Jump to content

Sony A7R III announced with 4K HDR


salim
 Share

Recommended Posts

Nobody is demonizing anything, @Matthew Hartman. rec.709 has standards as does rec.2020. I never said 8-bit sucked. What I said was that YouTube would not recognize as HDR an HLG 8-bit video I tried to upload and I would simply like to know whether any forum members have uploaded Sony a7rIII HLG HDR to YouTube. Thanks!

edit: the headline news was HDR, but I guess it's fallen on deaf ears.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

EOSHD Pro Color 5 for Sony cameras EOSHD Z LOG for Nikon CamerasEOSHD C-LOG and Film Profiles for All Canon DSLRs
13 hours ago, Matthew Hartman said:

I seriously doubt YT's compression algorithms are scripted to even address this, let alone handle it.

YT cares more about streaming speeds and server storage rather than image quality. 

Even with all the recent buzzwords about 10bit and HDR, and 8k TVs, it's all 10bit at most, and 99% of distribution channels are all still 8bit.

We should stop demonizing 8bit because we all still have to largely work within it's limations for the time being. This goes for Netflix, Hulu and the rest of them. 

Just because Panasonic releaeses a mid budget mirrorless camera/s capable of internal 10bit, this doesn't mean all of a sudden 8bit is the new bogeyman. Even the new LG V30 (smartphone) records video in 4k 10bit. So? 

I hate the reactive nature of our kind. It's not one of our better qualities and camera manufacturers totally capitalize on this.  

In spite of @Matthew Hartman‘s claims to the contrary, this video, shot in HLG, shows just how good 4K HDR uploaded to YouTube can look. Of course, to truly see how excellent it is, it helps to watch on an LG OLED set. And I've seen dozens of other videos on the HDR Channel that are equally jaw-dropping. Furthermore, it is not only spectacles that look good in high dynamic range: documentaries as brilliant as Chef's Table, delivered in Dolby Vision on Netflix, also benefit from HDR. Not sure why some people react so strongly against 10-bit. Whether or not 99% of the world is 8-bit is irrelevant.10-bit is the protocol for HDR. Many still shoot 8-bit on the GH5, I shoot 10-bit - I don't see the problem. Having a choice of frame rates, codecs, photo styles and bit rates is a good thing. He should know that, since one of the cameras he's considering purchasing, the Ursa Mini Pro 4.6, shoots 10-bit and 12-bit -so no need to look down on Panasonic.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Administrators
On 31/12/2017 at 4:44 AM, DaveAltizer said:

It’s great! Been using it the last three weeks with the 24-105 on a gimbal and it works great. I wish Sony has a similar UI as canon with just the touch tracking AF. You can touch points but no tracking. For most stuff I leave it set to wide focus mode with face tracking enabled and it nails it 90% of the time 

another thing is the focus peaking has been greatly improved. It’s really useable now. Pair that with a screen that doesn’t dim, and ibis when shooting 4K and you got a great body for manual glass. I’ve been using my Contax Zeiss lenses and love it. For both photo and video. I’ve been able to nail manual focus more than ever with the new peaking and evf. 

The autofocus is truly one of the best things about the A7R3.

Panasonic GH5S should have really addressed this. Bit of a missed opportunity. Because A7R3 going to gobble a lot of sales based just on the autofocus.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, jonpais said:

 @Matthew Hartman 

he's considering purchasing, the Ursa Mini Pro 4.6, shoots 10-bit and 12-bit -so no need to look down on Panasonic.

Wha?

I'm not "looking down" per se on anything. I just don't prefer Panasonic when it comes to the character of their image, it looks "flat" or "thin" to me regardless of resolution or bit rate I view it at. Obviously, there are others who like or even love it, which is super for them. No hate here. Each to their own. 

My guess about YT's compression algorithm is a doubt, not anything prescriptive. I don't work for Google so of course I couldnt tell you their future intentions. I based my doubt off of what we've seen in the past and today.  As of today, 8bit is still the distribution standard. If that changes, great! Right? 

My "arguement" was actually in support of not looking down on 8bit rather than turning up my nose to it. Also, to get away from at size perceptible banding you really need to be at least 10bit, but more realistically in a 16bit + colorspace. 

I think there's a buzzword when it comes to 10bit right now and a misconception that 10bit means no banding. I've been a designer for over 25 years, that's simply wrong. If we're being rententively honest, you'd have to be in a 32bit/float colorspace to get zero artifacts/stepping, as far as pixel peeping in concerned. But ppl don't watch content at a 500% crop, unless they're anally retentive, so does it even matter? 

