A7s Lowlight Insane Performance

So ridiculous! makes me dream of owning it

This is so cool. I am just imagining a future where narrative film scenes will be shot at 20,000 ISO and can be light with just flashlights, normal lightbulbs, and small LED panels. Powerful HMIs, big Mole lights, and even big 4-bank Kinos will be a thing of the past. Any scene can be lit with a variety of lights and modifiers 500 watts and under. I think that skiing groups like Stept, Level 1, etc. would be dumb not to pick one up for easier and cleaner urban filming. Especially since their Canon glass can be adapted to E mount on the A7s and FS700 very easily. What a time to be alive.

i know this guy who took his 5d iii and his a7 or maybee it was an a7r but he went in a room that was very dark no light to raw picture with both at same apiture and shuter speed and then put it in post and tryd to make the pics look normal but when he did it on the 5d it just turned into this purple mud and look horblie and when he did it to the a7 it look like he had took a normal picture with the light on. the a7 is crazy but is not as small or light as a gh4 just becuse of lenses. plus the lenses for the a7 are not anything spical plus theres not alot of them yet

ROCHEMANi know this guy who took his 5d iii and his a7 or maybee it was an a7r but he went in a room that was very dark no light to raw picture with both at same apiture and shuter speed and then put it in post and tryd to make the pics look normal but when he did it on the 5d it just turned into this purple mud and look horblie and when he did it to the a7 it look like he had took a normal picture with the light on. the a7 is crazy but is not as small or light as a gh4 just becuse of lenses. plus the lenses for the a7 are not anything spical plus theres not alot of them yet

what about iso? also you do realize the a7 can use adapted lenses right? most people on the gh4 don't use all m4/3 lenses anyways so most of what you say is moot point... Especially when all this low light stuff is more towards video than photos

**This post was edited on Oct 13th 2014 at 1:23:35pm

https://vimeo.com/99893160I highly recommend watching this. It is one of the best A7s low-light test video by far.

woof.

SteezyJapaneezyhttps://vimeo.com/99893160I highly recommend watching this. It is one of the best A7s low-light test video by far.

I love Philip Bloom. Philip Bloom is great. Philip Bloom is the best. Awesome man.

Now, back to the A7s, truly a great piece of art. Too bad it won't do S-LOG2 below 3,200 ISO. But nevertheless, this little thing can give you some amazing shots. If you know how to use it properly, that is.

nutz.what about iso? also you do realize the a7 can use adapted lenses right? most people on the gh4 don't use all m4/3 lenses anyways so most of what you say is moot point... Especially when all this low light stuff is more towards video than photos

**This post was edited on Oct 13th 2014 at 1:23:35pm

i know about iso and im awear that you can adapt lens i work for a camera shop so i know alot about this subject plus i do a decent amount of long exspore night shot or whatever you want to call them. if you want since i dont rember the story all that well you can watch the podcast i herd it in heres the link-


https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/iso5571-a-disney-photography/id495769449
(ISO5571 - June 16, 2014) thats the episode wear they talk about it. and who knows you might just end up liking it

ROCHEMANi know about iso and im awear that you can adapt lens i work for a camera shop so i know alot about this subject plus i do a decent amount of long exspore night shot or whatever you want to call them. if you want since i dont rember the story all that well you can watch the podcast i herd it in heres the link-


https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/iso5571-a-disney-photography/id495769449
(ISO5571 - June 16, 2014) thats the episode wear they talk about it. and who knows you might just end up liking it

Do you even attempt to spell things right? Or try and string together a coherent sentence?

it's too bad the rolling shutter on this thing is like jello.

goodiepocketit's too bad the rolling shutter on this thing is like jello.

which cmos camera isn't?

pussyfooterwhich cmos camera isn't?

Some do it way better than A7s. It is way below average

pussyfooterwhich cmos camera isn't?

http://nofilmschool.com/2014/07/rolling-shutter-how-does-sony-a7s-compare

goodiepockethttp://nofilmschool.com/2014/07/rolling-shutter-how-does-sony-a7s-compare

Have you guys SERIOUSLY had a problem with rolling shutter?

It's the pixel peepers favorite downfall but when do we actually notice it? Never is the correct answer.

pussyfooterHave you guys SERIOUSLY had a problem with rolling shutter?

It's the pixel peepers favorite downfall but when do we actually notice it? Never is the correct answer.

Yes, it is common and quite noticeable when filmed out of a moving object. Like a car.

pussyfooterHave you guys SERIOUSLY had a problem with rolling shutter?

