William Reynish

Went to see a soccer match and tested out the 1080p slow mo in the a7sII. All 100p. Really annoying that you can't pick 120p when in PAL mode. You can't even switch to NTSC mode on the fly. If you do, the camera erases your card! The whole idea of using the concept of PAL/NTSC is really stupid. Just let me pick the framerate I want

In general, this is a great camera, slightly let down på crap menus, crappy button layout, crappy record button, stupid inability to use the shutter release for movie recording, etc. It's great engineering with a pretty rubbish UI. Really a shame that Sony doesn't seem capable of making a good, simple, quick user interface. Instead its over complicated, convoluted, slow, with loads of wading through illogically organised menus. Come on Sony, fix the UI!

Thanks for the great responses. In practice it seems like most anamorphic adapters are mostly useful on 4:3 sensors so that you can actually use 2x anamorphics to get the full effect. And most aren't designed for full frame. 

On the A7s, the options seem fairly limited and frustrating though. Here's hoping Sony will enable us to use the full sensor, not just 16:9.

​Seems like a weird workflow. It's easier to grade at the end. That way you have the original footage with all the data for grading. You wouldn't really want to grade twice - you'd just loose data and information for the final grade.

If the log footage is too low contrast you can apply a LUT while editing. This is built in in FCP X for log footage.

You can use the Osiris LUTs. There are also many free ones on the web. For example, here: https://vimeo.com/105782210

You can just shoot in SLOG and use a log LUT that you like. Doesn't have to take that long. Or, just shoot in rec 709 and avoid grading completely. You can do this just fine.

Just wanted to chime in again with an update: I've figured out the main reason why the Anamorphot was never getting sharp. The front element of the adapter is loose, and was slightly off! 

Now that I rotate it back it seems better, but it's not viable to use it like this, as its impossible to use in practice. It means I've not essentially got three focus rings: the taking lens, tha anamorphot and the anamorphic front element. It was already hard to use with two focus rings, three is not going to work.

Either the build quality is not that great of I just got a lemon. I've not used the lens once on a shoot, so I haven't put any strain on it at all. 

Also, the focus ring on the anamorphot sounds like it's not right. I'm going to return it, and I don't feel very confident in getting a second copy, as there are two issues with this one (focusing ring and front element not correctly aligned) after not even having used it once.

Anyone else having their anamorphots fall apart after taking them out of the box?

-W

griplimited: The diopters seem ok. Trouble is that I can't really get it to be sharp under any circumstances. But the diopters don't seem to make it any less sharp

In fact, the SLR Magic diopters were used on this video, which does seem nice and sharp (doesn't use the anamorphic though):

I've got a Pentax 40mm pancake lens coming tomorrow. Hopefully that will work better with the anamorphot and actually produce sharp results at f4, let alone f2.8. We'll see. 

Yes, the omission of the FS7 seems weird. I've got the A7s + Shogun, but the FS7 is clearly a breakthrough 2014 camera, whereas the 1DC is not.

​You need to be in movie mode for the output to work right, otherwise you get this issue

Here are some examples of the troubles I'm having. Taken with the Nikon 60mm f2.8 macro.

Anamorphic off at f5.6.

Full 4K image:

1:1 crop:

Anamorphic with close focus diopter on at f5.6.

Full 4K image:

1:1 crop:

The official instructions tell you to not use wider than 2.8 up up till 50mm, but I find it's very hard to get sharp results with 50mm lenses set to 2.8. 

Yeah, does seem to vary with different taking lenses. Just ordered the Pentax-M pancake 40mm f 2.8 to test - I heard that pancakes are good for anamorphics. We'll see

The difference between UHD and DCI 4K is quite small though. Although I can see that if your workflow is entered around DCI it's a bit less practical. Also, the A7s can't output DCI 4K, and the GH4 only does it in 24 fps (useless in Europe where 25 fps is the the standard)

Thing is, most 1080p cameras can't actually resolve 1080p. This is due to de-bayering, scaling and compression. Zoomed in 1:1, most 1080p footage is blurry, lacking super fine detail. 4K (itself not completely sharp when looking at it 1:1) downscaled to 1080p gives you 'proper' 1080p with superb detail, way sharper than 'native' 1080p cameras can resolve.

