deezid

In my opinion tonality trumps dynamic range.
You can have very high dynamic range but if the tonality and colour is lacking you get the 'thin' digital low-bit-depth look. A lot of smartphones have it in their HDR modes.
Some of the old CCD sensors produce lovely "thick" files but don't have anywhere near 12 stops dynamic range, not even 11 stops.
And yeah, Digital Bolex was a good example.
You can compare it to the claimed '15 stops' Sony S-LOG and it looks much deeper, more exotic, thicker, more filmic, more organic, despite having noisy shadows and clipped highlights.

I'm not sure if it's the film stock of the 80s fashion that really dominates that image, but wow...   the United Colours of Beneton the 80s!
Hopefully ray bands - I think they're one of the only 80s approved sunglasses still available.
80s music always sounds best on stereos also made in the 80s.  I think there's something we can all take away from that 🙂 
Great images.
Fascinating comments about the D16 having more saturated colours on the bayer filter.  The spectral response of film vs digital is something that Glenn Kennel talks about a lot in Colour Mastering for Digital Cinema.  If the filters are more saturated then I would imagine that they're either further apart in frequency, or they are narrower, which would mean less cross-talk between the RGB channels.
This paper has some interesting comparisons of RGB responses, including 5218 and 5246 film stocks, BetterLight and Megavision digital backs, and Nikon D70 and Canon 20D cameras: http://www.color.org/documents/CaptureColorAnalysisGamuts_ppt.pdf
The digital sensors all have hugely more cross-talk between RGB channels than either of the film stocks, which is interesting.  I'll have to experiment with doing some A/B test images.  In the RGB mixer it's easy to apply a negative amount of the other channels to the output of each channel, which should in theory simulate a narrower filter.  I'll have to read more about this, but it might be time to start posting images here and seeing what people think.
I wonder how much having a limited bit-depth is playing into what you're saying.  For example, if we get three cameras, one with high-DR and low-colour separation, the second with high-DR / higher colour separation, and the third with low-DR / high colour saturation.   We take each camera, film something, then take the 10-bit files from each and normalise them.  The first camera will require us to apply a lot of contrast (stretching the bits further apart) and also lots of saturation (stretching the bits apart), the second requires contrast but less saturation, and the third requires no adjustments.  This would mean the first would have the least effective bit-depth once in 709 space, the second would have more effective bit-depth, and the third the most in 709 space.
This is something I can easily test, as I wrote a DCTL to simulate bit depth issues, but it's also something that occurs in real footage, like when I did everything wrong and recorded this low-contrast scene (due to cloud cover) with C-Log in 8-bit..

Once you expand the DR and add saturation, you get something like this:

It's easy to see how the bits get stretched apart - this is the vectorscope of the 709 image:

A pretty good example of not having much variation in single hues due to low-contrast and low-bit-depth.  I just wish it was coming from a camera test and not from one of my real projects!

While lighting, bit depth and resolution all play a role what about the bayer matrix and the colour filters themselves?  For example some of the 'thickest' most filmic images I have seen are from the Digital Bolex which is 12bit and 2K-I've attached a few examples (sadly not mine) from the D16.  I have seen some discussion on the D16 about this:   "Color depth and discrimination in Bayer filters is determined by the purity and saturation of the filter dyes used. The Kodak CCD in the D16 uses a patented set of highly saturated filters designed for scientific and industrial applications where accuracy and fine color discrimination are critical, like color matching in textile fabric dye runs, or in the cameras used on the Mars Rovers. Most video cameras use Bayer filters less saturated to get more sensitivity and just cover the video color gamuts. Deeply saturated primary colors can be hard to reproduce. I normally have to desaturate D16 footage 20-30% to eliminate chroma clipping on saturated colors in REC709. This still looks like a fully saturated video image to gamut limits." So could it be the characteristics of the bayer filters are a big part of the colour thickness?

1980s Kodak test image from linked article 🙂

My only hope is that the big studios put pressure on BM to implement Prores RAW as Resolve is the number one grading tool.

This has been a complaint with Resolve for two years now. I've given up hope. I will say however that Atomos is kicking butt with so many new cameras using their product that maybe it will force them to finally include it.

This video kinda confirms what I see.. Panasonic Vlog is the most robust codec so far, can be over and under exposure and still can get away, Sony you will have to use non log profile to have "clean" lowlight, underexposed slog is so ugly.
 
 
 

Luckily for Sony, they have some popular Youtubers with biased reviews.

What is the exposing to the right, by so many stops supposed to imply? 
The A7siii has such strong NR algorithms that the image looks 1080p at best, or 720p. 
 
 

I think Sony is quite aggressive with NR on a7S III, wonder is 12MP just too low res?
 
Panasonic really tweaked their 24MP really well, at expense of no PDAF on the sensor.

