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A7SIII - My First Impressions


Oliver Daniel
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4 hours ago, Rob6 said:

Are there any examples of Raw video out of the a7s3 yet? Is the quality in raw any more detailed compared to internal? Thanks! 

funny you mention that.  I JUST finished testing the Leeming LUT's with S-Log3, S-Log2, and Standard Creative Look.  In each case, I recorded internally in XAVC S-I 4:2:2 10bit and externally at 10bit ProRes HQ.  I did one test with S-Log3 RAW out to ProRes RAW HQ.  I exposed using Paul Leeming's latest recommendation of ETTR -1 from the already published numbers, so S-Log3 ETTR 94+, S-Log2 ETTR 106+, and Standard ETTR 99+.

Something very odd happened in Premiere when using the RAW footage (using the latest Apple ProRes RAW drivers) and the S-Log3 Leeming LUT.  In the Ninja V, the 16bit RAW from the A7SIII looked AMAZING (and was using the S-Log3 Leeming LUT for viewing).  The internal footage came out the best of the bunch of above as far as dynamic range and color depth, but the RAW ended up being VERY over exposed.

Now, I am sure it was just my inexperience working with RAW.  Maybe there is something else I am supposed to do in Premiere and applying the corrective Leeming LUT made it worse.  But considering the image looked so perfect on the Ninja V using the Leeming LUT as a monitoring LUT, and exposing exactly per instructions, I have to think it is something in how I am bringing it into my computer and/or Premiere?

Any way, here is my results (I am starting a separate post with full details on the testing conditions and such, this is just a quick share)  BTW, I also did some noise tests with lens cap and black velvet covering the lens to see the noise floor at 1/50, f/1.4, ISO 640 in the above 3 profiles

In the photos below, the top is the external ProRes (one RAW HQ and the last 2 HQ) results and lower is internal XAVC S-I 4:2:2 10bit

S-Log3 (top external ProRes RAW HQ, bottom internal XAVC S-I)

Sony A7SIII SLog3 color tests with Leeming LUTs.PNG

 

S-Log2 (top external ProRes HQ, bottom internal XAVC S-I)

Sony A7SIII SLog2 color tests with Leeming LUTs.PNG

 

Standard (top external ProRes HQ, bottom internal XAVC S-I)

Sony A7SIII Standard color tests with Leeming LUTs.PNG

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On 9/27/2020 at 4:05 AM, hyalinejim said:

I'd guess that if you check the highlight clipping point at 100 in SLog3 there'll be fewer stops above middle grey.

I'm pretty sure base ISO for S-Log3 is 640 and you can expand down to at the lowest 160, but base is 640 (which is still MUCH better than before btw)...

@Oliver Daniel

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On 9/27/2020 at 4:05 AM, hyalinejim said:

I'd guess that if you check the highlight clipping point at 100 in SLog3 there'll be fewer stops above middle grey.

I'm pretty sure base ISO for S-Log3 is 640 and you can expand down to at the lowest 160, but base is 640 (which is still MUCH better than before btw)...

??? Anyone know how to delete this?  It didn't look like it submitted (I was on page 1 of 2), so I submitted again.  This one should be deleted, thank you

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Did anyone managed to output LOG to the atomos ninja? I did connect the a7sIII to the ninja, the ninja input shows 4.2kraw, and the gamma is on Native.

But It the image is Linear and record Linear while on the A7SIII monitor shows (correctly) Slog3...

 

I've been in contact with both Sony and Atomos (tech support not Knowledgeable )...

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22 hours ago, Hangs4Fun said:

funny you mention that.  I JUST finished testing the Leeming LUT's with S-Log3, S-Log2, and Standard Creative Look.  In each case, I recorded internally in XAVC S-I 4:2:2 10bit and externally at 10bit ProRes HQ.  I did one test with S-Log3 RAW out to ProRes RAW HQ.  I exposed using Paul Leeming's latest recommendation of ETTR -1 from the already published numbers, so S-Log3 ETTR 94+, S-Log2 ETTR 106+, and Standard ETTR 99+.

Something very odd happened in Premiere when using the RAW footage (using the latest Apple ProRes RAW drivers) and the S-Log3 Leeming LUT.  In the Ninja V, the 16bit RAW from the A7SIII looked AMAZING (and was using the S-Log3 Leeming LUT for viewing).  The internal footage came out the best of the bunch of above as far as dynamic range and color depth, but the RAW ended up being VERY over exposed.

Now, I am sure it was just my inexperience working with RAW.  Maybe there is something else I am supposed to do in Premiere and applying the corrective Leeming LUT made it worse.  But considering the image looked so perfect on the Ninja V using the Leeming LUT as a monitoring LUT, and exposing exactly per instructions, I have to think it is something in how I am bringing it into my computer and/or Premiere?

