Amro Othman

Hey Andrew,
I appreciate the response, and I'm glad you like the content Chris and I put out. We look forward your feedback on anything we produce, and I've gained a lot of useful information and insight from this blog and the message boards.

However, I feel that essentially calling out the entire review community for being in Sony's pockets is excessive. If you were in North America and wanted to test a production A6300 before launch, the only way to do it was to fly to Miami for the press event. I wish that it was an option to have the camera shipped to us in Calgary for testing at that time, as I have other productions and a family to focus on outside of my TCSTV work. But the A6300 is such an important camera that we agreed to spend a few very busy, not at all relaxing days testing the camera out. You have to remember that this is a time when a huge number of enthusiasts pre-order their camera before launch, so these pre-release videos can serve a very useful purpose.
Most of the other journalists and reviewers I spoke with felt similarly. I'm sure a few odd ones didn't use the time to properly test the camera and wrote puff pieces about the camera and G-Master lenses, but many of us spent 16-20 hour days trying to make sure we had accurate impressions. I'd hate to see all of these people lumped together as shills for Sony.
It's a huge compliment that you see us as an honest, respectable source, and we appreciate you embedding our video on the blog post. Chris appreciates your beard-envy.  We hope you keep watching!

Hey Jordan
No way! It kills me to have a misunderstanding like this
I am an avid follower of your videos at The Camera Store, I absolutely love then
I featured your video on the blog purely out of love for what you do and to draw attention to it.
I'd have a hard time passing that off as my own!! Berlin might be cold but it's not that cold!! I do not have a stunning beard. I do not have Chris's strange accent either
The PR comment wasn't aimed at you guys
*At all*
I get involved with the manufacturers and try to build a relationship, I go to the events organised by PR companies to try out the cameras early when I can fit it in, nothing wrong with this and all reviewers do it. I didn't realise you and Chris just got back from a Sony press event so it was a really stupidly badly timed comment on my part.
No one can deny there's generally a subversive whitewashing going on due to so much PR in the consumer electronics world but YOUR reviews are NOT like that... I like to think we remain balanced about negatives and unbiased and thinking of our content rather than our relationship with the manufacturers and this is totally what sites like ours do... We shoot from the gut and we are outspoken.
I can't tell you how sorry I am for this misunderstanding it is terrible...
I'm up for a chat on the phone if it helps solve any issues
Sorry - Andrew

Indeed.  It's one of the fascinating things to me regarding US politics insomuch as the pro biz party also has in its corner the evangelical religious folks, who you'd think would be pretty clear headed about the morality of things.  Then again, maybe they're not really that concerned with a philosophical morality, only how they perceive their own.  
Anyway, I'm on record as saying I don't think capitalism makes it out of the 21st century.  That's not exactly great insight.  Many people smarter than me are on board with that assertion.  I mean, look, less than 100 people have more wealth than 3.5 billion people on the planet.  I mean, I'm not against affluence, but hoarding wealth is just not healthy for a culture.  It is immoral.  Society is just going in the wrong direction; does;t mean we're doomed, just that we need to adjust.
Enterprising people and moneymakers will always be around, but the system and culture of modern capitalism is too reliant on gluttony and exploitation to survive the social and economic stresses of the future.  I suppose it could be argued that it's gone already, if it ever really existed in the first place.  How does one see an "invisible hand" anyway? ;-)  I doubt Adam Smith would even approve of the twisted version of his system as practiced today.
Unions are really the only effective way, right now, to push back against those that willingly exploit.  
And unions aren't needed everywhere.  I assert a business, any business, can be healthy and generous without maximizing profits at the expense of their employees.  Their are nobler goals to strive for.  

Low light looks stunning, seems to be up par to a7rii super 35mm

Like most Ive read about 1000 comments saying "a7rii if you also want to shoot stills and a7sii for video only".
Since I mostly use medium format film for stills I couldn't care less, but ultimately went for the S because I wanted minimum moire.
But I do use Instagram and take some photos around the family and for that I could use any camera really. So I have taken a few with the a7sii.  
And I must say... wow.
I think they look stellar. I cant really put my finger on it exactly but they have an "organic feel" (lack of better word) that's very pleasing imo.

My theory is that its the low 15mega pixels on a large sensor. I guess it takes away the "digital" sharpness in the same way as the HD vs 4K thing. And also how a full sensor read often is more pleasing than a binned down sample. I see the same in the NX500 4k crop vs the NX1 6K down sample.
Here is an example compared to the D750 which has a very high megapixel. Bot are nice but I think the less sharp a7sii is nicer.
A7sii

D750

The pic above as well as the once bellow are almost straight from the camera. Standard jpegs. I might have added a vignette or so but no "Insta filters".
Im not claiming to be a good photographer or anything, but what I like is how there is tons of detail without the "digital sharpness".



