EVA1 versus FS7, FS5

[mercer]

Good to hear. I watched your EVA1 slider video on Vimeo and it looked pretty good. Do you know when the 5.6 Raw will be released?

[Zak Forsman]

11 minutes ago, mercer said:

Good to hear. I watched your EVA1 slider video on Vimeo and it looked pretty good. Do you know when the 5.6 Raw will be released?

that update has been touted as "1st quarter 2018" so i'm guessing end of march.

[IronFilm]

Probably the last day of March!

[Mattias Burling]

 

[Django]

Bloom breaks it down nicely in his review and confirms what other reports have been saying: EVA1 is a solid effort from Panny capable of gorgeous imagery and some cool features but that is let down by some odd choices (EF mount), questionable build quality issues & severely lacking in departments like AF & LCD/EVF. It's kind of a mystery to me how these companies can get things so right yet drop the ball so hard in other fields. I guess he's right that we'll never get that perfect camera that combines everything (at least not under $10K).

Personally, I'd still probably put the C200 in front of the bunch just because of RAW & DPAF.

FS7 is a workhorse but having used one recently for an entire project I did find it slow & clunky to operate. Feels dated.

FS5 + Inferno is probably the best deal right now at current prices, but you have to wonder if Sony isn't about to pull out a MkII..

That being said, EVA1 IQ really has a bit of that varicam mojo, if you can get past it's shortcomings i'm sure the files are a pleasure to work with.

Honestly it's a tough call right now in that mid-range video cam market!

 

[EthanAlexander]

24 minutes ago, Django said:

FS5 + Inferno is probably the best deal right now at current prices, but you have to wonder if Sony isn't about to pull out a MkII..

They already make one - it’s called the FS7 ?

But seriously the only thing they could add that wouldn’t make it an FS7 (or better) would be IBIS and the touch screen auto focus they’re doing in mirrorless. That would be a pretty killer camera though!

[Zak Forsman]

2 hours ago, Django said:

That being said, EVA1 IQ really has a bit of that varicam mojo, if you can get past it's shortcomings i'm sure the files are a pleasure to work with.

3

NOTE: This is not a counterpoint to anything you wrote, just using it as a springboard to share my thoughts on the EVA1, as an owner.

The image is definitely what's most important to me -- color, skin, DR, highlight roll-off... it's all handled beautifully. I think the perceived shortcomings are being blown out of proportion because none of them have gotten in my way. Bad LCD? I wouldn't shoot 4k with a 3.5" monitor in the first place. The Panasonic LCD stays at home while my SmallHD 502 or 702 take the LCD feed over SDI. EF mount a bad choice? Not for me as every lens set i own (contax-zeiss, leica, sigma) has an EF mount. Bad build quality? Plastic shell, yes. But it has a magnesium alloy frame. I've owned the EVA1 since November 8 (my two month-iversary!) and have shot with it nearly every day. Haven't suffered any build quality issues. No DPAF? I don't happen to shoot the sort of content that I'd risk relying on autofocus for. No EVF? I think built-in EVFs are a pain to use because they're placed at the rear. My Gratical Eye is much more flexible. Noise at higher ISOs? Compare the EVA1's very fine, tight noise character to the splotchy, clumpy noise you see with the Sonys and Canons. Also, the internal noise reduction works well, but even better, the EVA1's noise pattern lifts out beautifully with no perceivable loss of detail.

Where I work, a lot of FS5, FS7, & A7SII material comes across my desk to be graded and it's always a bit of a fight for one reason or another. Comparatively, the EVA1 is a joy to grade as you guessed, much like the Varicam. This camera is so easy to work with, and I was so happy after the first month, that I bought the extended 3 year warranty. I'll be shooting with my "baby varicam" for a good while.

Truly the only complaint I've got for the EVA1 is that it doesn't offer RAW output or 400mbps encoding yet. Soon, I know. But not soon enough. 

And one little thing that I really love is that it shoots 2K, not just HD. It is a cinema camera afterall, but most in this class only do 1920x1080. And as I often have my films exhibited in theaters from a DCP, it'll be nice not to have to do a little blow-up to make up for those missing 128 pixels on the side. It's a small thing, but appreciated.

[IronFilm]

6 hours ago, Django said:

Bloom breaks it down nicely in his review and confirms what other reports have been saying: EVA1 is a solid effort from Panny capable of gorgeous imagery and some cool features but that is let down by some odd choices (EF mount)

Yet strangely Philip Bloom can't see the obvious solution staring at him: locking MFT mount! 
Even though he goes on and on in his review about how good a submount / E mount would be! 
Sigh.

3 hours ago, Zak Forsman said:

EF mount a bad choice? Not for me as every lens set i own (contax-zeiss, leica, sigma) has an EF mount.

But don't you wish you could use a focal reducer?

Plus everyone is different, there are others who want to use small compact lenses and might have a large inventory of it. 

3 hours ago, Zak Forsman said:

And one little thing that I really love is that it shoots 2K, not just HD. It is a cinema camera afterall, but most in this class only do 1920x1080. And as I often have my films exhibited in theaters from a DCP, it'll be nice not to have to do a little blow-up to make up for those missing 128 pixels on the side. It's a small thing, but appreciated.

Am very surprised that more camera's don't do that. 
Is such a small thing!
Only 128 pixels...

[EthanAlexander]

11 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

But don't you wish you could use a focal reducer?

This.

Not only does it make shallower DoF possible, and bring in more light, but it practically doubles the number of lenses you have if you use both a straight adapter and speedbooster.

