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Shooting on anamorphic on Sony


zerocool22
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Hi Guys,

I might jump brands again. Last years I have been shooting panasonic and blackmagic, but I might transfer to sony once again (I love the IBIS on the panasonic camera's, but I feel they are lacking some mojo vs sony/canon images, and while I do love that the L mount lenses have the same weight/filter thread, they do have a clinical/boring image).

ho here has experience shooting anamorphic on the latest sony camera's A7SIII, FX3 and Sony ZV-E1? What is your experience with 1.5X, 2X anamorphics. Do you need an additional monitor (as I hate charging and carrying extra weight, so would always prefer the camera monitor itself). 

Do these camera's have desqueeze built in? I know panasonic camera's have this, but not sure of Sony. 

 

Thanks,

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EOSHD Pro Color 5 for Sony cameras EOSHD Z LOG for Nikon CamerasEOSHD C-LOG and Film Profiles for All Canon DSLRs

It's weird u feel no mojo for Panasonic colour, I was dropping my mouth when I edit footage from GH6 to my Canon and I was like I actually prefer Panasonic colour more. 

I was rocking with FX3, FX30 and E1 earlier this year, but all sold and only just got E10II recently cause it was cheap, back to mostly Canon now but still thinking of getting Panasonic in the future 

I guess if u stick with one brand all these u might try other stuff to see if glass was greener on other side, I was on R5 all those years but last year decide to give Sony a try again being A7iii was my last Sony.

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11 hours ago, zerocool22 said:

but I might transfer to sony once again (I love the IBIS on the panasonic camera's, but I feel they are lacking some mojo vs sony/canon images, and while I do love that the L mount lenses have the same weight/filter thread, they do have a clinical/boring image).
Do these camera's have desqueeze built in? I know panasonic camera's have this, but not sure of Sony. 

You’re going in the wrong direction for everything you’re asking about. Sony is the image with no mojo and the clean clinical look. Very old sensor in all the cameras you mention and poor color science with green cast on faces. ZVe1 is fun and a good bargain and that’s a camera that has slightly improved color as well as many of the FX3 features for half the price. 
 

However anamorphic is not the strong suit and you’re going to throw away a lot of the resolution by cropping in on ultra wide image sides in post since there is no open gate settings. I’ve seen some nice results with the FX3 and Aivascope as well as the FX30 with Blazar lenses but you’re limited to 1.5x max so do some research. 
 

In my opinion you’re better off with Panasonic for these things or waiting for some new models from someone else. A7siii especially. Overpriced for its specs and poor color performance in late 2024.  If the S1H 2 ever comes out it sounds like it will be a good choice for you. 

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I’ve limited experience of shooting Sony for video, but based on the specs alone, without real pro level grading as in folks that do that and only that for a living…and considering the value aspect, the S5ii is crazy good.

It’s got open gate 6k, anamorphic de-squeeze, the best IBIS in full frame and while many say the image is not quite as good as that of the OG S5 or the S1H, I’d say there is so little in it, it’s not a consideration and something only noticeable if shot side by side with everything identical. And then pixel-peeped etc.

Will there be that S2H?

Maybe, if so, bonus but if someone can’t make an S5ii work for them, it probably isn’t the tool’s fault.

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On 10/27/2024 at 1:48 PM, MrSMW said:

I’ve limited experience of shooting Sony for video, but based on the specs alone, without real pro level grading as in folks that do that and only that for a living…and considering the value aspect, the S5ii is crazy good.

It’s got open gate 6k, anamorphic de-squeeze, the best IBIS in full frame and while many say the image is not quite as good as that of the OG S5 or the S1H, I’d say there is so little in it, it’s not a consideration and something only noticeable if shot side by side with everything identical. And then pixel-peeped etc.

Will there be that S2H?

Maybe, if so, bonus but if someone can’t make an S5ii work for them, it probably isn’t the tool’s fault.

Agree on all points. You really can't beat it currently for features and price. I've even found a company that will put in OLPF filters in the S5ii and other cameras and am wondering if that might bring back some of the mojo some people are saying they really miss from the S1h vs newer S models...

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Well panasonic seems to treat highlights desaturated (more like film), while canon and sony seem to saturate the highlights a lot more. And clients seem to prefer the saturated look these days. Especially when shooting golden hour there is a big difference, while panasonic looks bland/neutral in comparison to sony/canon. I think the look clients want has evolved more to the sony/canon look straight out camera instead. 

