Greg Padgett

yeah well if they could get into a dynamic range and color depth war that would be great thanks.
can't wait to get my compressed 8k 4:2:0 8 bit image. so exciting.

Here's what I think. I think the quest to make everything tiny is making for too many compromises.
I'd rather lug around a bigger camera that does what I want without fuss.

I'd be up for a A7000 with GH4/NX1 form factor that just nails it.

Here's what I think. I think the quest to make everything tiny is making for too many compromises.
I'd rather lug around a bigger camera that does what I want without fuss.

Here's what I think. I think the quest to make everything tiny is making for too many compromises.
I'd rather lug around a bigger camera that does what I want without fuss.

Here's what I think. I think the quest to make everything tiny is making for too many compromises.
I'd rather lug around a bigger camera that does what I want without fuss.

Here's what I think. I think the quest to make everything tiny is making for too many compromises.
I'd rather lug around a bigger camera that does what I want without fuss.

I purchased a set of the Wasabi batteries and charger from Amazon when I bought the camera. One of the two batteries fits a bit "snug" and I have to use a pointy object to pry it out of the camera. I still plan on using it as it works fine otherwise but just keep that in mind when purchasing them. I've heard others report the same issue of the Wasabi  batteries fitting too tightly.
Battery life with this camera has so far been decent but nothing to brag about. If I knew I were going to be using the camera for video all day, I might want four or five batteries to feel safe.

The way I understand it, it would be a great card for the UI and editing part, but you'd need a second one that drives no monitor for computing acceleration. And for that the big gaming cards are better. But as long as you're not trying to render a feature, this shouldn't matter too much. Please, anyone with more insight chime in, I've always tried to wrap my head around this as I haven't had more than a single GFX card, yet.

whatsup misterwiggles!
since the a7s came out last year i have spent way too much time reading about slog2 and being intimidated by it... because it turns out i didnt need to be...! its p easy to deal with as long as you have some crucial prior knowledge (lol). so in that spirit heres a few Quick Start Tips
• the slog2 output of the rx10m2 is very similar (perhaps virtually identical) to the a7s in terms of dynamic range and how it handles color –– so all that info is totally relevant and theres a ton of it out there~!
• slog2 has a base iso on these cameras which is your only option: the a7s base is 3200 and the rx10m2 is 800. as you may know the rx10m2 has a built in nd, so that can be handy, but i dont think that its variable in any way, its either "on" or "off". anyway, this base iso thing is something to be aware of: you cant just dial down to iso 200 like with the other picture profiles
• as far as color goes, avoiding sgamut entirely may be a good idea. i used the "pro" color settings posted on the previous page as a starting point, and decided to dial down the saturation a tad, the yellow even more, and the magenta just a bit. this has easily produced naturalistic color which doesnt require a lut to make it look halfway normal –– just some curves and saturation to taste. what you want to do with the settings in PP7 (slog2) is up to you of course and depends on the aesthetic of your project~!
• slog2 needs to be overexposed on these cameras –– 2-3 stops depending on who you want to listen to –– otherwise its a noisy hot mess. ive gotten great results throughout that range
ok!!!! i am not nearly as smart as most of the posters on this board but like i said it took way too much of my life to gather this information so i hope that helps a bit
other posters PUHLEASE correct me if i am wrong in any of this or something should be added or something!!!
its SO fun youre gonna love it. tbh idk if ive had this much fun shooting since i got my first camera  

Hello everyone! I'm a french film school student (however we don't practice often it's just mainly theoretical courses and film analysis) and we had recently to create a short fiction (we were to do around 7 shots). We had the plan with my teammate to explore an old abandoned coal washing facility and decided to make something with it, so here it is!
Sound is important so play it loud
Now some explanation. I don't have a lot of money, and our school doesn't have any gear to loan, so we made it a 0$ budget short ahah (well the only thing we paid for was the gas mask). For the prep we had only a few days, so we thought of a story, and we only did the storyboard for the first half of the short (until he enters the factory), as we didn't know what it looked like inside, and we had to improvise on set. It was really run'n'gunning as we only had 9h on location, and some shots are quite rushed...
I shot it with a sony a6000 in AVCHD, with for the most part in exterior the sony 18-105G F4, then in interior the Sony 35mm F1.8 OSS and a Leica Summicron 90mm F2 (pre-asph, which I found in my dad's old camera gear).
For the lighting setup we used an outdoor LED floodlight (which is what the actor is holding inside the factory) and a 200*160 5in1 reflector to bounce some light back.
I edited everything and made the soundtrack on Sony Vegas, then graded everything on DaVinci Resolve Lite.
I'm kinda in a love-hate relationship with it haha, during the edit and post-prod there was some moment I just wanted to delete everything, and I was noticing every little mistake or imperfections, but considering the time limitation, budget the result is fairly ok, and initial feedback was good so I wanted to share it more with people working in this field!
I'd love any advice or feedback from you!

