agolex

The patterns don't look like anything I would expect from the A7SII. Pink blotches in underexposed/high ISO shots, sure, but not these geometrical forms. I vote for faulty unit.

... All on the next episode of Soap. 

Hey Michal. I am glad someone has noticed this.
I have all the rumors sites in my news feed and I visit some of the other blogs, the truth is these are majorly demotivating for me.
It seems the general direction of the internet is going away from long form reviews and articles, into quickly thrown up deals and clickbate, along 2-3 minute quickly knocked up youtube video which are nice to have on in the background as you have a cup of tea in the morning, but contain very little actual useful information. If all the attention is going into the wrong content, so what motivation do I have to carry on with EOSHD?
There's still some great stuff out there but it's few and far between, and getting worse.
So I actually share your depression with the state of affairs.
EOSHD articles I used to do are almost unviable today... the formula is broken... the amount of effort required versus the lack of reward in putting so much information out there for free.
Geez. Thanks for the support... not.
Facebook and Instagram content is where it's at, sadly.
A finger swipe, 2 seconds, next.
In the end the audience will regret allowing the internet to dissolve into a trivial social network where appearances are valued above substance.

The film is done. Password: Flubb3r

Sure, will do.
Here's the mail I got 5 days ago:
 
Hello!

Manufacturing and shipping the last batch of Hercules to our supportive KickstaterBackers will be completed at the end of March. We are preparing to launch our new website and need some help. Can you please help with spicing up our social media outlets by subscribing.
Facebook Instagram Twitter Pinterest Youtube

We would love it if you shared your content if you have received a Hercules. Please send us links to your videos, photos or videos at Socialmeida@Rollocam.com

Thank you for your patience and support.

Cheers,

Rollocam

Use this: https://www.proxfree.com/
Just put in the YT URL and pick a Netherlands server in the drop down below.
Best,
Your fellow GEMA-Hasser

So yep... I've been shooting with the A7SII pretty extensively on a bunch of music videos. 
This particular video is narrative-only, shot in Whitby UK within 6 hours with a crew of 5 people including make up artist. 
My duties? I wrote the idea, shot, lit, graded and edited the video in FCPX. 
Most of the video was shot in natural light. One night scene was lit with Lupolux Dual LEDs and Scorpion Lights, powered by batteries (lifesaver!). The sun was going down quick and we used the A7SII up until ISO 12,800. 
Picture profiles were custom Slog2 profile and also custom Cine2, shot in 4k 25fps. 
We used the Sony CLM-FHD monitor on the camera (very useful). Would never used the camera without a monitor again unless desperate. Camera remains light and easy to use. 
Gimbal shots were on the Ronin-M, with the full IBIS activated with the Sony Vario-Tessar 24-70mm - operated in upright mode. Fantastic combination. 
Handheld lenses were Sigma 18-35mm (used at 35mm), Samyang 14mm and Helios 44-2 85mm (bloody well hard lens to focus!). 
This video wouldn't of been possible to shoot in 6 hours without the A7SII. The aesthetic helped the video with it's murky look, and the portability with IBIS was awesome. Helped keep us on our toes and be creative with the shots. 
Issues? I went through 9 batteries and er, the zip on my coat broke and er... I got a wet ass?... that's about it. 
I'll let you guys decide what you think the story is about and all that jazz. 
Hope you enjoy it!!
 

But ... but ... the B.A.!

