Andrew Reid

I think the FS700 is a bargain at $4k One of the nicest 4K images via HDMI you can get. Don't forget it does raw via HD-SDI too. Fantastic slow-mo and built in ND. Very similar sensor to F5. The ergonomics look ugly and it has the Sony fiddly menus & buttons but don't let that put you off because the images with an external recorder are stunning. Just for internal 1080/24p though there are better solutions. So if you plan to go for it, pair it with the Odyssey 7Q+ and factor in that extra $2k. So it is really a $6k package but still a total bargain.

Yep fair price. I guess if people think it's too expensive, they can always go off and buy another 4K internal LOG shooting interchangeable lens cinema camera for $1500. Oh wait...

Perfect in Super 35mm mode. Even covers full frame when extended to 35mm but of course vignettes heavily at 18mm end. AF is pretty good.

Panasonic didn't go all the way with the anamorphic or V-LOG updates. I am sure they are holding back liveview anamorphic desqueeze and LOG view assist for the GH5.

Or even better the X-T1 with 23mm F1.4 prime Much better AF on that lens than with the cheaper Fuji 35mm F1.4 and 18mm F2 AF is very important for stills if you like fast apertures, MF is just too slow to get enough decisive moments unless you stop down to F5.6 The X-T1's ergonomics and EVF feel like a proper camera. Better than A7S and can be made full frame with Speed Booster I tried opening the same raw shot from my A7R II and X-T1 recently by the way... and in Adobe Camera Raw the colours on the Sony shot were really off towards yellow / green, not enough satisfying blue or red tones. So it seems Fuji's superb film like colour rendition does not just apply to their JPEGs but actually the sensor raw data. Otherwise A7S is a superb choice if you can get some decent lenses to go with it. Expensive though!

Panasonic did officially put it out there and sought the publicity. If they are to do that again, some concrete details about release date and pricing might help!

Yet Blackmagic can do 10bit for a quarter of the price of an A7R II with the Pocket Cinema Camera and Micro. Yet GH4 has 10bit 4K HDMI output, albeit seemingly unable to make much noticeable difference to image quality. So I'm not really too appreciative of Sony's excuses. JG is right, they left it out on purpose to segment products. They are free to do that, so just tell us. Don't make silly excuses! As for a GH4 style flip screen making the body too thick - that's a load of tosh. The E-M5 II has one and is a slimmer body with weather sealing. GH4 is not really bigger, not in any meaningful way. Flip screen for selfies is important to consumer market and A7R II is a consumer camera so I hope they change this in future.

It's only a rumour guys.

Interesting suggestion, I'll try that! Both very nice, the A7R II is better in low light especially with the Metabones Speed Booster (which you can't use on the NX1) The NX1 has an incredibly clean image with no noise up to and at ISO 800, then it falls off a cliff from 1600 onward. The A7R II has a bit more dynamic range. Both have similar rolling shutter in S35, but switch to full frame and provided you don't mind a bit of moire you can reduce RS on the A7R II considerably. The codec on the NX1 maintains a sharper image, more detail, but you get a mushy blocking in areas of large colour blocking. More banding in the sky for example. The codec seems to give all the data to the details and leaves nothing for the smooth gradation. On the A7R II the image is softer, not as sharp in 4K, bit mushy but nothing to worry about and it grades pretty well. Prefer ergonomics of the NX1 body and the price is half. A problem with both is - They both have sensors that seem to capture 3x more green than red or blue and it hurts the image vs Fuji and Canon cameras. I've seen it in the raw stills not just video or S-LOG.

Panasonic should have announced their intentions at NAB before they teased us with the beta V-LOG. Just come straight out and said "here is how we're going to do it" instead of letting speculation run rife for 6 months on the internet, because it creates an atmosphere of uncertainty amongst loyal GH4 owners and the temptation to jump to a Sony with S-LOG already must be pretty high. So yeah they have mishandled this but hopeful of positive outcome on September 1st!