Thanks and sure. : )
Camera settings:
Kholi's A7s Cine2/Pro PicPro (PP6)
Black Level: -11
Gamma Slog: Cine2
Black Gamma > Range: Wide , Level: +7
Knee > Mode: Manual , Auto Set > Max Point: 95 , Sensitivity: Mid, Manual Set > Point: 105%, Slope: 0
Colore Mode: Pro
Saturation: +6
Color Phase -3
Color Depth > R+3, G-3, B+1,, C-3, M-2, Y-5
Detail > Level, -5 Adjust > Mode; Manual, V/H Balance: -2, B/W Balance Type3, Limit: 0, Crispening:0, hi_light Detail: 0
White balance > Manual > Grid setting B 1 (one to the left)
--
Software:
Premiere Pro, filmconvert (Arri Alexa DCIP3), bit of Lumetri (really loving the new PP).

Vaga, the image came from a raw file so I don't suppose we'll see quite that much dynamic range from the xvacs files.  So far though, I've been extremely impressed with the slog2's ability to expose the entire scene well in high contrast situations. I haven't as yet used the camera for low light and I don't expect it to be A7s quality but for the way I intend to use the camera it should work perfectly. It seems to me that where the A7s can be overexposed 2 stops or even a little more, the RX10 tends to clip a lot sooner. I've been exposing to protect the highlights and have found plenty of room to lift the mids and shadows. What I need is a good plug in for Davinci to handle the bit of noise I'm seeing in the shadows. I do look forward to Andrew's review to gain some knowledge from him on exposure.
 
PannySVHS, yes I agree that this camera will be at it's best in good light. I will be interested to see what more advanced users will be able to do in dark conditions with optimal exposure and professional post work. I'm betting this camera will get the job done.
As far as the high frame rates, I haven't tried using them yet. I'm mainly interested in the slog2 at this point but I'll get around to the fancy stuff in due time. I do know the 120fps is supposed to be 1080p so it should look pretty good.
 
TheRennaissanceMan, I think you make some great points and they are in line with what I'm seeing. Great shadow recovery but the highlights need to be guarded at least somewhat. When I said the files remind me of the D800E, I did not intend to say they rival them. The just seem to have great elasticity and excellent rendering of fine detail. 
Last year, I owned the D800E, the GH4 and the RX100m2. I purchased the GH4 in hopes that I could get rid of the very heavy D800 kit I take when backpacking. I wanted a lighter substitute that I could use for both stills and video. The video was outstanding but (and this is a subjective opinion) the stills just weren't what I hoped. They looked nice. They didn't however rival the D800 in any way. Looking at similar images in lightroom, I actually found that I preferred the RX100 images to those of the gh4. Perhaps the familiarity of the files and the way they behave in post reminded me of the D800 files. With familiarity comes a certain comfort factor. I just couldn't get the gh4 files to my liking. All that being said, I still don't think the stills from the RX10 will be enough to make me leave the D800 at home. They're very good and will do in most situations. They're not D800E good for that once in a lifetime shot you often get in the big wilderness. This is where the A7rII starts to look really interesting...
 

Vaga, the image came from a raw file so I don't suppose we'll see quite that much dynamic range from the xvacs files.  So far though, I've been extremely impressed with the slog2's ability to expose the entire scene well in high contrast situations. I haven't as yet used the camera for low light and I don't expect it to be A7s quality but for the way I intend to use the camera it should work perfectly. It seems to me that where the A7s can be overexposed 2 stops or even a little more, the RX10 tends to clip a lot sooner. I've been exposing to protect the highlights and have found plenty of room to lift the mids and shadows. What I need is a good plug in for Davinci to handle the bit of noise I'm seeing in the shadows. I do look forward to Andrew's review to gain some knowledge from him on exposure.
 
PannySVHS, yes I agree that this camera will be at it's best in good light. I will be interested to see what more advanced users will be able to do in dark conditions with optimal exposure and professional post work. I'm betting this camera will get the job done.
As far as the high frame rates, I haven't tried using them yet. I'm mainly interested in the slog2 at this point but I'll get around to the fancy stuff in due time. I do know the 120fps is supposed to be 1080p so it should look pretty good.
 
