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120 FPS - Sony a7s II vs others


Shield3
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As a former a7s user I found the 120p mode on the original A7s to not be too bad.  The 720/120 on the a7r2 I find unusable.

Please rank these as far as usability (from a pure IQ standpoint; ignore the crop, DOF, etc.)

The 120 FPS for:

a7s ii

Sony FS5 (hell the 240p as well)

rx100 IV

Canon IDX II

a7r2

Any other camers (Panasonic, Samsung NX1)

I was disappointed as well by the 120 on the a6300 - it turned into a one trick (super sharp 4k with too much RS) so I dumped it.

Thanks!

Shawn

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23 minutes ago, Shield3 said:

As a former a7s user I found the 120p mode on the original A7s to not be too bad.  The 720/120 on the a7r2 I find unusable.

Please rank these as far as usability (from a pure IQ standpoint; ignore the crop, DOF, etc.)

The 120 FPS for:

a7s ii

Sony FS5 (hell the 240p as well)

rx100 IV

Canon IDX II

a7r2

Any other camers (Panasonic, Samsung NX1)

I was disappointed as well by the 120 on the a6300 - it turned into a one trick (super sharp 4k with too much RS) so I dumped it.

Thanks!

Shawn

 

On that list, I've only used the Sony A7S II - so I'll give you a mini review:

The 120fps has a 2.2 crop of the sensor.

There are issues.

There's much more noise than in full frame mode, and also the noise looks magnified/amplified/uglier/bigger. 

I find focusing harder in this mode than full frame mode, for some odd reason. 

There's also very bad aliasing and moire, sometimes even on skin. 

It's soft, but can look very sharp if sharpened nicely. 

It can look very cool when used at the right moment. 

Not ideal for professional use, good enough for very low end stuff though. 

if I had to score out of 10... I'd give the 120fps mode a 5

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36 minutes ago, Shield3 said:

As a former a7s user I found the 120p mode on the original A7s to not be too bad.  The 720/120 on the a7r2 I find unusable.

Please rank these as far as usability (from a pure IQ standpoint; ignore the crop, DOF, etc.)

The 120 FPS for:

a7s ii

Sony FS5 (hell the 240p as well)

rx100 IV

Canon IDX II

a7r2

Any other camers (Panasonic, Samsung NX1)

I was disappointed as well by the 120 on the a6300 - it turned into a one trick (super sharp 4k with too much RS) so I dumped it.

Thanks!

Shawn

Easy. The RX100 IV (and the RX10 II, III) have the best 1080 120 and 240 fps. I think most reviews confirm this.

Example of 1080 120 and 240:

Select 1080 to play if you want to see the quality..

Test video 1080 120:

You can download the original 1080 uploads to play and avoid streaming compression.

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2 hours ago, Shield3 said:

As a former a7s user I found the 120p mode on the original A7s to not be too bad.  The 720/120 on the a7r2 I find unusable.

Please rank these as far as usability (from a pure IQ standpoint; ignore the crop, DOF, etc.)

The 120 FPS for:

a7s ii

Sony FS5 (hell the 240p as well)

rx100 IV

Canon IDX II

a7r2

Any other camers (Panasonic, Samsung NX1)

I was disappointed as well by the 120 on the a6300 - it turned into a one trick (super sharp 4k with too much RS) so I dumped it.

Thanks!

Shawn

I'd rank them as follows, but my judgement on the 1D X II is a bit second hand so far unlike the rest which I all own (well, the A7R II is sold now but I used it quite a bit)

1. FS5
2. RX100 IV
3. A7S II
4. 1D X II
5. A7R2

Don't forget the Canon C500... a used one is a bargain right now.

It does 4K 120fps half-RAW via dual 3G-SDI.

It does 4K 60fps full res RAW even.

It also does very crisp 10bit 2K at 120fps via dual 3G-SDI.

The 12bit RGB 444 2K mode goes to 60fps.

Above 60fps to 120fps are Slow & Quick modes not regular continuous recording.

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The NX1 is really nice if you give it enough light. Get up in the 800-2000 range and things get mushy (haven't done a bunch of specific tests though). At very low ISOs it's really very crisp. Good budget alternative, since you can stick many different lenses on the NX with its tiny flange distance. 

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The bitrate hack improved the image from NX1 even further. Now I do 180mbit in 4k and FHD@100fps, while for FHD@120 I go down to 100mbit, which is anyway an improvement compared to the original 80mb.

 

The worst part of NX1 is high ISO in video, and I can't understand why, since for raw still images, they are detailed and clean up to 3200 (and up to 6400 when downscaled in postprocessing to match 4k). Possibly a combination of poor downscaling (since video is from full sensor readout) and NR.

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6 minutes ago, Marco Tecno said:

The worst part of NX1 is high ISO in video, and I can't understand why, since for raw still images, they are detailed and clean up to 3200 (and up to 6400 when downscaled in postprocessing to match 4k). Possibly a combination of poor downscaling (since video is from full sensor readout) and NR.

The camera probably has to switch to a worse/faster readout mode which has less bits, or something in that direction.

