Andrew Reid

If you are not seeing the problem try this on your A7S II 1. Make sure ALL settings that adjust exposure or highlights are turned off and set Knee to manual in S-LOG profile (be sure Movie Exposure mode is set to manual in the main menus!) 2. Disable stuff like DRO dynamic range optimiser 3. Set to XAVC-S 4K in full frame (it doesn't show up in any crop sensor mode like 120fps or APS-C) 4. Point at your iPhone LED, play with exposure - it shows at 1/50 F2 ISO 1600 for me, if you don't see it go brighter on the ISO 5. Now adjust focus to get the back of the iPhone tack sharp, you won't see the problem if the light is spread out like bokeh 6. If not showing the sunspot yet - move camera around until it shows, direct the iPhone light directly into the lens from approx. 30cm to 50cm away, adjust focus 7. If still doesn't showing it is likely your unit is OK and it is isolated to an early batch of cameras or even random units Did that issue knock out the entire sun black? Check the main blog and the videos... it isn't just aliasing around highlights, if that is what you mean? Although that is there on the A7S II again, I've noticed it when pixel peeping!!

Just tried the settings reset and camera 'initialise' option and it didn't solve the problem. Well... it made it go away due to auto exposure and auto ISO but as soon as enabled 4K XAVC-S and manual exposure it was back with vengeance. You might be able to under expose to avoid it on a weak LED light but try doing that with the sun, impossible. A7R II has no such issue, this is purely an A7S II thing. Very disappointing!

It did really annoy me in the summer... The sunny weather mode however boosts contrast so much, it would make accurately shooting / exposing in S-LOG very tricky for a start. The EVF in sunny weather is the way to go, ignore the LCD. But even then the EVF is less than stella - goes invisible when you have direct sunlight coming at the camera sideways.

Lofote, on every new Sony body the Metabones adapter has had issues and required a firmware fix or hardware update. Basically Sony's new firmware keeps breaking it and making it unstable. And I for one am sick of it! That has nothing to do with the EF mount protocol which hasn't changed in years. Sony should get together with Metabones and TEST the stuff... Metabones didn't even get an A7S II early... they had to wait until it was in the shops!

I deal with it by living in Berlin where the sun don't shine!!

The noise in the blacks with S-LOG can definitely be insane but it's designed to all be crushed back to black in post. Like Mr Chapman said in the video, don't try raising the bottom of the curve for S-LOG. I find when exposed +2 it is pretty clean... but if you don't quite have the light and under expose, ISO 3200 ends up looking worse than +2 at 12,800!! ISO is a bit wibbly wobbly in SLOG, I take it with a pinch of salt! With the compressed 100Mbit/s codec the main issue with the noise is how blotchy it gets... because it is a highly compressed long GOP codec, it doesn't do a nice raw-like fine random grain... instead it starts to macro block and kinda crawl, break up. I find a good low light grade can do a lot though. Especially if you do a James Miller style raised blacks LUT over it.

A7R II does the same thing... for some reason in 4K it dims the monitor back down.

Doesn't look like a bad copy, because people have been telling me on social media that they are having the same problem with theirs. Some aren't, but it isn't isolated to just one faulty camera unfortunately. One helpful guy told me he rented two of his out, both had the sunspots, but a 'reset to default settings' in the menu solved it. Maybe it is a bug with a certain option. I'm going to try the reset and hope it goes away.

It is clear on the LCD - big black hole in the middle of the shot. I thought it was a bug with the View Assist at first! Nope. On all my footage. Junked a load of material from that shoot. If you're taking this camera to work with you... don't yet.

I have been shooting with the A7S II for 2 weeks now. Let's really get under the skin of the camera and see if it is worth your $3000. On my retail model (bought in Europe on day of release, firmware 1.0) sunspots and black holes render it almost unusable. It is a complete lottery whether your shot is going to be ruined or not. The next shot is not even in direct sunlight – the black hole is produced from a specular bounce of light off the floor. Read the review

Enjoyed the video and Alister really knows his stuff by the way. Just putting a different perspective out there and it's all up to our preferences what we like. I find S-LOG does allow me to focus on directing and composition, it's easier to expose than Rec 709 and allows for more leeway to correct exposure mistakes in post. I agree with you it has a sweet spot though! Optimal 2 stops to the right usually. Many shoot green screen with Blackmagic cameras... raw is great for that. It isn't so much LOG that causes issues, the compression does.

