Meeting with Sony to discuss FS5 cinema camera improvements - optimised firmware available Friday 7am London time

[vincegortho]

I would love to purchase Sony. They are a powerful brand who always have something on the horizon. The only thing holding me back is just the color science. If they can do something with that I'd be a sony whore. A dirty little sony whore.

[tomsemiterrific]

5 hours ago, raf702 said:

 

According to an FS7 user 4K HDMI yielded the best results versus 4K RAW. Maybe this will also reflect the FS5 when raw is enabled.

Either way I'm hoping the Assassin can be utilized with the FS5, when the firmware updates are released soon.

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

[raf702]

34 minutes ago, tomsemiterrific said:

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

Maybe your right about that. Lol

[Brett Munoz]

Killin it Andrew!!  FS5 next on my list. 

[tomsemiterrific]

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.

[Orangenz]

Sony sure spending a lot of time fixing something just in your imagination :D Love to get a camera like this.

[tomsemiterrific]

14 hours ago, Nicolas MAILLET said:

Sony Rocks right now... Even the Alpha 6300 is a sexy tool... I think they have understood how to sell more : listen to the ones who buy... Wow !!!! What an amazing discovery !!!!!!

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.

[tomsemiterrific]

12 hours ago, vincegortho said:

I would love to purchase Sony. They are a powerful brand who always have something on the horizon. The only thing holding me back is just the color science. If they can do something with that I'd be a sony whore. A dirty little sony whore.

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). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Oliver Daniel]

12 hours ago, vincegortho said:

I would love to purchase Sony. They are a powerful brand who always have something on the horizon. The only thing holding me back is just the color science. If they can do something with that I'd be a sony whore. A dirty little sony whore.

 

I've used the A7S II extensively at the moment, and I'm finding that a lot of these colour issues might come down to white balance. It just doesn't work properly.

You light a scene with 5600k top end lamps for a daylight scene, yet when setting the 5600k on the A7SII, skin looks green-ish. 

When lighting an indoor scene with only 3200k lamps, and setting 3200k on the camera, skin is blue-ish. 

Auto white balance works, but the colour shifts to red in tungsten and magenta in daylight. 

The most accurate I've found for white that is white, is Underwater Auto! However this makes everything that isn't white into purple. 

This is across all picture profiles. 

FS7 and F55 don't do this at all. 

I'd do a proper in-house test but after this post I'm busy for the day!

It seems a similar thing happens with the FS5. Maybe Andrew can feed this through to his contacts? 

[agolex]

4 minutes ago, Oliver Daniel said:

 

I've used the A7S II extensively at the moment, and I'm finding that a lot of these colour issues might come down to white balance. It just doesn't work properly.

This. Noticed it when I did the comparison R II vs S II in the other thread. Both cameras interpret WB values very differently and are probably both pretty far off.

[Nicolas MAILLET]

The question is : do we have a body not well calibrated ? 5500°K on body, recorded like a 5900°K in real life ... This could be possible... Then a correspondance sheet could be created to move the right WB on the body corresponding to the WB in real life...

I've got a color meter... How could i test the WB of the A7SII (that i got in my hands) ? I've got some X-rite color checkers. My mind says i could estimate the difference (in %) between the color chart seen by the A7SII, and the color chart in Resolve... Then compare it to what the colormeter says at the same moment on white card...

Maybe a new post could be created together to try to estimate the calibration of our bodies ? Maybe someone has already done that ?

What do you think guys ?

[Andrew Reid]

2 hours ago, Oliver Daniel said:

 

I've used the A7S II extensively at the moment, and I'm finding that a lot of these colour issues might come down to white balance. It just doesn't work properly.

You light a scene with 5600k top end lamps for a daylight scene, yet when setting the 5600k on the A7SII, skin looks green-ish. 

When lighting an indoor scene with only 3200k lamps, and setting 3200k on the camera, skin is blue-ish. 

Auto white balance works, but the colour shifts to red in tungsten and magenta in daylight. 

The most accurate I've found for white that is white, is Underwater Auto! However this makes everything that isn't white into purple. 