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20 hours ago, markr041 said:

Easy. The RX100 IV (and the RX10 II, III) have the best 1080 120 and 240 fps. I think most reviews confirm this.

Example of 1080 120 and 240:

Select 1080 to play if you want to see the quality..

Test video 1080 120:

You can download the original 1080 uploads to play and avoid streaming compression.

Mark041, I like the look of the slow-mo from the RX100 IV and the RX10 II, but I am planning on shooting my son pitch/bat from behind a center field wall (10 U travel team).  I should have specified something in the interchangeable lens range - I normally need my 100-400 II Canon near the long end to get good framing.

The a7s ii seems pretty good, but is the 1080p120 really any better than the a6300 for 1/3rd the price? 

I would *love* for their to be a full frame camera that did 240 fps, or even 120 fps without a heavy crop.  Closest I can think of under $8k is the FS700 / FS5 plus the ultra speedbooster to get me to 1.05x crop.  The 1dx II does not appear to crop the 1080p120 though does it?

Andrew I think the c500 might be more than I want to carry in my wagon to the games with my 1dx + long whites.  But I will look into it.

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2 hours ago, Shield3 said:

Mark041, I like the look of the slow-mo from the RX100 IV and the RX10 II, but I am planning on shooting my son pitch/bat from behind a center field wall (10 U travel team).  I should have specified something in the interchangeable lens range - I normally need my 100-400 II Canon near the long end to get good framing.

The a7s ii seems pretty good, but is the 1080p120 really any better than the a6300 for 1/3rd the price? 

I would *love* for their to be a full frame camera that did 240 fps, or even 120 fps without a heavy crop.  Closest I can think of under $8k is the FS700 / FS5 plus the ultra speedbooster to get me to 1.05x crop.  The 1dx II does not appear to crop the 1080p120 though does it?

Andrew I think the c500 might be more than I want to carry in my wagon to the games with my 1dx + long whites.  But I will look into it.

For the purpose you specify - sports at a long distance, your best alternative is the RX10 iii. It has exactly the same high-speed quality as the RX100 IV and you get 25-600mm! I have the NX1, and its 1080120p is inferior to that from the Sony RX100 IV, RX10 II and III in what I see, and it is not improved by upping the bitrate. I shoot lots of slo mo, and sports (especially baseball and softball). Plus the Sony 240 fps is really good - just perfect for a slo-mo of a pitch or a swing in baseball, not to mention the pivot in a double play (and you cannot miss given the shoot-after-the play mode (constant buffer). The RX/RX100 cameras have the best 240 fps quality. I also do not see that a big sensor is an advantage for shooting sports, it make getting the focus right more difficult.

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21 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

I'd rank them as follows, but my judgement on the 1D X II is a bit second hand so far unlike the rest which I all own (well, the A7R II is sold now but I used it quite a bit)

1. FS5
2. RX100 IV
3. A7S II
4. 1D X II
5. A7R2

I do not understand why you ignore NX1 120fps. I think has better image than A7SII - they may become equal on ISO 1600. You should try it with some fast lens on ISO100 - you may be surprised.

Note for below video - you have to use GammaDR and dial down sharpness - and it did not happen in first video so it is oversharpened.  But NX1 has definitely has more details and there is NO crop...

 

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1 hour ago, markr041 said:

For the purpose you specify - sports at a long distance, your best alternative is the RX10 iii. It has exactly the same high-speed quality as the RX100 IV and you get 25-600mm! I have the NX1, and its 1080120p is inferior to that from the Sony RX100 IV, RX10 II and III in what I see, and it is not improved by upping the bitrate. I shoot lots of slo mo, and sports (especially baseball and softball). Plus the Sony 240 fps is really good - just perfect for a slo-mo of a pitch or a swing in baseball, not to mention the pivot in a double play (and you cannot miss given the shoot-after-the play mode (constant buffer). The RX/RX100 cameras have the best 240 fps quality. I also do not see that a big sensor is an advantage for shooting sports, it make getting the focus right more difficult.

Wait, what?  There is a 3rd version already?  I will have to go look.  Man Sony kicks out those bodies don't they?

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I didn't ignore it at all. Monitoring the hack process, opened a dedicated forum for it, took my NX1 to London in February and used it at BVE, shot with the SLR Magic PL anamorphics on the NX1 in Brighton and did a big blog post about it.

The NX1 is as good in 2016 as it was in November 2014 and it will remain so for the next 2 years as well. Absolutely fantastic future proof camera.

The 120fps looks improved from the first firmware in 2014. Quality looks similar to the X Pro 2. Not free of moire but nice and detailed.

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I had a little bit of time tonight so I threw a 2 minute video of some slow mo shots of my 9 year old son's baseball team.

Couple of things before you click - this was 100% all handheld, some slowed down in Twixtor, some will only make sense to the parents' of the team.

This is not meant for Cannes film festival.  The beginning shots, believe it or not, were the a6300 with the 55-210 lens in AF mode, PP off, stopped down to about F/8.

Oh yeah most of this is straight out of the camera.

So having said that...

 

 

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