BasiliskFilm

On 02/04/2018 at 1:22 PM, jonpais said:

Not a single review of the thousands I’ve read or watched ever mentioned motion cadence - only in these pages, where people claim to see uneven movement everywhere. I’ve never heard an experienced filmmaker mention it either. Nor have I ever seen marketing boasting of superior motion cadence. There must be a half dozen reasons why footage doesn’t look right - many having nothing at all to do with the camera. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, just that I’ve never seen an instance of it. In the past, I’ve even uploaded videos in the wrong frame rate and nobody even blinked. I could have inserted a frame of squirrels munching on acorns every twenty-four frames and I doubt anyone would notice. ? Two common reasons for jerky motion are judder when panning, which can happen with the best of cameras; and breaking the 180 degree rule. I’ve also noticed it when using pan mode on my gimbal. And afaik, it can also be due to the monitor. And various other causes unrelated to the camera itself. I would however be very interested in seeing a side-by-side test of two cameras recording the same scene, one with poor motion cadence, the other with good motion cadence, to see whether I can notice any difference, because up till now, we just have anecdotal evidence. No need to create a new video - thousands of side-by-side comparisons already exist on YT - maybe someone can find one where they can see a difference in motion cadence.

I think you are probably right that it is a bit of a myth that cameras have an intrinsic "motion cadence". There are a range of problems with shooting motion: incorrect frame rate conversion, wrong shutter speed, rolling shutter artefacts, jittery lens/sensor stabilisation; some of these come in the class of user error, or can be avoided by the skilled operator. Once these are ruled out, most cameras actually record motion in a very similar way, and I would be surprised if many could spot the difference at 24 fps.

20 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

I know of No camera line that has Cheap Native lenses. The main reason a lot of the Sony lenses are damn expensive is that they are new and few used ones around. But brand new they Ain't giving Canon and Nikon lenses away either. And Fuji is not giving their lenses away either, and they are APSC. I don't know how Anyone but a Dentist can afford a sack of new lenses LoL.

And a fair amount of Canon EF lenses work as good or in some cases better on a Sony A7r mk II, Mk III than on a Canon. I would bet the new Sony A7 mk III might even be better than all but the A9, They both have a ton of focus points. I am using a Canon APSC 10-22mm in crop mode on my A7s adapted and it is doing surprisingly well focus wise on it. I am sure not as well as on a Canon, but the original A7s is not known for super good focus as the later ones.

I am using this adapter, works out great when I use Slog 2. But I had to sand down, file down a bit of the rear plastic "Protrusions" on the EFS lenses to make them work!   No problem with the normal EF lenses. They hit the glass that protects the ND filters in the back of the unit. Sort of the "No Balls, No Blue Chips" thing on expensive lenses. An old Poker card game saying.

I am sure this adapter is probably not as good as a Metabones, never owned one, but they don't have the ND filters in one that I Need in Slog 2. 3200 ISO min is a ball buster without them in daytime.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019D5P7EQ/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Now that third party lens support is coming through from Sigma and Tamron, a budget conscious purchaser can just concentrate on the quality of the body, and not worry about being stung on the glass. OK it is a shame that fast compact lenses optimised for mirrorless are taking their time, as the Sigmas are bag fillers. But now it is not just about size - mirrorless is the value, quality and usability option for full frame video.

4 hours ago, Django said:

Plenty of reasons to pick a 5D4 over a A73 : native Canon lens support, superior colors/ skintones , 30MP sensor, DCI 4K, 422 intra high bitrate codec, dual pixel autofocus, better weather sealing, built-in timelapse , excellent ergonomics, touchscreen menus & gestures etc..

Highly doubt Canon sales/prices will be affected much by this. The 5D3 hardly saw a price drop when the A7 could be bought for $900. They address different markets.

To be honest i don't understand the hype over this camera.. we have one at the office (boss is a sony fan) and i can hardly notice any IQ difference with the previous A7R/S II series.

A lot of the same issues though (and some new ones too!). I guess the pricing is what makes it so tempting, flagship Sonys costing almost double. 

 

edit: i can confirm we have the bottom pixel blinking issue on our unit!

 

 

If you want heavily cropped video, surely the Panasonic route would make a lot more sense? You can't even use a focal reducer on the 5D mkIV 

3 hours ago, Robert Collins said:

I think I am right in saying that the incremental video cam tax is 12% which equates to some US$200. So a better question might be 'how many people would pay an extra US$200 to be able to record longer than 30 minutes in one shot?'

