jgharding

After recently getting a little Sony B-cam for autofocus, I'm interested in this... Does anyone have experience with their log format? Is it any good?

The AF section of this video is relevant. Essentially OM1 quad pixel AF is near perfect.

Thats great news! One request from me: the AF test in the leaked video is the old "run back and forth in the middle of the camera" one, complete with lots of lovely pulsing bokeh lights. Its not really that useful tbh, whats more useful i think is "can it hold focus on someone chatting while they lean in and out reasonably naturally on a wider and a longer lens", as thats one of the most common uses both center frame, and a more natural interview framing. Whether vlogging, shooting interview, shooting and actor, thats what you need for the most part and is what Sony do with aplomb. If one was after a monster M4/3 cam itd be hard to turn down the new OM1 with some of those specs AND good AF. Its an interesting sector again in that regard, though I did always think the point of M4/3 was both lower price and small size. As they get bigger and more expensive a bit of charm is lost, and you start to think "well I may as well have full frame then".

Yeah i reckon he is right, I spent a whole day doing dull tests to come to the same conclusion, the end result after pulling about in Resolve is essentially the same, except log had a slightly less saturated skin and you had to overexpose which is just a bit confusing, so now it's locked on HLG for me.

Yeah it has an S1H vibe for sure. It's cool and all, but i'm really anxious about this DFD AI AF. If it isn't a significant step up...

The ZV E10 is in HLG here BTW. After pretty extensive testing I found they look nearly identical after treatment, but you can expose HLG normally, wheras you have to put SLOG 2 2-stops over which can be a bit confusing on location in the heat of it.

Basically you can just do as many nodes ad you like in resolve and export that as a 65-point LUT, and that becomes your match LUT, so you only do the work once. ACES is another option, but I quite like doing things my own way tbh, using a combination of stock conversion LUTS and my own tweaks

Yeah the top is the sony, that's the side affect of matching for skin, as that there is a tiny tint in other areas, that is what I'll dial out with secondary The S1H is just a coversion LUT of mine and a node before for tweaks. I think the sony match is done in about 5 nodes, could probably be condensed into fewer but I like to be able to switch each on and off The first node in the Sony is my own LUT though, with a new cam the first thing I do is spend a couple of days making a match LUT for my main cam, it saves tons of future time

Yeah that's right! Upcoming videos on vinyl mastering and another little surprise one too! Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed radiophonic, that was quite a long day that one 🤣 Cheers, I was using the ZV E10 a bit on a Zhiyun Crane M3 on this day, I didn't quite get it yet, I'm a bit wobbly, but getting the hang of it. But yeah in order to use a manual focus cam on gimbal you need a wireless follow focus etc, takes forever to set up blah blah... this is way easier. You just get the shot!

yeah that's what i mean. the CUSP of perfection... on AF system away from it.

Here's a first pass at matching up the ZV E10 and S1H, it's not perfect with the shirt and a slight tonal difference, but getting there, definitely will be close enough once I have it finalised, so I'm pretty happy. It didn't miss focus for the whole shoot. Which is more than can be said for me. The rolling shutter is so bad though that if someone sways back and forth their head bends HAHAHA But in general it's great, so if sony ever release a new APSC sensor cam with faster readout I'll likely upgrade to that. Or possible an A7S3 if I find I really start to enjoy the Sony more.

Yeah TBH I'm not great with M4/3 I don't follow too closely these days, so likely I've gotten it wrong. I'm with you 100%. Damn the image is good, and it is like a baby Alexa, which obviously doesn't have AF. But AF is SO convenient. I just got back from a shoot with it and a ZV E10 B-cam, and the ZV E10 was wide open 85,, 1.8 the whole time, never missed focus on the face for a moment. There's no way in hell I could do that! Yes if the new DFD AI really does work then that'll be great, but this is the same company that released a 40 page manual on how to use video CAF in the S1 series, and just seems to believe it works when it basically doesn't. I only own one L lens, which I bought for CAF, and TBH I wish I had just bought an EF equivalent for that, as I have ever since I realise the AF was poor. That's a terrible advert for a lens system really. I've zero intention of buying any more of their very expensive lenses til AF works, otherwise I may as well just go get the vintage glass out of the cupboard