On this I added some sharpening.

So anyone else seen the same thing?
Anyone have any stills to share?
(Could be my mind playing a trick on me to justify the quite hefty price on the a7sii, even though I got a 10% discount )
 
At the end of the day I think it will serve me well for most pics and when I need something "richer" I use good old Kodak

 
 

This has never been true of any industry. What the consumer "needs" is irrelevant. None of us "need" anything. The scope of what the average user is doing is ever changing.

I agree with the FPS issue. 4K is enough for the next 4 years. Let's have full focus on low light performance, robust codecs, and 240+ FPS!

Magic Lantern RAW 14bit video.
Graded in Davinci Resolve.
Mostly 6D, very few shots on 5D3.
Thanks for watching,
Alex
 

I started playing with photos because I realised that it can be more appropriate than recording video most of the time. 
I love the night, I love lightning storms, and I love the seaside. So this image is a scene that I am fond of.
https://500px.com/R3dshift
 
 

Rather have a heavier camera on my shoulder than a lighter in front of me.
BTW, 5kg is nothing. Sounds like some need a gym, not a camera.

One shoots faster frame rates than your editing frame rate --if you're eager to do slow mo.  
For instance, I often shoot 60p 1080 a lot because I like to be able to use my shots on a 30p editing timeline at regular speed AND switch over to 1/2 speed on certain shots if I wish.  This works well because 60 is "smoothly" divisible by 30.  Also, the higher frame rate of 60p seems to me to use only about a stop of extra light than 30p, so it's not going to crimp you from shooting in lower light situations.
Anyway, I think Andrew's basically saying you CAN shoot in those high frame rates if you want to because they hold up visually.  In the past you'd get some weird image processing artifacts from capturing footage at such a high frame rate.  This new Sony camera will not only shoot continuously (no buffering) @60fps, but also in 120fps.  That's fun. 
Here's an example of some 120 and 240 I did 3 years ago:
If you don't want to do slow mo, or if your clients don't require slow mo, this is all a moot point.
Also, I don't understand your comment about learning a whole new grading system simply because you switch cameras.  Can you explain that?

exactly.  It's obvious that a mechanical shutter can't have a longer exposure than 360degrees or the full length of the frame.  It may be a wrapper, I couldnt give two hoots really, I see on my camera 1/5th of a second.  the electronic shutter is open for 1/5th of a second, then closes, exposing 5 frames at a time.  it could be that its 5fps/360degree but for the purposes of this topic, for the final time, as far as I am aware the Sony cameras allow the slowest 'shutter speed' to be selected during video mode.  the effect cannot be achieved without this setting. 

for this technique you want less frames per second.  Shooting at 120fps means you will degrade image quality for no reason since each frame will be sharp, and low light benefits no longer apply.
 
 
 for instance, 25p at 1/5th of a second confirms perfectly when sped up to 500% since the 1/5th shutter equates to 5 frames being exposed with one image.  hyperspeed by 500% smooths as if it were 25fps.  
 
shooting 24p and 1/4 sec means you need to speed up by 600% to keep the perfect conformation.  1/4 x 600% = 1/24th sec or 360degree shutter.
 
 
 
this was shot on the humble NEX5n, more than 3 years ago at around 400iso i think.  imagine how clean the a7s would be when in this mode. 

When I get the funds this will be my new A-camera, and a6000 will be the B-cam. Thanks for the feedback everybody 

We had a lot of fun making this one, three people in crew in total and a £500 budget for all the extras (props location etc) the kit is our own
Animation took a long time, and VHS style was tough to build! Happy to answer questions on production if anyone is interested!

Sony will leave something extra for the A7sII I reckon, and it could be adding that incredible slow motion. I currently have a Canon 5D Mark III and a Sony A7s and I'd like to get rid of the 5D but haven't yet because I dont want to lose that stills ability. The A7rII does look great...but video comes first so if the A7sII has incredible slow motion thats probably a better option.