Heck,
There's no reason to look at tribal culture.  I have experience with my grandmother as an example.  She and I grew up next to each other as neighbors, so I know all about her history.  
She was born in 1920 and grew up on the family farm.  It was hard labor during certain times of the year, but the hard labor side of it wasn't that daunting or time consuming.  Most of that farm life was just, as it happened, life.  You know, feeding the chickens wasn't really work per se, it's just a chore and something you do as part of your existence.  With her, her mother, and her father farming was a certainly a job often, but it was on their own terms and certainly less than 40 hours of hard labor a week.
This was during the same time that Flint was upending the manufacturing model with the establishment of the UAW about 45 miles down the road.  So, there's context to all of this.  It's not like these guys working in the factory didn't understand what their physical limits were.  Yes, we can certainly put in a lot of hours of work in a week, but parts of American culture used to know how to balance it and what was reasonable.
I don't know if something like the UAW would have happened if car manufacturing set itself up on the east coast --which had been exploiting workers quite harshly since the dawn of the industrial age and where urban life was actually a lot more demanding and competitive.
The agrarian legacy of labor expectations lasted well into the American 20th, 21st century. 
Anyway, you can also look the lives of USA farmers in the 18th and 19th century as well.  Assuming they avoided disease and dramatic injury, the quality of life was actually pretty good.  Lots of recreational time while waiting for things to happen seasonally.  It was actually normal to go to bed early, wake up in the middle of the night, spent some hours just relaxing or socializing, then going back to bed 'til dawn.  Sort of a reverse siesta.
Farmers in the States (and most USA citizens used to be farmers) played by their own rules as they decided how and when to do what they needed to do.  2/3rds of our social history was a result that rugged individualism, so if you've ever been curious why Americans culture is the way it is, there's a clue... I'd say Americans and Aussies have a very common kinship... but I'm rambling now.  Time to get back to a corporate edit and suck on some irony.

Yes the author never said outright what Roland's race was but there are many parts where his race was alluded to (Roland having blue bombardier eyes, Eddie thinking he looks like a gunslinger from a spaghetti western) and other parts where it can be logically deducted (Detta's instant hatred of him and Eddie, she even mentioned a body part of him and Eddie being white in one instance). Yeah you can say that even after all that clues you still can not be 100% sure and that's true, but that's only technicality. What matters is that King portrayed Roland in a way that led us to think of the character as Caucasian.
PS: it doesn't matter that this cast is endorsed by King. What is he supposed to do? Criticize the choice and makes himself look bad under the political correctness machine that is our world today?

Internet culture is just a reflection of real life - there's a vast majority of stupid people in the world.

Well, the first one is apparently the Nikon that is in the other two. :D

Well, the first one is apparently the Nikon that is in the other two. :D

Lighting, grading, and lenses make a huge difference (often in that order). I think most cinematographers when surveyed cite lighting as the biggest factor in cinematography, rather than the camera. 
As far as complaints about Sony color, a lot of Hollywood thrillers/horrors intentionally have that "Sony" look, graded more towards green and yellow. None of their skin tones look "rich" or "beautiful." David Fincher's films look pretty Sony. Even House of Cards looks Sony. And Fincher has shot a lot of RED, or exclusively RED for the past decade. Roger Deakins shot Prisoners, which is somewhat similar, and that was shot on the Alexa. 
When I saw Lone Survivor, I honestly thought it was shot on Canon dslrs or C-series. It looked cheap, and way punchy, like Act of Valor, and I hated the look for the dark material/story...and it was shot on RED too.
So if the color is an intentional decision, then Sony's colors may not necessarily be less cinematic. Sure, many people do like Canon's out-of-the-box color. Even if you're grading C-log, it certainly takes less effort if the punchy vibrant color is the look you're going for. But subject matters too. If we're talking doing as little as possible beyond image capture, then there are more cinematic cameras depending on the project. Romantic comedy? Canon would work. Thriller? Why not Sony.
To be fair, motion cadence is harder to cover up. The dslrs/h brid cams struggle with this. I think smooth camera movements help alleviate the motion cadence issue. Slow-motion almost always has better motion cadence - and I think this is because it eliminates the micro jitters in real time that look video (unnatural). Aliasing is another. So soften the image a little (lenses or desharp) and limit shaky cam, and I think that would help motion cadence. Just a theory.
But really, almost everything is a compromise, isn't it? Including the Alexa, which is price. You have to find what works for you or your project. But we all have our hierarchy of preferences. I sold my Red when I saw how noisy it was in low light... compared to the blackmagic cinema camera 2.5K, which looked a lot more cinematic at 1600 ISO. And blackmagic has a nice cinematic image, but if your focus puller isn't very good, maybe you're missing focus, hunting, or having to stop down. And then maybe that dual pixel Canon is nailing rack focusing and shallow depth of focus, is starting to look far more cinematic. And then, maybe your lighting budget is cut, and you have to shoot fast, in very low light. None of those will look more cinematic than the A7Sii in that context. 
Lastly, "Cinematic" is a complex, fluid term with a lot of variables and different contexts, but when you say cinematic, you mean what's shown in movie theaters historically and culturally. Which has been film, until recently. Cinematic has evolved over the years. Black and white was cinematic until technicolor. Which looked cinematic until film color improved and improved. Until it peaked, then you have all these disruptive looks and fragmentation, 16mm in the 60s, grittier exploitation films in the 70s, home video's influence in the 90s, with blair witch project and paranormal activity. I think Alexa is popular for being that transition (digital emulation of film), but the reality is that film is no longer the capture medium. When it was revealed Skyfall was being shot in 35mm, nobody really noticed or cared. But with HDR, 3D and future technologies, and even more fragmentation, cinematic is changing. 
And in the end, what's the point? Serve the story, in an appropriate (and hopefully creative) way. As great as the cinematography was for Revenant (reminiscent of the New World, also shot by Lubezki), it wasn't as fresh and exciting to me as the cinematography for Victoria. Shot on a C300 with a single lens.
The best cinematic look is the result of the right tool, not the perfect one, and skills, experience, and hard work. And a good team. 
I think that's a factor too. No camera can deliver cinema. Roger Deakins claims he could care less about the camera, he'd shoot on anything, he'd make an iPhone image look cinematic. And I believe him, because he's mastered lighting, framing, lensing, movement. He almost always works with good directors and postproduction teams too, which helps cohere all the elements of filmmaking.
 