It's the pixel peepers favorite downfall but when do we actually notice it? Never is the correct answer.

People saw the ARRI Alexa rolling shutter test and cried great saline tears on how inadequate their cameras are.

pussyfooterHave you guys SERIOUSLY had a problem with rolling shutter?

It's the pixel peepers favorite downfall but when do we actually notice it? Never is the correct answer.

Did I say that it was an 'end all' issue? No. Is it something to take into consideration? Yes. Why wouldn't you want to minimize these sorts of issues within your footage?

Is it noticeable, depending on the situation, yes it can be.

Example-look at the difference between really good lenses and great lenses. To a point, those differences can be extremely minimal, but there IS a difference and people are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars more for those little improvements. Would you notice the difference all the time? No, probably not...unless you are looking at the footage in detail.

There is value to knowing the weaknesses of any piece of equipment so you can work around them. In this case, the a7s rolling shutter is a weakness in the camera that is worth being aware of.

Would you disagree with that?

SkaliwagifyI am just imagining a future where narrative film scenes will be shot at 20,000 ISO and can be light with just flashlights, normal lightbulbs, and small LED panels. Powerful HMIs, big Mole lights, and even big 4-bank Kinos will be a thing of the past.

It's very cool to see such sensitive cameras become available, changing the methodology of cinematography, but big lights will always be used. You simply cannot replicate the quality of light and control you obtain when using appropriate lights vs. shooting natural. These hyper-lowlight cameras will become incredibly useful for documentaries and verite style shooting though.

As for the A7s, I did a camera test/comparison with one recently. blew me away, probably the first camera I've seen that has a remarkable difference between what it sees and your eyes see; the captured image was exposing a face that my eyes could barely distinguish. at half a million ISO, the grain is unbearable but we actually over-exposed a darker-skinned face with a bic lighter... and no other source. pretty wild. The 8 bit 4:2:0 profile and rolling shutter make it still somewhat impractical however.

gordie.It's very cool to see such sensitive cameras become available, changing the methodology of cinematography, but big lights will always be used. You simply cannot replicate the quality of light and control you obtain when using appropriate lights vs. shooting natural. These hyper-lowlight cameras will become incredibly useful for documentaries and verite style shooting though.

As for the A7s, I did a camera test/comparison with one recently. blew me away, probably the first camera I've seen that has a remarkable difference between what it sees and your eyes see; the captured image was exposing a face that my eyes could barely distinguish. at half a million ISO, the grain is unbearable but we actually over-exposed a darker-skinned face with a bic lighter... and no other source. pretty wild. The 8 bit 4:2:0 profile and rolling shutter make it still somewhat impractical however.

I don't understand what you mean about the lights? Hypothetically, if a camera has 4x the sensitivity of another camera, couldn't one use lights 1/4 as powerful? Of course outside, when competing with the sun, only a very powerful light can overcome the natural light. But inside, or in the evening, or morning, or at night, how does a powerful light make a difference? I am not saying that films should be shot without proper lighting, I am saying that heavy, expensive, high-power-consuming lights will not be necessary. If the camera is 4x as sensitive, instead of using a 1k light, one could use a 250 watt light. The modifiers etc. would stay the same for crafting the shape and intensity of the light.

SkaliwagifyI don't understand what you mean about the lights?

You're not wrong, using higher sensitivity cameras does allow the use of smaller lights. The key difference here is this: smaller lights and larger lights do not have the same character. It's why a 400w Joker Bug HMI, while is true to the colour of the sun, doesn't have the same wrap-around, soft even fill that the sun does (in certain positions). As well, sets and location setups are much more about lighting the world displayed in the scene than the characters themselves-- background lighting is as important or more, as is backlighting characters, two things that low wattage lamps, like kino's, don't have the throw to perform often. Larger lamps are needed.

The character of a large source (I mean actually large, in size, not in wattage) is typically easier to light with and is preferred by most DoP's and gaffers. This can be achieved by using smaller lamps (for example I'm gearing up for a shoot where we'll shoot 2.5k HMI's into 12x12 frames of silk to make it spread the light, effectively making it a much larger source) but there really is no replacement for a larger lamp.

Lighting for film is interesting because it seems on paper that many new options are obviously better, but in reality much of the time simpler, and older (and heavier) can be better. For example, lighting with Arri 1k tungsten fresnel's vs kino 4 bank with tungsten bulbs... the kino flo's may seem more advanced and better, but I'd do the Arri setup over the kino any day.