Would anyone like to buy my A7S

[Guest]

This guy is shooting some really nice stuff with his A7S (not many skin tones though!):

 

 

Check out his other videos. I haven't seen any A7S footage I've liked as much as his ...

[jcs]

It looks nothing like film. It looks to my eye like a C100. If someone showed me the footage, I would assume it had been shot on a C100 or C300.

I tried posting some images, but the forum won't let me? :/

See, I don't personally think they do cut all that well and don't believe they ever have - though there are many who can't pick the difference even when comparing H.264 5D footage in big movies.

I think the most important point to make is that any camera will give you a pretty good image these days if you know how to work it..
So get out there and shoot, rather than sitting talking about specs all day on the internet ;)

Use what you like, what you have, what you can afford. The less time you spend attempting to justify your choice and attempting to prove that a 5D is as good as an Alexa, the more time you have to actually shoot :)

 

The best tests are minimally 'single blind' when you don't know which camera is which:

Alexa and 5D3R cut very well together and a typical audience member won't notice any differences. Again, no one is saying 5D3R matches Alexa. We're saying it comes amazingly close, and most people love the colors. Case in point: if Canon is the most popular stills camera due to their color science, it makes sense that RAW stills captured at 24fps are also very popular with audiences.

 

Regarding getting out and shooting, we've posted quite a few example videos of our work, do you have any examples of your work that could help us understand your idea of filmic?

 

Again, no one is attempting to prove the 5D is as good as Alexa- we're saying it comes amazingly close. I was recently in Atlanta and spoke with John Sharaf about cameras and filmmaking (his facility is very cool: http://www.sharaf.net/). I have been considering purchasing an ARRI Amira however after talking to him, it doesn't make business sense. He's in the rental business and most productions are renting cameras and lenses. Purchasing a single Amira for shooting and then making available for rental doesn't work. After spending money on advertising and once the camera is out for rental, additional clients call looking to rent the camera. Frequently not having cameras available isn't good business, so the investment then becomes purchasing more and more cameras (he has over 20 Alexas and Amiras and all the high-end lenses). After showing him our work on an iPad, the takeaway for indie productions was that for HD delivery, the A7S, GH4, and 5D3R are all more than sufficient. Even if we wanted to purchase an Amira, they're not generally available (perhaps John Sharaf was able to acquire them due to his relationship with ARRI).

[Guest]

 

 

I think the most important thing coming out of this test is that if you have good actors in front of the camera it really helps draw attention away from any technical inconsistencies. 

 

Also if someone decided to make a Philip Bloom biopic - the male actor would have to get cast as the lead.  :D

[Tim Naylor]

I really think skin tones is another of those things that DOPs fuss over but no one else notices really. I wasn't even aware of such an issue until the gh4 came out earlier this year and everyone started talking about the subject. I think Canon RAW gives really nice tones but as I said in an earlier post, the tones from h264 seem to have a plasticky look and makes it easy to point the footage out as being Canon, which is distracting. It's just a matter of taste I suppose. I mean I've seen several RED v canon videos and always prefer the tones from the red.

Skin tones are definitely something people notice perhaps more than all other aspects of a camera (rez, DR, etc). When the skin tones are off (magenta, green, etc), it cheapens the look.  When I screened an ABC blind test on a 20 foot screen to my producers and director, they all chose the Alexa (over RED and F55) primarily because they like the way the skin looked. If the color of a tree or building are off it's of little consequence but the face is a different story. It's why when we do tests to judge the parameters of a camera it's always with a face and a color chart.

[Tim Naylor]

Tim, I tried Kholi's settings (basically PP7 with Color Mode Pro and minor tweaks) and other variants, however I'm finding PP6 with tweaks looks best for skintones in LED ~5000K light:

 

PP6

 

Black Level: -7

Gamma: Cine2

Black Gamma: Middle, Level 0

Knee: Auto

Color Mode: Cinema

Saturation: +3

Color Phase: 0

Color Depth:

R: -7

G: -1

B: 0

C: 0

M: 0

Y: -3

Detail, Level: -7

 

When shooting in other lighting conditions, I check a variety of picture profiles to see what the camera is doing with the available light. To make the A7S look its best, it's necessary to tweak setting for lighting conditions, including a custom WB (shot with gray card). This is also true for other cameras not shooting RAW, however Canon and Panasonic have better general purpose settings than Sony. Stock PP6 is pretty good as an all-around profile for the A7S. My tweaks were to make skin look it's best and most filmic at ~5000K (CREE LEDs) by viewing the subject live on an HDTV while making changes. I first cranked color saturation way up, then tweaked the Color Depth to make the oversaturated state look the most pleasing, then put saturation back at a practical level.

Will definitely give this a shot. Do you notice any DR changes at lower ISO's?

[odie]

The best tests are minimally 'single blind' when you don't know which camera is which:

Alexa and 5D3R cut very well together and a typical audience member won't notice any differences. Again, no one is saying 5D3R matches Alexa. We're saying it comes amazingly close, and most people love the colors. Case in point: if Canon is the most popular stills camera due to their color science, it makes sense that RAW stills captured at 24fps are also very popular with audiences.

 

Regarding getting out and shooting, we've posted quite a few example videos of our work, do you have any examples of your work that could help us understand your idea of filmic?