My guess is very few as I suspect that 90% of A7iii users dont shoot video at all.

Most folk who shoot 30 minute+ takes are doing it in quite specialised circumstances. If you are leaving a camera on a tripod pointing at a speaker on a platform and pressing record there are 100 other video cameras that can do a decent job. Who shoots more than half and hour shallow DOF video? I am trying to think of the last time I shot more than a minute of anything.

It seems that the video performance might be similar to the A9. Has anyone tested digital zoom on that camera? In theory for 1080p shooting a 1:1 pixel readout would give up to 3x zoom without significant loss of quality. If that is also true for slow motion shooting, then this could open up a lot of options for shooting action, without having to shell out for the largest lenses, maybe even with primes, and using digital zoom to frame.

6 hours ago, mkabi said:

I never understood the need to do these rolling shutter tests... Even in high action shots... Speaking from a audience member perspective, what information do they see in the fast pan? I'm not going to pause in the middle of a movie and say see.... That skew? Why can't you just edit the shot out? Edit the fast pan out? And if there are a lot of micro movements say a runner deeks left runs right comes against a cornerback spins left... Sure if you are doing a close-up of that you are going to have to pan fast, but I suggest you set up a secondary cam that is capturing the entire game with a wide angle. Then cut, splice and throw together in post.

It's a quick-and-dirty way of comparing rolling shutter in different modes. I am sure that someone will do the maths to compare them more accurately, but if you have seen these tests before you can already tell that Sony continue to improve the readout speed of their sensors. Full sensor readout of a 24MP FF sensor has only been done on the A9 before so it is a considerable challenge on a $2000 camera

Albert Dros has done a rolling shutter test. Obviously full frame 4K is worst, but this is reading all 24 MP, so all things considered, not too bad. The other modes (4K crop, 1080p) are pretty good, and given that hand-held is sensor stabilised, visible rolling shutter should be avoidable.

One thing this camera does for sure is make some of the others look a bit pricey. Up to now the A6500 looked like the most affordable full featured model, now you can get a seriously better body and full frame for 50% more; they are even chucking in a kit lens half price at £200 extra which can't be bad.

6 hours ago, tellure said:

Now that Sony has such a competitive camera for video at the $2000 price point can they finally add picture profiles to the A9?  With the A73 at $2000 with that level of video quality they can't possibly expect the A9 at $4500 would be cannibalizing any sales for video-centric buyers.  Just give us the damn picture profiles already.  Of course it could be Andrew's interesting theory that it's the silent shutter flagship mode of the A9 that caused issues with picture profiles and thus was left out so as not to cause problems with that mode, not any sales/marketing/cannibalization concerns.

I bought an A9 a little while ago, which I wouldn't have normally since I don't need that level of performance but I got it at a discount (working for a division of Sony) and really wanted the touch autofocus.  Now I just want Andrew's EOSHD Pro Color for it, which worked great on my A7R2.  Still hoping Sony can find a way to make it happen, but guessing they won't because the A9 owners are such a small group and most are focused on stills and don't care about picture profiles.  I may just have to sell it and get an A7III, or wait for the S3...

Anyhow, apologies for the digression.. now back to your reguarly scheduled A7III discussion..

I would assume there is a level at which the hardware of the A9 and A7III are significantly different, particularly on the sensor readout rate, which partially justifies the higher price of the A9. It is possible this translates to less rolling shutter on the A9. It is certainly  a bit un-Sony to deliberately cripple a model so it is possible the lack of picture profiles is a hardware limitation; as you say the A7III will even more effectively cannibalise sales of video cameras than the A9 so there is no logical reason not to implement them on the A9 if it can be done.

3 hours ago, Don Kotlos said:

I decided to go with the a7rIII instead of the A7III. 

Other than the availability & megapixels, in video specifically, the main differences were that A7III has worse rolling shutter but is better in low light and has better resolution in FF. That's all I could find really. 

I am going to wait until the A7sIII is announced as well (around the time that the A7III would be available anyways) and I might sell the A7rIII for it. 

Need to see figures, but assuming that S35 mode on the A7III will have 1:1 pixel readout for 4K, which could be significantly faster than the 6K downsample from the whole sensor. So if you want minimum rolling shutter, and extra reach for action, then crop mode might be a good option.

16 minutes ago, Robert Collins said:

I guess that is also debatable with speedboosters etc. But I do think that Sony is making a powerful argument that FF is where we are going to eventually end up....