By now you might be wondering which to pull the trigger on - the RX10 II or RX100 IV? The good news is I have now finally got round to finishing my review of the RX10 II and have also bought the RX100 IV to compare it with... Read the full article

That's a good article by Noam. For me the lens draws attention to itself when it is wider than 24mm on full frame. He seems to like very deep DOF. I am not a shallow DOF junky but I like a gentle roll off of focus, with the background a little bit back... not completely blurred out. I find deep DOF too 'flat' looking on digital. It's ok on Super 16mm (Digital Bolex for example) if the c-mount lens has a lot of character but it looks a bit sterile with modern lenses. Lenses that give me the gentle focus roll off and a shallower DOF control at wide angle are cinematic and three dimensional. Go too wide & slow and you have a very 'flat' look where infinity focus starts at 3m. On full frame 35mm F2.0 is definitely a sweet spot. 28mm on Super 35mm = 42mm, not too far off. 28mm on the 1D C in 4K is interesting...you get 36mm in APS-H 4K, then can crop to 42mm for the Super 35mm look in post without losing much resolution. You can't really do that with 1080p. Then in stills mode of course it is a 28mm. Like having 3 lenses in one!! The Zeiss Distagon 28mm F2.0 is a lovely lens. They don't call it the "Hollywood" for nothing. Shoot with it wide open. When I was shooting with the GH2 I used to prefer longer lenses. Favourite focal lengths were 35mm and 85mm. 14mm and 50mm didn't do it for me for some reason. On the 1.86x crop sensor 35mm and 85mm were practically telephoto in full frame terms compared to what I use the most now! On Super 35mm, the Zeiss Jena DDR 21mm F2.8 and Canon 24mm F1.4L are a nicer look than a 16mm or 17mm for me. Less flat. By the way the edges of the lens are as important as how they render the field of view. I think a slight vignette wide open is very attractive and also bokeh that curves at the edges slightly makes for a more immersive, dreamy picture, and it doesn't have to be extreme - just subtle. The easiest way to lose the magic is to take a vintage c-mount lens and crop out just the centre. Or take a full frame 24mm F1.4 shot and crop into. It isn't the resolution loss or just the deeper DOF that makes it look bad. You lose the character of the edges of the lens and the overall rendering of field of view that it was designed to do, artistically.

I do the hard work in Resolve then just apply the LUTs and don't fiddle with anything afterwards. That makes for a much quicker edit. It is tempting to tune each shot isn't it? Shouldn't be necessary. A LUT can be consistent and give you the same look for everything. It also helps to use manual white balance. Most shots need tweaking due to the wrong colour temperature rather than the wrong exposure.

"In order for the EditReady file to look “right,” you’d need to apply a LUT or color correction to adjust the signal." When I developed my LOG LUT for the NX1 I had better results in Premiere when the camera was set to 16-235. Trust me 0-255 is asking for trouble, it is a whole host of complexity on top for virtually no gain! Whether 0-255 or 16-235 we are splitting hairs because the NX1 has banding in both modes. As the EditReady blog post said, NLEs expect 16-235 and the ProRes files won't look right in them if you shoot 0-255. They don't explain HOW the LUT should correct for this. Even if you use a LUT in EditReady like my LOG converter, Premiere will still crap it up in 0-255. Is it worth getting confused about? Just shoot 16-235 and be happy! Rocky Mountain probably remaps 0-255 to 16-235 anyway.

LUT will work with 0-255 as well but you might have to do a workaround in post to see more of the shadows. LUT or no LUT it doesn't matter, shoot 16-235 so that when EditReady converts to 16-235 ProRes you see into the shadows.

Yeah but the 24-70 F2.8 is absolutely enormous and has no stabilisation on a Canon body.

24mm F2.8 IS 28mm F2.8 iS 35mm F2.0 IS 100mm F2.8 Macro IS 200mm F2.0 IS 300mm F2.8 IS And a few others but oddly no 50mm or 85mm yet. Ultrasonic IS on the above lenses is very good, better than IS on the Sigma or Tamron zooms.

