Out filming with the Sony A7S and Atomos Shogun in 4K!

I am still testing out the many brilliant features and benefits of the 4K combo I now have, one biggie was being able to grade the footage much more than what you're able to with internal camera recording.

I headed out to a local country park to catch some of the spring bluebells flowering, as well as to try out the dynamic range of the 4K Prores HQ footage and really push it in the grade.

A couple of photos while I was out and about, lovely day!

I took the Manfrotto 755CX-3 tripod with me as it is brilliantly lightweight, and despite the center column it can get pretty low to the ground for shots needing some perspective.

Still no Movcam cage yet, so I'm pretty nervous about having the Shogun on a ball mount, on the hot shoe, I did take care when moving around and took out the HDMI cable just in case.

I had 3 lenses with me, the Tamron 24-70, Sigma 70-200 and Canon 100mm L as I wanted to have a simple setup, one Manfrotto bag, essential kit, batteries etc.

After watching Philip Bloom's talk hosted by B&H a few months back, I set the camera settings to what he advised and went from there. Using PP7 for S-log increases the native ISO to 3200, so is not practical for bright scenes without ND filters, so here are my settings.

PP6 (allows ISO 200, practical for bright shoots) - Black Level 0, Gamma Cine 4, Color mode S-gamut, Saturation 0, Detail -7.

It was a bright sunny day and the Shogun was the perfect tool for the job. It's screen is very clear, unlike cheaper monitors which don't have a high contrast ratio or use LCD screens. Exposing for the highlights, I used the in-built Waveform monitor to gague exposure as well as the 2:1 crop in for getting critical focus - definitely needed for the wide landscape and macro shots.

You will not be surprised to see the HUGE file size of recording 4K in Prores HQ, averaging at about 2GB for 20 seconds.

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It's less than 10 minutes worth of footage, in fact!

I did find this out while I was trying out the different outputs and recording formats.. For the PAL region the A7S has THREE HDMI output settings -

 - 1080 50p, 1080 50i, 4K 25p.

The Shogun will not record 25p footage from the camera when the HDMI output is set to 1080 50p, but you can record 1080 50p slow motion on the Shogun. Remember to set the A7S' recording format to 50p/50, instead of 25p for normal speed filming.

The Shogun will only record 1080 25p footage from the camera when the HDMI output is set to 1080 50i, with a 2:2 frame drop set. Remember to set the A7S' recording format to 25p/50.

You must set the '4K HDMI' setting in the A7S to output the 4K signal, and record in 4K 25p on the Shogun.

As part of the new 4K workflow, I am using Davinci Resolve Lite (FREE) for the colour grading process, but as this is a short video I tried out it's NLE which worked great. Similar look and feel to FCPX, but it gives you the ability to change edit points, manipulate scale, track and much more. It even has a keyer!

First Image - Editing interface, Second Image - Adjusting saturation in Color interface, Third Image - High contrast image BEFORE correction/grade, Fourth Image - High contrast image AFTER correction/grade, Fifth Image - Delivery interface.

Here is the ungraded version, with footage captured on the Shogun.

Here is a work-in-progress edit that is down-ressed to 1080 to upload it to Vimeo, the Youtube version in 4K (remember to change the resolution to 2160) is below!

I look forward to hearing your comments on the  videos I've put up!

Brilliant read (and watch) from Cinema5D, cheers Nino!

Nino just posted this brilliant article on Cinema5D following Philip Bloom's A7S workshop and B&H, focusing on key settings to properly set up the camera for video! Definitely worth a read, thanks for the share.

http://www.cinema5d.com/properly-set-sony-a7s-video/

(From Cinema5D and B&H)

New photos from the new A7S - A-MAZING

A selection of stills from the Sony A7S of my little vegetables growing in the greenhouse, Sam's new car, some flowers (Orchids and Carnations) in the house and olives from The Queen Adelaide!

Sony A7S, PP6, taken on Canon 100mm F/2.8L and Tamron 24-70 F/2.8 with a range of settings.

APV Now Captures In 4K UHD!

Hello all! Great news comes from APV in the form of the latest revolution in cinematography; capturing and delivering video and media content in 4K (3840x2160p) or Ultra High Definition using the Sony A7S camera and Atomos Shogun recorder.