 

Again, no one is attempting to prove the 5D is as good as Alexa- we're saying it comes amazingly close. I was recently in Atlanta and spoke with John Sharaf about cameras and filmmaking (his facility is very cool: http://www.sharaf.net/). I have been considering purchasing an ARRI Amira however after talking to him, it doesn't make business sense. He's in the rental business and most productions are renting cameras and lenses. Purchasing a single Amira for shooting and then making available for rental doesn't work. After spending money on advertising and once the camera is out for rental, additional clients call looking to rent the camera. Frequently not having cameras available isn't good business, so the investment then becomes purchasing more and more cameras (he has over 20 Alexas and Amiras and all the high-end lenses). After showing him our work on an iPad, the takeaway for indie productions was that for HD delivery, the A7S, GH4, and 5D3R are all more than sufficient. Even if we wanted to purchase an Amira, they're not generally available (perhaps John Sharaf was able to acquire them due to his relationship with ARRI).

 

+1

 

[odie]

for me..a 35mm film camera..is cheaper than the alexa rental post etc..and I wouldn't buy any high end digital camera unless you can rent it..

when you have smaller projects a cp 2 zeiss lens on the 5d m3...(fast and light and a great b cam)

[Danyyyel]

maxotics, here's a an early test with 5D3 RAW shooting very high contrast in bright sunlight (inside shooting outside to the street):

 

At the time of the test I didn't have all the tools to preserve skintones at the same time as taming the background (via masking, etc.)). Even so, as a beginning user of RAW we liked how filmic it turned out. For the interior, natural lighting was used and no makeup was applied to the manager. Skintones for both turned out well for the conditions. For the inside to outside shot, the A7S would likely do better (more DR). I'm curious how much as 14-bit RAW with ACR has a lot of gradations for shadow/highlight manipulation (16384 vs 256): as long as highlights and shadows aren't clipped, it would be able to match or exceed what is possible with the A7S.

 

I purchased a Sony FS700 right after the SpeedBooster came out and have been grading Sony footage for a while now.  Whereas I can match cameras and color fairly well in tests with the 5D3, skintones were a whole different matter. With careful exposure and WB, the FS700 can do decent color, however it's fragile for skintones: typically magenta/green 'instability'. In some lighting conditions, the FS700 is quite a challenge for skintones (in the shade at sunset is one example).

 

Here's an example with 5D3 RAW at sunset/golden hour, then the rest is FS700 (interior).

While the FS700 skintones aren't bad, the 5D3 RAW skintones are much better (golden hour light also helped).

 

Reviewing this old footage while studying movies shot on film reminds me how much more filmic 5D3 footage looks compared to newer cameras (including the Canon Cx00 series). It makes sense why the 5D was used on so many feature films.

 

When using the A7S or GH4, having the 5D3 around to take shots for color reference is also helpful. Models and clients always love how the 5D3 makes them look: it's helpful to understand how to make other cameras look similar.

 

At least some sense on this resolution and spec upset forum. I have been saying more or less the same thing for the last few weeks. This green/magenta bias on skin tone is really bad. If I would rank camera I would put Nikon higher than Canon and add the blackmagic cinema camera up there in the list of very good looking skin tone/colour science. When I say Nikon higher, I mean it is very close with a more golden/orange look to the Nikon but still the Canon is very very nice and would be easy to grade them very close.

 

Now what I have seen of the Sony is perhaps the worst about skin tone. Even with the kholi settings on dvxuser his first example with the girl has still a lot of the green magenta colour. What is strange is what I would call solarisation effect like on her cheek where you have the magenta that makes a brutal change as if sunburn. If it was not the a7s I would say bad makeup but I have seen the same thing in the little girl video shot in slog. People are saying this is because the person did not shoot XYZ setting but until now I did not see one nice video with some natural skin tone and not graded like orange and teal.

 

What is funny is that people are dismissing the C100 mark2 on another threat, because it does not have XYZ spec, but that is the same camera that shot film like Adele blue is the warmest colour that won the Cannes film festival and that looks very very good with a naturalistic colours. When people will understand that colour is by far more important, more so when shooting people, than 4k for example, it will be a big advancement for shooters here. We human beings are much more prone to colour than for example resolution. How many time when you are discussing about an image be it video or photo with somebody will he be saying how crisp it was... or will you hear most of the time how the colours were beautiful.

 

A last thing about grading. I just made the experience lately shooting with some tiffen ND. Guest what with the green bias it becoming really tedious to correct all those shot. Even if I was able to get the green cast out in post the hassle is too much. I am going to buy some 82 mm Hoya pro ND filters. The cost in this case will far outweigh the time spend correcting every shot in the sun.

[Inazuma]

To be fair, it is true what they say about the A7s' colours. Look at the following two images from Cinema5d.com

 

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If you copy and paste the a7s screenshot into Photoshop and boost the saturation and contrast a bit, you'll see just how different it looks. I have to give props to Samsung; their colours actually are very good. Very even and pleasing.

[mojo43]

Umm, that's slog, probably sgamut. You have to do a colour conversion first!

[jax_rox]

How can you possibly compare and draw conclusion from Slog to 709 footage with a colour chart?

A good colourist could make the colours look as good as/better than the NX1 (or the apparently holy grail 5D). Grading Slog is more than just boosting saturation and contrast a bit..

[Inazuma]

A good colourist could make the colours look as good as/better than the NX1 (or the apparently holy grail 5D). 

Dont get me wrong, i have been saying that from the beginning. I'm just pointing out that out of camera the A7s colours are very off. Its not just slog either. If you look at dpreview's image comparison viewer and look at the JPGs, youll see the difference too.