True, speedboosters get you closer optically, but move you further away in terms of size and weight equivalence. And if we are talking native lenses then AF might be an issue.

55 minutes ago, anax276 said:

Are Sony lenses comparable in size and weight with the equivalent m4/3 lenses?

Ain't no true equivalent to a full frame f1.4 lens on m4/3

The 105 f1.8 might be a great lens. If you stop it down you will get heptagonal highlights, with only 7 blades. If you want to shoot at f2.5 then the classic 105 f2.5 AI/AIS might be a better, cheaper and lighter option, with the same 52mm filter thread that the 50mm f1.2 has. It has the advantage, as a stills lens, of being usable with the OVF focus screen at full aperture. Anything faster than that and you probably need to switch to live view to be sure of focus as the focus screen is optimised for f2.8 zooms (unless they have improved in current models)

The end of King Kong would have been epic in vertical widescreen - the whole of the Empire State, plus monkey!

58 minutes ago, Emanuel said:

No, they are more expensive, that's all... :-)

The resolving power of the 24-120 on that 42 MP sensor looks pretty amazing. Not saying that the Canon is worse, but there does seem to be some future-proofing going on in the Sony lenses, and there is that 100+MP shift sensor mode already. 

On the other hand if you are using the A7S then it might be resolving stuff you are never going to see

My guess is that the full frame 4K will be at least as good as the A99II, maybe the D850, which is much improved over the A7RII.

1 hour ago, Rinad Amir said:

No one mentions battery life has it been improved? What about overheating after 25min run in 4k mode 

I can be powered by USB - is that new? That should provide some options.

Is the video AF useless for anything other than stationary objects?

Sounds like the AF/EVF/OIS make the Sony cameras much more flexible for video, and if the A7III gets the full frame 4K image right as well, at a reasonable price, then it will be hard to justify getting the 850 unless you need the top class stills performance.

2 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Lots is left for the A7S III

10bit codec

Dual Pixel AF

4K 60p

New ergonomics, better screen, etc.

I doubt the A7 and A7R will have any of that, aside from the better AF!

I suppose 6K at 30p is roughly the same data volume from the sensor as 4K at 60p so that might be do-able. Wouldn't have true 4K at S35 though, which is a popular feature.

If the A7III lives up to rumours (full sensor 4K readout, class leading autofocus) what is left for the A7SIII? Just see-in-the-dark capabilities? (I don't suppose the A7III will be shabby in low light). Perhaps a 12 MP sensor will allow for 4K60p internally? Otherwise it is hard to see a lot of people opting for it.

12 minutes ago, mercer said:

I don't understand all of the hatred for the 5D Mark IV and its mjpeg codec?

Because for video, you might as well buy a micro 4/3 camera, with lenses designed for the format?

Looks like it is "good enough" to keep someone invested in Nikon glass, shooting stills and video, on-board. Unlike the 5D Mk IV, which seems to be moving in the wrong direction.
Nikon users are also a bit more "trapped" as their lenses don't lend themselves well to adaptation to Sony. 
For someone starting from scratch looking for the best full frame video option, then Sony is probably the way to go.

I guess the drawbacks for long term reliability are that the adaptor moves the whole lens (especially with heavy lenses) and that you use the same motor for driving all the lenses (unlike AF lenses that each have their own motor) so it would not be surprising if it wears out more quickly.
Nice idea though. I would be surprised if it can track motion smoothly enough for video though.

On 8/6/2017 at 8:31 AM, gethin said:

Can someone more tech minded tell me why noone has brought out a 39 mp full frame.  My back of fag packet calculations tell me that's an 8k 16:9 window, computational ly easy to downsample to 4k, 39 mp is craploads of pixels...

That's what the 42 MP sensor is for? 
A full downsample from 8K to 4K seems to be beyond current processors, but at least line-skipping gives a tidy 4K matrix of pixels, even if the gaps can lead to more aliasing.
The 4K full frame out of the A99II seems fairly clean, when in theory it should be roughly the same as the A7Rii - is there some clever voodoo going on there then?

19 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

It should be called the Nikon A99 II

If it matches the video of the A99, also has decent AF, and lets folk use their Nikon glass natively, that would be an decent option for those invested in Nikon glass.
On the other hand if they brought out a video oriented D750 upgrade, 24 MP full frame sensor down sampled to 4K (A9 style) for half the money, then you can keep the 40+ MP camera.