Oliver Daniel

16 hours ago, Gregormannschaft said:

Nice work, I honestly can’t tell the two cameras apart! Are these two essentially your A and B cams now? 

Thanks. Yes they are at the moment. I like the A7SIII much better for video than the R5, hence why I've been using them together as an experiment. 

6 hours ago, Gregormannschaft said:

Has anyone stumbled across any downloadable files from the camera at all online?

On paper it looks incredible, but a lot of the footage I've seen still looks very much like a Sony Alpha series camera and not too distinctly different from the A7S2. 

I would share some of my footage but can’t as it’s paid work. 

But I can tell you now, it’s massively different from the A7S2. They don’t meet in the same ballpark. Most footage you see online isn’t the best. 

Here’s a simple one I shot. Wider shots are A7S3. Tighter shots are C70. 

I’ll let you guys see this. I had the chance to try out the C70 and A7SIII side by side on a very simple shoot. 

Using 4k100fps and 4k50fps. 

I have more interesting projects to show soon! 

46 minutes ago, scotchtape said:

Just asking because of BF sale on V90 cards... is All-I worth it for A7SIII? Everything I've shot so far in my "career" is long-gop.

Is ALL-I easier to edit? The data rates are much higher, not sure if it's worth it for most corporate stuff. IF you've got feedback please let me know wether to spend my money or save it.

I've got some older lexar V60s I've stopped in using in favor of the Sony SF series, unfortunately I have 2 older SF cards with no V-rating on them saying W:100MB/s. I also have 2 newer ones with the V60 on them.

Do the older SF series cards work as V60? google-fu is failing me as they used the same model number for the newer and older cards...

I’ve not noticed any difference other than it’s much more edit friendly in ALL-I but much higher data rates. 

I haven’t compared them side by side as I haven’t had time, but nothing has jumped at me. 

The new M1 macs fly through all the codecs, so the benefit to ALL-I if you have an M1 isn’t as prominent. 

On the FS7, XAVC-I I wipes the floor with XAVC-L. Every camera is different. 

5 hours ago, TomTheDP said:

The A7s3 is improved over the R3 but I don’t know I feel like you won’t be happy with it. The Sony A7s3 IQ is amazing but the colors are still Sony. I think you’d be happier with the R5 or R6. There are workarounds for the record limits and there’s always 1080p

The colors still being Sony is a myth. I’ve used it on various jobs now and it’s very different than before. Much better. I can match it to the C70 colors in about a minute. 

8 hours ago, Gregormannschaft said:

I'll be filming with the C70 later this week as a replacement cam for the C200 in RAWLite – any tips at all? I'm familiar with the C line of cameras and exposing CLOG 3 so I don't expect many issues there unless this new sensor has dramatically changed anything.

Use V90 cards. Get used to the joystick as it’s a stubborn little bugger. Other than that, it’s very easy to shoot with. 

20 hours ago, EphraimP said:

I'm really looking forward to seeing your footage with the C70 and hearing more about how it handles and compares/contrasts the A7SIII. I'd love to know if it would run well on an EasyRig style setup, paired with a 5-inch monitor for fast moving doc-style work. I'm sure it works well on a gimbal, but I personally found I prefer the hand-held look and style of shooting. I'm looking to add stability and all-day back comfort for the style and it seems like backpack-crane stabilizer style is the way to go.

I have a music video to show soon in the A7SIII, and some brand work on C70. 

I can tell you now, the C70 is a much better form factor to shoot with, but, the A7SIII is a monster. That camera is insane. 

18 hours ago, BenEricson said:

I have a C70, the speed booster, and this lens on pre-order. I might pick up the 85mm F2 IS as well. 

The new 24-105 F4 IS looks interesting, as does the 24-70 2.8 IS.

The RF mount features better AF, smaller sizes, and faster more light sensitive lenses. IMO buying this camera and not embracing the new lens options doesn't make much sense.

Cool. Thanks. What frame rates work with the V60? 4K/24/10bit?

On my ProGrades, you can shoot 4k 120, BUT, the camera will tell you it can’t. It works. BUT, sometimes the card will stop a few secs after recording and day the buffer is full. Not much though. 

I would just go V90 using Prograde. Best SE cards I’ve ever used. 3 out of my 4 Angelbird cards are faulty. 

3 hours ago, Video Hummus said:

I sure wish camera manufactures would embrace brighter and larger LCD or OLED displays.

