SONY FS7

[Matias Nicolas]

Hi, Im shooting a commercial with the Sony FS7. Any recomendation? What do you think about this camera?

I read is a 2000asa based sensibility. Do you recommend shooting with 2000?

 

 

[Stuart Allman]

I shoot with that camera on a regular basis and love it. The shadows can be a tiny bit noisy at 2000 if you have a dark scene, but for outdoors or high key shots you should be fine at 2000. If you have low key scenes then you might want to drop the exposure index to 1000 in Cine EI mode. You'll lose a stop in highlights, but that shouldn't be a big deal for low key scenes.

 

My experience comes from using the camera in CineEI mode with Slog-3 and S-gamut3-cine. If you use custom mode you may have a different experience since the camera will do noise reduction, I believe.

 

I put a guide for camera setup on my blog...

http://illuma.BlogSpot.com/2015/06/how-to-setup-sony-fs-7.html

 

 

Stuart

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illuma.BlogSpot.com

[Robin R Probyn]

I use the F5.. but very similar camera and i believe the sensor is the same..

 

I agree with Stuart.. shoot Slog3/cine.. and over expose 1 stop.. you have 6 stop s over grey anyway.. and usually can afford to lose one stop of high light for the sake of a "cleaner" picture.. you still have 1000 ISO .. its a commercial so presumably there will be a proper grade in resolve etc..

 

One thing to watch for is.. in Cine EI.. even if you change your ISO.. the camera will always record at 2000 ISO.. i.e. you change your camera to 1000 ISO.. and adjust iris for this setting..(using MLUT in the VF.. I usually use the REC 709 ).. BUT your recording will be at 2000.. and so you have over exposed by 1 stop intentionally .. but unlike Arri most NLE wont read the Sony meta data..and self correct.. only Sony post software will do this.. so make sure you tell your post that you have over exposed intentionally.. otherwise they will just thing you got your exposure wrong !

 

TBH if you or more importantly your AC have used the Alexa with its side LCD panel and hot buttons.. you might be better off with an F5..(with 4K internal up grade if needed) the Fs7 everything is in the menu so not so easy to change/find in a rush/panic ! F5 also have a PL mount.. Fs7 is E mount .. and F5 is SxS card.. Fs7 is XQD.. better Sony EVF options for F5...Fs7 will shoot UHD but not "true " 17-9 4096-2160 4K.. if you need that..

 

The Fs7 is a very good camera..Im not knocking it.. but for a commercial I think the F5 might be better.. especially for your AC ..and the rental wouldn't be that much different ..

Edited December 12, 2015 by Robin R Probyn

[Mark Kenfield]

You might want to have a read about the tests I performed to check the sensitivity of the F5 (which supposedly shares the same sensor as the FS7), it's the current top post of my blog: http://dreamsmiths.com.au/blog/

 

A lot of people talk about overexposing the F5/F55/FS7 by a stop or so, I've found that completely unnecessary for achieving super-clean, noise free images from the F5. However, as you'll see in my tests, the native sensitivity of the sensor (in my camera at least) is only 1125 ISO.

 

If other people's cameras are the same, and people are simply assuming that the cameras are natively 2000 ISO but rating them at 1000 ISO instead, they aren't actually overexposing the sensors at all - simply exposing them properly.

 

I keep my meter set to 1125 ISO permanently nowadays, and get perfect exposure every time. So I'd highly recommend testing the camera first, and finding out how it actually responds to light. If it does yield 2000 ISO, then you'll get lovely images with that, if not, expose accordingly.

Edited December 12, 2015 by Mark Kenfield

[Aapo Lettinen]

The fs7 is a bit noisier than f5 so it is a good idea to overexpose it a bit. The iso1000 range is a good start. I have understood that the sensors are f5 leftovers which dont meet all the specs of the f5. The filter pack may not be exactly the same although the sensor somewhat is and the signal processing is different.

 

The fs7 is slower to use because of the user interface and the lens mount is not sturdy which can be a problem with follow focus and bigger lenses. And it has scope problems with the slogcine mode and certain output configurations, I have had to shoot quite a lot with it using only zebras because the other scope options stopped working in the middle of the shoots. Also you may experience odd white balance setting changes after changing batteries etc.

These are firmware bugs mostly but are not yet corrected fully yet.they can vary between cameras though. Our camera made these with different firmwares so i think it's more of lousy programming error than single faulty camera

Edited December 12, 2015 by aapo lettinen