Maybe I didn't articulate this well, but basically dont worry about it. Banding, it's there, even if you cant see it at 100%, and a reality for most of us, just concentrate on making good content instead, because that's what will determine the success of it the most. 

The video you linked is very impressive on my 10bit BenQ 2.5k monitor. 

20 hours ago, jonpais said:

Nobody is demonizing anything, @Matthew Hartman. rec.709 has standards as does rec.2020. I never said 8-bit sucked. What I said was that YouTube would not recognize as HDR an HLG 8-bit video I tried to upload and I would simply like to know whether any forum members have uploaded Sony a7rIII HLG HDR to YouTube. Thanks!

edit: the headline news was HDR, but I guess it's fallen on deaf ears.

I never said YOU were demonizing anything. I don't think we're actually opposing one another here. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Inazuma said:

Different markets really... A7r iii is double the price of the gh5

That might be true for the A7riii but this year's A7iii will probably have similar af and GH5 pricing.

I know many film makers consider decent af a nice option to have but most still/hybrid shooters consider it a basic necessity. And really Panasonic has no excuses - they were first into the mirrorless world.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, Robert Collins said:

That might be true for the A7riii but this year's A7iii will probably have similar af and GH5 pricing.

I know many film makers consider decent af a nice option to have but most still/hybrid shooters consider it a basic necessity. And really Panasonic has no excuses - they were first into the mirrorless world.

I'm going to take a wild guess (and this is clearly speculation) but my guess is that there's components that Panasonic can't get its hands on that would help it to produce better AF. It could totally be political rather than econmical. Companies and their suppliers/producers do partake in competitor sabotage/contracts. 

It's not like the AF tech of Canon, Nikon, Sony and Samsung (the AF on my NX1 and S8 is top notch) is new tech or hard to wrap your brain around. My view is if Panasonic wanted it or could get it they would, and the GH5/s would have been a perfect release to showcase it. It's current form should not even be held as AF in terms of 2018. It would seem unlikely to me Panasonic would willfully take on that embarrassment. Again, speculation. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Administrators

I think it's more that Panasonic is heavily invested in DFD and CDAF technology... They have the best contrast detect AF around.

But video needs phase-detect AF to work optimally, preferably Dual Pixel AF.

It takes a long time to change directions in such a big area of development as autofocus, and if there's a political dimension to it... It would be that Panasonic don't want to dump years of R&D down the drain, maybe... Like I say, their DFD technology and contrast detect AF is superb in right conditions for stills.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

I think it's more that Panasonic is heavily invested in DFD and CDAF technology... They have the best contrast detect AF around.

But video needs phase-detect AF to work optimally, preferably Dual Pixel AF.

It takes a long time to change directions in such a big area of development as autofocus, and if there's a political dimension to it... It would be that Panasonic don't want to dump years of R&D down the drain, maybe... Like I say, their DFD technology and contrast detect AF is superb in right conditions for stills.

Sounds very logical. 

When I worked at Microsoft, you'd be suprised how often tech companies sabotage their competitors and even themselves. Very, very politicial. Teams of various products competing constantly for budgets/headcount, and a lot of ppl being thrown under bus. The net value is the consumer receives the crap shoot of this, and marketing teams have to scramble to make somethiing out of nothing. Most of my job there was fighting to keep my job.   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

I think it's more that Panasonic is heavily invested in DFD and CDAF technology... They have the best contrast detect AF around.

But video needs phase-detect AF to work optimally, preferably Dual Pixel AF.

It takes a long time to change directions in such a big area of development as autofocus, and if there's a political dimension to it... It would be that Panasonic don't want to dump years of R&D down the drain, maybe... Like I say, their DFD technology and contrast detect AF is superb in right conditions for stills.

And this makes it all the more baffling/frustrating because Panasonic sets it self out as 'the' specialist 'video' centric ILC camera manufacturer...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 minutes ago, Robert Collins said:

And this makes it all the more baffling/frustrating because Panasonic sets it self out as 'the' specialist 'video' centric ILC camera manufacturer...

A lot of tech companies make extraneous claims about their own products. Sometimes the self awarding is warranted but that's the rare exception. 

And are you sure that's not the perception you've prescribed to them? 

No camera manufacturer can meet every demand of every person. What one camera lacks, the other presents, but lacks 2 features of the next one and so on. At all price points.

The Alexa is often considered the litmus for other systems to measure up to as far as image. But is the Alexa a perfect camera? Not even close if the perfect camera to you is something you can hold in the palm of your hand and place anywhere. 

