Andrew Reid

Would be interesting to see if this is a problem only with the Samsung lenses. Better to get a Nikon adapter and use AI stuff.

If it does that during an important shot, you can't just take the battery out and say "it's fine"

Next test. This one is a bit clearer I think. Click to enlarge them. The shot contains a GH4 to represents the blacks / lows and out of the window at the top I've cropped out the tree line / sky for the highs. The shot of the GH4 on the 1D C shot is usable, the A7S isn't, or at least needs cleaning up. There's also moire and aliasing on the lens rings. You get these noisy blacks at ISO 3200 at the bottom of the S-LOG file. What I do is to of course apply a curve to the file to get contrast back, crush the noisy blacks away, get colour looking right and tonality spot on. I have always crushed these parts of the image away by 1-2 stops because that's what you're supposed to do with LOG. Those blacks look awful if you keep them as-is. The blacks are so cinematic and milky clean on the 1D C I can keep them if I want to. If you clean up the noise in the A7S blacks with noise reduction software, the image overall will still look bad. So they need to go. Nobody can say looking at the shot above that the A7S looks better than the 1D C. I am not bringing bias into it, it's science pure and simple. The tree line out of the window represents the highlights. Here the A7S is doing a hard clip to white above the tree branches and the 1D C goes beyond the trees to maintain some of the bright clouds. Well, as bright as the sky gets in January in England anyway!! Subtle difference. To find out how many stops DR each give I need a chart and I am not a chart tester. I am certain the 1D C is giving me more usable dynamic range though.

​Kindly gaze at my sample images, which are graded from the original files. Kind of matters that! Now look at the size of the highlight. How much of it is white on the top shot and how much on the bottom? The area which is burnt to white is larger on the A7S. Now look at the shadows. Pretty similar but the A7S has more noise in them, therefore they require a pull down to hide the noise. Noise reduction will just make them look muddy and kill the detail. It's not about that purple splat of paint, it is not a highlight and it isn't burnt in either! Need to do a proper test to make it clearer to people without eyes.

​I have yet to tell the difference between 10bit and 8bit on any camera. The Blackmagic cameras are good mainly due to lack of compression. 10bit has very little to do with it. I think 10bit could be the most overrated attribute of video acquisition ever. I literally can grade 10bit GH4 4K and 8bit together on the same timeline the same way and pixel for pixel they're identical! And it doesn't sort out banding either.

Happy new year to you too, and to all EOSHD forum users

Yes you can change aperture whilst recording on the Mark III and IV but you shouldn't use the III with the A7S it's not fully compatible.

​Yes the FS7 was on my radar, was about £2k more than the used 1D C though. I wanted the stealth and small size of a DSLR. Stick a loupe on the back, put an IS lens on, attach gorilla pod, make a great movie Kendy Ty style. The FS7's slow-mo I want though! Badly! Hopefully the 1D C will come down to under £3500 soon and more people will see the sense in that. At £12,000 it was ridiculous - sort of - but the image was always going to be a £12,000 cinema picture, otherwise they'd have never have priced it for Hollywood in the first place. It's one of the most cinematic looks I've ever seen. It isn't digital-sharp in Canon LOG either. It's detailed and organic.

​Indeed this is what I see as well. No bias! When you all pick up your 1D Cs for cheap in 2015 you will thank me for recommending it

Well that's weird. I'm sure I said I shot in S-LOG2. Oh wait. I did Not Cine1. Not Cine2. We are talking about S-LOG here. Nope that's incorrect, I'm sorry to break it to you. Just imagine I have a friendly face and a smile whilst I give you the bad news and we won't get into an Internet Debate. The very deepest blacks start to break up on the A7S with noise because you reach the end of the usable dynamic range, it's not an ISO issue. You can see the same in a raw still shot at ISO 200, just bring the shadows up very high. What do you see? Yes noise. That's why we talk about dynamic range and USABLE dynamic range. Loss of detail? It's a dynamic range test shot. I didn't even focus it properly. When I do the resolution test shot I'll make sure the focus is nailed on both cameras. Didn't need to on this shot. Post fact rationalisation more like. Haha. Yes. We agree on that. Maybe the Internet Argument can be averted after all. New years resolution. Avoid internet arguments

​With my eyes! You can't see it? Crushed blacks and a highlight that burns sooner on the A7S S-LOG? C'mon dude. Black is black you can't bring it back, same as white.

Unfortunately good light isn't to be found in Berlin at the moment. I think I'll take it somewhere sunnier

Finding the stabilisation with the 35mm F2.0 IS very solid. Did I mention I love the image!?

The GH4 has more dynamic range than people give it credit for.

I'm not sure how you've graded that, it doesn't look like what I get. Might not be your fault, you are grading a heavily web compressed JPEG after all. I get a stop more detail in the highlight and at least 1-2 stops cleaner shadows... Top A7S 4K S-LOG and bottom 1D C MJPEG. (Click to enlarge to see the noise grain in the shadows and on table surface) That's what I mean by 'usable'. You have to crush the blacks on the A7S to get rid of the noise in the shadows. On the 1D C you can leave the shadows 'as-is'. They both have a 0% curve in Film Convert on to try and exceed the maximum dynamic range that's usable... to show as an example. No artistic merit I know it looks awful on both! S-LOG 2 needs fixing for 4K it isn't working right. And how is purple chromatic aberration the fault of the camera? It's a lens thing anyway.

I'm not seeing that. Very fine noise grain on the 1D C files and NR is off in the menus. The A7S shadows just look worse. Muddy unfortunately. Like Doug said earlier. He was right.

And dynamic range / smart range + is definitely off?

1D C MJPEG 4K is just over 500Mbit/s, less than ProRes 422. ProRes LT hovers around the 350-400Mbit/s mark so a reasonable space saving. That's what I'm converting to at the moment. Absolutely in love with the images.

​What happens if you don't enable video mode (it's not really a mode, more a standby preview thing) and just hit record straight from live-view?

The purpose really was to look at the source file and see the differences. You can certainly grade it that's what you're meant to do with LOG. Though even after grading I'm not happy with what's going on over HDMI with S-LOG. Needs a fix!

It's fine in 2D 4K as is the IMAX 24p stuff. I know what JG means about focussing audience attention on the wrong details though But you can only do that if standing really close the screen. 4K on a big screen from the right viewing distances is simply gorgeous! Now I get more distracted when something is too soft but because I'm used to it, I can just forget that and enjoy the story.

It's HFR 3D that's the problem not 4K. It destroys the mystery of the image and makes it seem real. Still depends on the subject matter though! Reality is good for showing reality not so much for showing a wizard with makeup on.

Unfortunately I don't think that 150 mins will last me out the year

Agree 100%

  I decided to put the Sony A7S and Atomos Shogun to use shooting some of the snow over Christmas. Shot in Derbyshire (North of England) in 4K with family and at Chatsworth House. Music by singer-songwriter Anne Haight of Berlin (hear more on SoundCloud here) Read the full article