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Sony A7 and A7r promise improved full frame video


Andrew Reid
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Sony are struggling in cameras, corporate video, high end, on every front they're being attacked in the pro field.

 

They just have a habit of coming up with proprietary stuff and if people have got a job to do they hate it!

 

My cynical side says yet more 28mbps AVCHD at double rates, and 24mbps at normal rates, but I hope not, as it could be great.

 

You'd think after shooting themselves in the foot this many times they wouldn't be standing. Ah well, fingers crossed again.

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AVCHD was well implemented on the FS100 compared to a DSLR (even is OK on the GH3), as the H.264 encoder was good, but the wrapper itself is just so unnecessary.

 

It gives you zero benefit in image quality. What DOES it offer? Oh yeah - a stupid folder structure and inability to play nicely with some editing software or preview clips easily.

 

Just...get...rid.

 

What is wrong with Quicktime MOV?

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I hope the best possible (optically) reasonably priced wide-lens will be made available to this system. 

 

That lens is offcourse the Carl Zeiss 21mm 2.8 

http://www.dxomark.com/Lenses/Camera-Lens-Database/Carl-Zeiss/Carl-Zeiss-Distagon-2.8-21mm-ZF2-Nikon/(camera)/485

 

Then one would have a new kind of Landscape wonder combo. 

 

Allso if Zeiss Decides to design the next OTUS as say a 24mm instead of 35mm. The new 55mm f1.4 OTUS is apparently amazing glass so one can only hope similiar performance in wider form. 

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The A7 has a AA filter where as the A7r does not. Do you think the A7 will be better suited for video than the A7r because of this?

It should be.

But really i don't believe that Sony will make this cameras (a7) awesome at video, maybe with the next generation of Alphas.

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? There's the 35mm f1.8, 50mm f1.8 and 10-18mm f4 (all with IS, which is excellent for video)

 

the 50mm is not really a portrait lens, it's a in-between focal distance. Sure, you can take portrait with any focal length, but when you want to keep the "distortion" right you would prefer something from 55~60mm or a bit longer. The 35mm is not wide, it's 50mm equivalent. The zoom seems nice but I was talking about faster primes, Sony has a bunch of zooms. Fuji X-System is 2 years younger but they have a 14mm f/2.8, 18mm f/2 and a 23mm f/1.4. Fuji X is from 2012 and Sony NEX is from 2010! There is no comparison nor excuses, look at the focal length Fuji covers and with optical quality.

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I've shot with the A7 for a full day, you can see the video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnvgceTEV3c

Looking at the image afterwards though, I'm not as excited as I initially was.  I loved the process of shooting with the camera, but the image quality is pretty wanting.  As you can see on the video above, the image is quite soft, and moire is visible in many shots.  Hopefully, this can be chalked up to pre-release firmware, but we permitted to judge the video quality based on the models we had, and I'm not delighted with the results.  Once the production cameras come out, I'll post a follow up to the above video with my revised opinions.

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the 50mm is not really a portrait lens, it's a in-between focal distance. 

 

It's plenty good for portraits.

 

the 50mm is not really a portrait lens, it's a in-between focal distance. Sure, you can take portrait with any focal length, but when you want to keep the "distortion" right you would prefer something from 55~60mm or a bit longer. The 35mm is not wide, it's 50mm equivalent. The zoom seems nice but I was talking about faster primes, Sony has a bunch of zooms. 

 

35mm is excellent for street photography. The 10-18 is not fast but the OS is excellent.

 

Your just complaining "because".

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Watching the Charles Michel video at Vimeo it looks like the heavy aliasing on the a99 is no more on the a7, is a very multimedia oriented camera i must to say and i like, mic input, earphone jack, uncompressed HDMI output, peaking and zebra, manual audio adjustment and FullFrame?

For documentary work looks great, i gonna take this one.

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My cynical side says yet more 28mbps AVCHD at double rates, and 24mbps at normal rates, but I hope not, as it could be great.

 

What a shame, my cynical side was right:

 

sonyballs_zps4902b13f.png

 

It's mushy time! Ah well... I suppose their target audience must want to record 6 hours of footage on a card or something...

 

In the captured vide the guy says (I paraphrase) "60p for really smooth motion, and 24p if you're a traditionalist and you want that video look."

 

Now hands up what's wrong with that sentence?

 

Yes there's an uncompressed HDMI out, time will tell if it will helps. Many HDMI outs just don't give you huge gains in real terms, just huge files.

