scotchtape

S-cinetone being added to a7siii via firmware!!! Via SAR

S-cinetone being added to a7siii via firmware!!!

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/ca/products/blackmagicpocketcinemacamera

Surprised no one has posted this yet!

Looks interesting, main updates are the built in fixed NDs, tilt screen, Sony NP battery, optional battery grip and EVF.

Pretty much giving the people what they wanted.

Sadly not for people who can't live without AF, but from what I've seen I really like the footage from P6K.

Yes the screen is flipped out, the entire point is so you can use it at different angles. Also helps with heat management. Even with tilt screens I extend the screen if possible because of thermals.

Of course it does make it more vulnerable to damage, which is why you treat it carefully. That being said, I can't imagine a regular useage scenario with the gimbal on, where you would hit the screen on the motors. You would have to be at some really weird angle and at that point if you don't know gimbals might wig out it's 💯 user error.

There are no rules.  Keep it against the body if you want.

So the rumor mill says this is basically the a7siii... is everyone still excited?

Well, I haven't fully tested the A7S3 yet but on my A73 I got the weird jumps frequently, which IMO is worse than the warpy corners.

I see this in a lot of Sony footage posted when using IBIS and gimbal, so I know it's not just me.

If you can use Adobe (I know, I know) Audition, the tools are actually pretty good as the EZ noob defaults are actually pretty good and get the job done for most things.

noise reduction, normalize, multi-band compressor, and you're usually pretty good to go, as long as you have removed any weird artifacts.

Not using panasonic, but I started using an x-rite color checker and I found that I liked the look when I applied the corrections.

Specifically for Sony, the orange and red luminance values got shifted down which felt more natural compared to not using it.

Maybe for Panasonic it can help as well.

Am I the only one here who got the A7SIII?

If the A7IV is any good I'll get one of those too.

Trying to finally leave the M43 shackles.

That actually looks pretty good if it works. I have a c800, can't believe I bought the thing while back because of the $$$ but (ironically) you can't tell if your cheap led light is any good without measuring them.

Only started bringing it out on shoots recently but it makes matching lights so much easier when you can actually measure things 🙂 And helps the overall image. Is it worth it? Up to you... I think if you want to up your production values you need one at some point, but if you're happy with your image them why bother.

I am using regular titles no fusion 🙂

Simple crossfades also kill fps.

My machine is a bit older but still was pretty good at the time (3yrs old?). Original threadripper, 64gb ram, 1080ti, nvme for scratch disk and project files, ssd for os...

Not getting paid enough to do proxy workflow

The other thing that I find amusing is how adding a simple title slows playback to a crawl for me. It's so weird.

It depends on your luck I suppose, some will say they get no crashes with resolve. To be fair on v15 I got very little, but v16 crashes almost every other session. At least it has live save...

Premiere was worse when I switched, but resolve still crashes for me. I turned on live save which saves all the time and it's less frustrating now...  Only lose a few minutes of work as opposed to like 15.

With all these new features in resolve it's bound to get buggier by release...

Still better than premiere though 🙂

The rumor mill has suggested a cheaper 600D in the works so you could wait, although with Aputure it will probably take forever.

Finally got mine.  Did a quick comparison with my A7III. I tried a few color modes: movie, still, sgamut3.cine, forgot to do pro on the A7SIII. Just lit myself with an LED panel in my room, very low DR scene. I did use the 10bit from the A7SIII vs the 8bit A7III.

I gotta say, once graded using an x-rite passport match in resolve, and converting to arri log, I couldn't tell you which color mode or camera each clip was from. I was expecting something more but every clip looked very similar. I suppose it does mean the underlying color data is all there so that could be seen as a positive. Vectorscope definitely showed color was more precise and less splotchy on the 10bit files. Also means matching looks is trivial.

For SOOC, Gerald suggested using neutral / movie.  I think "Still" looks better than movie.  Movie really shifts reds to orange. Still has less saturation and orange shift, but it does shift the reds slightly to burgundy (better than orange IMO). I think "Still" is closer to neutral than movie mode if you want something similar using picture profiles. Just need to add some contrast to the still profile and you're almost looking like neutral. 

Using sgamut3.cine with Cine4 looked fine after converting the color space to rec709, but of course looked wack SOOC.

Without the x-rite or any CC on the skin, my skin with LED looked pretty bad. A bit too orangey with movie, luminance a bit too high. I do think with the x-rite and arri lut it looks decent though. Good thing about the x-rite is that if you forget to do it in the shoot, if you are in a similar lighting setup you can just steal the correction from another clip and it usually works fine.

I can't imagine trying to get skin to look good without resolve, x-rite, and color transform. But with those tools I'm relatively happy with the direction my color is going.

So expectations were definitely not exceeded for me. I will appreciate the 4K60p and unlimited recording times, as well as improved AF modes. Color improvements were minor but welcome. SOOC still trash to me but using the right tools, I think I can get the footage looking pretty good for what I'm doing.

If the A7IV has unlimited recording and 4K60P, and AF with HDMI out, I might swap out one of the A7SIII for that instead as the color improvements were marginal if you were already correcting anyways.