This camera keeps growing on me. It’s a bit ugly in the back but I find the mirrorless / cinema form factor much more practical than a smaller version of a C300 Mark III (ie see FX9-FX6).

@Oliver Daniel any plans to try out the speedbooster with EF glass?

No plans yet. I need more lenses first. 

I’m curious about using RF, but they are really really expensive. 

On 11/21/2020 at 9:13 PM, BenEricson said:

Which cards are you using? I notice Sandisk only makes cards up to 128gb in V90. The V60 come in 256gb... Did the V60 seem to perform perfectly for 4k/24p/XFAVC?

To be honest, I am a little bummed they went with SD. I would prefer c-fast or some sort of card that feels a bit more durable.

ProGrade V90 and V60. 

6 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

I am going to do a comparison soon.

Any other suggestions for tests welcome.

https://www.eoshd.com/news/does-dual-native-iso-on-the-panasonic-s5-beat-the-sony-a7s-iii-in-low-light

 

A7SIII in SLOG3 is clean up to 3200, then cleans up again at 12,800. There’s something dual going on. 

5 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

New blog post

https://www.eoshd.com/news/pro-camcorder-ergonomics-are-overdue-a-big-change/

I agree. 

I had the EVA1 for 2 years, which I gradually got frustrated with as it had a hideous way of changing the frame rates. The camera would have to reboot and sometimes crashed. Then, the crew would be waiting impatiently to get the next shot. 

I’m disappointed to see this in the FX6, which is otherwise an excellent entry for Sony.

I agree with the huge amount of buttons being a pain in the ass. 

I agree that it’s very silly to rig your camera for the sake of rigging. I like to use it as bare bones as possible. It’s more liberating, speeds up the process and allows more creativity. I don’t give a s*it what the client thinks, I’ll do it my way. 

The C70 is a massive step in the right direction. For my use, it’s simply the best video camera design I’ve ever experienced. It’s just very quick, nimble and easy to use. It doesn’t reboot when you change to slow motion. You can do it in seconds! Also the sticky out screen bit is fine, and my battery doesn’t stick out. 

I’d love to see the FX6 in a C70 body! 

On 11/19/2020 at 10:47 PM, kye said:

 

@Oliver Daniel The other thing I forgot to mention about colour accuracy is to get a bias light that will provide a neutral reference.  I purchased one from FSI https://www.shopfsi.com/BiasLights-s/69.htm which is just a LED strip that gets stuck to the back of your monitor and shines a neutral light onto the wall behind your monitor like this:

The wall behind my monitor has black sound panels so I just pinned up some A4 paper for the light to reflect off.  I figured you can always rely on reflex!

There's all sorts of other tricks to getting a neutral environment, but probably the most important aspects are to calibrate your monitor to 100nits and 6500K, to get a bias light, to match the ambient lighting to the bias light (which is an accurate reference) and to ensure that the ambient light isn't falling onto the monitor and that it's quite dark compared to the brightness of your monitor.

I used my camera as a light meter to measure how bright the ambient light was, but if you calibrate your monitor and pull up an 18% grey then match your ambient light to that then you should be good.  Professional colourists talk about getting paint that is exactly neutral grey (which is available and very expensive) but once again, it's diminishing returns.

There’s so many options, i just went with  Apple’s recommendation for the LG Ultrafine 5k. 

10 hours ago, andrgl said:

@Oliver Daniel Please let us know how it goes. I'm going to assume the limited amount of RAM in these first, entry level units, is going to suck for 4K/8K editing. But who knows, for basic edits, FCPX may be able to hold enough footage in RAM to make previewing/scrubbing doable.

Will do.

Comes between Dec 11-18. 

From what Apple and reviewers are saying, the 16GB RAM performs much better as it’s “unified”. I do hope they are right, as I would never buy a machine with 16GB. 

59 minutes ago, Fairkid said:

I have just done the same. Have been using the same decent spec imac for the last 6 years and been happy with it but since h265 arrived I have been generating a lot of proxies!

I only use FCPX and Lightroom so hoping for big performance gains. Bit weird to think of a Mac Mini as an upgrade. 

Congrats. 

Yes I felt the same. I had my eye on the new iMac boasted up to the max - but in a strange turn of events I end up with a Mac Mini. 

I only ever use FCP, sometimes Lightroom and Photoshop. Don’t use anything else. 