 

This. Noticed it when I did the comparison R II vs S II in the other thread. Both cameras interpret WB values very differently and are probably both pretty far off.

I've used the A7S II extensively at the moment, and I'm finding that a lot of these colour issues might come down to white balance. It just doesn't work properly.
You light a scene with 5600k top end lamps for a daylight scene, yet when setting the 5600k on the A7SII, skin looks green-ish. 
When lighting an indoor scene with only 3200k lamps, and setting 3200k on the camera, skin is blue-ish. 
Auto white balance works, but the colour shifts to red in tungsten and magenta in daylight. 
The most accurate I've found for white that is white, is Underwater Auto! However this makes everything that isn't white into purple. 
This is across all picture profiles. 
FS7 and F55 don't do this at all. 
I'd do a proper in-house test but after this post I'm busy for the day!
It seems a similar thing happens with the FS5. Maybe Andrew can feed this through to his contacts? 

Friday 7am London time sees the release of a firmware update for the Sony FS5 which optimises the performance of internal recording, fixing the issues spotted by early adopters of the camera including myself (Andrew Reid) and Paul Antico.
Read the full article

Didn't get the focus and framing identical, but here goes. :p It's just that with the R I often notice the better resolution, especially at night with long exposures. But it's hard to really pick what's better, there's always the variance of settings/framing and shit involved, as well. In the examples I just shot I found the colors of the S better, it picked the White Balance differently, as well (readjusted that for the R in Lightroom). All in all, I don't know, I'd rather not spend too much time with stuff like this, because there's so much variables involved and I like both cameras. For stills I usually go with the R, just because of the better AF and the plus in resolution and for video I prefer the S for full frame 4K and for lower light scenarios, because it's always so clean.
Image 1 + 2 f8 (both 1600 ISO, 1/160, standard, no PP, matched WB), first a7sii, second a7rii.
Image 3 + 4 f1.8 (both 1/160, standard, no PP, matched WB), first a7sii 125 ISO, second a7rii 100 ISO. Lens: Zeiss 55 1.8, S uncompressed raw, R compressed raw (should have matched that but forgot). Edit: Tried both uncompressed and compressed and there's no visible difference.
 

