pablogrollan

I have seen some externally recorded A7S footage which is secret for now. The friend can't publish yet.
 
I have to say I am absolutely blown away by it.
 
The low light performance and dynamic range transformed the image... the shadows when graded were silky smooth with a fine noise grain, but it had latitude to catch the illumination realistically... and when the light source bounced against the shadows it looked like film... very nice. I believe it was shot externally to an Atomos Ninja... no signs of moire or aliasing and detail was good...a little soft and filmic but not exactly lacking in fine details and would sharpen nicely.

I'm not saying it's not there, but it's not visible unless you pause the video and specifically go looking for problems. Those water fountain grilles had the worst aliasing and moire out of all 55 or so videos I shot on the NEX5N. The fact that I can't see any in shots of the same grilles in the A6000 footage tells me it's no longer a problem I ever have to worry about. Not in those shots, the shot with the fine line brick wall after it, or even in the grilles of the fan on the footpath in another later shot. If I play the Cineform master file and pause it, yes, I can see some really tiny stair stepping around the water fountains with excessive motion, but those are obviously AVCHD artifacts. And I really had to look closely and put my eye up to the screen to see them! 
 
Detail isn't everything. I get clients asking me to smooth out their skin, and that's after I've used Neat Video.
 
Andrew, I've seen a number of your videos with video like overexposed shots. But if that's the look you're after, no problem there. For a lot of us though, avoiding shots like that would be a lot more important than the difference in detail between an A6000, GX7, 5D mk3, etc. And some of us may wonder why Philip Bloom with his collection of expensive cameras would over sharpen his cat? Of course maybe it's the cat who prefers looking a bit sharper than the average feline? 
 
It's all personal preference. So it's good for the Panasonic fans to know their cameras have more detail, even if they have to use an adapter for that APSC Super 35 look. And for those of us with a Sony, rather than worrying about having less detail than the Panasonic cameras, we can be happy about getting a full frame look from one of those adapters. 
 
Or better yet, shoot, edit, and ignore all this nonsense :)

I completely agree. Especially since the word "business" and not "hobby" is included in the sentence. Depending on how much money you charge or generate from your work, you have to adjust your budget accordingly. Just like you can't always afford to shoot with an Alexa, if a project is small or personal you can always resort to Royalty Free, Public Domain or Creative Commons music and leave the 3K$ licensing fees for commercials.
 
I'm only concerned with human/bot ratio in Vimeo's policy. I always use properly licensed music in my projects and it would be trouble if a client has problems to upload it to Vimeo just because it is "flagged" by software without even giving you a chance to send them the license certificate.

GH4 looks sharper, however C100 still leads in DR (look at how easily the highlights blow out in the clouds of the GH4 shots). Then again, I'm not quite sure this is a very fair test (although that would be quite a challenge considering the different log formats, crop factor, etc.)

I know Andrew. But that is not an excuse for copyright infringement. Make another edit with another score for your promo work, if you must... If a person is unable to do their business without copyright infringement, there is something terribly wrong with that business imo.

Btw, you mentioned I should research fair use, maybe, I'm not an expert. But I think you should do the same.. the Wiki you link to is exactly where I got that quote from, I'm pretty sure the way you use (copyrighted) music on your video's would not classify as fair use.
 
Also see Pablo's reply.
 
And: http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
 
Anyway, I don't like copyright laws either, but I respect them when creating my own stuff and uploading it to the public. And even though I agree with a lot of the arguments, I don't think justifies to just do as you like.

...Or that Dual Pixel autofocus thingy that seems to work really well in video -never tried it though-.

Not really. The moment you allow the possibility of a tip or any kind of retribution, it is commercial use regardless of how much you earn. Just like if you were selling the song in a store and managed to sell 0 copies.
 
In addition, Fair Use belongs to American legislation, so it may apply to lawsuits generated in the US or by American artists -even if the infringement happens in Europe-, but if you use Kraftwerk music in your video and publish it in Germany, Fair Use would not apply.
 
Having said that, I agree that the system and legislation needs re-thinking to make sense in our age, not because it is "blocking artists" -that is never a reason, come on!- but because the business model is obsolete. If you could license a Coldplay song for 50$ nobody would complain. The key is switching from a thousand 3K$ operations to a million 50$ operations, just like you used to buy VHS movies for 40$ and now you can download/stream them for 5$. It's all about moving on (mentality-wise) to a market with a customer base of 800 million users. Now you can easily buy footage from American companies or music from Australia, something unthinkable in the tape & mail model...