Indeed. Or Shane Meadows. Good 1080p doesn't look soft when it is thrown at an epic cinema screen to an audience of 200... It only looks soft on a laptop screen with your eye 1mm away! The D750 and BMPCC I rate as pretty good 1080p personally!!

The sensor has been tweaked and the JPEG engine has. It's more noticeable in the stills output. The video profiles - Cine1,2,3,4, etc. and SLOG don't seem to have been changed. The main addition is S-LOG 3. That is still just as difficult to grade colour-wise. S-Gamut 3.Cine is a tweaked S-Gamut though... and it shifts to an even wider colour gamut... but I find it also brings colour closer to clipping in 8bit. S-LOG 3 meanwhile is even flatter than S-LOG 2, it is designed to maximise dynamic range. However I find it increases banding in the highs and lows... so the question is, how much of that extra dynamic range packed in is usable?

Nah you're not understanding me. The benefits of LOG are there for green screen and low light, as much as they are for bright daylight scenes requiring a wider dynamic range. If S-LOG on the FS5 hurts keying performance BY A BIT... but gives you a CHUNK OF CREATIVITY... who is right. Chapman? Nope.

No, actually Sony shouldn't expect the A7 target audience to be director, writer, producer, cinematographer, professional colourist. These cameras are in a lot of single operators hands. Canon LOG is easier to handle for a reason! Sony made a mistake. S-LOG as an option, fine. No alternative to S-LOG = not fine. The cinema gamuts don't fix the colour difficulties in post. And the Cine gamma curves are not LOG. Would you rather have more time to edit and direct and shoot... or spend it all fucking with Resolve?

It took me a year to get the colours right in my LUT for S-LOG. Judging from much of the footage on Vimeo it seems everyone else had the same problem But now it is right... it's way better than Cine2. The LUT is gold-dust. I should sell it!! (It was a year's work after all!!!!) Once the LUT corrects for Sony's shitty colour science, Lumetri is great in Premiere for applying my own contrast and curves or shot by shot tweaks, white balance, etc. It responds really well. Sometimes you can get away with adjusting temperature from 3200 to 5600 and not have it look like crap. It's not raw but it is much closer than you'd reasonably expect.

Technical information is good... but ruling out LOG for lowlight and green screen is putting pixel peeping ahead of creativity.

Indeed! But hey, Sony didn't notice their reds were pink in S-LOG, so I don't expect them to listen to me on menu shortcuts

The 1D C has been very useful to calibrate my LUT for the A7S II and A7R II S-LOG I'd be lost without it as a guide really. Cine 2, etc. certainly easy to grade when dialled down flat but I still prefer to shoot S-LOG... more dynamic range and better LUT compatibility. I like James Miller's DELUTS and they don't work as well with the other picture profiles.

Sony seem to have reserved it for now as a selling point of the A7S II. Maybe 6 months later there will be a small chance. But enough people ask for it, it will happen... Like uncompressed raw stills did. There's a solid logic for Sony to add it in... On a shoot with FS7, A7S II both set to S-LOG 3... An A7R II on Super 35mm duties set to S-LOG 2 doesn't make much sense does it!?

Big reason I stick to mirrorless rather than the mega expensive stuff. What is the boot time like? No Long GOP codec for 4K like the FS7 or FS5... oh dear! ALL-I does have a nicer motion candace though... 1D C MJPEG is also ALL-I. ALL-I codecs need to be 500Mbit/s for 4K... 100Mbit/s would look much worse than Long GOP at same data rate (because every original frame is stored individually) Have you tried updating the pro video codecs from Apple with FCPX installed? Might help in Premiere too. Upload an original file from each would love to see that. And A7S II with Odyssey 7Q+ should get rid of the compression and get it neck and neck with C300 II. I am trying that combo this week but don't have the C300 II to compare it directly to. Canon slow-mo still shit I see

+1 for the LUT loader app. No excuse for Sony not to add View Assist in firmware update to A7R II by the way for our $3k it is a disgrace something as basic as that is missing!!

Got a new install going from Clover now and it is indeed more stable. Way fewer quirks to sort out post install. The actual install went well once I deleted the old hidden EFI partition from my USB installer stick, which had the wrong config info on it. You have to get the pre-install config spot on for your hardware, needs a lot of Googling.

Nice idea for the Surface Pro!!

So is Clover more reliable as well (assuming it is setup correctly of course)?