I haven't used the GX7 but I have a G6 and an A6000. The G6 is a previous generation sensor to the GX7, and apparently the GX7 is a lot better for noise and low light than the G6, so I can't really compare the A6000 to the GX7. The A6000 now has very nice video with XAVCS. It's very clean indeed up to ISO 800.
I don't own the other two lenses, but I have the SEL 35 1.8. It's very sharp, great autofocus, but the stabilization is useless for video, I leave it off. It produces very slight but IMO very ugly warping effects. I prefer my Voigtlander color-skopar 35, much more characterful (but completely manual). 
TBH I think the A6000 would be an incremental upgrade over the GX7. Slightly more dynamic range, slightly better low light (presumably?), slightly easier to get shallow depth of field. I'd advise you to wait. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before Sony do an APSC cam with something exciting like, 4K, BSI, IBIS, high frame rates etc.

Just thought I'd let everyone know, I upgraded from Win7 to 10 with no hassles at all! All my Adobe Apps work, all my Avid Apps work fine including Pro Tools 11 which has a glass jaw but everything works great after 12 hours constant use! Resolve beta 12 works 100%! Quite surprised too and the upgrade didn't mess with my Desktop or files etc everything is exactly as it was except it's no longer Win 7. Apps open a bit quicker, Internet pages quicker, played some Arma 3 too all good!! I recommend it, be very surprised if anyone has problems? my2c!

You mean like DMX...?
 
 
I'd like to know what their light output is/some photometrics. I don't mind the idea of 'modular' lighting, but I can't see myself using these. Potentially not enough output, too small (so inherently hard) - I could see myself ganging a few together and putting diffusion over them, but then it defeats the purpose.
 
There'll be some obscure cases, but I don't think it's the second coming of lighting equipment.

​Well obviously they aren't- because they have been through that stage at the beginning of their careers and have access to cameras like ARRI's, RED, etc. But many future Hollywood cinematographers are comparing specs between the GH4 and A7s. 
 
That demographic of "people who think it would be cool to shoot some video" are getting pretty badly ripped off. This package wouldn't be so bash-worthy if it was priced, say, 30 to 40% lower. Some here are saying "let Canon charge and market their products themselves however they want". Sure, they will- let us also laugh and bash their marketing however we want, too!
 
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What would be far better is if they would buy this exact kit but separately- as already mentioned by Andrew. That way they could save a few hundred dollars for lighting, no?
 
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This is the only thing that I agree with you on. I am trying recently to shoot more and read/ post less. Same goes for music recording. It is plain old laziness combined with actually being busy with other work. But fair point as I believe if people spent half of their forum time shooting and editing there would be a lot more interesting content out there indeed...

​Well obviously they aren't- because they have been through that stage at the beginning of their careers and have access to cameras like ARRI's, RED, etc. But many future Hollywood cinematographers are comparing specs between the GH4 and A7s. 
 
That demographic of "people who think it would be cool to shoot some video" are getting pretty badly ripped off. This package wouldn't be so bash-worthy if it was priced, say, 30 to 40% lower. Some here are saying "let Canon charge and market their products themselves however they want". Sure, they will- let us also laugh and bash their marketing however we want, too!
 
​
What would be far better is if they would buy this exact kit but separately- as already mentioned by Andrew. That way they could save a few hundred dollars for lighting, no?
 
​
This is the only thing that I agree with you on. I am trying recently to shoot more and read/ post less. Same goes for music recording. It is plain old laziness combined with actually being busy with other work. But fair point as I believe if people spent half of their forum time shooting and editing there would be a lot more interesting content out there indeed...

​I know the C300 found its market, but it's not quite correct to state that most cinematographers use the C300...
​I often wonder if Canon and Arri (and RED to some extent - at least in creating hype) are the only companies who really know how to market a camera.
Sony tried their darndest with the F5/55 and it ended up with little short films that had clipped highlights, an average grade and squashed dynamic range - not at all reflective of how either camera actually handles. Panasonic's Varicam reel was nice looking, but I haven't seen or heard anything since. The latest demo shoots from Sony (for FS7, A7rII etc) are average, and do little to really show off the cameras abilities.
 Even the official A7s demo footage I saw was so-so. Why weren't Sony the first ones to go 'let's shoot a short film at 2am using moonlight as our only light source to show this camera off'? Why not send out some pre-production models to some big productions and see how they put them to use? Sure, the Canon 5DmkII revolution kinda grew organically, but times have changed!

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Oh lighten up. Canon deserve all the bashing in the world for selling such a POS package for that much money. As for the consumers... you can forgive some teenagers tugging at their dad's sleeve to buy this package based on the marketing. As for anybody else who isn't put off by the cheesy-ass box... 5 minutes of research on a smartphone will tell them to save their money and get a camera three times as good, a mic twice as good and still have money left over for a decent 64GB SD card...