If you're happy with the image of the GH5/s, learn to manual focus like a seasoned Hollywood focus puller.

Hollywood goes to considerable lengths to acheive the image they want around tons of limitations and obstacles, but they still manage to get things done and give us stories we want to pay $20 to go see. They don't pay much attention to the marketing campaigns of camera manufactures because most of it is b.s. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Matthew Hartman Couldn’t agree with you more about manual focus. Which is one reason I’ve championed the Veydra mini primes. I’m often asked how they compare to the Leicas, but honestly, they hold up quite well, and a couple of nice focus pulls in a documentary or narrative work far outweigh a few extra millimeters per inch of resolution, if they exist at all. Even for head shots during interviews, I much prefer the look of a subject occassionally going out of focus as they move about - which to me is beautiful, btw - to face tracking AF. In an ideal world, you’d have a lens with both instantaneous AF and the ability to pull off rack focus, but most solutions, like manual clutch, cannot compare to a mechanical lens.

That’s just my preference, btw - I realize everyone has different needs!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

31 minutes ago, jonpais said:

@Matthew Hartman Couldn’t agree with you more about manual focus. Which is one reason I’ve championed the Veydra mini primes. I’m often asked how they compare to the Leicas, but honestly, they hold up quite well, and a couple of nice focus pulls in a documentary or narrative work far outweigh a few extra millimeters per inch of resolution. Even for head shots during interviews, I much prefer the look of a subject occassionally going out of focus as they move about - which to me is beautiful, btw - to face tracking AF. 

That’s just my preference, btw - I realize everyone has different needs!

I'll have to check those out sometime. 

Soft focus can be used as a narrative as much as anything else. I really like when talent moves into the plane of focus especially when it's shallow. It has it's purposes and can even make accidents look intentional. ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, jonpais said:

Top 5 issues for video shooters:

https://youtu.be/Qu7EV3KEfVA

Thanks for pointing to this Jon... maybe Sony will listen to him. Totally agree on the 5 video criticisms. Esp. the file numbering convention - it is idiotic and creates confusion and adds a bunch of extra work.

I'm running both a GH5 and A7R3 and evaluating the later as I want to switch to a single system solution, but stupid things like this that could easily be dealt with in firmware make me want to stick with the GH5, which I find a pleasure to use. Trying to decide which set of tradeoffs I want to make... pretty sure I'll just deal with the A7R3 as I do 80% stills, it is way better than the A7R2 for video (with ability to customize buttons for stills or video, and a bunch more parameters in the custom settings banks). Crazily, I'm doing an a/b with lenses and the good glass isn't really that much bigger on Sony side under 100mm where I do 99% of my stills & video shooting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, darrellcraig said:

Thanks for pointing to this Jon... maybe Sony will listen to him. Totally agree on the 5 video criticisms. Esp. the file numbering convention - it is idiotic and creates confusion and adds a bunch of extra work.

I'm running both a GH5 and A7R3 and evaluating the later as I want to switch to a single system solution, but stupid things like this that could easily be dealt with in firmware make me want to stick with the GH5, which I find a pleasure to use. Trying to decide which set of tradeoffs I want to make... pretty sure I'll just deal with the A7R3 as I do 80% stills, it is way better than the A7R2 for video (with ability to customize buttons for stills or video, and a bunch more parameters in the custom settings banks). Crazily, I'm doing an a/b with lenses and the good glass isn't really that much bigger on Sony side under 100mm where I do 99% of my stills & video shooting.

Curious, which image to you prefer? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 21/01/2018 at 10:24 PM, Andrew Reid said:

I think it's more that Panasonic is heavily invested in DFD and CDAF technology... They have the best contrast detect AF around.

But video needs phase-detect AF to work optimally, preferably Dual Pixel AF.

It takes a long time to change directions in such a big area of development as autofocus, and if there's a political dimension to it... It would be that Panasonic don't want to dump years of R&D down the drain, maybe... Like I say, their DFD technology and contrast detect AF is superb in right conditions for stills.

Or sometimes is being just stubborn because of "pride" - Panasonic stated for years that lens OIS was "good enough" before moved to an IBIS solution (and executed it brilliantly - Dual IS is now a very strong reason to prefer Panasonic lenses instead of Olympus).
 

They could keep DFD for S-AF and switch to PDAF for C-AF and tracking - best of both worlds.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • EOSHD Pro Color 5 for All Sony cameras
    EOSHD C-LOG and Film Profiles for All Canon DSLRs
    EOSHD Dynamic Range Enhancer for H.264/H.265
×
×
  • Create New...