jax_rox

My suggestions is to throw it into Resolve Lite. I, personally, hate the FCPX Colour Correction tools and have found I struggle to get even similar grades in any decent amount of time, compared to when I do it in Resolve (which is part of the reason I barely use FCPX).

 

I'm waiting on delivery of an A7s, so will give it a go and post some tests/results when I get it, but I've shot extensively on the F5 in Slog3, as well as the F3 in Slog2, and I've never had any major trouble getting the colours I want out of it. The images have a particular Sony look to them, which I imagine the A7s will have as well, but I don't find it inherently bad, just a bit different to when I shoot Alexa or RED.

 

I'm sure a professional colourist could grade up the F5 footage (and probably A7s) to match an Alexa pretty closely - say if you were intercutting.

 

As a DP, I assume you would have at least a rudimentary understanding of colour, so Resolve will probably be a bit more intuitive for you.

 

I have downloaded Canon slog and Arri Log and could get very good image just by applying an S -curve. I am used to high dynamic range with my D800, just apply the curve you want to get the contrast level you want, but the colour response more or less the same depending on the colour preset of the camera. I would say the closest two I have seen is Nikon and Alexa.

 

But if we get back to your point the Slog is more or less unusable to 9 out of 10 people, or even more seeing the number of thread popping out on all forums. So what the fuss being made, as one of the supposivelly image quality of the camera cannot be used by the vast majority.

You're right - Slog is pointless for a large number of people, as is 4k! That doesn't mean you can't still get nice images out of a particular camera.

 

I guess it's all relative. I personally don't like the colour in the video you posted (and certainly wouldn't say it's the closest, colour-wise, to an Alexa), not to mention compression artifacts and intense lack of dynamic range.

 

I think the fuss seems to be more about the low-light performance and the 4k ability - the low light certainly deserves fuss, and I think it's great that they've also included S-log. If you don't understand S-log, then don't use it, but you can hardly discount 'fuss' about a camera based on a feature you don't really understand.

 

Especially if you haven't tried it yourself.

 

I'm sure if Arri brought out a $2500 SLR with Log-C, there would be a plethora of posts on forums like this from people wondering how the hell to get decent looking images from it. And there would be a hell of a lot of fuss about it too.

I know I will be lambasted here, but I will never understand the hype with this camera. I also will look like a fan boy but what is the fuss about a camera when it cannot to the basic right. If just shooting a human being you need to be some guru in colour correction, whoa. I have been a graphic designer then became a photographer for nearly a decade now. I photography mostly human for commercial, fashion and weddings and I think I am quite good at colour correcting in lightroom, photoshop and now Davinci resolve. But whoa, I am completely lost in the level of setting etc etc that people are going at colour grading the A7s. It is like rocket science with 3d colour luts etc. With my Nikon's it just add or remove some saturation, do a little Scurve and voila, beautiful skin tone. Then if you want to have all types of looks like cross procesing etc. At least the base is here and you can build from it.

 

You can do that with the A7s too - it's just that most people are shooting in Slog2 to get the highest dynamic range out of the camera. If you shoot Slog2, then you will need to be able to colour grade it. You can spend your entire time owning an A7s and never shoot Slog2 and not have to colour grade to that extent if you don't want to.

 

It's the same as Sony's pro line of cameras that have Slog, as well as just about every other cinema Camera (Canon has Clog, Alexa Log-C; all slightly different log curves to preserve dynamic range).

 

Shooting in Slog means you're suddenly in the big boys arena - the washed out, grey, Slog footage that you shoot and then grade yourself is in the same log colour space that professional Colourists for commercials and movies around the world are working with.

It's better than the C300.

 

Well, that's not really saying a lot is it ;)

 

It's Alexa lite.

 

And a better DSLR will not be coming soon, from any manufacturer.

I agree that Sony should have provided a 4k solution off the bat.  I also HATE that the only 2 current solutions for this camera in 4K will have 7" screens.  How stupid is that? Why can't someone make a 5.6`' DP-4 style solution that functions as a recorder, a monitor and with the addtion of a hood as an EVF?  Seems kind of obvious to me.  Shows once again that the people making these things are not shooters.

Or they're not doing the kind of work you are...

 

I think the a7s is meant more as a future-proof awesome quality HD camera than a 4k cinema camera (in fact that's the Sony rep said something to this effect to me last night).

The Blackmagic Pocket gets pretty damn warm even when shooting in ProRes, and that's only shooting HD in a body not significantly smaller than the A7s. I can imagine it would have been very difficult to get 4k internal S-log with XAVC-S. The 4k external output seems to me to be more of an 'added bonus' - to add to appeal and stay competitive.

 

Sony barely had (has?) the lenses to be able to support the A7s when it came out, let alone designing and manufacturing a 4k recorder as well!

