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Bill DiPietra

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Sony camera's don't clip softly, they clip harshly and even with SLog/RAW capture, there is very little you can do. Just watch anything shot with a Sony low/mid grade camera outdoors and look for hot spots. They look like old school NTSC cameras, really bad.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/archive/index.php/t-332373.html

This has not been my experience at all with the F5/55 and especially the F65. If you're clipping highlights like this on a regular basis then you're doing something wrong. Wrong mode, wrong LUT, uncalibrated monitor, something. With 14 stops to work with I usually over-rate these cameras by 2/3 - 1 1/3 stops and still never have these issues. Or are you talking about different camera models?

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I see the same issues on Red and Arri cameras but not for the more famous large movies cause they tend to have better DP's. But the ultra low budget festival projects that shoot with these cameras are loaded with awful over and underexposed footage. Really isn't the cameras.

Harsh clipping is a Sony character trait and the problem looks identical on the Kinefinity cameras. It's not a "cinematographers" problem, as the Alexa, Red and Blackmagic cameras (of which I've worked with) don't have harsh clipping at all. When they clip, the white area gets softer, like out of focus. On the Sony/Kinefinity camera's, the white area turns into a blob of over-sharpness, which is extremely distracting. You see it mostly on reflections in the background of images. Example would be properly exposed footage of a car driving down the road in between tree's or buildings and when direct sunlight hits the car for a brief moment, you get this harsh blob that appears. I've seen it also with solid colors, there are literally 20 videos online showing this problem on stage shows.

 

Sure, if you're shooting indoors, have full control over lighting, then you most likely will never see this problem. However, that doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist. It only means you're good at bypassing the issue.

 

This is one of the MYRAID of reasons I don't even contemplate a low/mid range Sony or Kinefinity camera. Funny enough, I've worked with the Sony F5/55 and never had that problem. It was the first thing I tested on that shoot, literally going outside with the camera on my shoulder and shooting over-exposed reflections of light in the parking lot. So it's clear to me, it's just the lower-end sensor of the low/mid range cameras. My blackmagic cameras never had that issue either. You can shoot the sun directly and it's just a nice soft bubble.

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Or are you talking about different camera models?

I was referring to the lower to mid range cameras like the FS7. Sub $10k for a complete package with lenses sorta deal. The F5/55 is a MUCH more expensive package and its a pretty good camera. But when you're a Chinese company (Kinefinity)trying to market high end cameras and your sensor has the same problem as Sony's lower to mid cameras's, it doesn't matter how good it looks at 50% in my view. A sensor needs to look good ALL the time, in darks, in over-exposing, it's critical because mistakes happen with the work I do (documentary) and there is no way to control everything, it's nearly impossible. Cameras that need to hide from bright sunlight are worthless in my world. You can't expose for the possibility of getting the sun directly in the lens, you have to expose for the subject. So that means, the sun will be blown out! If the blow-out looks like crap, then you're in trouble.

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Oh, I see that you are talking about the really low end cameras (I think of the F5 as being the mid-range camera). They won't have the 14 stops of dynamic range as the current F series does. And they are most likely baking in Rec709, so now the 'harsh clippy highlights' thing makes more sense. I always see it on backlit green foliage that clips to yellow. Also seen it on the F5 in Custom mode and a Hypergamma LUT. Throw the camera into Cine EI mode with a 709LC Type A LUT and it goes away.

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