Not really. The moment you allow the possibility of a tip or any kind of retribution, it is commercial use regardless of how much you earn. Just like if you were selling the song in a store and managed to sell 0 copies.
 
In addition, Fair Use belongs to American legislation, so it may apply to lawsuits generated in the US or by American artists -even if the infringement happens in Europe-, but if you use Kraftwerk music in your video and publish it in Germany, Fair Use would not apply.
 
Having said that, I agree that the system and legislation needs re-thinking to make sense in our age, not because it is "blocking artists" -that is never a reason, come on!- but because the business model is obsolete. If you could license a Coldplay song for 50$ nobody would complain. The key is switching from a thousand 3K$ operations to a million 50$ operations, just like you used to buy VHS movies for 40$ and now you can download/stream them for 5$. It's all about moving on (mentality-wise) to a market with a customer base of 800 million users. Now you can easily buy footage from American companies or music from Australia, something unthinkable in the tape & mail model...

Legitimate question to you Andrew, not trolling here. Would you be okay with me downloading footage that you have shot and re-editing it or repurposing it somehow for my own creative use without permission? Uploaded to vimeo for as a personal or experimental project

Way too much aggression in this thread.

I quickly shot a test to show the difference between aps-c (sorry I don't own a m43 camera) and full frame.
 
first is an aps-c shot was taken with an 85mm sonnar f2.8 (at f2.8)
second is the full frame shot was taken with a 135mm sonnar f2.8 (at f4.8)
 
I used a tokina +0.4 diopter on both shots it enhance the effects so they are clearer
 

 

 
 
What I see from these shots is that though the actual dof is very very similar indeed, it is the full frame with longer lens closed down slightly that has the edge due to being stopped down and thus obtaining way greater image quality.  The smaller sensor needs the lens to be opened wider in order to get as shallow dof and thus is closer to its theoretical limit.  
 
I see this difference as rather a minimal factor in videography terms, however as resolutions increase and when a subject taking up less space on the frame is captured in shallow dof this is where the resolution might create more of a 3d pop.
 
On medium format we'd need a 200mm lens set at f8 to match this fov and dof combination and thus the lens performance goes up another notch due to being that much closer to the optimal f11 point.
 
Opinions?  

i dont understand those people who go all "fanboy" on my idea. is the gh4 a great camera? yes. is it a good bang for the buck? absolutely. is it perfect? obviously not.
 
since its a new camera i thought it would only be fair to talk about things people should know before buying this camera. if you would only get it for the 96fps mode and then notice that its quite soft and auto focus doesnt work, youd be disappointed, correct?
 
im just here to list facts and information, if you feel you have to defend the gh4 for being super cool and i'm just a bad person for even talking about these things, i think youre being subjective and need to grow up.
 
anyway i did a quick screenshot comparison between 1080p 96fps off the camera and downscaling it to 720 and then upscaling it back to 1080p.
 
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/74686
 
as you can see there is more information in the 1080p picture. that means although the 1080p 96fps picture might be a little soft, it retains more information than a 720p picture.
 
id love to see a comparison like this between the GH3 and GH4 both in 1080p mode regarding sharpness and rolling shutter :) if anyone has the possibility to do this test, id highly appreciate it.

Me neither. 4K would be an added bonus. Having the possibility of shooting 4K if by any chance a project/client requires it is a plus, but I'm much more interested in the improved dynamic range, full frame sensor, XAVC-S and clean 6400-12800 ISO -no need to get to 400000 ever, I hope-.

So true! I coudn't agree more. My concern is not because the videos are useful, but because it seems suspicious that they are not letting any pro -except for Den Lennie- touch a camera...
 
 
 
On the contrary, it seems to me that they were forced to advance the announcement at NAB so that their target audience would decide to hold a little and not rush into buying a GH4. Imagine what could have happened if they still had not announced the A7S? I'm sure many of "their" buyers would already have the GH4

The lack of test shots looks like another indicator towards some production issues we don't know about, doesn't it. Maybe the price point is not about deliberate secrecy, either, maybe they haven't been able to decide/fix it yet. Or maybe the moguls at different departments are still bickering about it.
 