Waiting for a sunny day to test with good light...

Kind of true about the battery, but for small timers, they might be a good alternative if you get a good one. I've had a small 400wh one and I've used it occasionally for several years for my flex panels (150w). Really great for the occasional shoot where you need portable power.

You should just make a battery maintenance schedule if you go down that route (I really should) and it should last for years.

Generators are for bigger projects than I do, can you imagine hauling one around as a OMB? I've been eyeing those 1kwh batteries but I rarely go off grid.

What camera do you have now? It's not the camera alone. The cine cameras can help, but if you are not lighting properly, framing properly, exposing appropriately, and then coloring properly, and working within your cameras limits, then no camera you use is going to look good. Conversely, if you get all of that right, many popular cameras will do, you don't need a cine camera to look "cinematic". 

If you gave an arri to everyone on the planet, I can just about guarantee you would start seeing an influx of absolutely trash videos flooding youtube "shot on arri". 

Find a system you like working with and then learn how to work it. I can't stand GH5 footage but I know that some people can make that camera sing.  Sony is more my speed and I think I can make it look pretty great, but I've seen so much trash on YT shot on the A7 line it makes me cringe.

The camera is just one link in the chain, and in this day and age if you can't make any of the low/mid tier offerings shine, a new camera is not going to help you.

Currently it's hard to argue against the A7SIII.  Still a few knocks against the camera, but the current "best compromise". The resolution is a bit lacking, the noise and noise reduction is very aggressive, and the color profiles still lack a good "neutral" base (referring to custom picture profiles with rec709 curves).  But you get unlimited recording, full frame, amazing AF, and IMO very workable files if you know how to finesse them. If you don't need AF, I would look at the Black Magic Ursa Mini G2 or the 12K. Color on those is dope, plus braw... the only thing that holds them back from mass market appeal is the AF and consumer polish, so if you don't care about that then why wouldn't you go black magic (besides the weak IR filters). Next up would probably be the C70, features to cost is good, but AF coverage with the SB is poor.

You know there are 2 other threads here about this and the person that did this is on this forum and commented as well right?

$100 bh vs $130 from prograde.

Now sold out but I think BH still accepting orders.

Are you making proxies from the h.265? Or are you using apple M1? 😄

Thanks.  Current editing rig is only 2-3 years old so not getting one for at least another 2-3 years. Definitely not smooth playback once any kind of grading starts happening in Resolve.

Just asking because of BF sale on V90 cards... is All-I worth it for A7SIII? Everything I've shot so far in my "career" is long-gop.

Is ALL-I easier to edit? The data rates are much higher, not sure if it's worth it for most corporate stuff. IF you've got feedback please let me know wether to spend my money or save it.

I've got some older lexar V60s I've stopped in using in favor of the Sony SF series, unfortunately I have 2 older SF cards with no V-rating on them saying W:100MB/s. I also have 2 newer ones with the V60 on them.

Do the older SF series cards work as V60? google-fu is failing me as they used the same model number for the newer and older cards...

Forza has a fan in the PS and head.  Aputure PS is silent.  From what I can remember someone said the fans in the 600 head are even quieter than the 300 because the head is bigger and fans are also bigger.

Watch enough videos and you can find one with the Forza fan noise (even the fixed ones).

Whoever was in charge of their video strategy failed miserably. Despite the protestations of a few Nikon fanbois, their video on the Z series just wasn't that good, not to mention the AF at the start.

They had no reason not to release a Nikon A7SIII, unless it's because of some Japanese cultural business agreement.

I was a prime candidate to go with the Z series, I switched to Nikon from Canon for photos and video on the D750 so I had a lot of Nikon gear.

Eventually I used GH5 and A7III for video, and the Z series just never offered anything to compete (for me). AF wasn't great, initial footage all looked over sharpened, external recording is a bit niche in terms of the number of people who aren't interested in that. Why didn't they offer better codecs, better quality IQ, better AF? Why didn't they work on the AF-C for legacy lenses, they're the "first party" makers, they could have killed it for adapting old lenses, imagine vintage Nikon glass with full AF-C...

Not to mention their camera service sucked. After I got the shutter recall done on my D750s, a year or two later it started acting up.  Of course by then they had centralized their services in one city (not mine) and also refused to fix the shutter despite me hardly ever using that particular camera, so basically, their recall borked my shutter, and then they refused to do anything about it. Also loved the camera tech ranting about using a 3rd party battery telling me it was going to destroy my camera.

They tried to cut costs and ended up making one bad decision after another, and they refused to change course. No surprise what's coming next for them... I loved the D750 at the time but I'm not really sad to them punished for their arrogance.

I'd wait to see if the fan noise on the 600D is just as quiet as the 300D

The Forzas are too loud for me. Also the lack of wifi/remote control without needing to purchase extra doo dads is a bit silly IMO. The way Aputure ties in all their lights is pretty dope.

You can't just buy any fresnel, I mean you can, but some of them only work well with certain lights, hence each manf. making their own.