Seeing the release of both the Sony A7S and Atomos Shogun at industry events, I was so keen to get my hands on this kit. Unlike DSLR's the A7S is mirrorless which means it's body is around 1/3 the size of the Canon 5D mkIII, it has incredible light sensitivity, the features to film in both slow-motion and using the S-Log gamma curve make it an ideal production camera in a tiny body.

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I first saw the Shogun outside of an expo at the Shadows and Light workshop, a friend was showing me some footage he shot the evening before on the setup in 4K. He showed me the captured footage, and then applied the LUT in the Shogun to show what the result would be after grading.. I was blown away. Both as a monitor and a recorder, the Shogun excels at capturing HD and 4K video and audio with in-built monitors such as waveform and vectorscope, peaking, zebras, as well as recording in a range of formats at a much higher bit-rate than in camera recording - 220Mbit/s HD and 440Mbit/s 4K (I think) which is perfect for grading and video-focused productions to filmmaking.

I invested into Canon EF equipment a couple of years back as the 5D mkIII was to best option for large sensor filming, so instead of spending out on native Sony E mount lenses I purchased both the Metabones EF-E mount mk IV and the Commlite EF-E mount to use my current lenses.

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Also knowing that the batteries for the A7S (FW-50) are much smaller in capacity than the LP-E6 Canon batteries, I ordered another 4 Sony's with the camera and two from Amazon with another charger (EX-Pro). Inevitably, all of the accessories came before the camera did.. So I eagerly charged and labelled up the kit and get it ready for the camera to arrive!

The camera came last week and not having any new toys for a while I was keen to play around and check out the cameras features straight away! Glen came over as the camera arrived, so he became my willing subject. I hooked up the Tamron 24-70 to the Metabones which worked fine and shot some handheld video, as the lenses vibration control was active. I also have an eyecup for the little viewfinder for another point of contact, to reduce the shake if I need to hand-hold for some shots.

As I was waiting for numerous deliveries to arrive (including the Shogun), I was housebound for a while so I made do with the plants in the garden and my cat for things to film. Here's some of the first footage captured -

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A7S and Soligor 35-140 with metabones waiting for the Sparrows

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A7S and Tamron 24-70 with metabones in the cage. Soon to be replaced by the Movcam rails kit.

A mix of footage shot for the first time on the Sony A7S, probably in No Picture Profile. Really love the image with the lenses that I have, very organic with fantastic light sensitivity. It was also impressive hooking up the Atomos Shogun to the 5D mk III for 1080p in ProRes HQ, which gives much more latitude for colour grading and post work because of the much higher bit rate.

The best friend has bought a swanky new Audi, so he took me for a spin! I was still getting used to the photo mode and controls, it was past 8pm with the sun only just set so the ISO was wacked up reasonably high.

Because the cable for connecting the A7S to the Shogun hadn't arrived yet (from Atomos) I went searching around Epsom with no avail for a micro HDMI to HDMI cable. I ordered one off Amazon for evening delivery, which came while I took the photos of Sams new car!

I was overly happy with the recorded images that I captured in the mean time with the Shogun hooked up to the 5D mk III. I decided to record them in ProRes HQ to see how far I could push the footage in colour correction, post and grading. It worked fantastically, so much in fact that I'm deeply considering teaming the 5D mk III with another Atomos recorder for the same reasons as above.

I finally got my hands on a micro HDMI cable to road test the 4K HDMI output from the A7S to the Shogun, and just as I began to film, Alfie the cat decided he wanted to join in! I don't remember the picture profile, but it was shot with a pretty wide aperture on the Tamron 24-70. I also tried out the down-ressing method that I'll be using for 4K filming but delivering in HD, so I edited the 4K sequence twice, one in native 4K resolution and the other in a 1080p sequence with some clips scaled down or cropped. NOTE - please change the resolution to the highest possible for the best results!

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4K still from the Shogun recorder, shot in 4K ProRes HQ

Let me know what you think!

NOTE - Change resolution to 2160!!!

A short first test filming in 3820x2160 UHD-4K resolution in ProRes HQ on the Atomos Shogun, with the Sony A7S camera. No correction/sharpening/grading in camera or post. Exported in H.264 with a target bitrate of 100Mbits, hoping it holds! I tried to shoot some orchids, but my cat Alfie saw what was going on and wanted to join in!