Nevertheless, I'm not too concerned about the lack of test footage online so far, as I'd rather see test results made with actual production models rather than with pre-production models. Whenever the product is 100% ready to be purchased. The typical online test videos alone aren't really that critical, either, as only a few of them are typically of any use, all of them are compressed and none of them tell the whole picture.
 
So perhaps Sony should have kept a lid on the A7s until they're actually ready to deliver, after all. A delay this long starts eating up the hype advantage gained by the NAB coverage. A product without a price tag is mere vapourware, not actual hardware. People will only buy products with a price tag, like the GH4. And even if they told the asking price, surely Sony wouldn't want to "Blackmagic" their latest high profile product launch for too long.
 
But let's hope they will indeed give us the price and the delivery date later this week. Or maybe even start delivering it on the 15th.
I'm not in a hurry to buy a new camera at the moment, though. I just wish Sony won't fsck things up, as they've got an interesting thing going with this new product. Different enough from the competition, including both Canikon and Panasonic.
 
PS.
With the sheer lack of actual A7s footage so far, surely this topic turning into a regular A7s discussion topic is not actually off-topic, let alone unexpected, right?  ;)

Not into the body shape being bigger or a Â£3500 price tag. That would 100% convince me to go with the GH4.

It would be nice if Primatte and Keylight were accessible in PPro. Ultra is real-time in PPro and does a very good job if the green screen is well lit. Here I lit the green screen better which helped with keying:
 

[we're moving in the direction of humor  ;)]
 
The green screen tricks I was referring to were at the code level (custom C++ and GPU shaders): we removed backgrounds without a green screen. Can't discuss the algorithms though it would be nice if they were implemented in commercial keyers.
 
Regarding the quesadilla- I chose those ingredients based on taste and nutrition. Coconut oil adds healthy fat to help reduce the glycemic index of the tortillas. Cayenne helps reduce potential inflammatory properties of cheese. Corn was chosen as it doesn't contain any wheat and is generally less processed (ideally non-GMO). If quinoa tortillas exist, that would be another good option (or rice since some folks have corn allergies).
 
Reviewing grapseed oil- it's high in omega-6 fatty acids (inflammatory) and may contain hexane from processing (100% natural oil on the label unfortunately doesn't really mean 100% as allowed by the FDA). So the oil I recommend the most is organic cold pressed coconut oil such as Barleans: http://www.amazon.com/Barleans-Organic-Virgin-Coconut-Ounce/dp/B00ATW2QII/. Coconut oil has the least omega 6: http://authoritynutrition.com/optimize-omega-6-omega-3-ratio/
Olive oil isn't a bad choice, however I prefer the taste of coconut oil. Thanks for the comment regarding oils- I had purchased a new brand of '100% natural' grapeseed oil and had not researched it.

Thanks Ebrahim! How would you suggest I change the lighting/camera-settings to be more flattering?
 
Thanks Pablo! A couple years ago I worked on Background Subtraction image processing apps (desktop and mobile) where we removed the background without a green screen. There's lots of cool tricks that would help with a green screen- not present in Premiere's Ultra or other chroma key filters. There's another chroma key in AE- didn't try it as AE is so slow and we had limited time.
 
Have you tried the recipe? That's something I came up with- so far everyone who's tried it loves it. Grapeseed and coconut oil are both healthy oils for cooking (not non-stick per se). We cook on iron pans (safest / most healthy (no teflon)).
 
 
Picture Profile 6 Settings with changes (any value not listed is 0 or default):   Black Level: 0 GAMMA: CINE4 BLACK GAMMA: RANGE: MIDDLE, LEVEL: +4 KNEE: MODE: MANUAL, MANUAL SET: 75%, SLOPE: +5 COLOR MODE: TYPE: STILL, LEVEL: 8 COLOR LEVEL: -2 COLOR PHASE: +4 (this may need to be tweaked based on lights used) COLOR DEPTH: B: +7, C: +7 (same comment regarding lights used) WB SHIFT: FILTER TYPE: LB-CC, LB[COLOR TEMP]: -4, CC[MG/GR]: +2, RGAIN: -9, B GAIN: +9 (same comment regarding lights) DETAIL: 0   Again, the goal is no 'look'- accurate representation of the scene is the goal. I'll do another test with this light set up and no green screen.