@ade towell Actually Lumix S5 is a real winner. When I tested the 8bit codecs of the S1, there was no mushyness whatsoever at high isos in extreme low (no) light situations. a few tiny Artefacts became visible in the shadows at no light. Interesting enough the super slim 75mbit h265 codec had grain in these situations, on the contrary it breaks apart on evenly and well lit plain surfaces. So I have been super impressed. Still don´t have the Vlog update, because I dont know if Panasonic will give it to us for free very soon. Would be a bit of wasted 200 USD then. S1, no mushyness in the shadows in no light situations, but grain. "No light" what a term for photography.:)
S5 with Vlog has now been tested and it is performing the best compared to R5,6, A7siii, the latter one the worst. S5 is an image quality monster. Hard to believe they did it. Cinema quality in a 150mbit codec. Panasonic needs to promote it better. They can ask me being an ambassador. Here I come @andy lee :)
Check out Andrews friends from slashcam de and put it through the translator or check out the image.:
https://www.slashcam.de/images/texte/1974-300Prozent_Auge-300Prozent_Auge.jpg

Put a matte box in front of it. 😉

Press text:

Seems like JIP running Olympus imaging isn't such a bad thing eh?

Not at all, the mount on the camera is very strong. Metal mount + steel Nikon G adapter from Optitek. If I was mounting a cinema lens on it yes I'd use a rail support, but photography lenses are relatively light in the grand scheme, if cheap DSLR can handle it this mount certainly can.
It's a larger PIX-E7 with the XLR adapter attached. Honestly the camera itself is bulky so not going to switch to a smaller recorder to get it a little lighter.
Working on the videos, but have other work I have to get done first. Including shooting a short on the F3 alongside the S1 on Saturday. So we'll see how they do! 
 

Really nice and deep colors. Impressive looking greens.

Got my hands on Red Komodo to test for a few days. I'm impressed.



A few more images can be seen here: https://imgur.com/a/HAWFShe
 

The DR advantages of some of the latest FF cameras like S1/H/S5 and A7SIII to be exact are quite impressive for the prices. 

Hey @Hicham , I'm working on that next. Upon finishing the 4.2 update recently, I just kept working on the engine, and made some major revisions last week. Now, the S1/H

yeah DR is important but I've seen so many cameras with great DR that fall apart and the shadows or the highlights in terms of image quality. Like my A7rII that turned green in the highlights right before clipping (thank God they fixed this on later models).

Nothing to be shocked about. The FS7 image looks like hot garbage with its bad tonality and horrible processing, while the FX9 looks fantastic.

Hahaha. Their tests always have people reaching for their swords.
I liked this comment in particular, from their comments section. 
"Lars Gafpa Gear
@gunther we executed internally the same ima test and it looks similar. Basically a 12 adc sensor can never deliver more than around 11.5 in s/n 2. Unless they use heavy nr. These are the facts. These are all imx 12 bit video mode adc sensors. Dome may look better due to heavy nr. Only varicam etc have 14 bit adc or alrxa which crossconverts two pixels simultaneously. Therefor i doubt ima test says a lot. I mean one can het a bit higher rating towards the maximum patch range by doing nr. But its ugly bit right now no mirror less cameras have 14 bit adc. Same goes for komodo. Maximum 11 stops. Still fun for a global shutter camera and ofc uses backed in highkight retention to get dr higher etc and some other tricks. I love the ima test of cined they demystify a bit all the lies. It shows that over the last 10 years no big inventions were made on a sensor level. Onoy invention is fake news."
 
Incidentally, tests such as these, and all tests in general, also highlight how fallable dynamic range tests and company numbers really are, and that experts are grossly overrated and over paid idiots, with years of senseless experience. Also, most importantly, that the more famous an expert is, the bigger a jackass he is likely to be, and the more likely he tries to fool everyone, and is as consumed by his own BS, as the ones he attempts to fool. Somewhere the whole line of distinction is blurred. 

Don't confuse sharpening with actual detail.
When it comes to low contrast texture, the S5/S1/S1H easily outperform others while having the same amount of high contrast detail but basically no sharpening.

Not the reason at all.
Both Nikon and Sony do heavy processing on their footage. Strong NR creating all kinds of artifacts and strong sharpening with halos around corners. 

If you want a proper Sony camera which doesn't look like video, the FX9 and above are your only choices. While Panasonic starting with the S5/S1 and above looks really organic.

Not the reason at all.
Both Nikon and Sony do heavy processing on their footage. Strong NR creating all kinds of artifacts and strong sharpening with halos around corners. 

If you want a proper Sony camera which doesn't look like video, the FX9 and above are your only choices. While Panasonic starting with the S5/S1 and above looks really organic.

Not the reason at all.
Both Nikon and Sony do heavy processing on their footage. Strong NR creating all kinds of artifacts and strong sharpening with halos around corners. 

If you want a proper Sony camera which doesn't look like video, the FX9 and above are your only choices. While Panasonic starting with the S5/S1 and above looks really organic.