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

[1tkman]

What other site has this level of interaction and voice with such a notable camera maker? incredible moment Andrew! I look forward to going back through your article on why you choose this particular camera. I just wish you would have wore flats instead of boot-risers, I mean, you are 7'2"

 

[Phil A]

On 26. Februar 2016 at 11:33 AM, agolex said:

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.

I noticed that on some comparison videos I've seen. They said both cameras had the same settings but white balance was totally different.

Which one do you think is better? Both far off sounds bad.

On 26. Februar 2016 at 11:27 AM, 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? 

I guess there is some function to set a white balance by shooting a neutral grey card. How does that work?

[agolex]

10 minutes ago, Phil A said:

Which one do you think is better? Both far off sounds bad.

The S is more 'filmic', I guess, the R more vivid which I don't like as much. I'll make a ColorChecker corrected comparison one of these days.

[nazdar]

Very well done. I now look way more positively on Sony. Looking for A6300. 

My main concern are good simple menus, ergonomic and logical GUI. Things buried in menus are killing me. Change in color science towards more natural and mellow skin tones out of the camera would be fantastic.

Lenses are another story, which takes way more time and development to buld good rank.

Also avoiding noobs with preproduction models would be realy realy great. 

Thanks for listening!

[richg101]

On 27/02/2016 at 7:47 AM, tomsemiterrific said:

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.

Most of the options on the lower end sony stuff are there to fulfil the needs of forum consumers who hanker for such options then never have a need for them.  There are a handful of people who delve into the menus and understand what everything does based on their experiences with the higher end gear, being colourists, etc.  Most of the advanced stuff in the alpha range is there for creative people who might wish to make use of the options and are also willing to experiment and learn for themselves.  As a general rule, those who need step by step guides with stuff relating to creativity, self learning etc won;t ever really take advantage of such features or functions anyway.  It's a bit like a motherboard manufacturer.  the instructions you get with a motherboard/ram/prosessors are basic.  the true potential from a motherboard and the rest of the components are only attained by those who seek to delve deep.  Most people pay through the nose for a squeaky clean apple macbook pro which costs twice the price and is capable of half the processing power of a tuned desktop made by a 17yr old geek.  since they are unwilling/unable to understand the more complex aspects of cumputer technology and simply have no need for the added performance.   I like to think of it as a quality control thing.  If it were easy, everyone would be a dop/colourist.

 

when it comes to acoustic instruments i expect your online guides are serving as a buying guide rather than a user guide - so people know which to buy based on their particular playing style, personal preference to the sound, etc.  usually those who invest in a musical instrument do so for a different reason than most who buy a camera.  a musical instrument like a clarinet is not a consumer/throw away purchase in the same was a sony alpha camera usually is.       With a purchase of a clarinet comes dedication, investment in professional music lessons, etc - things that can;t be learned from youtube tutorials.  

 

  

[tomsemiterrific]

7 hours ago, richg101 said:

 

when it comes to acoustic instruments i expect your online guides are serving as a buying guide rather than a user guide - so people know which to buy based on their particular playing style, personal preference to the sound, etc.

  

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. 


 

[Don Kotlos]

So I guess @Andrew Reid told Sony about our dream camera and they decided to make it:

http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sr2-rumored-specs-of-a-new-sony-e-mount-6k-camera/

[Jpr]

Posted by a supposed in the know on Facebook today. Let's hope it's true? Please fs700 and not fs7 raw quality that would make this camera the absolute bomb.

[Andrew Reid]

I've had the Auto ND confirmed to me.

The extent of the raw capabilities is new.... wow 4K 60p and 240fps 1080p very nice. A direct tap on the same sensor as the FS7, bypassing the lesser processor inside the FS5. Very generous of Sony but I'd expect the cost to be similar to the price difference between the FS5 and FS7... so not exactly a cheap firmware update? Anyway let's wait and see.

[Jpr]

Hopefully this confirms it:). Though the language in the text is weird. Looking forward to NAB !