This is across all picture profiles. 

FS7 and F55 don't do this at all. 

I'd do a proper in-house test but after this post I'm busy for the day!

It seems a similar thing happens with the FS5. Maybe Andrew can feed this through to his contacts? 

Are you using the colour temperature matched S-Gamut colour modes on the FS5? That's probably the solution. The A7S II doesn't have these.

[Oliver Daniel]

1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

Are you using the colour temperature matched S-Gamut colour modes on the FS5? That's probably the solution. The A7S II doesn't have these.

I don't have the FS5 (yet). 

I want to see how the Odyssey update will improve the image/codec performance, and if it's similar (better) to the FS700. 

The white balance issue is on the A7SII, which is why I think it has more colour issues than other Sony cameras. It doesn't work. Will need a manual fix with custom settings perhaps (or firmware fix is preferred). 

Glad to hear there is an option on the FS5 to set WB correctly. 

[Tiago Rosa-Rosso]

Sweet

[tomsemiterrific]

5 hours ago, Oliver Daniel said:

 

I've used the A7S II extensively at the moment, and I'm finding that a lot of these colour issues might come down to white balance.

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?

[Andy Welch]

21 hours ago, raf702 said:

 

That's good to know, but when RAW output is released I'm hoping I don't have to sell my atomos assassin for an O7Q+ or Shogun.

Maybe they will enable 4K HDMI like the FS7 with it's latest firmware V3.

I'm a bit suspicious of those results. I have the feeling that either the tester, the FS7 or the Odyssey is doing something weird. Download and do a test grade on these FS700 RAW files and see if you think they are noisy or unusable. http://blog.domisljije.si/2013/07/18/raw-fs700/

What do you mean when you say that you hope they will enable 4K over HDMI? 4K(UHD) @ 8-bit 4:2:2 is already output over HDMI. If you mean that you hope they will enable 10-bit UHD or 4K DCI, then I think you will be disappointed. I'm pretty sure that the FS5 is hardware limited to 8-bit over HDMI. If I was you, I'd sell that Assassin and get a Shogun. The price difference isn't that much anymore.

[cpc]

11 minutes ago, Andy Welch said:

I'm a bit suspicious of those results. I have the feeling that either the tester, the FS7 or the Odyssey is doing something weird. Download and do a test grade on these FS700 RAW files and see if you think they are noisy or unusable. http://blog.domisljije.si/2013/07/18/raw-fs700/

Both FS7 and FS700 output processed raw, but the FS700 raw image is denser ( = more color info in there). Also, FS7 bakes WB in the raw image, FS700 doesn't.

 

[Xavier Plagaro Mussard]

2 hours ago, tomsemiterrific said:

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?

That's the biggest problem of all. Not only they create pages and pages of menus, they don't even explain well how you should use all those options! 

[raf702]

2 hours ago, Andy Welch said:

I'm a bit suspicious of those results. I have the feeling that either the tester, the FS7 or the Odyssey is doing something weird. Download and do a test grade on these FS700 RAW files and see if you think they are noisy or unusable. http://blog.domisljije.si/2013/07/18/raw-fs700/

What do you mean when you say that you hope they will enable 4K over HDMI? 4K(UHD) @ 8-bit 4:2:2 is already output over HDMI. If you mean that you hope they will enable 10-bit UHD or 4K DCI, then I think you will be disappointed. I'm pretty sure that the FS5 is hardware limited to 8-bit over HDMI. If I was you, I'd sell that Assassin and get a Shogun. The price difference isn't that much anymore.

I was under the impression HDMI output on the FS5 was limited to HD only, and SDI output was 4K. 

Yeah I may have to rethink about selling the assassin for a Shogun or Pix-E5.

Of course that's if I end up choosing the FS5. But I think I'll wait further until all the major firmware updates are released for the FS5.

[tomsemiterrific]

13 hours ago, Xavier Plágaro Mussard said:

That's the biggest problem of all. Not only they create pages and pages of menus, they don't even explain well how you should use all those options! 

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.