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jimmy462 wrote:
Hi popinvasion,
I consider the a7s a small-form video camera, not a stills camera. Something Sony put in the market to hold their place, if you will, with competition from BlackMagic. The a7S is half-baked, from my perspective, with 8-bit 4:2:2 out vs the 10-bit 4:2:2 of the GH4 and BlackMagic cameras, and only 120 fps @ 720P vs. 120 fps @ 1080P on the FZ1000.
What this tells me is that Sony is marketing to protect its higher end video products rather than marketing to prevent camera sales hemorrhaging to external competition. And they are not alone in this strategy.
So where does that leave independent shooters looking for creative tools that will deliver better product than what current DSLR or mirrorless or mobile devices are cranking out? Between a rock and a hard place, literally.
I agree, the thought of using my Canon lenses on the a7S is not filling me with thrill and excitement. But it would be truly nice to shoot SLog2 at ISO 102,400.
Canon gets off easy with me for the time being, I'm budgeted for 2 new camera heads sometime early next year, and they might not be Canon DSLR's at this point. But they're a dollar short and a day late for plenty of other shooters who've already moved on to the competition's gear.
I have the luxury of being able to wait for the next 6-months or so to see what the market place will bring. Hopefully the choices for small-form video heads will have something to please us both! I am looking forward to what lays beyond my current 5D2 and 7D 1080P days.
I hope your needs are answered soon.
Jimmy G...Show more →
Numbers don't tell the entire story, the A7s internal files have more DR and far less noise than the GH4 - regardless of GH4 output. There's a great thread on DVXuser - both cameras recorded externally - that shows the GH4 noise at 1600 is about the same as the A7s at 12,800 - despite "only" being 8-bit. The GH4 at 3200 is so noisy, I found it unusable even after noise reduction, and that's with the 200mbps bitrate, the A7s easily tops it at 50mbps. So my 64gb card has 4x the recording time and produces better 1080p. I have to push the A7s beyond 51200 before noise hits the unusable point, the FZ1000 will be worse than the GH4 noise-wise due to its sensor size. Blackmagic have very limited ISO's and no frame rates beyond 30p, plus they're plagued by aliasing and moire - except for the 4k cam which uses the global shutter at the expense of DR. Blackmagic cameras are the very definition of half-baked, they have numerous issues that BM doesn't seem to have the engineering staff to overcome. The A7s is also free of aliasing and moire. Rolling shutter can be an issue, but then you just shoot in APS-c mode and its at the same levels as any of the other top performing DSLR's.
Everyone's needs are different, but the superior DR of the A7s makes the image less video-ish, highlight rolloff is so much more natural and its pretty tough to introduce banding in the video - something that will appear far more often when using the smaller sensor - especially the FZ1000. The A7s 1080 24/30/60p outclasses everything in its price range, 120fps is a nice to use in a pinch, but I would think that's not the criteria most decisions hinge on. No camera is perfect, but the A7s is an amazing value when you consider you have to spend twice as much to get a marginal improvement in IQ - the Canon C100 which doesn't do 60p. YMMV
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