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18 hours ago, zerocool22 said:

Well panasonic seems to treat highlights desaturated (more like film), while canon and sony seem to saturate the highlights a lot more. And clients seem to prefer the saturated look these days. Especially when shooting golden hour there is a big difference, while panasonic looks bland/neutral in comparison to sony/canon. I think the look clients want has evolved more to the sony/canon look straight out camera instead. 

I guess that includes over sharpened files with green color cast...

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3 hours ago, Ninpo33 said:

I guess that includes over sharpened files with green color cast...

Is the sharpness not higher on the panasonic camera's btw? (The greencast I have seen, does not bother me, might be different when owning the camera and shooting product video's)

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1 hour ago, zerocool22 said:

Is the sharpness not higher on the panasonic camera's btw? (The greencast I have seen, does not bother me, might be different when owning the camera and shooting product video's)

There is no way to turn down internal sharpening on Sony where as with Panasonic you can dial it down quite a bit and then mess with it later in post if so desired. Gerald Undone talks about this quite a bit as one of his main requests from Sony even on the higher end cameras like the A1. It could be a good thing or a bad thing just depends what you shoot and who it’s for. I like the more filmic image out of LUMIX for an easier color grade and have found it very time consuming to deal with the latest Sony cameras the last several years. Mostly skin tones and faces are troublesome with the exception of the more recent A1 and ZV-E1 which somehow have been less green and more neutral 

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2 hours ago, Ninpo33 said:

There is no way to turn down internal sharpening on Sony where as with Panasonic you can dial it down quite a bit and then mess with it later in post if so desired. Gerald Undone talks about this quite a bit as one of his main requests from Sony even on the higher end cameras like the A1. It could be a good thing or a bad thing just depends what you shoot and who it’s for. I like the more filmic image out of LUMIX for an easier color grade and have found it very time consuming to deal with the latest Sony cameras the last several years. Mostly skin tones and faces are troublesome with the exception of the more recent A1 and ZV-E1 which somehow have been less green and more neutral 

Also when using log profiled? I thought settings in log are quite limited? S-log or v-log (have not messed around with v-log settings, left it at default)

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This video for example, there is lot's of golden hour footage with a pretty good highlight rolloff to my eyes at least. Never had that with a panasonic camera. (or have I seen elsewhere online, but feel free to correct me).
 

 

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37 minutes ago, PPNS said:

luminance mapping and saturation compression in the color space transform in resolve will fix your ugly clipping and make it look slightly nicer.

I am sure it would help, but I don't think it would be as good as the one above. Cannot seem to find a decent comparison video between sony / panasonic on highlight rolloff/clipping though. 

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On 10/27/2024 at 1:38 AM, zerocool22 said:

ho here has experience shooting anamorphic on the latest sony camera's A7SIII, FX3 and Sony ZV-E1? What is your experience with 1.5X, 2X anamorphics. Do you need an additional monitor (as I hate charging and carrying extra weight, so would always prefer the camera monitor itself). 

Do these camera's have desqueeze built in? I know panasonic camera's have this, but not sure of Sony. 

Sounds like you don’t want to shoot with an external recorder? If you’re that concerned about camera size building out a 5” monitor/recorder you might need to give up something. And again, I think if you’re talking about anamorphic shooting you need to really focus on other aspects of the image and not obsess over things like highlight roll off. Namely the ease and quality of anamorphic friendly modes on any particular camera. Sony has no open gate or anamorphic modes so you are forced to use a 1.33x lens to achieve the proper final aspect ratio. You won’t have very much anamorphic character, bokeh or distortion but you will retain the maximum resolution. What most people do is use the 1.5x aivascope or other 1.5x lens to achieve a super wide desqueezed image and then crop off a huge are of the sides to get the proper scope aspect ratio. For something like the FX3 it’s useable and I’ve seen good results but it is not ideal. The 10mp 3840x2160 image on the FX3 is already cropped in from the full height sensor and then you’re going to crop in again to loose even more resolution by chopping off the sides in post. 
 

in late 2024 my money for anamorphic is on the LUMIX S5iix and the Fuji X-H2s. Both start out with a 6k open gate image which gives you a huge 9k-10k desqueezed image and when you resize down to your final deliverable format you’re really gaining some mojo. Heck, even the Older S1H and S1R are going to be better for anamorphic and image mojo and you’re going to be out of pocket $1,300 US or less compared to more than double the price of a Sony. 

