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Sony A7 and A7r , FF gems, like GH3 but FF
  • 261 Replies sorted by
  • @Manu4Vendetta

    Please do not mix-up A7 and A7R or A7S or A7II. I'm using the original A7 since one month and it's pure crap for video. I'm struggling to get a decent image from them. I film mostly underwater and while my Panasonic setup is under service, Nauticam lent me an entire A7 kit. Probably not the best choice but it's free. I have a Sony A7 + Sony 10-18mm F/4 lens (APSC) + Nauticam NA-A7 housing. The first time I used this kit it was given to me on the boat. I had just the time to search on google for some setting explanation and one hour later I was on the water with this gear. Murphy's law was waiting for me : I set everything to 1080@60p 28Mbps but once in the water I pressed a custom button loading a custom setup previously saved hence the camera recorded everything in a ultra-compressed 1440@30p MOV. The 10-18mm lens is APSC and on the boat they told me to zoom in a little bit to cover the FF sensor. Actually later at home I discovered that the camera has a special APSC Crop Mode (*) for this. So my shots exhibited a strong vignetting while with this mode everything is ok. This is the video I was capable to get.

    It's in nearly dark condition filmed at ISO 1250 only with artificial lights (two Keldan Luna 8 - 5000 Lumen - CRI 95) Colors are wonderful but file were untouchable One minute file is 80MB... One minute on my GH2 is 1GB. And border quality is embarassing.

    image

    Studying settings at home the camera was a mess (basically a rent camera) so I reset everything and I started again. I'm filming with color profile Natural with everything zeroed. I'm nearly sure that even the above video was shot with this profile but now I'm getting crap colors no matter what I set. I shot with this gear further 8 hours underwater but I'm not able to get a decent result. I do not understand how I was capable to get that colors. Uh!

    (*) Later at home I tested the lens at 10mm with APSC Crop Mode ON and zoomed at 15mm with APSC Corp Mode OFF (Basically FF). In APSC mode you get no vignetting and distortion free borders but a huge moire(!?!?) In FF mode you get vignetting and distorted border but nearly zero moire (?!?)

    filming.jpg
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  • A7/A7S/A7R (possibly APS-c models as well which use similar image processing) - Image processing is eating stars in in-camera noise reduction in bulb mode:
    http://community.sony.com/t5/Alpha-NEX-Cameras/Star-eater-in-bulb-mode/m-p/508740/highlight/true#M5625

    It looks like the camera's internal image processing is removing some of the stars in bulb exposure mode. The above webpage is about A7, but there are A7S owners who confirm the same problem. ...Note how a large number of stars have had their bright centres completely punched out. This was taken at a focal length of 500mm. At short focal lengths, where the star occupies fewer pixels they end up being completely deleted. ...It's very simple, the camera's internal processing (which cannot be turned off by users) tried to remove hot pixels from long-exposure images, and this removes part of the stars. The same thing will happen even if the sensor is a monochromatic one. Actually, stars will be sharper on monochromatic sensors, which make them look even more like hot pixels, and therefore even more likely to be removed by such algorithms.
  • should i buy the a7s over a7 considering that i would not overpass iso 80 (only for photography? is the dynamic range very better like said in specs ? 14.1 for a7...

  • That's the guy who hangs out in Voldemort's hideout trying to convince people that using a medium format - e mount speed booster somehow results in a magical medium format look instead of just being a way to use very large slow lenses on your camera (an 80mm f/2.8 Hasselblad lens will turn into a 56mm f/2, not very exciting).

  • @eatstoomuchjam

    Well, some part of medium format look is big glass lenses, unfortunately they are limited in size by human anatomy :-)

    It'll be interesting to make some formal tests or check existing ones, and see how speed booster shift the results.

  • From the test shots that the guy has been posting in Voldemort's hideout, they look a lot like normal vintage lenses. Next maybe somebody can make a speed booster with a bellows so that I can be claiming to get a 4x5 or 8x10 look on a 35mm sensor. :)