caseywilsondp

Won't bore you with a long story, but in short, I went from an a7s and instead of sticking with Sony, I went to the nx1.
Now if low light is that big of a problem for you, I don't think you have much of a choice, you'll probably want to move to the a7s2. While I do miss being able to shoot at night by the moon and a flashlight (essentially), I've not really found myself lacking with even the most basic of lighting kits (of course your situation may differ).
I'm also not entirely sure you'll find the lens/body weight ratio much changed in your favor by switching to Sony.
We do know all signs point to the nx system being dead, so really they biggest benefit of switching is that you'll be switching into a system with more longevity.

here are two scenes at 60p
normal gamma, -5 contrast, -10 sharpness. 16-50S lens clean (no filters)
first detail (detail on bush, as well as how the out-of-focus bit looks i.e banding)
int:

ext:

int 200% crop:

ext 200% crop:

as a still image, the full res images appear pretty similar, with the ext appearing to be slightly sharper. go to the cropped images, and we can see why. blocks of pixels around the edges of the bush are a bit larger/more noticable, and make the bush appear just a bit softer, and give the out-of-focus area a bit of banding.
here is a shot that can give us a good idea of the macro blocking that tens to occur in shadows:
int:

ext:

int 200% crop:

ext 200% crop:

externally and internally results are similar to before, you can notice more macro blocking in the shadows on the internally recorded image, and there is a very, very slight edge to the external image in highlight recovery (again the jpeg would suggest different, and i'm not sure why the export crushes the highlights like that, but check the original files).
*HOWEVER*
look at the external image crop... in the shadows... there appears to be a very fine fixed grid pattern (when they're bumped up significantly). it is very odd. now, you probably shouldn't expect to use any detail that's this heavy in the shadows (+150 via lumetri), but even so I'm not sure this grid pattern is much preferable to the heavy macroblocking of the internal image.
as a still image, i'd actually prefer the internal image, however with motion the macro blocking becomes very noticeable and the external seems more like noise.
ultimately, in motion, i find the external image to be a bit better, but if it's better enough to warrant an extra 1200-2000 (depending on recorder) is up to you.
full files:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BwO55ILG1OL-YnNqbGJDejhIcjQ&usp=sharing
 
 

Won't bore you with a long story, but in short, I went from an a7s and instead of sticking with Sony, I went to the nx1.
Now if low light is that big of a problem for you, I don't think you have much of a choice, you'll probably want to move to the a7s2. While I do miss being able to shoot at night by the moon and a flashlight (essentially), I've not really found myself lacking with even the most basic of lighting kits (of course your situation may differ).
I'm also not entirely sure you'll find the lens/body weight ratio much changed in your favor by switching to Sony.
We do know all signs point to the nx system being dead, so really they biggest benefit of switching is that you'll be switching into a system with more longevity.

Won't bore you with a long story, but in short, I went from an a7s and instead of sticking with Sony, I went to the nx1.
Now if low light is that big of a problem for you, I don't think you have much of a choice, you'll probably want to move to the a7s2. While I do miss being able to shoot at night by the moon and a flashlight (essentially), I've not really found myself lacking with even the most basic of lighting kits (of course your situation may differ).
I'm also not entirely sure you'll find the lens/body weight ratio much changed in your favor by switching to Sony.
We do know all signs point to the nx system being dead, so really they biggest benefit of switching is that you'll be switching into a system with more longevity.

Have not tried 60fps, but I found that particularly in the shadows, reduced macroblocking is perhaps the most significant benefit to actually using an external recorder.

I'll shoot something for you tomorrow. 

I'll shoot something for you tomorrow. 

Please read these:
http://***URL removed***/forums/post/57133589
http://***URL removed***/forums/post/57133598

agreed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIzhGCzBtUQ
Shot that with the vizelex nd throttle (it has a bit of a stylized grade)  and honestly for most work I didn't find it to have any noticeable negative impact on my footage. 

agreed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIzhGCzBtUQ
Shot that with the vizelex nd throttle (it has a bit of a stylized grade)  and honestly for most work I didn't find it to have any noticeable negative impact on my footage. 

agreed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIzhGCzBtUQ
Shot that with the vizelex nd throttle (it has a bit of a stylized grade)  and honestly for most work I didn't find it to have any noticeable negative impact on my footage. 

Has anyone done much testing in 'normal gamma' with contrast dialed all the way down? I just figured out how to do it (definitely a noob) and shot a quick test and highlight recovery is significantly better without a ton of noticable banding so far (some). shadows don't appear to benefit as much, but still. just wondering if anyone else has tried this and what the results were.

That would be IBS, not IBIS

it all depends on the scene. i made a super flat gammaDR profile and got some amazing results... but it only worked in scenes with no real gradients....once a gradient is introduced it falls apart quickly. i have not 100% made up my mind yet but I'm thinking I'll lose the 2-3 stops of DR that a flat profile gives on this camera for the sturdiness of the image when shot regularly. 

Thanks for this test, definitely shows me I don't need to invest in a high end recorder for this camera. I actually prefer the skin tone off the internal file.
Also I don't think the SHOGUN upload is working. It won't play after I have downloaded it and it is showing it as a smaller file compared to the internal one.

