A7IV opinions

[Mark Romero 2]

2 hours ago, arson519 said:

for how much i like the lumix s1 image quality im going to sell it to get an A7IV and just go all sony because sony has all the good lenses good autofocus all there cameras use same battey they aint playing around like panasonic.

Well... I don't know if I can blame you. 

It's a little hard to get excited about the whole L Mount system because the lenses are pretty expensive and can't be mounted on other cameras (heck, you can now mount Sony E-Mount on to Nikon Z Mount cameras).

I don't mind paying a lot for a lens, but I expect it to autofocus.

And the L Mount ultrawides don't have lens stabilization, so using five-axis IBIS leads to some pretty nasty corner warping when shooting ultra wide.

In the meantime, i gotta keep work on improving my manual focusing skills when either shooting hand held or on a gimbal... without shaking the camera all over the place.

[kye]

3 hours ago, Mark Romero 2 said:

Well... I don't know if I can blame you. 

It's a little hard to get excited about the whole L Mount system because the lenses are pretty expensive and can't be mounted on other cameras (heck, you can now mount Sony E-Mount on to Nikon Z Mount cameras).

I don't mind paying a lot for a lens, but I expect it to autofocus.

And the L Mount ultrawides don't have lens stabilization, so using five-axis IBIS leads to some pretty nasty corner warping when shooting ultra wide.

In the meantime, i gotta keep work on improving my manual focusing skills when either shooting hand held or on a gimbal... without shaking the camera all over the place.

It really depends on what style you're shooting.

If you're shooting for a more cinematic image then you can manually focus vintage or third-party lenses and the diffusion characteristics will offset the overly-sharpened codecs.  Considering there is no perfect camera, the first thing I'd sacrifice is AF because the alternative is lenses that have reliable focusing (ie, me), are cheaper, and create a nicer image.

I understand this isn't the case for videographers, as that's another whole thing with different goals, methods, economics, target audience and aesthetic.

So many people are out there saying they're trying to get more cinematic images, and then they turn around and want lenses to be as sharp as possible wide-open and want AF, which almost completely contradicts the previous statement, as almost every theatre-bound production I've read about deliberately uses softer-rending vintage lenses despite having the budget for basically whatever lenses they'd care to use.

[Mark Romero 2]

59 minutes ago, kye said:

If you're shooting for a more cinematic image then you can manually focus vintage or third-party lenses and the diffusion characteristics will offset the overly-sharpened codecs.  Considering there is no perfect camera, the first thing I'd sacrifice is AF because the alternative is lenses that have reliable focusing (ie, me), are cheaper, and create a nicer image.

Yes, I would / do sacrifice AF first. The major drawback for me though is that my manual focusing skills are still suspect and the weight of the S1 means that my footage is shakey if only one hand is concentrating on supporting the camera and the other is pulling focus.

I'm not sure if the answer is shooting more on the weebill S and using the wheel on the weebill S to pull focus or not. 

1 hour ago, kye said:

I understand this isn't the case for videographers, as that's another whole thing with different goals, methods, economics, target audience and aesthetic.

True, I think that most of the work i do (and hope to do) falls under videographer.

 

1 hour ago, kye said:

So many people are out there saying they're trying to get more cinematic images, and then they turn around and want lenses to be as sharp as possible wide-open and want AF, which almost completely contradicts the previous statement, as almost every theatre-bound production I've read about deliberately uses softer-rending vintage lenses despite having the budget for basically whatever lenses they'd care to use.

Or... they get a real sharp lens for shooting commercials, and then fill the room with haze ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[kye]

3 hours ago, Mark Romero 2 said:

Yes, I would / do sacrifice AF first. The major drawback for me though is that my manual focusing skills are still suspect and the weight of the S1 means that my footage is shakey if only one hand is concentrating on supporting the camera and the other is pulling focus.

I'm not sure if the answer is shooting more on the weebill S and using the wheel on the weebill S to pull focus or not. 