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If you insist on going Sony one nice setup I’ve seen good results with is using the controversial and cheaper Blazar Anamorphic lenses and adapters. A lot of people have issues with the quality of these lenses even though they are priced really well. The thing is, most of the issues are with the edges and the swirly, swimming look and extreme distortion. By shooting with the FX3 or ZV-E1 and cropping most of the edges off, you’re getting rid of the more extreme character and retaining a more useable final image. Another great option is shooting with the cheaper FX30 and using the APS-C crop to your advantage and essentially doing the same thing.
 

The real mojo with the FX30 is going external though and recording RAW 4.7K (16:9) 4672 x 2628 mode. This slight bump in quality helps negate the crop in post and is a really good image. 
 

 

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I’m going to throw another type of hat into this ring and ask have you ever considered shooting faux-anamorphic?

That is use a slightly wider lens and use an in camera crop. Or rather crop markers.

Few cameras offer this feature, stills or video.

Lumix and Fuji do.

I can’t remember the Fuji crop markers, but with Lumix you can set up to 2.39:1.

With stills, Xpan mode; 65 x 24!

I wish Sony and my A7RV had this but it doesn’t so I am making an LCD overlay for this very purpose.

OK it’s ONLY a visual framing guide, but if shooting 6k OG, a great starting point to that wide angle anamorphic look, but without the flares (hate them), warped lines (hate them), blurry corners (hate them) etc, all whilst maintaining the smallest unrigged package with the best AF/IBIS, ie, for non-pro filmmakers who are not shooting a moovie or ad for Coca Cola.

Hello S5ii.

You can ‘black out’ the negative space 25, 50, 75 or 100%

At this point in time, it’s almost certainly my direction in 2025.

I’ve been shooting 6k 3:2 all year and cropping in post to phone favourite 16:9 but I want a bit more drama for 2025 productions in the width department and shooting anamorphic for me has too many compromises.

Not decided on an actual crop yet and waiting for my 3 new lenses to arrive so I can properly play…

20mm f2 replacing 20-60 f3.5-5.6

28-45 f1.8 replacing 28-70 f2.8

28-105 f2.8 replacing 70-200 f4

^Brings mostly at least a 1 stop lower light capability with a bit of an emphasis on wider end flexibility over actual reach^

I am probably going to end up shooting with frame markers and then actual crop to CinemaScope 21:9 which I think is a nice balance of wide without being too extreme…

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I've definitely shot a bunch of stuff on the GFX 100 II using the 5.8K widescreen mode - that's the full sensor width and some sort of scope aspect ratio (can't remember exactly, but 2.3x anyway).  I wouldn't call it faux-anamorphic, though, because of the lack of horizontal flares or funky rounded bokeh.

In most cases, I prefer just to shoot 17:9 with frame guides set for a scope frame.  That's how I've shot the last... bunch of short films that were delivered in scope.  That comes with the bonus that the editor can move the frame up or down a little bit without having to punch in for it.  Some of my cameras (Z Cam, RED) allow shooting in scope, but about the only reason I can see for using it would be to save space - and it's just not going to make a big difference for me to save the 25% or so.

I have a set of nanomorphs (25/50/80) that I keep threatening to bring to some production, but given that the main cameras that I use these days (Komodo-X/Komodo/C70) all have 17:9 sensors, 1.5x anamorphic will put me at 2.8:1 which is wider than my collaborators will enjoy so we'll just be cropping left/right instead of top/bottom.

Though I recently got a Dog Schidt (Helios 44-2) with a faux anamorphic aperture and I picked up a 1.33x anamorphic adapter to go with it.  I might, at some point, shoot some low-priority project with it.  I sort of like the combo.

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Oh, and as far as 16:9 being phone-friendly, it seems like they're stretching a bit.  My new phone (iPhone 16 Pro) is 19.5:9 which is closer to 2.17:1 - so flat aspect ratio (2:1) would be the closest to full screen and scope is less letterboxed than you might expect.  😃

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