So you may have see that Olympus latest M4/3 camera the OM-D EM1 iii (I'm not sure I could come up with a worse name as a joke) has "1053 phase-detect Cross Quad Pixel AF". I feel this is going to be the make or break generation for Panasonic. I recently bought a b-cam for the S1H and went for a Sony, not a Panasonic S5, due to the AF alone. In the latest Sony bodies it is nigh-on flawless for interviews, you can leave it on its own, wide open and it doesn't miss a beat. On the S1H i pull it myself, and the massive HDMI delay means I have to use the tiny screen to do it. Rumours for GH6 say it still uses DFD autofocus, now adding "AI" to the end of it and claiming this works five-times better. Which I assume means a future S body will also have some variation of DFD too... I'm waiting to see what happens, but don't have too much hope. If it isn't as good as Sony's I don't think I'll stay in the system regardless of Panasonic's superior colour and DR. I do know the mantra "pros don't use AF" but that's just untrue in the real world, it's typical forum dogma. Pro does not just mean "working with a massive crew for a cinema film or Netflix", it means making a living from moving image making. Not everyone has a focus puller, most people don't. Professional crews are smaller these days, and AF is really useful in more circumstances than not and thus translates to sales, which translates to camera being supported, updated and made in the first place. I'm not just speaking for myself when I say AF is going to end up making me pick an inferior image quality for more convenience, it's all over the Panasonic groups too, loads of people jumping to second hand A7S3. As much as one can worry about cameras, I worry that Panasonic will stick rigidly to their contrast AF, pretending as they do that it is usable for video or even in the same league as their competitors... I get it, it allows the sensor to remain unadulterated, but as it stands it just... doesn't work. I'd love to be proven wrong but... I think I'm out of faith. I just think it's such a weird hill to die on. We know the other system works. Why persist with trying to fix something broken, when you could switch to a system that performs said function properly?

It's been a while since using Sony Slog2 and HLG in anger. What has really surpirsed me in my test is just HOW MUCH you have to ETTR. Seems any less than 2-stops over and things look generally terrible. It's a very weird design because you'd think they'd just tell the in-camera meter to read about 2 under or something... With ETTR you can actually get surprisingly good skin out of it considering it is Sony and 8-bit, without it, everything is bordering on grotesque hahah

Hi all, Many thanks for all the extra input, I can't really go through and reply individually to all the points but it was good to get more input and insight. I have the ZV E10 now and am in testing to try and make myself a post-pipeline and LUT setup to make colour matching as painless as possible, so there isn't so much repeat work. TBH the autofocus is pretty phenomenal with native Sony lenses. It really has come so far now, I don't think I could match it unless I were only doing the job of focussing and practiced a lot. The robots will have us beat in not too long for most circumstances. It's very impressive on a gimbal too, I ordered the new Zhiyun Crane M3 and all put together it is very light and easy to use. The ZV E10 rolling shutter is utterly horrific in 4K mode though, but for the most part it should be fine. I mean it's really bad, as in if a subject sways to the side quickly their head bends! I guess that is the downside of Sony trying to squeeze as many models as possible from this old sensor. I did own the original RX10 back int eh day, and still have the RX100 MK V, though I will probably sell it now. I think they're useful cameras, but the 1-inch sensor definitely has a certain crunchy look to it. It's quite cool and 16mm like, but I reckon the APSC will cut better TBH.

Yeah that's pretty much what I've done! I now have Panasonic and Sony bodies and the relevant adapters. Though I had to get some E-mount native for optimum autofocus, but I've not really been tempted to join Canon R.

I think I need to be clearer about what I'm trying to do as you're both missing the point. I film with a main wide camera in manual focus 6K raw. I only film it with manual because the autofocus on the S1H is terrible. If it was good, I would let it do the job better than i do, which if it had PDAF it probably would. I want another camera to cut to occasionally that is: A - always in focus regardless of how animated the interviewer is. On some focal lengths even at F4 it's possible for an interviewee to lean in and out of focus very easily. B - reasonably shallow DOF so it looks nice and not like a camcorder. C- unmanned. I want to press go and when i come to edit, know it will be in focus. Those three factors mean I need autofocus for that other camera. TBH I think the current fashionable dogma of "REAL film-makers don't use autofocus" comes from a sort of aspirational attitude, wanting to have a big crew etc. It's fine if you have enough people and time, but both cost far more money than gear. In reality I shoot lots of interviews a year often entirely alone. Autofocus would mean I don't have to hire someone else, something that would be prohibitively expensive budget-wise to get someone good. If you are on your own only holding focus on a face while moving, that isn't an "artistic" task. It's a technical one. We are at the point where computers do such tasks very well and will only get better. I have already tried this sort of shoot with a GH5 b-cam and it didn't work. We aren't even talking about razor thing DOF, just not camcorder/mobile-phone deep. And still it always ended up hunting or pulsing at some point, in the end I sold it. Contrast based AF is just not up to the task. That leaves me with Sony or Canon. My only real worry with Sony was cutting their 8-bit 4:2:0 against the S1H 6K 12-bit raw. In terms of "making interviews more interesting" you're making the erroneous assumption that I have any control over the content of the interviews, which I almost never do. My job is "make whatever is said, however uninteresting, feel interesting". Things like another angle, shallow DOF etc, can help with this. Still, I'm used to forums. I know every post about equipment absolutely HAS to have a reply or two that has not to do with the topic, but some sort of "ahhhh you are doing everything wrong" angle or "ooooh content is king". But I really just wanted equipment advice not a sort of abstract critique of working practices.

I still buy lenses for my S1H in EF mount, due to the resale value! It's useful as it prevents you getting stuck in one system, kind of a universal mount that you adapt to (if you don't mind bad or non-existent autofocus). EF will be missed... Still, I guess they've just had to embrace the reality of the future... I remember you posted a long while back about Canon not making much profit, or maybe a loss from their camera division, I wonder if that's another reason? People simply aren't buying their cameras in great quantities? Plus i guess the ongoing chip shortage leads tech businesses to focus on profitable lines, where the R&D input leads to greater profit... It was a long time coming though. I think the future looks distinctly Sony shaped, they just sell so so many of their cameras. I really hope Panasonic keep going in the current vein as the S1H just has absolutely everything, except autofocus. Plus that it'd be near perfect.