True, I think that most of the work i do (and hope to do) falls under videographer.

Or... they get a real sharp lens for shooting commercials, and then fill the room with haze ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I hold the camera in the palm of the hand that is focusing, and in a pinch could take my other hand off the camera completely, so I can get relatively stable results.  A third point of contact can be very useful and I'd suggest that if you're trying to stick with MF.  The other thing to do is just to practice, which is what I did at the start of teaching myself.

There are so many people shooting in non-narrative situations and ranging from sit-down interviews + b-roll all the way to tailing highly-active people in real-life situations like first responders and everything in-between.  To me the equation of AF vs MF is how critical every shot is and how much time you need and have to get it.  Every situation in different.

Of course, people think about AF completely wrong.  Everyone is talking about phase detect vs contrast detect, but it's missing the point completely.  Contrast detect and phase detect both work fine when the camera knows what to focus on and how to adjust itself in slight increments to not screw up a shot, but both of them fail when they focus on the wrong thing or the wrong person.  Face detect and eye detect and animal eye detect and flower detect and all that stuff is actually where the cutting edge of AF is and that's because that is the weakest link with AF, but no-one seems to be talking about it.  I find it odd TBH.

In terms of people getting sharp lenses and then using lots of haze, I find there's a few approaches, but the pros either use neutral lenses in order to optically-degrade the image in post (eg, Mindhunter) or they use a combination of lots of subtle elements to build the look, with lighting, haze, lenses, composition, set design, etc.

Noam Kroll talks about people only using one thing and therefore over-using it:  https://noamkroll.com/is-too-much-diffusion-in-cinematography-the-new-too-much-shallow-depth-of-field/  The other things he lists (other than diffusion) were all hallmarks of amateurs trying to get 'cinematic' images without knowing how to do it properly, so I'd say it's a mark of lack of knowledge using just one thing.

[zerocool22]

What camera is the best in bringing up the shadows? I am using a panasonic S5 right now. But for vlogging purposes I def am looking into something with better AF. so A7S III, A7IV, R6, R5, C70 etc come to mind, allthough have not shot anything with these camera's. But I rather underexpose stuff and bring it up in post then the other way around. The s5 does that pretty good, but the continious AF is horrible. Any suggestions? 

[kye]

2 hours ago, zerocool22 said:

What camera is the best in bringing up the shadows? I am using a panasonic S5 right now. But for vlogging purposes I def am looking into something with better AF. so A7S III, A7IV, R6, R5, C70 etc come to mind, allthough have not shot anything with these camera's. But I rather underexpose stuff and bring it up in post then the other way around. The s5 does that pretty good, but the continious AF is horrible. Any suggestions? 

How much time do you spend 'walking and talking' while holding the camera up with one arm?  If it's, well, any time at all then I'd rule out the C70..  it's enormous!

and is heavy......

 

[DFason]

I've used the 7IV on a few jobs now and love it. 

Next week I'll have my first video job with it. Excited to pair it up with my Siii! 

Its quick, easy to use and fits within everything I need it too. 

[lebigmac]

On 1/11/2022 at 7:06 PM, Mark Romero 2 said:

If the a7 IV had full-frame 4K 60p, I would probably have gone for it. Despite my experiences with Sony aps-c cameras.

Keep us informed how it works out.

 

Here for some first impressions (I did not posses the A7iiI, some things might be familiar to you that are new to me). I can’t say anything substantial about the IQ just yet. But I’d like to share what I think about the overall handling in comparison.

First of all, the package does not look like a Japanese gift at all, more like for a north korean showel. Strange for a product of this price. Maybe it is due to environmental considerations, but there was no label or explanation of sort.

Weight and size: All seems more balanced, smaller and lighter than the nikon z6, although that might not be the case. The body gives a kind of hollow impression, which is not unpleasant. The feel of the buttons and dials: Cheapo. All feels like plastic parts from an 3D printer were stitched together afterwards without fitting to 100%. All dials and buttons give you a sort of resistance like they don’t want to be used. No comparison to the refined feel of superior material of an Z6 or the NX1.

