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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Sony A7S2 or A7R2?

And here are some tests I did on the different profiles. Despite what the slate may say, all the ISO's for S Log 2 or 3 are 1600. This should give you a good idea of the camera's color science. It's not bad, no great. But definitely has a use, especially if you want a camera in your backpack ready to fire.

Set your monitor to sRGB not Rec 709 to view. I personally like the Cine 3 Profile the best overall.

Did I mention I returned an FS5 because the IQ was so poor and bought the A7sII. It completely wiped the floor with the FS5 even in 8 bit vs the Fs5 10 bit. Fs5 just didn't have the secret sauce.

https://vimeo.com/151486315
 
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Zeb B said:
Not seeing A7sII or Slog3 covered with these. In the works? Always love to support fellow RU's efforts with a purchase :-)
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Yup, I still have to analyse it thoroughly.

I tested S-Log3 with A6300 and it's banding parade in skies due to highly compressed gamma in highlights within 8 bits, so I ditched those transforms. I can fix the color response but the banding part is predetermined in camera's processing.

I'll see what happens with S-Log3 in A7S2, FS7 with 10 bits handles it nicely.
 
I think shooting at 1600 in all situations in order to use the slog files is just not worth the trouble. For me, much better to shoot for best exposure with ninja 4K capture and grade in post. A LOT less trouble, way more expedient and great results. Giving up a TINY bit of extra dynamic range just isn't worth the inconvenience 0f using the slog settings.
Aloha
A
 
Poi Boy said:
I think shooting at 1600 in all situations in order to use the slog files is just not worth the trouble. For me, much better to shoot for best exposure with ninja 4K capture and grade in post. A LOT less trouble, way more expedient and great results. Giving up a TINY bit of extra dynamic range just isn't worth the inconvenience 0f using the slog settings.
Aloha
A
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I read somewhere that there is an issue with the Ninja with the A7. As in it doesn't capture the full monty bits or fucks it up somehow. Maybe it was the Shogun. Anyone hear that?
 
Ned Wilson said:
Here's a no budget short I made in the Blizzard of 2016. From learning of a storm approaching to wrap we had 72 hours. We had a window of 12 hours of snowstorm to shoot it in. With a skeleton crew and no lights, the A7s II made it possible. Could not have been done on a Red, Alexa, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FStP14syyS8
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Nice story and character studies man! I like it way better jumping right in at 1:45 as a cold open however, getting right into it directly. Before that, I thought it was just a montage you put together of NYC blizzard footage and actually stopped watching around 1:15, only to come back to it a while later - almost didn't get to enjoy the story! I love what happens to these two in the story anyway - great character development in such a tight time frame. Great title as well, especially considering the way it ends. Good acting, nice images, and decent sound as well. Bravo overall :)
 
The Digital Zoom hack on the A7Sii while useful is not a free lunch. - The A7Sii is only working with 8.4MP when you crop the 12mp 3:2 for 16:9 - good because 1:1 scaling is good to prevent aliasing nasties. But kind of bad because you're just upscaling whatever amount of pixels you are using to 4k. It's still probably better than just putting it in 1080 mode, especially if you're using the milder zoom ins.

Matt Uhry
www.mattuhry.com
 
Nicholas Austin Skinner said:
Nice story and character studies man! I like it way better jumping right in at 1:45 as a cold open however, getting right into it directly. Before that, I thought it was just a montage you put together of NYC blizzard footage and actually stopped watching around 1:15, only to come back to it a while later - almost didn't get to enjoy the story! I love what happens to these two in the story anyway - great character development in such a tight time frame. Great title as well, especially considering the way it ends. Good acting, nice images, and decent sound as well. Bravo overall :)
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That's an interesting insight. I guess, on tech blogs we're so inundated with postcard montage footage of fields, streams, etc that we don't expect stories. Either way, thanks for the feedback. I'm trying to make the transition from DP'ing to directing. Wish me luck.
 