F**k it. These H265 files are a nightmare. 

Got the top spec Mac Mini with the LG Ultrafine 5k. 

4 hours ago, mkabi said:

I think he is using regular Canon EF to RF for the Sigma 18-35; its in the pictures.

Yep!

4 hours ago, maxmizer said:

Since the price (16 giga versions not yet available) is not a trivial thing:
Mac mini M1 with 16 gb ram and 512 gb disk will cost more than 1000 dollars (in Italy 1300 euros) ...
Mac book pro M1 with 16 gb and 512 gb of disk will cost more than 1500 dollars (in Italy 1800 euros) ...
More or less ... a lot of money for what he does
For less than 1000 dollars I mount I9, 32gb ram, gtx 1080, 1terra ssd ..

I'm fine with Mac, I have no problems with it. I have a whole business ecosystem around it. All the apps I've bought are Mac. 

I've used FCP for 13 years. I'm happy with it and making platform changes isn't a priority whatsoever. 

I also don't like Windows OS. I get no pleasure using it. 

Sorry to disappoint you. 

1 hour ago, scotchtape said:

What does "pretty good" AF mean in terms of the 18-35mm? Like native e-mount? Does it stay locked on to faces or does it hunt?

It locks on faces well and keeps track, although makes a bit of noise. 

The continuous AF is slower than the A7S3 with native, but still a useful tool.

50mm hunts. 

41 minutes ago, maxmizer said:

Ok perfect ... But I would consider the Black Magic Design ecosystem, made up of cameras \ codecs \ editing software ...

at least for the future ... that is, bear in mind that you may one day have to move to Da Vinci ...

Thanks for the suggestion but it's not happening unless FCP is deleted off the planet and all my cameras are set on fire. 

8 hours ago, Rinad Amir said:

I like it! hows Dr compared between a7siii &C70 

To my eye is looks very close. 

Right off the card, I'd say the C70 has a slight advantage in the shadows and the overall rolloff is a bit smoother and milkier. To match  - you need to play with the S-curve on the A7S3 a little to get the same look, and it isn't hard. 

A7S3 seems a bit sharper. 

There's no reason why you can't use this cameras together. Matching them is easy. People who say the A7S3 is still bad colour don't know what the are talking about. 

35 minutes ago, kye said:

I suggest:

• if you don't have a monitor calibration device, buy that as top priority and then buy the monitor with what is left - a cheap calibrated monitor will kill a more expensive uncalibrated monitor
• read lots of reviews..  when I was monitor shopping I read a bunch of them and there is all the information you need out there
• think about size and resolution, for example the larger the monitor the larger the resolution is typically, which will end up specifying how many of your controls you can view in your NLE at a time and also what resolution your preview window will be, which isn't so critical for editing but is for things like sharpening and other resolution-related tasks
• also, in combination with the above, think about aspect ratio, as those super-wide monitors have room for more UI in some NLEs

I know a guy with an Xrite, all sorted there. 

My iMac is 5k so that’s the ballpark I’m looking at. 

1 hour ago, Mark Romero 2 said:

Out of curiosity, will you be doing HDR or just SD grading???

I have a vague recollection that benQ monitors are supposed to be good for HDR, but don't quote me on that. I couldn't even begin t suggest which particular model is best.

Yes, been told the BenQ 31.5” is good, but I can’t tell how much better than a monitor half it’s price. 

4 hours ago, jgharding said:

There's nothing here that beats the S1H I love and use in normal shooting apart from that electronic ND, it's a pretty disappointing offer.

TBH if I were gonna go up to this sorta price I'd get the Red Komodo and enjoy the genius codec again, I'll bet it thrashes the Sony on IQ

 

EDIT: I did a bit of research and the Komodo doesn't use RedCode wavelet compression like most Reds. Sigh. nothing is simple now...

I’m not so sure of this “disappointing” talk. The A7SIII got the same slack by many and that’s turned out to be an absolute marvel of a camera. 

The FX6 is what people asked for... an A7SIII with E-ND, XLR’s, SDI, S-cinetone and video ergonomics. Both cameras are unique in the market for what they offer. 

The handle thing is annoying and lack of LongGOP - yep I agree. It’s not perfect. 

I’m just wondering what people expect these days? A full frame compact video camera with 4k120 in 10bit is no longer good enough? 

All the manufacturers are smashing it and every camera released this year has gone beyond.