Selling C100 for A7s, 5d3 for A7r. Am I crazy?

[hmcindie]

When you account for all the above I don't see myself changing system if I do wedding phoography. Reliability and maturity is first and foremost. I also don't understand also the craze about low light. Two years ago the 5d3 was a benchmark in low light video. Not so long ago I remember people raving about the low light of the C300/C100 even filming under moonlight. Now is it not good enough anymore. I don't know to what level of ISO people want to shoot now. 

 

The lowlight advantage of the A7s is during video. With stills the advantage isn't as good. With video I can get about 2-2,5 stops of advantage over the 5dmarkIII (from ISO max 6,400 with the 5d to 25,600 or slightly higher) A7s seems to already do internal noise reduction (there are noise trails after going over 12,800 like some software does). That noise reduction works pretty well when nothing is moving much (most test scenes on the internet)

 

With stills the advantage of the a7s drops surprisingly, compared to the 5dmkIII I'd say it has maybe less than a stop and it only shows when going over 12,800. (checked with dpreviews studio comparison scene scaled to print size)

[Danyyyel]

You can grade how you choose, any camera...... Also Sony makes some great FF cameras if you only want to use photography as well (A7R).

 

The advantage of high iso is having something dimly lit and you being able to get the shot without flash or light blasting into anyone face. It's the difference between using 5+ lights to only having 1 or 2.

 

It's a tool any and everyone should have for that feature alone. People who have used the A7s love it, myself included. I never shot on Sony system (dslr) and am amazed. At the end of the day this is all personal stuff (low budget) anyways as professional for work we shoot on Red Epic cameras for video productions. The high iso advantage of the A7s though will be a reason we might really start incorporating them though professionally.

 

That is oversimplification. I for example have difficulty getting the same colours in RAW from lightroom using Neutral Nikon profile than the original Nikon Neutral profile images from Nikon Jpeg. I guess for certain photos I will have to use the original Nikon raw converter. I have never used the A7s but from what I have seen it is much further than the example above and by the amount of complain about skin colour here and other site, I guess it is not that easy. For sure if you put it under golden hour where the sun is directly hitting the person, everything will look nice with that golden orange look. But go into more neutral light, in shadows, overcast or worst case scenario in mix lighting or deficient lighting spectrum like cheap fluo or street lighting and the difference is much bigger. I am not saying that the Nikon/Canon colours will look good in every situation, but I think it will be much better and in video it is not even RAW file to colour correct.

 

I still don't understand the low light argument. It is not as if the 5d3/C100 or Nikon d750 are bad in low light, we are not talking Gh2 or Canon Ti here and in photo the cameras are much closer in performance. With 5d3/d750, the bonus is that at lower ISO you get about twice the resolution for bigger prints or cropping. In terms of autofocus, they are tried and tested, the one of the D750 is better than the ones in previous Nikon D3/D4 cameras, that is better than the ones that take photos of the likes of Kobe Bryant, Usain Bolt, etc etc

 

My argument above is more about a hybrid shooter like the OP. If it is only for video, I guess the A7s bar the aufocus of the C100 is a very good alternative. But if you are doing photos where the only advantage of the A7s is shooting above 6400/12800 ISO and it loses everywhere else and other Sony cameras are unproven. I guess either sticking to Canon or going Nikon is the best alternative, more so that the latter is getting better and better at video to have already surpass Canon.

[j.f.r.]

I shot this scene (Video frame grab) with Sony A7s around 4:am  in the morning with 1 small tungsten light (no diffusion) off to the far right which basically overexposed my right side. To the far left I had a small led light  just for fill.

 

Iso was about 2000 and aperture F/4. To do this scene on any other camera in the world I would simply need more light. Use whatever cameras you choose, my only thing is when you are able to shoot at the darkest time of the day with just 1 light a whole new level of art can be created.

 

 

[leeys]

With stills the advantage of the a7s drops surprisingly, compared to the 5dmkIII I'd say it has maybe less than a stop and it only shows when going over 12,800. (checked with dpreviews studio comparison scene scaled to print size)

That's really not surprising: Sony weren't going to pull out a sensor that much better than the competition.

 

It also shows how much improvement there is left in the video department of these cameras.

[Zach Ashcraft]

Okay. I'm sold. I just shot my first wedding with the A7s and C100 side by side. Never seen anything quite like this. 

 

I was filming in a fairly dim room at 3200 in S-log. Photographer used his flash which naturally completely blew out the frame. Not an issue as I was just filming b-roll, but check out the flexibility in the files! Some of the highlights are still a little blown, but still. I've never seen anything like this out of my C100 or 5D. 

 

 

[Zach Ashcraft]

Oh wow, even in that Vimeo thumbnail, I can see purple fringing. Is that the 50/1.8 AIS?

Yes. Very strong lighting indoors and obviously pretty dark outside as it was night time. Its the only lens I had access to on day 1! 

[leeys]

That is oversimplification. I for example have difficulty getting the same colours in RAW from lightroom using Neutral Nikon profile than the original Nikon Neutral profile images from Nikon Jpeg.

Which Camera Profile are you using in Lightroom? Are you using at least LR4?

[jgharding]

Okay. I'm sold. I just shot my first wedding with the A7s and C100 side by side. Never seen anything quite like this. 

 

I was filming in a fairly dim room at 3200 in S-log. Photographer used his flash which naturally completely blew out the frame. Not an issue as I was just filming b-roll, but check out the flexibility in the files! Some of the highlights are still a little blown, but still. I've never seen anything like this out of my C100 or 5D. 

 

That's typical of overexposure in a proper log mode, so you won't find it on 5D or GH4 for example, because they don't have proper logarithmic curves, just approximations.

 

Your middle tones have been captured up on the flatter part of the log curve where highlight rolloff should be. As a result, when you recover them, your highlights clip very hard, like the forehead on the left.

 

This can be useful in situations where you don't need such a smooth rolloff, you can expose to the right and push everything down to reduce noise.

 

As you've found here, it works in emergencies too!

[jgharding]

Also, if i remember rightly, the dynamic range shifts about as you change gain.

 

So at the native ISO your range is the centred reference. If you pull the gain back, you end up with less highlight room but more shadow detail. IF you push it up you have even bands used in highlights and less in the shadows.

 

I'm remembering this from a chart, and if I can locate it, I'll post it!