Sony A7S Mark II: Graded high-speed & 4K low light sample footage
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- čas přidán 2. 11. 2015
- These are just some quick samples I shot over the weekend for my own uses. I wanted to know how this camera performs in available light and how good the 120fps full-HD image actually is. Shot using Cine 2 with S-gamut 3 cine, detail level 0, recorded internally. Sharpened in post with LUT applied. All 4K footage is shot at 30fps and conformed to 24. As NTSC modes also support 24 fps, so this was an unusual choice, but I wanted to add slight slow motion to every scene. The following text is not a review, I'm just conveying some stray observations, largely compared to my Panasonic GH4.
4K footage looks stunning, with the candle lit shot showing just slight traces of noise at iso 2000. Street shots varied between iso 1600 and 6400 and were practically flawless, even at high iso's. Slow motion at street lighting was when the image started to fall apart completely rather abruptly, as the increasing noise adds more information for the extremely low bitrate codec to work with. 100Mbit/s might sound like a lot, but at 120fps it's effectively stretched over 5 seconds and you actually get about 20Mbits per second, which sadly is not nearly enough. Even the well lit kitchen slow motion shots showed quite large, nasty blocking artifacts at times. The better option might be to go for 100fps in Pal-mode, but that remains untested, as does the fullframe 60fps mode (120fps gives you 2.2x crop!)
Overall, slow motion compared to GH4 at 96fps "1080p" seems sharper, but artifacts leave it's usefulness questionable. Unless it's a case of the camera settings, which seem to be rather confusing in this regard, spread over several menus.
Various annoyances:
-Locking mode dial is a pain and an ergonomic disaster if you're using a cage, as your hand never slips to the dial accidentally anyway. I much prefer the GH4 method where the dial is lockable but does not require pressing to turn.
-NTSC gives you framerates of 120, 60, 30(4K) and 24(4K). PAL mode gives you 100, 50 and 25(4K). This is all fine. Except, you cannot change the tv-system without formatting the memory card! I wish all this ntcs/pal crap would finally go away along with equally antiquated avchd format pushed by Sony that apparently necessitates this.
-Timelapse functions are missing and the app you can purchase bares no professional usefulness. It does not even support silent shutter. Go for the external intervalometer.
-Record button is weirdly placed, requiring you to change your grip if you're holding the camera. You WILL miss shots because of this. You can't bind the conveniently placed regular shutter button for rec in video mode. If you hit it, the camera just asks you to hit the rec button. I can't fathom the thinking here!
This video is rendered at constant 90Mbit/s H264 24fps. Varying degrees of film grain is added in FilmConvert. Having been unable to find the right LUT for this camera, I went with A7S Cine 2 S-gamut 2. LUTs for more recent A7R Mark II were also tested, but I couldn't see a noticeable difference.
Music:
Kevin MacLeod - Chase
Kevin MacLeod - AngloZulu
Kevin MacLeod - Faceoff
And what was happening in the beginning? Stop-motion!
• Video - Krátké a kreslené filmy
Nothing beats that a7s low light ability!
I never knew doing the dishes can look so good^^
that low light performance, can't believe it
I wonder if I will ever have the money
So why did 3 people dislike this? This is awesome!
+Isaac Roberts cause they disliked the way he washed his dishes?
Awesome footage! We shot our last movie "my days as a woflman" on the sony A7s with shogun. pretty nice picture quality :)
hi, what glass did you use? at what aperture? is there way to get the uncompressed file?
Thanks for great info. You compare slow mo of a7s II with a7r II?
I never owned an a7r II, so I have no idea.
Is it still correct to use log LUTs when you shoot cine 2?
I think it would give a different look than cine 3 or 4. Good question, btw.
Great video!
I have three questions:
-Was this 4k internal?
-What type of sd card did you use/would recommend?
-What did you use to grade your footage?
Thanks!
Same set of questions!
I think I covered some of these in the description, but let's see here.
Edited in the latest Adobe premiere pro CC using Filmconvert. Interestingly, and I'm not 100% sure about this, but the support for Sony's so called xavc was added just recently, so older versions might not be able to edit the footage natively. Which is strange, because the files contain completely standard avc video, something that nle's have supported for years. Must be one of those things of Sony wanting to be Sony. Memory sticks and what have you. There are versions of xavc that do higher bit depths than 8 bits, but that is all you get with this camera. Also no 10 bit output for external recording. External recording might still improve image quality because it doesn't rely on an antiquated codec with a new name.