TheRennaissanceMan, I think you make some great points and they are in line with what I'm seeing. Great shadow recovery but the highlights need to be guarded at least somewhat. When I said the files remind me of the D800E, I did not intend to say they rival them. The just seem to have great elasticity and excellent rendering of fine detail. 
Last year, I owned the D800E, the GH4 and the RX100m2. I purchased the GH4 in hopes that I could get rid of the very heavy D800 kit I take when backpacking. I wanted a lighter substitute that I could use for both stills and video. The video was outstanding but (and this is a subjective opinion) the stills just weren't what I hoped. They looked nice. They didn't however rival the D800 in any way. Looking at similar images in lightroom, I actually found that I preferred the RX100 images to those of the gh4. Perhaps the familiarity of the files and the way they behave in post reminded me of the D800 files. With familiarity comes a certain comfort factor. I just couldn't get the gh4 files to my liking. All that being said, I still don't think the stills from the RX10 will be enough to make me leave the D800 at home. They're very good and will do in most situations. They're not D800E good for that once in a lifetime shot you often get in the big wilderness. This is where the A7rII starts to look really interesting...
 

Vaga, the image came from a raw file so I don't suppose we'll see quite that much dynamic range from the xvacs files.  So far though, I've been extremely impressed with the slog2's ability to expose the entire scene well in high contrast situations. I haven't as yet used the camera for low light and I don't expect it to be A7s quality but for the way I intend to use the camera it should work perfectly. It seems to me that where the A7s can be overexposed 2 stops or even a little more, the RX10 tends to clip a lot sooner. I've been exposing to protect the highlights and have found plenty of room to lift the mids and shadows. What I need is a good plug in for Davinci to handle the bit of noise I'm seeing in the shadows. I do look forward to Andrew's review to gain some knowledge from him on exposure.
 
PannySVHS, yes I agree that this camera will be at it's best in good light. I will be interested to see what more advanced users will be able to do in dark conditions with optimal exposure and professional post work. I'm betting this camera will get the job done.
As far as the high frame rates, I haven't tried using them yet. I'm mainly interested in the slog2 at this point but I'll get around to the fancy stuff in due time. I do know the 120fps is supposed to be 1080p so it should look pretty good.
 
TheRennaissanceMan, I think you make some great points and they are in line with what I'm seeing. Great shadow recovery but the highlights need to be guarded at least somewhat. When I said the files remind me of the D800E, I did not intend to say they rival them. The just seem to have great elasticity and excellent rendering of fine detail. 
Last year, I owned the D800E, the GH4 and the RX100m2. I purchased the GH4 in hopes that I could get rid of the very heavy D800 kit I take when backpacking. I wanted a lighter substitute that I could use for both stills and video. The video was outstanding but (and this is a subjective opinion) the stills just weren't what I hoped. They looked nice. They didn't however rival the D800 in any way. Looking at similar images in lightroom, I actually found that I preferred the RX100 images to those of the gh4. Perhaps the familiarity of the files and the way they behave in post reminded me of the D800 files. With familiarity comes a certain comfort factor. I just couldn't get the gh4 files to my liking. All that being said, I still don't think the stills from the RX10 will be enough to make me leave the D800 at home. They're very good and will do in most situations. They're not D800E good for that once in a lifetime shot you often get in the big wilderness. This is where the A7rII starts to look really interesting...
 

Now to see if that holds up in video!

Hallo Greg,
the sensor seems almost on par with the newer m43 sensors. Looks like you pushed your photo 1.5 to 2 EV in Lightroom. Something I could do with a Panasonic G6 as well.
Regarding to Dxomark, RX100 III sensor is a little bit better than G6 sensor in the low iso department, higher isos it´s the other way around.
So for daylight RX10 II seems like a great camera on par with GH4 and G7 in the photo department!
Would really love to see some more 120fps footage, if it has Full HD resolution like 24p or 30p. Not just on paper but in reality. What is your impression on that?
cheers and best regards, Marty

That 20MP sensor has a lot more latitude in the shadows than the highlights, so it actually responds fairly well to underexposing (to avoid blown highlights) and bringing it up in post. This is a lot like the D800e, which also has a lot of dynamic range in the shadows. This can be nice for recovering botched exposures, but it requires a fair bit of tonal work to get it looking natural. Also, all that shadow DR on a small sensor means that once you get to ISO 1600 or so, you're losing a ton of that to noise. 

The newer M4/3 sensors, on the other hand, have a much more pleasing, well-balanced DR distribution. They do pretty well in the highlights with a very nice roll off, but can also be recovered quite well (at low ISOs). I prefer this, because there's less I need to do to make it look good out of the camera. Plus, in low light, I can crush the blacks a little and still have that nice dynamic range in the highlights to keep things looking realistic. 