Here are some links to to tests / reviews that might help you decide:

https://www.cinema5d.com/sony-a7s-ii-vs-a7r-ii-test-which-one/
http://www.newsshooter.com/2015/08/...ive-results-using-the-metabones-speedbooster/

I have an A7RII that I use primarily for landscapes with MF Contax/Zeiss lenses for large format fine-art printing on canvas. Works Great! When I want to use electronic lenses, I simply attach a Commlite ENF-E adapter that communicates with the camera and it allows me to use my Nikon 14-24 and 24-70 zoom lenses. While shooting at 42MP it is true that there can be a bit of "buffer overhead," I have found that using either a Transcend or PNY SD XC I U-3 card helps considerably. (They are absolutely required for video ... the Sony is very picky what it will record XVAC-S 4K to ... I went through several cards to to finally get some that would record 4K.) If you are shooting at 42MP, it is NOT a camera well suited for action-sports or multi-burst fast moving objects. The camera does eat batteries. I have a battery grip, so that helps a bit.

As to the video, the Super 35 mode is actually better than the full frame mode. I use a Speedbooster Ultra in Super 35 mode with my MF Contax/Zeiss lenses. Doing that will give you an extra stop without any crop factor ... sort of levels that playing field (somewhat) with the low-light A7SII. Probably the weakest link for both the A7SII and the A7RII is the internal codec: XVAC-S (not the most edit-friendly) and the fact that it records internally at 4:2:0 8bit. I use a Shogun and the camera will output 4:2:2 8bit via HDMI to the Shogun and from there I can record in virtually any flavor of ProRes or DNxHD ... but still at 8bit. (Atomos is supposed to be coming out with a CDNG firmware update this summer.)

I do use SLog2 and there are various sources for some pretty tasty LUTS. (The cool thing about the Shogun is that the LUTS can be loaded in the monitor, so you get a pretty good idea of how your footage will look.) There are also various sources for in-camera dialed-in looks ... basically recipes ... that can be set (and saved) if you don't want to go the Log route.

All in all ... a nice little camera that shoots great stills and OK video. It is not prefect. It is not a RED or a substitute for a RED by any stretch of the imagination, but is does have its uses.
 
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Brody_B said:
There is a lot of jazz about sony a7 series here. I just have to speak to my experience. Simply put, I got rid of my A7R2 and would rather use my 5DMK3 cause of a few what I consider to be significant problems.

First, how slow the processing is with stills. Any High speed shutter you do will bog down the camera, it literally needs a break in between shots, completely unacceptable in even a non-action photo shoot.

I don't think the Stills were any more incredible than the old MK3.

Sony glass mostly sucks, so you need an adapter which creates latency and incompatibilities with certain lenses.

S-log color science isn't really superb.

The low light on the R2 isn't near the ground breaking amount that the S2 is.


So since most of my gripes were about still use. I would say the A7S2 would get my vote between the R2 cause in my opinion the still capabilities of the R2 are worthless. With that being said, if you had a choice and were only in the $3k price range I would wait 2-3 months to see if the Canon 5DMK4 is ready, its not clear about what its new features are yet but there are rumors about shooting 4k and other solid additions.

Wait isn't this a Red forum?!

Better choice, scrape together another $4k and get a barebones Raven, if you can wait 8 months lol.
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Just to clarify, s-log is not a color space. It's a gamma curve... There's no color science to s-log.

Your hate for the a7 series is very strong lol. Canon died years ago and a lot of my pro photo friends have switched from Sony and will not be going back. They just continue using their Canon glass on the Sony.
 
I have and use the A7rII regularly as well as a 5DsR. Both of these are mainly still cameras for me, but the A7rII occasionally doubles as BTS. It's truly impressive what Sony has crammed into the A7rII, I still desire "more" from their method of creating raw files, but beyond that it is indeed the camera I pick up more often than not due to the 5-axis Sensor IS.

