, there appears to be a bug that causes the skin smoothing feature to default to ON unless face detect is turned off. But even then, when not recording, it still defaults to ON when using the HDMI out. Its described in detail in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6GVm1Ke2dQ

His solution in the video? Hit record on the camera and it will respect your setting to OFF. Problem is, what happens if I can't record on the camera as well because it will overheat? And even if it doesn't, what will happen to the video when the camera stops recording at the 30 min mark? Will it go back to smoothing the skin? My goodness, Sony needs to fix this! I don't know yet how many cameras are affected by this bug, he claims in the video that a firmware update to the RX series fixed it so maybe a fix is around the corner?

Meanwhile, I did a quick test with the A7S and A5100 to see if the colors are comparable. Pretty darned close! I'm not sure what Ebrahim was saying about the color science of the A7S being unique to that model, these match really really well, better than I expected considering I was using 2 totally different lenses on each. Could be that since the A5100 was released after the A7s, they used the same color science and codec because that was the "latest" in the lab at the time (which explains why it also had the XAVCS codec before the a6000), but I'm inclined to think that Sony is pretty consistent with their coloring. 
Ebrahim, were you perhaps using Slog or a picture profile? I turned that off since the 5100 doesn't support it, put both on standard and dialed down the same settings in both. Set the same Kelvin value, and viola! Matching footage! 
Now I just need to tackle this HDMI out issue.

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

This seems to be a highly opinionated and somewhat subjective post.

 Oh, are you talking about Slog or something to that effect? Yes, that is unique. But turn picture profile off? It looks like most Sony footage. At least, to me. I just got my A5100 to tinker with, so I'll see for myself how well they match. 

 

The heat portion is objective. Color part is subjective. 

Yes I shot all in S-Log. Subjective: the worst colours I've seen come out of any camera for decades of use. Rumor: I hear Soony engineers put A LOT of work and pride in the OFF picture style colour and gamma. Might be the ticket to soving my a7s colours but its now gone unfortunately. I formed an opinion on the loaner too fast dueto S-LOG2 and middle-eastren summer climate. So PP Off and normal maybe great for you. Just test before selling/buying. 

One easy way to test any camera's HDMI length, is to connect the camera to a TV/Monitor with an external power supply, press record and see how long it goes. Try again after turning up the central heating, etc be creative and try different envirnments. Confidence in your camera is key.

Also keep care of any image changes. yes like you say I've seen the camera when left connected to an atomos without recording internally (to save power and heat), applies a horrible NR effect to skin randomly. Test that as well. read it here below http://philipbloom.net/blog/dad/ 

[dishe]

The heat portion is objective. Color part is subjective. 
Yes I shot all in S-Log. Subjective: the worst colours I've seen come out of any camera for decades of use. Rumor: I hear Soony engineers put A LOT of work and pride in the OFF picture style colour and gamma. Might be the ticket to soving my a7s colours but its now gone unfortunately. I formed an opinion on the loaner too fast dueto S-LOG2 and middle-eastren summer climate. So PP Off and normal maybe great for you. Just test before selling/buying. 

One easy way to test any camera's HDMI length, is to connect the camera to a TV/Monitor with an external power supply, press record and see how long it goes. Try again after turning up the central heating, etc be creative and try different envirnments. Confidence in your camera is key.

Also keep care of any image changes. yes like you say I've seen the camera when left connected to an atomos without recording internally (to save power and heat), applies a horrible NR effect to skin randomly. Test that as well. read it here below http://philipbloom.net/blog/dad/ 

Thanks- yes, OMG, of course you didn't like the Sony colors!!! The S-log on the A7S is the wooooorst!

I've been using this camera for about a year now, and I stopped fiddling with Slog after 1 week. I stuck to Cine picture styles for flat images until I realized even that was overkill for most corporate talking heads and events (film making is another story). I've been shooting with PP off for 9 months now and haven't missed it- the color is just like any other Sony to my eyes, and my test alongside the A5100 last night proved this to me. Its a shame you gave up on it so quickly!

Anyway, I'm going to look into this more. I see the waxy face bug, but they already addressed and fixed it with the RX camera. I'm going to see if I can't find a workaround in the mean time and perhaps a proper fix is around the corner. Thanks for the suggestions!

[dishe]

So, some updates:

I'm getting my Atomos Ninja soon, but in the meantime I performed some tests here at home with the equipment I have. 
Good news: I plugged the A5100 into an HDMI monitor and left it feeding the clean output for over an hour. Not only is the thing not even close to heating up, but the battery drain has been minimal as well. Just using it like a sensor to feed an external recorder, this thing could clearly go for hours on a single battery! That gives me high hopes for a Nina 2 + a5100 rig being able to effectively replace a GH for long form recording. 

Bad news: I DO see the skin smoothing bug. It only happens when I look directly into the camera and it can clearly detect a face (2 eyes, nose, etc). If I cover one of my eyes, the detail in my forehead comes right back. 
Good news: The A7S used to do this as well, but it seems that as of firmware 1.10, it no longer does it. My A5100 is on firmware 1.0, I see there was an update so I'm holding my breath and hoping it addresses it there too! I'm charging up a battery before I perform that update, so I'll know a bit later tonight how that works and will report back when I have more information. But at the very least, my A7S can record long term without any problems, and be facing the subject and have zero issues. 
If I can't fix the a5100 skin smoothing, worst case scenario is I'll use it on shots that the subject doesn't look into the camera directly. Like side angles on interviews or wide shots of stages. Either way, pretty confident that I'm on to something here!

[dishe]

Ok, a5100 waxy skin bug confirmed to be still existing on clean hdmi out. Firmware 1.10 did not fix it, hopefully there is another update around the corner. At least the A7S is good for now.