Any way, here is my results (I am starting a separate post with full details on the testing conditions and such, this is just a quick share)  BTW, I also did some noise tests with lens cap and black velvet covering the lens to see the noise floor at 1/50, f/1.4, ISO 640 in the above 3 profiles

In the photos below, the top is the external ProRes (one RAW HQ and the last 2 HQ) results and lower is internal XAVC S-I 4:2:2 10bit

S-Log3 (top external ProRes RAW HQ, bottom internal XAVC S-I)

Sony A7SIII SLog3 color tests with Leeming LUTs.PNG

 

S-Log2 (top external ProRes HQ, bottom internal XAVC S-I)

Sony A7SIII SLog2 color tests with Leeming LUTs.PNG

 

Standard (top external ProRes HQ, bottom internal XAVC S-I)

Sony A7SIII Standard color tests with Leeming LUTs.PNG

It looks like Premiere is interpreting the raw footage as linear gamma 1.0, which is correct, but Premiere isn't used to this kind of thing. On top of that, the LUT you added is expecting an S-log3 input image so it has only increased the crazy contrast. I've so far used Scratch to test out raw from this cam and it allows interpretation on ingest to a log format which naturally should be s-log3/s.gamut3., which is how the Ninja V seems to be displaying it probably because it recognises a flag in the footage that it's from this camera.

To work with linear floating point wide gamut files, which are essentially HDR without a log transform to compress to a 0-1 range, you need to move to Nuke, Scratch or Resolve which have better colour management than Premiere. However, there may be some way to transform to log on import to Premiere. You need to add a LUT to transform the Raw file to slog3/sgamut3, then add your other LUT after that. It could work as expected after that. But from memory, Premiere can only work with Rec.709 primaries so there may be some gamut clipping. The good thing is that you have the internally recorded log version as a reference and the raw transformed to log should match very closely, but with more fidelity because it's raw. Meaning no chroma subsampling, 2 more bits and fingers crossed a little more dynamic range.

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7 hours ago, Tony Manero said:

Did anyone managed to output LOG to the atomos ninja? I did connect the a7sIII to the ninja, the ninja input shows 4.2kraw, and the gamma is on Native.

But It the image is Linear and record Linear while on the A7SIII monitor shows (correctly) Slog3...

 

I've been in contact with both Sony and Atomos (tech support not Knowledgeable )...

Please let us know their answer. Sony’s marketing was “16bit linear recorded as 12bit log” which is very different from 12bit linear - as used in case of other mirrorless cameras.

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On 9/29/2020 at 7:27 PM, Hangs4Fun said:

Hey @Oliver Daniel, yes I have the XLR-K3M and have reported on it's functioning in some detail with the A7SIII. 

 

Yes thank you. 

I can see your rig is entirely different how I have my cameras (off the sticks, compact and simple), I'm just concerned the adapter will get in the way of the Ninja V or make it cumbersome handheld. 

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4 hours ago, Oliver Daniel said:

Yes thank you. 

I can see your rig is entirely different how I have my cameras (off the sticks, compact and simple), I'm just concerned the adapter will get in the way of the Ninja V or make it cumbersome handheld. 

that wasn't my rig, it was my temp rig, since I don't have the final cage, magic arm, etc yet.  It's literally hodge podged together for a shoot this weekend.  I am very aware of adapters and cables and stuff getting in the way.  There is no need for 4 channel audio when you are handheld, so there is a slight transformation to go from tripod to run and gun.   My run and gun setup is very compact, but again, I can't finish that buildout until the new cage comes for the A7SIII.  I will see if I can share some photos from my other camera rig

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4 hours ago, Hangs4Fun said:

that wasn't my rig, it was my temp rig, since I don't have the final cage, magic arm, etc yet.  It's literally hodge podged together for a shoot this weekend.  I am very aware of adapters and cables and stuff getting in the way.  There is no need for 4 channel audio when you are handheld, so there is a slight transformation to go from tripod to run and gun.   My run and gun setup is very compact, but again, I can't finish that buildout until the new cage comes for the A7SIII.  I will see if I can share some photos from my other camera rig

It could possibly sit on the hot shoe of a hand grip on the right of a cage, like Smallrig and Tilta do. 

I get what you mean, when I shoot audio it’s normally locked off so the adapter position isn’t a huge concern. But would like to see how it could look on a cage with the Ninja V

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Another first impression.....

I need to test in several conditions, but I’m sure the WB seems slightly off. I balance on a grey card, but then the skin looks too cool etc. This was a problem in previous Sony cameras, so I hope this is user error. There is definitely a tint of yellow in SLOG3. 

Also, all the codecs besides All-I are uneditable with proxies on my iMac. I’m going to update my Mac to the latest anyway, and I’ll be recording into ProRes on the Ninja besides 4k100. But for the time being, it’s very sluggish with the native H264 / H265 codecs. 

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1 hour ago, Oliver Daniel said:

Another first impression.....

I need to test in several conditions, but I’m sure the WB seems slightly off. I balance on a grey card, but then the skin looks too cool etc. This was a problem in previous Sony cameras, so I hope this is user error. There is definitely a tint of yellow in SLOG3. 

Also, all the codecs besides All-I are uneditable with proxies on my iMac. I’m going to update my Mac to the latest anyway, and I’ll be recording into ProRes on the Ninja besides 4k100. But for the time being, it’s very sluggish with the native H264 / H265 codecs. 

Try 4:2:0 instead of 4:2:2, makes a big difference on my Mac.

Chris

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