EVF is okay, but you always have to hit the center with your eye, otherwise it gets unsharp very quickly to the sides (like on the gx80). I tend to press my eye bone to the frame of the evf all the time, in order to get it right, and that starts to hurt after some time. LCD screen ist okay, but certainly not as brilliant as the one from the NX1 and it’s smaller than the Z6’s. It has a huge bezel, so why in the world is it not possible to make the screen a bit bigger as 3’’ ?. A digital camera is an optical tool in the end, and this one competes with smartphones to a certain extend, which offer a brilliant bright screen twice as big as the Sony A7IV’s one. It think, it is all a bit outdated, and it is a prospect of things to come. Maybe, it was not the best idea to design digital DSLRs on the basis of its analogue predecessors from the 60ties at all, which sported no LCD obviously. Maybe future cameras will have to look different.

Menu is good, I had no problems with the one from A7 mark I though, but it is definitely a revelation compared to the classic NEX menus.
Focus peaking implementation is great, you can switch it on and off easily and when it’s on, it doesn’t intrude too much in the picture (like it does on the z6).

Button and dial assignment is straightforward as well, it’s a quick and easy affair.

A great feature is that you can use the lcd screen as a touchpad for focusing while looking through the EVF. It works not as snappy as on the gx80, but it is definitely usable.
In terms of heat, I can’t say anything, ( I shot 1 short piece outside without any problems) yet, but I noticed that the camera gets noticeably hot while charging the battery.

[Mark Romero 2]

3 hours ago, lebigmac said:

 

Here for some first impressions (I did not posses the A7iiI, some things might be familiar to you that are new to me). I can’t say anything substantial about the IQ just yet. But I’d like to share what I think about the overall handling in comparison.

First of all, the package does not look like a Japanese gift at all, more like for a north korean showel. Strange for a product of this price. Maybe it is due to environmental considerations, but there was no label or explanation of sort.

Weight and size: All seems more balanced, smaller and lighter than the nikon z6, although that might not be the case. The body gives a kind of hollow impression, which is not unpleasant. The feel of the buttons and dials: Cheapo. All feels like plastic parts from an 3D printer were stitched together afterwards without fitting to 100%. All dials and buttons give you a sort of resistance like they don’t want to be used. No comparison to the refined feel of superior material of an Z6 or the NX1.

EVF is okay, but you always have to hit the center with your eye, otherwise it gets unsharp very quickly to the sides (like on the gx80). I tend to press my eye bone to the frame of the evf all the time, in order to get it right, and that starts to hurt after some time. LCD screen ist okay, but certainly not as brilliant as the one from the NX1 and it’s smaller than the Z6’s. It has a huge bezel, so why in the world is it not possible to make the screen a bit bigger as 3’’ ?. A digital camera is an optical tool in the end, and this one competes with smartphones to a certain extend, which offer a brilliant bright screen twice as big as the Sony A7IV’s one. It think, it is all a bit outdated, and it is a prospect of things to come. Maybe, it was not the best idea to design digital DSLRs on the basis of its analogue predecessors from the 60ties at all, which sported no LCD obviously. Maybe future cameras will have to look different.

Menu is good, I had no problems with the one from A7 mark I though, but it is definitely a revelation compared to the classic NEX menus.
Focus peaking implementation is great, you can switch it on and off easily and when it’s on, it doesn’t intrude too much in the picture (like it does on the z6).

Button and dial assignment is straightforward as well, it’s a quick and easy affair.

A great feature is that you can use the lcd screen as a touchpad for focusing while looking through the EVF. It works not as snappy as on the gx80, but it is definitely usable.
In terms of heat, I can’t say anything, ( I shot 1 short piece outside without any problems) yet, but I noticed that the camera gets noticeably hot while charging the battery.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.