Oh, and as for lenses, most prime lenses can definitely resolve 4K. 4K is still 'only' 12 megapixels. Almost all stills cameras are higher res than that. If lenses couldn't out-resolve 12 MP, why would you ever need more than 12 MP for stills?

I recently got my Shogun. Here's my honest take:

The case
It's nice that they include a solid case. It's way too big though, with loads of wasted space for stuff you don't need to carry around (like plug adapters). It won't fit in most bags, it's so huge. It's bigger than the bag I use for my A7s with all my lenses, which seems silly.

The hardware
The screen is nice and sharp. However, the build quality of the Shogun itself is really shoddy. Creaky plastic, smudgy plastic screen cover. Surprisingly flimsy! Looks like it will break if I stare at it too hard  Even the letters 'SHOGUN' are mis-aligned and crooked on my copy, as though it was some cheap Chinese knockoff. It doesn't exactly inspire confidence. Also, the way the battery is inserted seems flimsy.

If you compare the build of the Shogun to, say, an iPad (which is way cheaper), the iPad is in a different league. An iPad is made of precision sturdy aluminum and glass. The Shogun is made of cheap bendy plastic, yet costs way more. I was very disappointed by the build. I was also surprised to hear it actually make noise. It is not silent, even when paired with SSD's.

Peripherals 
It's nice that you get some peripherals, but strangely you don't get the most important ones - an HDMI cable or a hot shoe mount. From all the marketing pictures it looked like there was a hot shoe mount included - I didn't realise I would have to go out and find one myself on eBay. For the HDMI cable I got the Atoms coiled cable they recommend. It seems fine.

Battery life
One word: terrible! I seem to get at most about an hour, probably less. I would need loads of batteries as well as batteries for the camera. And, the battery charger seems to take forever to charge the battery, and is not very user friendly. I can't work out when it's done and how much it has charged.

On the atoms.com website it says that the you can record 5 HRS+ of prores. Only if you are plugged into the wall you can .

Features
The display options are quite nice, and the focus zoom works well. However, some features that were promised and not included, such as custom LUT support. Also playback is missing, but that will be added very soon, so no biggie there.

Conclusion
The Shogun is a useful addition to the A7s to make it 4k and ProRes capable. Also  quite useful as a monitor for focusing. I don't really regret getting it, but I was very disappointed with hardware quality and the pathetic battery life - things that I didn't hear so many others complain about. I wonder why reviewers left this out? In the end it doesn't matter how useful the Shogun is if the battery is dead.

Get the A7s. You won't regret it. Even if some of your lenses only cover APS-C, the A7s has an APS-C mode. 

For full frame glass, the A7s is obviously perfect. Adapters for old lenses are easy to find and very cheap. I've got a bunch from eBay and they work great.

The 1080p is really nice from the A7s, really a step up from most other 1080p-capable DSLRs.

Hi,

im an owner of the anamorphot + diopter set. However, I can't seem to get sharp images with it. Im not sure if there's something wrong with my sample, if my taking lens is a bad match or that I'm doing it wrong.  

Anyone with some tips for sharpness on the anamorphot?

taking lenses tested:

-Pentax 50mm M 1.7

-Nikon 60mm 2.8 macro

Tested on Sony A7s

W

It does not currently desqueeze, but many of the features are not currently enabled, such as playback and custom 3d LUTs. Perhaps desqueeze is on the todo too?

Your headline is false. I'm writing this from a Macbook Pro 2009 with a third party Samsung SSD with TRIM enabled. No problems here at all. My room-mates have added third party SSD's too, and they too have no issues.

Chill out Andrew, there's probably some other reason why it's not working - Apple is not intentionally disabling 3rd party SSD's.

Your workflow seems backward. Start in your editing app, then grade at the end in Resolve. As for proxies, edit with proxies and then export to resolve with the originals.

I think it will be fine. Put the camera on a tripod and it'll look great. Don't worry about rolling shutter in subjects unless they move as fast as a car across the frame.

I see. Thanks a bunch!

New A7s user here.

When importing from the memory card, I can only see a list of mp4 files, even though I selected XAVC-S in the camera itself. This is really confusing me - are the mp4 actually XAVC-S files in disguise? Or are the XAVC-S files somewhere else that I can't find?