 

In regards to 7" monitors - even a 7" monitor isn't really appropriate enough for pulling critical focus for projection onto a 30' screen. Even with Focus Peaking. 

The O7Q and Shogun etc. are not designed as EVFs. I've used many recorders incl. the O7 and O7Q on-set. Most of the time they're at Video Village. Sometimes they're on the camera (especially in the case of the O7), but they're for the AC.

I don't personally think that the O7/Q at least is designed to be your main source of monitoring for your camera/an EVF - it's an on-board recorder that also happens to have awesome monitoring functions. 

 

Which is one of the reasons why he chose Alexa over RED for Skyfall. 

 

If we're being semantic, the Alexa Studio was actually designed for him so he could use an optical viewfinder on Skyfall. He was using pre-release versions of the Studio in most cases. A lot of the film (and all of In Time) was shot with an EVF, which he has very publicly expressed his distaste for. And for good reason, I guess. He chose Alexa over RED because of it's image - at the time he 'switched' from film, there wasn't an optical VF digital camera on the market (and realistically, the Alexa Studio is currently the only one anyway).

 

I personally love looking straight through the lens. Allows you to focus solely on operating - granted he has a pretty top-notch team of DITs on set giving the Director (and himself, if/when he takes his eye off the lens) basically a real-time colour grade.

 

The Alexa has a nice EVF, but nothing compares to looking down the eyepiece of a proper viewfinder.

 

 

An Alexa can look over-sharp shot poorly. 35mm film can too. 

And a RED can look over-sharp even when shot well ;)

 

Seriously, I don't really understand the constant nit-picking about the technology. If there's one thing I've always tried to tell Directors is 'right tool for the job' - the RED is ergonomically awful; not something I'd want to sling on my shoulder any day, and I wouldn't shoot a creamy-looking drama on it. 

If you asked me to shoot a VFX heavy sci-fi on Alexa, I might try and steer you in the direction of a RED.

 

Every camera these days has its own look. It seems many want the absolute perfect camera at a price point ~$1500, plus lenses that can outperform Master Primes for $1000 each. 

 

I, personally, hope they don't come out with a perfect camera. I love that, like film stocks, I can choose the right camera (or stock) for a project. Both for look, and for ergonomics and practicability. 

By the time they release it you will be able to buy two A7s plus recorders for the same price because Sony is going to present  new professional A7 cameras in February.

 

They will certainly be releasing things, but I can almost guarantee they won't release a replacement/mkii version of a camera that will have been shipping for less than 9 months.

 

On a pro camera line that will be just over 12 months old. I don't think so somehow. Sony are certainly kicking goals, but they have a pretty good product offering across the market. You might see additional a7(x) cameras with different feature sets... maybe.

F5 owners will be upset that they had a camera all along that could shoot 4K and they have been shooting 1080p for budgetary reasons unnessessarily.

The F5 shoots 2k internally. I shot on it yesterday at 100fps @ 2k. I regularly shoot Alexa @ 2k.
I shoot 4k/5k on RED because I don't want to window my sensor.
The commercial yesterday was for cinema release. I have no issue not shooting 4k. There are times when it is helpful, but it is rare that it is necessary, and also rare that you would shoot <4k simply because you couldn't afford a 4k camera - there's the 4K Blackmagic camera ready for you at 1/3rd the price, if that's the only thing you need. If 4k was the only thing people were worried about, no-one would have bought the F5 in favour of the Blackmagic Production Cam.
 

Equally in the case of F55 owners, who paid an extra $12,000 mainly for 4K, only for it to appear for free due to a text file change on the $12k cheaper model - that's annoying. There's no other way to describe it.

The F55 contains other hardware improvements, which would be the main deciding factor for anyone deciding between the two - the global shutter, sensor circuitry, improved colour gamut etc.
There's no way that F55 owners bought that camera over the F5 purely for 4k. 4k may have been one of the deciding factors in some cases, but Scarlets shoot 4k for the same price as an F5. So there are few circumstances where the price of an F55 is justified over a Scarlet purely for 4k capture. I think you'd find most F55 owners bought the camera based on more than just the ability to shoot 4k internally (especially considering you can shoot 4k raw with the addition of the external recorder - which is <1/2 the price difference between F5 and F55; if you really wanted 4k, just grab the recorder).

 

Customers lose out from this kind of strategy. Canon could and should have put 4K on the 1D X but they disabled it in software, denying a whole host of talents access to it due to price reasons.

A good majority of feature films are still released in 2k. If the quality of your Cinematography is based purely on the resolution of the camera you're shooting on, I've got bad news for you.

 

Also, when we go right into it, how do we know for example that Scarlets aren't just "software disabled" Epics?