I'm pleased you took my message as I intended it. I didn't want to come across combative at all, thats not my intention.
 
Ive mentioned before that really most Micro 43rd, APSC mirrorless/DSLRs can do the job. Some might be better than others according to the user. Its relative. But I tell you this, I would be delighted to have a 5D. My only problem with it is the size (both for traveling and as it may draw more attention to me in more dangerous countries). But for you, I say get to know your camera like the back of your hand. By the time you've improved, maybe they bring out the Canon 5D mark iiii - in which case you still have your lenses and have learned the system.
 
I disagree on your understanding of and obsession with the filmic look and I think its crazy to chase after a "perfect camera" that you feel will get you closer to that vision rather than focus on your skills. Camera bodies are almost disposable. Invest in lenses, but most of all invest in your own skill set.

Frankly, considering it's shot in AVCHD the chroma work is more than acceptable, I'd even say great... hard to get anything more "solid" with such compression. Two thumbs up for those skin tones, and the overall lighting is pleasant, too.
 
Having said that, the recipe was fuel for my nightmares. Non-stick spray? Basil and oregano? The pretty lady and the nice lighting made it worthwhile, but I hope nobody follows her advice...

In a couple of days we'll know for sure, but for now rumors point to a competitive price:
 
http://www.mirrorlessrumors.com/sony-a7s-priced-at-1800
 
If it's in the ballpark of that amount, or simply under 2000$, the GH4 is going to have some nice competition... and it would seem logical.

You know that some Nikons (D600, for example) have Sony sensors, right? I agree that the first NEX cameras looked more videoy than the Canons and Nikons of that generation, but if the dynamic range of the A7S is as they claim, it's going to be a very cinematic FF sensor...
 
Neither the GH4 nor the A7S will have "professional" codecs, but I think that's something we have learnt to live with. H.264 and its many variants were supposed to be delivery codecs, not acquisition or editing ones, but the truth is that nowadays that line is very blurry... the C100 and the FS700 use AVCHD and are professional cameras.
 
I'm with Aaron here, in doubt between GH4 and A7S -sorry, the BMPC is an unreliable beta product to me-. Guess it will be a question of waiting for both cameras to be thoroughly tested and available.
 
Right now I can live without 4K and simply rent a recorder whenever the project requires it, and the extra DR is very attractive. On the other hand, the availability of lenses for the GH4, the slo-mo modes and probably cheaper price make it very appealing...

I think the A6000 is more than perfect for what I will use it for,1 to 2 minute properly lit scenes. I personally haven't seen the codec break down to a unusable degree yet,mainly because I keep in mind the weak areas of the camera. I have a GH2 and I enjoy the images out the A6000 just as much,it's not that it resolves better but its images have a certain texture and feel to them. At this point I'm just trying to figure out the best combination of settings to get a desired result. On this specific footage I shot for almost 2 hours nonstop,1 to 2 minute clips every couple of seconds with no overheating. I like this camera a lot.
 

 
Random photos taken during photo shoot..35mm 1.8 OSS.

 
 

Glad to try to help you. It would be easier if you uploaded a clip of the messed up audio and the same clip from the shotgun mic -that way we could see which one is easier to fix, removing the hiss or boosting the shotgun-. In the past I've used programs as Izotope to fix problems that were a real challenge, so who knows...
 
Small tip: always monitor the recording device. Any other monitoring on any stage of the sound "chain" is useless since you don't know what's actually being recorded. Could it have been cable noise/connector noise from the Beachtek to the A99?
 
If you post a Wetransfer link or a Google Drive link for example, I'll try my best...

To me the added bulkiness is good news, whatever the reason is. I think the 5N/5R was almost too small and poorly equipped. I'm also happy that they got rid of the annoying NEX menu/user interface. If only they also put some 'serious' guts inside a reasonably bulky consumer model, and got rid of the AVCHD codec, as well as the low pass filter. The jury is still out about whether a touchy-feely display would be essential or not. 
 
New a6000 reviews are popping up these days, done with the production model, but I'm still looking forward to some more video-centric reviews. I think we've all established by now that it's got a pretty fast AF system, so I wouldn't mind reading about something else for a change.