Mixing Red Scarlet X and Sony A7s II. Thoughts?

[Noah Yuan-Vogel]

If ya want a bulky external recorder for that... knock yourself out. Personally that feels like very little picture gain.

In a digital world you are still dealing with generation loss?

Have you used the A7SII? I own one and watch the footage on a 4K monitor often and have compared all the various formats and the 4K internal recording is unfortunately not great. By far the compression is it's greatest weakness, as it gets very smudgey (for lack of a better term) even in a way that with certain types of scene content the HD 50Mbps looks better than the 4K 100Mbps. It really benefits a ton from external recording or you have to be extremely careful with it especially in low light and even more in log. I think 8bit and 420 get blown out of proportion since few 4k cameras can even resolve useable 422 color resolution given the cfa arrangement's similarities to 420. And 8bit is often something that no one will notice given the dithering effects of noise and the prevalence of dithered 6bit displays in the wild that no one even notices... as long as you don't shoot slog3...

 

[Mike Finegan]

I have scarlet Mx and A7Rii
Was recommended to use slog3 and neutral for best results
But it really depends on lighting and as mentioned - need for high chroma
Personally I think Sony were jackasses for using 8 bit hdmi chip and for forcing 8 bit internal transcoding at low rates and 4:2:0 on a $3k camera
But that is why we all own red cameras, right? LOL
For those who don't see benefit of 4:4:4 vs 4:2:2 vs 4:2:0 I guess you are shooting black and white
For photography it is great - 8K is hard not to like - but has several other compromises using metabones adapter such as less that 100% success on electronic focus (regardless of settings).

I know some of the members own DR testing equipment. Anyone test (or have desire to test) A7Rii? I have heard A7Sii with larger sensor sites is noticeably better for low light

 

[steve-o]

Have you used the A7SII? I own one and watch the footage on a 4K monitor often and have compared all the various formats and the 4K internal recording is unfortunately not great. By far the compression is it's greatest weakness, as it gets very smudgey (for lack of a better term) even in a way that with certain types of scene content the HD 50Mbps looks better than the 4K 100Mbps. It really benefits a ton from external recording or you have to be extremely careful with it especially in low light and even more in log. I think 8bit and 420 get blown out of proportion since few 4k cameras can even resolve useable 422 color resolution given the cfa arrangement's similarities to 420. And 8bit is often something that no one will notice given the dithering effects of noise and the prevalence of dithered 6bit displays in the wild that no one even notices... as long as you don't shoot slog3...

Yeah I have used the A7sii (rental) but more experience with the A7s. However I didn't notice a negligible difference with using a recorder when I rented it but I may not have pushed the image hard enough.

Here is a review with a dynamic range and resolution test from cinema 5d, he also dose not see much of a difference with the external recorder.
https://www.cinema5d.com/ultimate-sony-a7s-ii-vs-a7s-test-difference/

 

[Noah Yuan-Vogel]

I would not recommend slog3 for 8bit recording, there is no gain over slog2 except changing white point and can image that is closer to LogC or Redlogfilm etc.

I think Sony had good reason to be limited to 8bit and 420 etc given that every other comparable camera has equal or lower specs. Frankly I am amazed RED has 5-8K cameras with no 4K HDMI or SDI at all except with a bulky $7k expansion. I did a job that required 4k monitoring on set not long ago and realized how amazing it is that these little cameras have 4k uncompressed outputs but only draw a few watts when a lot of the major cinema cameras that are much larger and have so much more processing power drawing 20-40x as much electrical power and cost 5-20x more have no 4K/UHD monitoring or only got the option recently at great cost.

 

[Noah Yuan-Vogel]

Here is a review with a dynamic range and resolution test from cinema 5d, he also dose not see much of a difference with the external recorder.
https://www.cinema5d.com/ultimate-sony-a7s-ii-vs-a7s-test-difference/

I can't imagine why there would be a dynamic range difference, nothing about internal compression would reduce dynamic range. If anything it might increase apparent dynamic range since compression tends to denoise by necessity. Compression is mostly about simplifying high frequency visual detail in a way that has as little impact as possible on the image, but high compression doesn't succeed that well at having little impact. The reality is that even though the compression ratio is ridiculously high you still won't likely notice it if you're delivering in HD except in very specific circumstances. In 4k, the difference can be quite obvious for highly detailed scenes even without pushing the image at all.

 

[Max Emanuel Biber]

Well using an external Recorder doesn't change anything about dynamic range. The only difference is that you have 4:2:2 instead of 4:2:0 and - thinking about a Shogun or Ninja Assassin - a way better Codec. The A7s don't have the GH4s 10bit Output option but still using a big Screen is way better for prevision work and we don't need to talk about the Codec differences.

However, In my mind both SLOGs would work way better if there would be 10bit combined with 422 provided. If I'm comparing the A7S2 SLOG-3 recorded on a Shogun vs the FS7s SLOG-3 internally recorded, grading is way easier on the FS7. Never mind that I still don't like SLOG in general.

Ain'tnothing better than REDRAW

 

[Adam Palmer]

I recently shot on Dragon A cam and A7s B cam (results below):

As expected the RED was much better with rolling shutter and colour rendition but the A7s did better in low light.

Adam

 

[Raphael Madeira]

Finally got my Sony A7sII!

Been making a few tests and I've realized there is a little too much banding in highlights in SLOG3 4k for my taste.

So I'm going to try to use Cine4 gamma with S-gamut3 as a starting point and make some grading tests, see if I can match the footage of the Sony with my Red Scarlet.

Cine4 is not log and you lose a little bit of dynamic range but at least there is no banding, 8bit kinda ruins Slog3 sadly.

I will be posting a video showing a grading test, trying to match grades from Cine4 and Redlogfilm footage to look as close as possible.

If anyone has questions or wants me to test some stuff and post results let me know!

Cheers

 

[Mark Johnson II]

Finally got my Sony A7sII!

Been making a few tests and I've realized there is a little too much banding in highlights in SLOG3 4k for my taste.

So I'm going to try to use Cine4 gamma with S-gamut3 as a starting point and make some grading tests, see if I can match the footage of the Sony with my Red Scarlet.

Cine4 is not log and you lose a little bit of dynamic range but at least there is no banding, 8bit kinda ruins Slog3 sadly.

I will be posting a video showing a grading test, trying to match grades from Cine4 and Redlogfilm footage to look as close as possible.

If anyone has questions or wants me to test some stuff and post results let me know!

Cheers

Thanks for the post! Any results?

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

If you're using each camera in different lighting situations, don't worry too much IMHO. Pretend like you're shooting different film stocks: a 50D for exteriors and a 500T for dimly lit interiors. If the camera choice is scene-dependent, you're fine. If the cameras look too different, the audience will just put it down to location and not think about it.

 

[Peter Dimako]

Hi there. Unfortunately, you have 2 different color sciences in the cameras. The Sony being 8 bit, and having S-Log 3 on it, damages easily as well. I have the same combo, and am also solid in Resolve, but have opted for a 5D Mark IV as Canon matches very well with Red and can be graded well with the new C-Log profavailable via EOSHD.