That's exactly what Scarlets are. The difference being the release cycle. Sony's potential failing was releasing both cameras at the same time. With RED, the Epic was out and everyone saw the kinds of things it could do. Then, the Scarlet was released - an 'affordable epic' if you may.
With Sony, releasing both at the same time meant that the F55 became an 'expensive F5' rather than the other way around (a la RED).
Realistically, at least the F55 has improved colour, global shutter etc. to somewhat warrant the price difference.
The difference between the Epic and Scarlet is 4k @ up to 48fps vs 5k @ up to 120fps, respectively. That's really it. We're not even talking 2k vs 4k - it's 4k vs 5k for the ~$15,000+ price difference.
 

i know if I owned one of these cameras I would not update the firmware after modding this. Watch rental houses buy up the rest of the stock with the current firmware.

If you're happy shooting XAVC vs shooting ProRes and DNxHD, then be my guest. Personally, I'd take ProRes 2k over XAVC 4k any day (the Alexa only shoots 2k ProRes internally, btw), and I'd be surprised if there were many rental houses that would forego the ability to shoot ProRes/DNxHD to keep the 4k internal option (that you can't even playback). Also, it's rare for any rental house to send out 'hacked' cameras - and regardless of what this actually is, the fact that it may void a warranty will be enough for the majority of the rental houses to stay right away from it.
 
 

Buying a $29,000 camera in these fast moving times is just asking to get whacked with $10,000 worth of depreciation in short order.  Think about it.  Magic lantern, Blackmagic, GH4, and now this.  If you invest $29,000 in a camera body you need to be working and making a lot of $$$ from it day in and day out, because three or four years out the depreciation is going to be fierce.  Think about where we were three years ago.  Magic Lantern only appeared about five years ago.  And continous raw only appeared on the 5D MK III, what, last year?  Resolve lite appeared when?  I was checking out field monitors and it appears the features have been increasing exponentially and the price coming down.  I really wonder what a field monitor with histogram cost 4 years ago.

 This is exactly right. The only time you should invest in a camera is if you have enough work lined up in the following 18 months to be able to pay it off (and that you know you're going to be able to book your camera on). After that, it's not worth it.
 

Not really. The consumer, prosumer and lower end professional markets are very different to the high-end line. As slower pace is forced so that a certain type of clients may take full advantage of the investment while the manufacturer squeezes the product cycle to the last dollar.
 
Those who early-adopted the Alexa in 2010 still have a camera widely considered to be the best available. It has been upgraded and looked after. Arri has released new models that complement it without making it obsolete.

This is a dangerous comment. It entirely depends on your market. In some markets, those who early-adopted the Alexa have a camera that will still rent strong. In other markets, those who early adopted the Alexa went from renting their cameras out at top-dollar, to marking them down 30-40% to compete with the Alexa XT, Alexa Studio, Alexa Plus etc. rentals.

 

Also, all these firmware differences are actually marketed as hardware differences, so it is a little bit misleading in my view. When you buy a piece of software you know you are buying software and you know that a lite version costs money to unlock the full potential of.
 
If the people who bought the 1D C and F55 knew that they were actually buying almost identical hardware that was for sale at $12k or $6k less, only differentiated by firmware, would they accept it quite so readily?

 Everyone did know that. That being said, the F5 and F55 do have minor hardware differences, but Sony never even pretended that the hardware was wildly different. Anyone who wasn't aware that the ability to shoot 4k internally on the F5 was simply a matter of software limitation hasn't hung around high-end cameras enough. The Alexa's high-speed license is a 37kb encrypted zip file that you pay ~$4,000 for and put on an SD card. It's purely software. But that's how these companies work. There's not one that doesn't work in a similar way. Really the only difference here is that Sony hasn't put as much effort into encrypting that part of the software. Arri's Amira pricing structure is practically identical as well, the only difference being that they're all called an Amira. Even Blackmagic pulled the same card with the Cinema Cam and Production Cam.
 

Canon is clearly dragging it's feet and protecting it's higher models. I don't know of anyone that is filming seriously that uses the 7D over a bmpcc. I don't know of anyone who is going out and buying a new 7D body for video. And as far as stills you seem to forget mere months after Canon juiced a bunch of people for their cash they introduced a bargain basement Rebel with the exact same image quality.

And yet, Canon has sold so many C300s. You forget that SLRs have always been primarily about photography. Canon has always had a pro video line. It makes absolutely zero sense to cannabalize their pro video line in order to sell cheap, feature-rich SLRs. People are still buying 7Ds, they're still buying Rebels, they're still buying 5Ds. And they're buying C300s.

Digital video cameras have had wild markups based on minor hardware and software difference for as long as I can remember.