Is it just me or is it absolutely crap? Time for Samsung to stop ticking off the marketing features boxes and go for a real update with actual problems fixed such as the manual focus issues.

Forgot to mention, transcoded to ProRes first with EditReady of course. Only reporting what I see. 16-235 works for me and doesn't give me any 'side effects' You will not see more banding with 16-235 compared to 0-255. We are talking luminosity here with the 0-255 'steps' not tonal precision which is what causes the banding. A blue sky for example could have such subtle variation in tone that it gets compressed away and you end up with 4 coloured bands. 0-255 allows for 256 so that isn't to blame, the compression is. Banding on the NX1 is mainly caused by the scaling from 6.5K to 4K internally and compression, plus the fact that at low ISOs the image is extremely clean so there's no noise to dither the 8bit bands smoothly together. You can try applying some dithering noise in post though.

With 16-235 I see more detail in the shadows. Premiere seems to take the 0-255 footage and clip it to 16-235, so you lose a ton of dynamic range.

Rich is quite right. Sure video is nice on the A7R II but... 1 - I still think the codec pisses over colour somehow 2 - The ergonomics are naff 3 - The screen is useless under bright sunlight 4 - The AF is extremely hit and miss 5 - For video it is going to be an expensive obsolete brick in under 6 months when the A7S II comes out. I have bought mine now so no going back. But I'm not enjoying it quite as much as I'd thought. Hot pixels all over the show. Cybershot ergonomics. Reliability is iffy, the heat issues... But then I am spoilt with the 1D C which is a rock sized diamond that happens to shoot 4K video. However... Sony Flagship vs Canon flagship. No excuses!? Just bought the Canon 24-70mm F4 IS. Cost me 635 euros used (perfect condition) vs 999 for the Sony FE 24-70mm F4 yet I can use it on both bodies. Similar size, not much heavier. Stabilisation is better than the flitty IBIS of the A7RII as it is ultrasonic. Sharpness is as the $2000 Canon 24-70mm F2.8 but it cost me far less. I can lose that one stop, and gain the low weight / size / stabilisation / lower price. The look is cinematic and for stills, AF is simply unmatched. I am extremely reluctant to build my FE lens collection due to the Canon lenses. For stills the A7R II gives me too many AF misses, too much hunting. The A7R II's body is too small for my hands, the 1D C is the right shape and size, like a glove or that feeling it is an extension of your arm. I can see the screen in daylight, which helps. The OVF is useless for video of course but for stills it gives me less eye strain than the EVF on the A7R II and of course a better image. I get much higher confidence using the manual focus assist (zoomed) for video on the 1D C too, which is critical for 4K video. I wish Sony would make a big A99 style pro version of the A7R II but keep the E-mount. A7R II is amazing but it just doesn't feel like a pro camera yet.

Didn't read the whole thread, can we recap something critical... What is the crop with DIS like?

Putting a 4K 10bit recorder in there would be possible as well. Enough room to cool it with a heat sink. Panasonic missed a big opportunity... They came out with a shit brick with wires in it for $2000. It should have been a battery, a recorder, as well as an interface unit, or at the very least an ergonomic interface unit for XLR like what Sony have with their hotshoe thingy. There is a wide open gap in the market for a battery grip recorder which extends battery life, uses single battery for camera and recorder, no extra bulky screen, just use the one on the camera. Shogun battery life, separate battery to worry about, big bulky screen, no thanks.

External recorder go for A7S. A7R II is all about internal 4K codec... and 5 axis but that isn't more effective than what you get already with Canon IS lenses on the A7S.

Definitely doable on Kickstarter. Massive 13,000mha battery is quite small these days, only slightly larger than a 2.5" HDD and smaller than a 3.5" one An HDMI interface chip inside, from GH4 HDMI port... out to XLR, HD-SDI, probably an off the shelf component. I've seen more complex stuff done on Kickstarter. The YAGH was a sales DISASTER though due to dreadful ergonomics and need for external power, however they listened to with regards feedback on that should have had his mouth taped up.