In terms of motion I do like Sony's full frame and s35 shooting modes for 4K and s-log is decent.

Somewhere between the 5DsR and the A7rII is the camera I really want for stills and timelapse. I imagine Sony will nail things harder next time around. Perhaps Canon will as well. Hard to tell.
 
Ned Wilson said:
That's an interesting insight. I guess, on tech blogs we're so inundated with postcard montage footage of fields, streams, etc that we don't expect stories. Either way, thanks for the feedback. I'm trying to make the transition from DP'ing to directing. Wish me luck.
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Exactly; I suppose I am accustomed to seeing "footage" montages. That said, I really dig the character development and where you take them when faced with the situation (I don't want to give spoilers - for those who haven't seen it, definitely watch it!). Where does that leave them in the end? Really great and believable drama. Feels like David Mamet in those ways, specifically GLENGARRY, GLEN ROSS. If you are making the transition to directing, I would say you're off to a very strong start. Just keep in mind my 2¢ - point of attack is crucial. Cheers ~NAS
 
Matt Ryan said:
Just to clarify, s-log is not a color space. It's a gamma curve... There's no color science to s-log.

Your hate for the a7 series is very strong lol. Canon died years ago and a lot of my pro photo friends have switched from Sony and will not be going back. They just continue using their Canon glass on the Sony.
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Thats for the clarification, if shooting at 1600 iso, with sonys color science is what you prefer then go right ahead. Im reluctant to say this, but to make a point about Canon absolutely not being dead, my company works with most of the top commercial photographers in SF, mostly doing production, trust me I know, none of my clients would touch the A7R2. they all went 5Ds or 1dX. That is for a clear reason. If you really think Canon died, then it makes me think you don't work with many pro photographers. With that being said Canon did drop off when it comes to video in their 5d range, but they are still the strongest brand in stills today. Anyhow back to Red camera talk for me. No hard feelings bud
 
Brody_B said:
Thats for the clarification, if shooting at 1600 iso, with sonys color science is what you prefer then go right ahead. Im reluctant to say this, but to make a point about Canon absolutely not being dead, my company works with most of the top commercial photographers in SF, mostly doing production, trust me I know, none of my clients would touch the A7R2. they all went 5Ds or 1dX. That is for a clear reason. If you really think Canon died, then it makes me think you don't work with many pro photographers. With that being said Canon did drop off when it comes to video in their 5d range, but they are still the strongest brand in stills today. Anyhow back to Red camera talk for me. No hard feelings bud
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yeeesh . . .
 
Matt Ryan said:
You guys know the trick to shoot s35 or an A7SII right? It's pretty simple:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifM55PEFI-Y

I own the R but the S is much better for video. Let alone much better low light. The A7SII has better sharpness in video and slog3 gives you a bit more DR.

Like others say, R for stills, S for video. But you can get away with either unless your final (still) is going up on a billboard, then the R is the better choice.
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Another good thing I noticed about the hack is on the 18-35 Sigma you only need to push in 1.3x and only 1.1x with the 50-100 Sigma. That's the good news, the bad news is, what are you guys doing about the banding in slog? It's unusable as far as I can tell, albeit I'm the worlds worse editor.
 
steve green said:
... Am I just not using the most up to date edit and color correction software? Can a real editor deal with slog banding? If so, I'll just stop worrying and shoot (I never edit anything I shoot).
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To be honest with you, I haven't encountered banding, but I record directly to ProRes or DNxHD and edit / color correct in one of those formats in either Premiere or Media Composer, rather than XVAC-S. I am looking at some A7RII Slog2 DNxHD footage right now that I applied a quick grade to using Baselight in Avid, and it doesn't look bad at all.

Here are a few more discussions on the topic:

http://liftgammagain.com/forum/inde...vs-sony-a7sii-–-is-10-bit-always-better.6657/
http://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic...y-a7sii-a7rii-is-10-bit-always-better/?page=1
 
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