 

(NOTE: the above B&H video comes with an extreme fake laughter warning. It's very odd...)

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What a shame, my cynical side was right:

 

sonyballs_zps4902b13f.png

 

It's mushy time! Ah well... I suppose their target audience must want to record 6 hours of footage on a card or something...

 

In the captured vide the guy says (I paraphrase) "60p for really smooth motion, and 24p if you're a traditionalist and you want that video look."

 

Now hands up what's wrong with that sentence?

 

Yes there's an uncompressed HDMI out, time will tell if it will helps. Many HDMI outs just don't give you huge gains in real terms, just huge files..

And HDMI out should be 4:2:0... I hope not, but it seems it´s the same old crippled video 

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It's plenty good for portraits.

 

35mm is excellent for street photography. The 10-18 is not fast but the OS is excellent.

 

Your just complaining "because".

 

If you feel that this poor lens line up for a 3.5 years old system is plenty, good for you, there is no reason for me to try to explain it since your basic argument is that it's good enough, nothing can beat comformism, bad for me.

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I've shot with the A7 for a full day, you can see the video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnvgceTEV3c

Looking at the image afterwards though, I'm not as excited as I initially was.  I loved the process of shooting with the camera, but the image quality is pretty wanting.  As you can see on the video above, the image is quite soft, and moire is visible in many shots.  Hopefully, this can be chalked up to pre-release firmware, but we permitted to judge the video quality based on the models we had, and I'm not delighted with the results.  Once the production cameras come out, I'll post a follow up to the above video with my revised opinions.

 

Nice to see you here Jordan! It's easier to reach you and ask question than using Youtube comment.

 

I know that with the direct Sun it was a challenging condition to shoot without ND filter, but I guess it was necessary to see what the camera is really capable of. Beside the softness of the image I also felt that it was lacking in Dynamic Range. Around 4min when Chris is testing for resolution it seems that the Sun is not as direct as it was on the other shot but nonetheless the colors look a bit washed and the highlight on his face looks kind of bad. Maybe some of that can be solved via the clean HDMI output, I wonder.

 

I know it's not a final version but how do you compare that to other cameras you used?

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I've shot with the A7 for a full day, you can see the video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnvgceTEV3c

Looking at the image afterwards though, I'm not as excited as I initially was.  I loved the process of shooting with the camera, but the image quality is pretty wanting.  As you can see on the video above, the image is quite soft, and moire is visible in many shots.  Hopefully, this can be chalked up to pre-release firmware, but we permitted to judge the video quality based on the models we had, and I'm not delighted with the results.  Once the production cameras come out, I'll post a follow up to the above video with my revised opinions.

 

Nice overview Jordan and welcome to the forums.

 

The A7 looks at 7.27 to be doing some funky stuff with your hair.

 

I am not sure if it your haircut or the camera :) But definitely not moire free. The VG900, A99 and RX1 had terrible quality video compared to the 5D Mark III and the previous Sony 24MP full frame CMOS sensor was in those. Could it be the only change is the addition of phase detect AF pixels and the new microlenses?

 

Now the D800 and D800E did much better with their Sony 36MP sensors.

 

When you changed to shooting on the A7R for the last section of the video, I noticed the quality jump a bit.

 

I'm curious to see how video compares between the A7 and A7R as they have such different sensors.

 

Not looking like it will challenge Blackmagic or Magic Lantern at this stage on image quality I have to say :(

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No disrespect intended to the guys who shot the tests with the cameras.  It was nice to see a rather thorough preview of the cameras.  But being fs700 users and hankering for the s-log as you say in the video, I'd have liked to have seen the picture profile tweeked a little to help with the very contrasty scene, and the very contrasty lens.  It's very hard to determine whats going on with dslr footage until the crushing contrast is toned down and we're given the ability to see whats going on properly.  things like noisy shadows vs properly exposed (not blown) highlights show up a lot more when the contrast is dialled down.  in that light the native lenses being used seem to be causing the horrible digital looks.

 

I certainly see a distinct difference between the a7r and a7 in video terms.  not sure which looks best due to the horrible youtube compression.  @ Jordan Drake. Please can you upload a few of the MTS files from both the a7 and a7r?  

 

even if the video is terrible..  i'll be happy with the A7r's rather lovely image:-   http://www.sony.jp/ichigan/pre_include/images/ILCE-7R/photo-sample_a7R_03.jpg

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