4K version on Vimeo, remember Vimeo does not have 4K playback yet so this has been down-ressed by Vimeo. Please watch the Youtube video above for the 4K version.

As a comparison, this is the down-res version of the 'Creatives and their cats' video originally shot in 3840x2160 4K-UHD using the Atomos Shogun and Sony A7S. View the original here - This version has been scaled down in Premiere by 50%, with some re-framing in a 1080p sequence, with 4K footage. No correction, sharpening, grading in camera or post. Originally shot in ProRes HQ. I tried to shoot some orchids, but my cat Alfie saw what was going on and wanted to join in! The cropping and re-framing of 4K footage for 1080p HD delivery is a brilliant feature to have, meaning high quality footage can be future-proofed and still delivered in great HD resolution.

I also shot some Picture Profile tests to compare the colours, DR, contrast and noise, this is to come later!

Samyang leak/announce the 135mm F/2 lens!

As I've been writing for a while about new Samyang lenses, we've expected a 135mm since the 50mm cine lens announcement. I even had a chat with the execs of Walimex/Rokinon (also Samyang) about the mystery lens in their line up, the hints were pointing towards the 135mm then too.

I shared the leak from the US eBay site last night, but here's more details on the lens, following suit of the preceding high quality manual lenses. Here's the specs for the full frame -

• 1:2.0 135mm ED UMC
• Aperture Range: F2.0 ~ 22
• Optical Construction: 11 Elements in 7 Groups
• Min Focusing Distance: 0.8mm (2.62ft)
• Filter Size: 77mm
• Max Diameter: 82mm
• Full-frame coverage
• Angle of View: 18.8° / 11.7°
• Length: 122.1mm
• Weight: 830g
• Price: Under $600

As always, the great optical quality and price are paramount for Samyang's customers, so I'm glad to see they have another affordable lens to add to the lineup!

Canon countdown - 23 hours remaining!!!

What what what are Canon up to?! With the announcement of the 7D mkII at Photokina, it seems odd to plump for a mid-weed, October day to tell the world about a new product?!

Check out Canon See Impossible for the cryptic message and countdown, could it be a 5D mkIV, with internal full frame 4K? We will have to wait to find out!

Click the pic to visit the page!

What are your thoughts on Canons ad-hoc announcement? Got any rumors you wish to share?!

Thinking of making the jump to 4K?

You are in the same boat as me.. Having bought my 5D mkIII last December, there was no accessible 4K option until the Panasonic GH4 made its appearance in the Spring. I was devastated. Having invested heavily in Canon gear, any future move I make will need to fit with my current EF mount lenses, not to mention everything else such as batteries, memory cards and my overall production workflow.

http://www.eoshd.com/2014/04/panasonic-gh4-vs-sony-a7s-compared-wins-4k-battle-paper/

(EOS HD comparison between the cameras).

At the moment, there are two options on the table. Said to be like comparing apples and oranges, the Sony A7s and GH4 are the current competing professional cameras that offer 4K functionality, however for people that own the cameras and have been comparing the two have found it difficult. This is for a few reasons:

Sensor size: The A7s is full frame, the GH4 is MFT.

4K in camera: The GH4 can record 4K internally, the A7s requires an external recorder such as an Odyssey or Shogun.

Jeromy, CEO of Atomos talking to me and Sam from The IABM about new products and the IBC Show.

Now, many people will be arguing that what does the increased resolution allow you to do, that HD doesn't? The image produced from the 5D is great; good in low light, versatile, fits my style of filming... But it also has big downfalls for being a DSLR, and not a video camera.

Something that is unique about these two cameras is that their 'out of the box' functionality has been fine tuned for video applications, as well as high end photography. This is what Canon has left behind in their non Cinema line cameras, and Magic Lantern has struck gold on with their firmware hack enabling awesome video functions.

I have only recently installed ML on my 5D mkIII due to the current firmware on the camera. It was shipped with version 1.2.3, I was hesitant to downgrade the firmware and was patient in waiting for ML to develop a tested and working version for 1.2.3. Now having access to on screen aid such as waveform monitors and audio levels make such a difference, and restart movie for the longer filming durations is great. It turns your 'photography' camera into basically a video camera.