I've been shooting the GH3 and the RX10 side by side for a few months now, so I have a ton of experience trying to get them to match well in post. They require VERY different treatment to look their best. Both are quite capable, but if I had to choose, I'd stick with M4/3 in a heartbeat. 

EDIT: This is all in regards to stills. For video, my findings are similar, which puts the RX10 (even with the XAVC-S codec update) at a distinct disadvantage, because all that shadow DR is heavily compressed and doesn't always respond well to being raised. Compounding the issue is that the most accurate Sony Picture Profile (Deep) is very contrasty and crushes the blacks. Portrait is probably the second best, but it's so oversaturated you can easily clip a color channel, even at -3 saturation. The GH3 in Natural or Standard blows it out of the water for out of the box color and ease of CC/grading. The only points I'd put in the RX10's favor are that lens (an amazing piece of engineering) and the internal ND.

Did some testing today and yesterday at a state park near my home. Mainly video as I'm trying to learn how to grade the slog2 into something I like.
I did take some pictures and at some point I took a shot that for whatever reason (I believe I had left the ND filter turned on ) it turned out way underexposed. I took this shot not for it's artistic value but more for a look at detail rendered. Well, thinking the shot was ruined I figured I might as well crank up some exposure in lightroom via the shadow recovery and exposure sliders. Wow. It's like someone turned the lights on and with almost no noise penalty. No color banding. Nothing. Just plenty of detail and my respect for this one inch sensore genius of a camera!  As for a stills camera, this RX10 2 reminds me a lot more of my D800E than the gh4 ever did as far as the look and dynamic range of the image produced.
This might not blow you away the way it did me, but I just didn't expect such a clean photo from something so drastically underexposed. Especially from such a small sensor camera.  Have a look... I could have boosted this much further but I was going for natural.
 

Did some testing today and yesterday at a state park near my home. Mainly video as I'm trying to learn how to grade the slog2 into something I like.
I did take some pictures and at some point I took a shot that for whatever reason (I believe I had left the ND filter turned on ) it turned out way underexposed. I took this shot not for it's artistic value but more for a look at detail rendered. Well, thinking the shot was ruined I figured I might as well crank up some exposure in lightroom via the shadow recovery and exposure sliders. Wow. It's like someone turned the lights on and with almost no noise penalty. No color banding. Nothing. Just plenty of detail and my respect for this one inch sensore genius of a camera!  As for a stills camera, this RX10 2 reminds me a lot more of my D800E than the gh4 ever did as far as the look and dynamic range of the image produced.
This might not blow you away the way it did me, but I just didn't expect such a clean photo from something so drastically underexposed. Especially from such a small sensor camera.  Have a look... I could have boosted this much further but I was going for natural.
 

Did some testing today and yesterday at a state park near my home. Mainly video as I'm trying to learn how to grade the slog2 into something I like.
I did take some pictures and at some point I took a shot that for whatever reason (I believe I had left the ND filter turned on ) it turned out way underexposed. I took this shot not for it's artistic value but more for a look at detail rendered. Well, thinking the shot was ruined I figured I might as well crank up some exposure in lightroom via the shadow recovery and exposure sliders. Wow. It's like someone turned the lights on and with almost no noise penalty. No color banding. Nothing. Just plenty of detail and my respect for this one inch sensore genius of a camera!  As for a stills camera, this RX10 2 reminds me a lot more of my D800E than the gh4 ever did as far as the look and dynamic range of the image produced.
This might not blow you away the way it did me, but I just didn't expect such a clean photo from something so drastically underexposed. Especially from such a small sensor camera.  Have a look... I could have boosted this much further but I was going for natural.
 

After trying it for about a week I'm pretty sure I just don't have the hardware to run this. Playback is extremely choppy (which is ok, I can deal with that). Problem is that when I go to render the finished product is also choppy and full of artifacts. I almost certain I'm setting up my projects properly but for whatever reason, the renders are not working.  My other editing program has choppy playback (with 4k video) but renders beautifully. I'll keep trying to fix it. Maybe even delete it and re upload as maybe there was a problem with the initial download of resolve. Beautiful program. I hope I can fix it.
 

Looks, picture profiles, LUTs and Log.
For those who were recently talking about understanding log and how it works etc. Here's a pretty good article from newsshooter that breaks it down
http://www.newsshooter.com/2015/07/27/looks-picture-profiles-luts-and-log-why-when-and-how-you-should-use-them/
 

agolex, TheRenaissanceMan,
Thank you. I didn't realize the camera would automatically pick an iso when I chose PP7. I just manually set the camera to iso 800.
3200 did seem a bit high for such a small sensor but I thought I'd ask to be sure. Now the learning curve with Davinci resolve and maybe I'll be able to make some nice videos.
Thank you again.