The cards I use are,
Transcend SDXC 64GB UHS-I U3 Ultimate's
The key thing there is the U3 / Ultra 3 rating, I'm not sure the brand matters much. This camera will not record 100Mbit/s video without an U3 rated card. It will not even try, it just says that it detected a card that is not U3. I recall my GH4 recording to an older class 9 card at whooping 200Mbit/s without any problems. But Sony has implemented some sort of card detection, and there you have it. You do get the option of using an older card at 50Mbit/s for fullHd footage, which is nice. Hold on to your old cards for backup.
By the way, the cards I use are bought from here. Slow shipping times, cheap prices:
ebay dot com/itm/331206660736
+Sami Saarela Thanks so much! That's exactly what I was looking for!
+Sami Saarela Thanks for the great info!!!
What is the lens?
Great video. Which optics did you use?
Sigma 12-24mm, Canon 200/2.8L, Minolta MC Rokkor 58/1.2 (Ef converted) and occasionally a Canon 24-105L. Using a Commlite EF-NEX AF adapter. I don't own any Sony lenses.
Which would you buy out of this and GH4, for 4k?
I had the GH4 for a year for commercial work. It filled the reliability requirement well, but it had minor quirks, like a warning text every time you turned it on with an external monitor attached. Pointless warnings can be most annoying in the long run, especially the warning about avchd recording not being available with the current settings. I never used avchd, but I never heard the end of it.
The Sony seems to whine a lot less. It likes to mention about how it's set to ntsc every time I turn it on (mine is the European model) but it goes away with a simple button press, unlike the GH4, which had more persistent warnings.
What I miss about the Panasonic is battery life. I pulled some long days with that camera. Having 3 internal batteries I never actually had to use the third. Most gigs went fine with just the one and having the second gone almost flat ment you had been running and shooting all day.
The Sony in the other hand... Well, I decided pretty early on to not use internal batteries unless it's for something really short use that requires portability, like when I have the camera on a 3 -axis gimbal. They claim those batteries can do over an hour, but shooting 4K at high iso's, what I got was closer to half an our per battery (the lesser known detail is a7sII comes with two batteries).
How I solved the issue was I used this DC coupler:
ebaydotcom/itm/281752631765
Then I got a bunch of these:
ebaydotcom/itm/291519219646
I gutted out the electronics, and wired the 18650 batteries in series, not parallel. What I then get is 7.4volts, which is the perfect voltage for the camera. I changed the connector on the DC coupler and the battery case to xt60, the same I use in my quadcopter batteries, which also gives me really quick charging at 2 amps. This seems to solve the power issue rather well.
But to give a short answer to your question, both cameras are far from perfect. GH4's image falls completely apart at around iso1600 or 2000, and that's where the Sony doesn't even produce any noticeable noise. At lower iso's I'd argue the GH4 is better, thanks to its codec. I never ran into blocking artifacts, ever. Then again the Sony has the large sensor and is completely in its own class in 35mm sensor low light 4K capability. You can buy two or three used GH4's with the money. But then again you also need to consider the fact that a GH4 needs a speed booster to be worth anything.
thank you for such a comprehensive reply. Have you encountered any of the overheating issues with 4k on the a7sII?
This camera's seen a lot of action during the past few weeks and I had one temperature shutdown during a long studio shoot with the camera, actors and the tungsten lights getting fairly hot. We let it cool for 5 minutes and there were no problems after that. I'm not ready to believe in any of the conspiracy theories just yet.
+Sami Saarela Just wondering what your thoughts are on the camera 3 months later? Thanks for such a great reply before. :)
The GH4 made me happy when I got it, but that feeling faded pretty early on. I wanted to believe micro4/3 with speedbooster could be the future. But eventually I had to admit nothing really beats full frame. I needed the option to go crazy with the depth of field when ever I wanted. I wanted simplicity in the frame and not compositions with too much going on.
For 4K full-frame in this semi-reasonable price range, there aren't any alternatives around thus far and even if there were, the low light capability is pretty hard to beat. Sure the Sony has some strange quirks and questionable design decisions, but nothing that makes its use miserable. The battery issue is one with several solutions, but external power is absolutely necessary for any kind of professional work. But that's the biggest pitfall.
Unlike the GH4, my fascination for A7SII has not faded over time, not so far anyway. I also find it to be a highly capable stills camera. High iso images look pristine and I've managed to get my focus right with the peaking just about every time. I shot a few magazine photos with it for an article with large pictures, and the client never bothered to request them even in their full resolution. But if 12mpx stills are a concern, there's always the r-version to contemplate over.
I'd hate to recommend a huge corporation like Sony and not some underdog with fresh ideas, but there aren't any.
Anyway, I might have a new video coming up tomorrow, shot in 60fps full frame. Meanwhile, here's some unlisted footage from the cutting room floor from my little project a few months back:
czcams.com/video/t3stdb5dfl8/video.html
Was this shot in slog 2?
Cine 2
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