Didn't get the focus and framing identical, but here goes. :p It's just that with the R I often notice the better resolution, especially at night with long exposures. But it's hard to really pick what's better, there's always the variance of settings/framing and shit involved, as well. In the examples I just shot I found the colors of the S better, it picked the White Balance differently, as well (readjusted that for the R in Lightroom). All in all, I don't know, I'd rather not spend too much time with stuff like this, because there's so much variables involved and I like both cameras. For stills I usually go with the R, just because of the better AF and the plus in resolution and for video I prefer the S for full frame 4K and for lower light scenarios, because it's always so clean.
Image 1 + 2 f8 (both 1600 ISO, 1/160, standard, no PP, matched WB), first a7sii, second a7rii.
Image 3 + 4 f1.8 (both 1/160, standard, no PP, matched WB), first a7sii 125 ISO, second a7rii 100 ISO. Lens: Zeiss 55 1.8, S uncompressed raw, R compressed raw (should have matched that but forgot). Edit: Tried both uncompressed and compressed and there's no visible difference.
 

Didn't get the focus and framing identical, but here goes. :p It's just that with the R I often notice the better resolution, especially at night with long exposures. But it's hard to really pick what's better, there's always the variance of settings/framing and shit involved, as well. In the examples I just shot I found the colors of the S better, it picked the White Balance differently, as well (readjusted that for the R in Lightroom). All in all, I don't know, I'd rather not spend too much time with stuff like this, because there's so much variables involved and I like both cameras. For stills I usually go with the R, just because of the better AF and the plus in resolution and for video I prefer the S for full frame 4K and for lower light scenarios, because it's always so clean.
Image 1 + 2 f8 (both 1600 ISO, 1/160, standard, no PP, matched WB), first a7sii, second a7rii.
Image 3 + 4 f1.8 (both 1/160, standard, no PP, matched WB), first a7sii 125 ISO, second a7rii 100 ISO. Lens: Zeiss 55 1.8, S uncompressed raw, R compressed raw (should have matched that but forgot). Edit: Tried both uncompressed and compressed and there's no visible difference.
 

Didn't get the focus and framing identical, but here goes. :p It's just that with the R I often notice the better resolution, especially at night with long exposures. But it's hard to really pick what's better, there's always the variance of settings/framing and shit involved, as well. In the examples I just shot I found the colors of the S better, it picked the White Balance differently, as well (readjusted that for the R in Lightroom). All in all, I don't know, I'd rather not spend too much time with stuff like this, because there's so much variables involved and I like both cameras. For stills I usually go with the R, just because of the better AF and the plus in resolution and for video I prefer the S for full frame 4K and for lower light scenarios, because it's always so clean.
Image 1 + 2 f8 (both 1600 ISO, 1/160, standard, no PP, matched WB), first a7sii, second a7rii.
Image 3 + 4 f1.8 (both 1/160, standard, no PP, matched WB), first a7sii 125 ISO, second a7rii 100 ISO. Lens: Zeiss 55 1.8, S uncompressed raw, R compressed raw (should have matched that but forgot). Edit: Tried both uncompressed and compressed and there's no visible difference.
 

No one cares, but here's a new teaser:
 
I wrapped the film yesterday. I got some good stuff. The rough cut is all done. I'm waiting to hear back from the composer of the first film.

Yeah, I think we all would like to see some clips of Dog Schidt all over that Alexa. Or should I say... That Alexa stepped in some Dog Schidt. 

Astral photography isn't the first thing I think of when I consider the type of photographer I am, but the experience of researching and going to this spot and tirelessly researching the techniques it took to get this shot I think really does sum me up. This is why I love this forum and what Andrew has done with EOSHD. I'm constantly reading what you all share and love the community aspect of being a creative person in this day and age. I very easily could've died getting this shot as I almost was bitten by a rattlesnake in the dark when helping another photographer with her camera settings. Makes it an even more memorable experience for me. 

Here it is!
We recorded hdmi 8-bit 4:2:2 out of it and went to the odyssey
 
 
skin tones overall are nice!  and stabilization is amazing.
 The camera was interesting to use - especially considering that it's a 200 ASA camera and has moire and dynamic range challenges - sometimes this is interesting to have to maximize something with limitations. It's difficult, but I guess it disciplines you.