Hmmm perhaps I'll go with Slog2 then and just develop my own powergrade preset to match it up as close as possible with the S1H.

I wish this played out in reality, but in my experience sod's law means it is always hunting focus whenever you want to cut to it, just from people leaning forward and back, moving about etc, especially with very animated speakers. Agreed mixing camera brands is not ideal. I've done it many times though, it just means a LOT of boring post work. I still have an RX100 Mk V which is the same thing as the ZV1, but a little older, and that's what makes me trepidant about the ZV E10. You can cut it with S1H, but it's never perfect. I pretty much only use for really run and gun things, like the subject has wandered into another room I just hit record and follow them and see how it goes. I just ordered the ZV E10, I figure I'll try it, with some second-hand E-mount primes. If I can get a system down for grading it that makes things close enough for rock and roll it could save a lot of hassle. I guess I can use it for any self-filming too since that is its raison d'être. It's a bit sad Panasonic can't get their AF sorted out. AFAIK they have a dual-pixel AF patent still unused, I hope they get round to it at some point as I'd love to go 100% Panasonic and not have to use 8-bit Sonys as B-cams.

P.S. I've also seen a psuedo-Cinetone setting for such Sony cameras, I'm not sure if anyone has tried this and can tell me if they like it? Black Level: 0 Gamma: Movie Black Gamma: Range Wide, Level +7 Knee: Mode Manual, 77.5%,Slope 0 Colour Mode: Pro Saturation -2 Color Phase: -2 Colour Depth: R: +5 G: -2 B: -3 C -4 M: +2 Y: +3 Detail: Level -7

Hi all, It's been a while, I hope everyone is well, I've been shooting for some time now with an S1H and BMD external recorder, I shoot everything in 6K Braw. The S1H is near perfect for me, but the one thing that just, I'll be honest, doesn't work, is autofocus. As a result an S5 doesn't seem like an ideal B-cam that I can leave to run on its own, as I'll doubtless come back to out of focus or constantly "hunting" footage. I've followed all the various firmware updates, but tbh it's all just polishing the poo. For my one-man talking head shoots I'd like to have a b-cam that can flawlessly track focus for the "long" shot, a punched in headshot i can occasionally cut too to keep people awake. It seems both Sony and Canon have excellent autofocus. So I saw the ZV-E10, it looks like a simplified A6600 designed for vlogger use, and with an E-mount 85mm or 50mm lens I could likely leave it alone to run wide-open and it would keep face focus, which is its primary purpose. What worries me is the usual: Sony colour. It's an 8-bit only camera and doesn't have S-Cinetone, so I have a bit of "S-log" fear, of having to cut strange zombie skin with the lovely tones of the S1H. It's also clearly Sony trying to get as much as they can from an old old sensor before they upgrade the APS-C line with a new one. So i have two questions for the community: 1 - I have cut together 8-bit S-log2 with 12-bit raw before and it can be struggle... Has anyone got an Slog2 file from the ZV E10 I can grab or know anywhere i can get one that includes skintones? 2 - Do you have any other recommendations for such a B-cam? I previously used a GH5 for this "leave it alone to film" role, which you'd think would be ideal but I just had too many out of focus shots, so I'm looking for very good AF. Budget wise I want to keep it under £1K-1.5k total really, as its just to add a little spice to the shoots. I don't want to spend another £4k on an A7S setup tbh. Thanks all,

I had a think about this last year. End of the day an Alexa classic is a massive heavy 1080p camera which, although it produces a phenomenal image, was designed for crew work and is losing ground now. I now use an S1H recording externally to BRAW, plus GH Alex LUTS and it's close enough for me, plus i can shoot entirely solo and get good results. So TBH I think they need to come down a bit more in price.

it seems to vary camera to camera, the whole 8-bit vs 10-bit thing, Like Panasonic S1H the 8-bit in vlog has the weird banded magenta thing and can render it unusable, Sometimes even in non-vlog profiles, but the 10-bit is great. But the 12-bit BRAW for the Video Assist is just excellent! Such a huge jump up if you're going to do keying and heavy grading and so on.

Again, a great point I forgot about. I did have two of these, and now I record on Ninja V exclusively, so had forgotten, but yes it's a travesty. To allow this in their top DSLM body and just not address it other than tell people to buy new cards, then start blaming card manufacturers etc... it was all terrible. I just switched to Ninja and carried on. There's no visual gain from ProRes at all, even if you push the footage into a pixelly mess of colour it's the same, you just have bigger files and slightly easier compatibility. I'd prefer to use internal but I don't trust it, so yeah I see what you're saying. The Ninja is a good tool regardless, but I wouldn't want to carry it around for a wedding, you'll wanna stay light I guess? I've never shot a wedding.