Here is an updated link for the shogun file for you to play with:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwO55ILG1OL-U3MxclpEQWRqWDA/view?usp=sharing

Here are the results of internal vs external.
because quicktime (external) takes 0-255 and makes it 16-235 or whatever I adjusted the internally recorded one in premiere from 0-255 to 16-235 to emulate what was happening in the shogun. this doesn't affect the quality of either file as all the information is still there, but it helps them appear to match better (it's actually not exact... which is odd).
so here is the scene as a whole (Shogun then Internal):

here are two power windows (from speedgrade) around the lightbulb and around the statues on the chair to demonstrate highlight/shadow information

and then just a 300% crop comparison (not perfect as he was slightly leaned back, but on this wide of a lens the sharpness shouldn't vary too much)

jpegs aren't a great way to judge, so i've attached original files:
 SAM_0818.MP4 <-internal file
 SHOGUN_S001_S001_T004.MOV <-external file
 Int_Ext Test.zip <-tiffs
my thoughts:
first, i expected conforming the internally shot footage to 16-235 would make them virtually identical (it did not). when it came in originally, it was very crunchy, but 16-235 made it actually a little flatter than the prores, which I am under the impression takes 0-255 signals and clamps them to 16-235 already. so, not sure what to make of that.
as far as quality goes... the difference is not huge. i would say externally the macro-blocking is smaller and almost appears as less-fine noise, while internally its a bit more exaggerated and chunky (the shadow recovery demonstrates this the best). 
highlight detail isn't much different, with maybe a slight edge going to the external codec.
(EDIT) I just noticed according the JPEGs and TIFFs you'd probably come to a different conclusion, not sure why the tiff export did that, but I can assure you in speedgrade there is more detail. i'll upload the internal and external file now for viewing.
while the color kind of appears to be a different,  that's mostly just the not-quite-matched 16-235 making the internal a little flatter... it's really very similar when you end up grading it.
detail (300% crop) isn't much different between the two.
personally if I didn't already own a shogun, i'm not sure this test would convince me it's needed, though if you absolutely wanted the best image... i suppose it gives it a bit of an edge.

it's not actually clipped, it's just displayed beyond the range. 16-235 in camera squeezes that extra bit into range, but it's not actually capturing any more info, it's just displayed that way. if you want to display your 0-255 clips as though it were 16-235 (thus displaying everything in range) simply add a fast color corrector, then change your output to 16-235. or, if you plan on using any decent color grading software (speedgrade/davinci) you'll have access to all that information still, and you can adjust it into range as you desire.

I used the nikon to e adapter on my a7s and it was top notch. might have added a bit of green, but it wasn't much and it was easy to correct in the grading process.
i'll do a test tomorrow of internal vs external. i dont think the gains will be significant though.

https://www.fotodioxpro.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=nd+throttle+nx1
NX1 ND throttle adapter! I already ordered, very glad they decided to make it for the NX mount.

it's not actually clipped, it's just displayed beyond the range. 16-235 in camera squeezes that extra bit into range, but it's not actually capturing any more info, it's just displayed that way. if you want to display your 0-255 clips as though it were 16-235 (thus displaying everything in range) simply add a fast color corrector, then change your output to 16-235. or, if you plan on using any decent color grading software (speedgrade/davinci) you'll have access to all that information still, and you can adjust it into range as you desire.

it's not actually clipped, it's just displayed beyond the range. 16-235 in camera squeezes that extra bit into range, but it's not actually capturing any more info, it's just displayed that way. if you want to display your 0-255 clips as though it were 16-235 (thus displaying everything in range) simply add a fast color corrector, then change your output to 16-235. or, if you plan on using any decent color grading software (speedgrade/davinci) you'll have access to all that information still, and you can adjust it into range as you desire.

finally admitting to myself that GammaDR, Sat-4,Contrast-10,MBL+10,16-235 is just too flat for 95% of stuff that's shot with this camera (with just so much banding)... 
So...just shot the same scene with a bunch of different settings including various gammas, contrast/saturation/mbl amounts, and changed up between 16-235 and 0-255. Shot proress hq to the shogun for all of it. I was planning on uploading still tiffs which should contain all the editable info needed, but would anyone prefer to have the whole prores file to mess with? post coming shortly. It's not every conceivable setting, but it should give us generally a good idea of where to go from here, especially with the luminence discussion.
I maybe could have shot some internal stuff, but honestly I think h265 is actually a pretty good codec (for 8 bit stuff) and i dont think outputting over hdmi is going to give a significant amount of help even with 422... at least on this camera (i found it quite helpful shooting externally on the a7s though).
should show off highlights, a little bit of shadow (back chair with figures on it) and banding on the back wall.

LONG POST WARNING!
Ok team, here are the files. I'm really hoping some people with more skill and knowledge can chime in. If something else needs to be tested, let me know soon and I can do it sometime tomorrow.
i've attached uncompressed 32bit tiffs of each setting... so they should be just fine for any test-grading. ill supply a link with the 10gb dnxhr 10bit file that includes all the clips, as soon as i can find a place to host it. 
here are the camera settings that didn't change:
iso: 160
shutter 1/50
aperture was set at a T2 on a 20mm Sony CineAlta prime
everything was shot through a 1/4 hollywood blackmagic filter. in my earlier test i tried both with and without, and it doesn't seem affect anything thats really relevant to these tests enough to make a difference. i personally like this filter in front of this ultra sharp sensor, so thats why i left it on.
first impressions, right now looking at the images, its like anything 'flatter' than 'normal gamma' starts to break apart just a little bit. i'm feeling like the different gamma modes (as have been stated before) really aren't doing anything different in processing other than adjusting some saturation and contrast.
16-235 settings seem to keep black details better than 0-255 everything being equal.
previews:


Tiffs:
 NX1_3_Tiff.zip

This is a non-issue, you just interpret the 24 fps footage as 23.976 fps if you need that rate, no conversion needed and no sync issues.