[Zak Forsman]

1 hour ago, IronFilm said:

But don't you wish you could use a focal reducer?

Plus everyone is different, there are others who want to use small compact lenses and might have a large inventory of it. 

 

No, I've been using the Metabones speed boosters for years and I'm very, very happy to leave them behind. They always required locking down to a cage because they'd shift on the MFT mount during focus pulls which made the rig less flexible. They would exacerbate blooming and other aberrations of my lenses (contax-zeiss, leica) when wide open, negating the benefits of the added speed. And I like Super35. Being able to reduce to a Full Frame equivalent would be fun, but not essential to me.

And yes, everyone IS different and there are already plenty of cameras that suit users with those small, compact lenses. I don't like tiny lenses. I don't like the image shift I get pulling focus on MFT mounts. When it comes to lenses, something the size of the Contax Zeiss 28mm f2 (about the size of my fist) is an ideal size and weight for me. It's light and a great size for my hands if I'm going directly for the barrel to pull focus, and the focus ring sits far enough from the camera body that I'm not struggling to squeeze the follow focus in there. I had some lenses for my GH4 that couldn't use a follow focus because it would run into the camera body.

1 hour ago, EthanAlexander said:

This.

Not only does it make shallower DoF possible, and bring in more light, but it practically doubles the number of lenses you have if you use both a straight adapter and speedbooster.

1

Noted, I'd just say that "more light" comes at a price if you're using vintage lenses, like I am. I'd have to stop down to reduce the added blooming older lenses exhibit wide open (which Speed Boosters make worse). And I am comfortable shoot up to 5000 ISO if I need to, but man, what am i doing if I need to go there? If I were shooting docs at midnight on moonless nights, then yeah, I'd want to squeeze as much as I can out of my glass, but I use minimal lights and find myself between 1000 ISO and 2500 ISO 99% of the time indoors. I don't see a speed booster's need on that front anymore.

And a nice touch is that the EVA1 has a 1.4x mode that switches from the 5.7k downsample to a straight 1:1 4k form the sensor (they call it D.Zoom) so you have two focal lengths per prime and you don't have to unmount the lens and switch adapters. You just hit the user button you've assigned that to. I use that quite a bit.

[IronFilm]

2 hours ago, Zak Forsman said:

And yes, everyone IS different and there are already plenty of cameras that suit users with those small, compact lenses. I don't like tiny lenses.

Actually no, there are not plenty of other cameras to choose from! :-/ 

If a person wants a compact cinema camera with compact lenses, then they're sh*t out of luck! 

As what options are there? There is the famous BMPCC/BMMCC, but they're awkward/inappropriate if you want XLR inputs or any of a bunch of other common standards such as TC or built in NDs. 

There is the Digital Bolex, which is absolutely perfect for some people.  But for others the base ISO of 200 due to the CCD sensor makes it impossible to use for their purposes (not to mention the lack of many other features such as TC or NDs). 

There is the Panasonic AF100, which is the EVA1 should have been the update for! But the AF100 is now woefully out of date, so that rules it out. 
Then you have a few more oddball choices (such as Sony F23, but too outdated for some, and it is a really really big camera! Just to use small lenses on it. Defeats the purpose), but none are appropriate. 

Imagine how good an EVA1 with the small Panasonic Leica 12-60mm would be, that is beautifully lightweight!  And you could pop a 20mm f1.7 pancake in your pocket to pull out when the sun sets. 

One can hope, perhaps Panasonic will bring out a camera bigger than the GH5 (in price and size) but smaller than the EVA1 (in price and size) but with a MFT cut of its 5.7K sensor. 

 

[Zak Forsman]

37 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

 

Imagine how good an EVA1 with the small Panasonic Leica 12-60mm would be, that is beautifully lightweight!  And you could pop a 20mm f1.7 pancake in your pocket to pull out when the sun sets. 

 

You'd likely need a dedicate MFT sensor for that. Mitch Gross, the Panasonic rep for their cinema camera division has said part of the argument against a MFT mount was that many of Panasonic's own line of MFT lenses would not cover the S35 sensor.

[IronFilm]

Again, this is a non-argument which gets repeated over and over again. 

You can just scale the sensor to match the lens on it, you don't have to shoot full sensor 100% of the time! (but it is about having that choice and flexibility to choose otherwise for some shoots)

With electronic lenses you could even automatically detect when a native MFT lens is mounted and scale to match! (with a manual override option of course)
Easy. Simple. Done.

 

[Zak Forsman]

2 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Again, this is a non-argument which gets repeated over and over again. 

You can just scale the sensor to match the lens on it, you don't have to shoot full sensor 100% of the time! (but it is about having that choice and flexibility to choose otherwise for some shoots)

With electronic lenses you could even automatically detect when a native MFT lens is mounted and scale to match! (with a manual override option of course)
Easy. Simple. Done.

1

the camera does offer a 1.4x crop mode, maybe lobby Wooden Camera to make a swappable MFT mount for you.

[IronFilm]

10 minutes ago, Zak Forsman said:

the camera does offer a 1.4x crop mode, maybe lobby Wooden Camera to make a swappable MFT mount for you.

Unless the screws for the replacement mount plate are shallow enough, you couldn't swap out for MFT.

So I doubt it. 

Plus you wouldn't have electronic controls, which rules out 95% of MFT lenses. 

[Zak Forsman]

i don't know what to tell you, then. keep those fingers crossed for the GH5s, i guess.

[IronFilm]

Although one rumor said it had TC, I doubt it. Won't have built in NDs either. But the Panasonic DMW-XLR1 is a nifty addition, which I hope they improve upon.