This weekend, Armando Ferriera will be uploading a video to his YouTube channel in which house colorist at Dolby Laboratories in California Shane Ruggieri talks about his workflow grading a7s III footage. Shane is one of the world's foremost experts on high dynamic range video. https://twitter.com/mondobytes/status/1321154876097753089?s=20 https://twitter.com/mondobytes/status/1320847103447330816?s=20 And here it is! https://youtu.be/2K9oe7aEpdg
a7s III Too Popular – Even Atomos Can’t Get One!
Those ProRes RAW HQ files are incredible. Far from the most photogenic human bean on earth, but when shooting with the a7 III, my skin always looked splotchy. a7s III skin tones are a ginormous improvement. Meanwhile, I’m still awaiting answers to a couple of questions about the Ninja V, in particular about the zebras... Continue Reading →
Free Downloadable a7s III HDR Footage!
Shot with the Sigma FE 85mm f/1.4 DG DN, the sharpest 85mm lens in the E-mount system, with incredible autofocus speed and accuracy and recorded in 4K ALL-I, the highest quality, least compressed internal codec of the a7s III, and the gold standard for digital cinema. It will play smoothly on many computers even without transcoding.... Continue Reading →
a7s III Shoots Some Stunning HDR!
At long last, we've got a bunch of models lined up! The Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN is one spectacular lens and the autofocus performed nearly flawlessly this morning (speed and sensitivity both set to 5). What's amazing is how tenacious eye detect AF is, even when overexposing S-log3 by a couple of stops. I'd... Continue Reading →
Things Are Shaping Up
The a7s III has lots going for it: superb eye detect autofocus in video at up to 120 fps, an articulating touch screen LCD, indisputably the best EVF of any mirrorless camera, edit-friendly codecs with tiny file sizes, the red frame that surrounds the image in the LCD when you're recording video, a full size... Continue Reading →
a7s III: Fix Audio Sync When Recording Externally
Thanks to Gerald Undone for this tip! In order to sync audio when recording to a Ninja V from the a7s III, follow these steps.
Response to a DPReview Troll (yes, another one!)
An intellectually bereft commenter in the forums over at DPR claimed that the video I shared the other day wasn't HDR, saying: It just looks insanely grey and bland. In fact I think there's something wrong with the video. Even the sun is not bright at all. Other HDR videos on YouTube look fine. That... Continue Reading →
a7s III: Insanely Beautiful 4K HDR!
This video takes us for a leisurely early morning stroll around the Bund, a waterfront area and protected historical district in central Shanghai. It was shot in HLG3, 4K 60p with the Sony 20mm f/1.8 G lens and audio was captured with the Sony ECM-B1M shotgun microphone. To the best of my knowledge, this is... Continue Reading →
Riccardo Fasoli & the a7s III
Wedding filmmaker Riccardo Fasoli talks about whether the a7s III will add value to your films. What struck me was the beautiful color he's able to obtain shooting with the lowly a6600 (and all the alpha cameras he's shot with, for that matter!). His channel is definitely worth checking out. https://youtu.be/ML3ObQulSJ0
a7 III vs. a7s III: Massive Improvement in Color!
Caleb Pike compares the a7 III to the a7s III and is stupefied! hehe https://youtu.be/UhY0ce-OfKc
a7s III: Hands-On
I had a chance to play with the a7s III a little bit this morning and to be honest, I'm not overly fond of the new ergonomics: the locking mode and exposure compensation dials are a nuisance; the doors that cover the ports and the rear LCD could have larger indentations or something more substantial... Continue Reading →
a7s III: Fashion Shoot + Workflow
In one of my favorite a7s III videos yet, Dale Sood takes us through his workflow for the fashion short ALUAD. Remarkably, after watching Brandon Li's "Crossroads" video and testing out the camera's profiles to see how the model’s skin tones responded to each of them, he decided to shoot in Standard rather than the more... Continue Reading →
Rant: 16-Bit RAW
I’ve already made my aversion to external recording solutions known in plenty of previous posts: they add bulk, require additional power solutions, cables, SSDs, magic arms and a cage - unless you’re one of the cool guys willing to gamble on mounting one directly to the hot shoe of the camera! Firmware updates to older... Continue Reading →
a7s III: Why No 16-Bit RAW?
Atomos explains: Now, when it comes to some cameras, why do we record 12-bit log from them? Isn't 16-bit linear better? Well, not really. The distribution of stops in code values is fairly inefficient with linear data. Log data makes much better use of the available code values and distributes the stops evenly across the... Continue Reading →
Atomos Ninja V Update: ProRes RAW for a7s III
First, the good news - Atomos has issued a firmware update for the Ninja V allowing ProRes RAW recording via HDMI. Here are the details: Available functions: ProRes RAW Recording: - 4.2k • Uncropped metadata mode 4264 x 2408 at 23.98p, 25p, 29.97p, 50p, 59.94p • Cropped metadata mode 4240 x 2385 at 23.98p, 25p,... Continue Reading →
Sony a7s III ‘Dual Native ISO’
It was Gerald Undone who 'discovered' that the a7s III image suddenly became much cleaner when jumping from ISO 12800 to 16000 in S-log. Sony informed Philip Bloom that the point at which the image becomes less noisy in the production model is different from that of the pre-production unit, so naturally, he just had... Continue Reading →
a7s III: Stan Moniz Shoots the Surf
Sony Ambassador Stan Moniz, an ocean and adventure photographer, put his a7s III into an AquaTech underwater housing and shot the surf at 120 frames per second, using the Zeiss 55mm f/1.8 and 24mm f/1.4 G Master lenses. He also shared a few great photos taken with the camera. Long battery life, a new passive... Continue Reading →