From: About DSLR (Youtube).

For my type of videography, the benefits of having not only 4K, but a wider range of options for recording will allow me to crop and downscale any 4K acquisition to HD and hold incredible picture detail, dynamic range and depth of field.

The recording bit rates are higher, meaning more data is stored for post production editing, compositing or grading.

Lastly, it should increase the production value of what I produce. Now, I am not stating that better equipment makes better videos. It does give you the opportunity to step up with what you can do in your work, and especially as it keeps you up to date in a world of ever changing and improving technology.

So, what is my investment cost?

This is dependent on your current shooting kit, and whether you can merge your current system with a new one. Perhaps you already shoot Sony or Panny, so you're in luck.

For me, all my lenses are Canon EF mount, some are electronic, others are manual, so an adapter would be needed in my case. The price of this is dependent on the glass you use, or are going to use.

Let's look at the Panasonic GH4 to start with.

Panasonic GH4 (body only) - £1296.00

Metabones Speedbooster EF to MFT (smart with electronics) - £468.00

GH4 batteries x 2 -£130

Transcend 600x ultimate SD card x 2 (Amazon price) - £36

Now, as the GH4 is MFT, I might purchase a wide angle lens because my current ultra wide angle 14mm T/3.1 would be almost 28mm T/6 due to the sensor equivalence. So, my options would be either:

Panasonic 12 - 35mm F/2.8 - £829.00

I did have the Samyang 12mm T/2, realizing it does not come in MFT mount.. So the above would be my option. I have used it before, it has great OIS and has a decent depth of field for an F/5.6 equivalent lens.

Total GH4 investment inc extra lens - £2759.00 (excluding extra lens - £1930.00)

That £1930 was pretty much the same price I paid for the 5D mkIII body only.

Now the Sony A7s.

Sony A7s (body and battery/PWR kit) - £2034.00

Metabones Speedbooster EF to E (smart with electronics) - £316.46

Transcend 600x ultimate SD card x 2 (Amazon price) - £36

The A7s does not record 4K internally, so I would need to purchase the Atomos Shogun recorder at - £1464.00

Also, as the A7s is compact in size, a cage is required to make it more accessible with the recorder and mics etc.

Movcam A7s cage - £148.02

Total A7s investment - £3998.48

(All prices are including VAT from CVP).

Now.. I've shot on the Panasonic GH4 and I like it. When I've talked to Panasonic reps about the product they all had the same comment that Panasonic listened to videographers, and you can tell. The available recording formats and codecs allow a range of uses for the camera, and the features it packs into its tiny form are perfect for those that already utilize DSLR for video.

(Look back to earlier this year to the Park Camera's Panasonic open day - https://ajp1991.wordpress.com/2014/03/16/meet-the-panasonic-gh4/)

Personally, and this is very subjective to the way I was filming when using the camera, the captured video looked like video. Some will understand what I mean, others won't, but for those that have been shooting on a full frame camera, the 'look' is there. Obviously the sensor plays a large part in that, but if I purchased a GH4 kit outright (disregarding my current EF mount lenses).. I would purchase the Voightlander 25mm and the trusted Samyang cine lenses which might just combat the 'look' issue I feel like I have. As well as high quality ND filters so my shutter can remain at 1/50th.

Really quick GH4 test:

Trying out the 4K, and again a basic test:

(Please if you have experience, tips, footage or photos that you would like to share, please do!)

What am I going to do then?

My dad taught me something really great; good things come to those who wait. In other words, have patience.

As others test out, review and produce videos using the GH4 and A7s (and other cameras that pop up here and there), I will be closer to making my decision. For now, I know to hold off. A good thing for me to do would be to road test both cameras, work it with all of it's video functions and produce a couple of vids that I can look back on. The folks at Park Camera's are great at in store demos, but I can also wait for BVE in Feb 2015.

So, I can frustratingly wait a little longer for my jump to the next innovation of video production and delivery.

In the mean time I can always look at Blackmagic Design's options that shoot 4K, as well as the Apertus AXIOM modular camera, and keep the new Arri Alexa 65 and RED Dragon for my dreams.

From - https://www.apertus.org/