Category Archives: PXW-FS5

PMW-F55, PXW-FS5, PXW-FS7, Review

Hedén VLC Zoom and Focus Control.

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Hedén VLC Zoom and Focus Control.

Sorry for the lack of post recently, but I’ve been busy on various overseas shoots using the Sony Venice camera. I’ll be writing these up in due course.

My 2 favourite and most used lenses are my Fujinon MK zooms . I use the MK18-55 and MK50-135 on both my PMW-F5 and on my FS5. I’ve also used them on a Sony Venice. They are really great lenses. But one thing that I’ve always felt would make them a bit better is a power zoom.

Enter the Hedén VLC system.

AJC04868-1024x683 Hedén VLC Zoom and Focus Control.
Heden servo motor to turn a non servo zoom into a power zoom. In this case on a Fujinon MK18-55 lens.

For starters the Hedén VLC system allows you to turn a non motorised zoom lens into a power zoom lens, but the Heden VLC system is more than just a zoom motor and control box. It can be expanded with a second motor to not only motorize the zoom but also provide an electronic focus control (although as yet I have not tried this).

Never heard of Hedén before? Well if you work in higher end features and productions you will probably have come across them before as they are a highly regarded Swedish manufacturer of electronic follow focus and zoom systems used in high end Cinematography. For me though, until now their products have been beyond my reach. One of their standard follow focus motors costs around £1.6K/$2K. However the motors and components used in the VLC systems are much cheaper, yet still meet Hedén’s exacting standards.  A complete VLC zoom system, including motor, costs around $2,100 USD. It’s still not a “cheap” item, but the system is of very high quality and surprisingly flexible, so it is something that should last many years and work with not just todays cameras and lenses but also whatever comes next.

The VLC system comprises several components. A control box, a motor or motors along with various attachment brackets for the motors depending on your application and a set of cables.

AJC04872-1024x683 Hedén VLC Zoom and Focus Control.
Heden VLC control box.

The first time I played with the system it was an early development unit on my FS5. On the FS5 the system is controlled using the Lanc control functions built into the cameras existing handgrip. The cable from the hand grip that normally plugs directly into the camera body is plugged into a breakout cable from the VLC control box and then another connection from the control box plugs into the FS5. This way the handgrip controls the FS5 as normal, but now the zoom rocker on the handgrip also smoothly and accurately controls the Hedén zoom motor. All the hand grips other functions continue to operate as usual.

AJC04881-1024x683 Hedén VLC Zoom and Focus Control.
The Hedén VM35 servo motor for the VLC zoom and focus system.

The motor used by the VLC system is a very high quality compact servo motor and gearbox with digital position and speed feedback. So the controller knows exactly how fast the motor is turning and where it is in it’s operating cycle. The first time you use the system it needs to be calibrated for the lens you are using. This is done quickly and simply, just by pressing the small CAL button on the controller. Once pressed the motor quickly runs back and forwards to find the lenses end stops.

AJC04892-1024x683 Hedén VLC Zoom and Focus Control.
The CAL button used to calibrate the Hedén VLC zoom system.

A very nice feature is that when the motor isn’t being driven it can be turned quite easily. This means that unlike some other similar systems you don’t have to mechanically or physically disengage the motor from the lenses pitch gears to perform a manual zoom. In fact, the motor acts as a soft damping system and helps make manual zooms smoother.

My only gripe about the VLC system is the size of the control box. On a camera as small as the FS5 the control box is quite a big lump to add.

AJC04878-1024x683 Hedén VLC Zoom and Focus Control.
The Hedén VLC system mounted on an FS5 and Fujinon MK lens.
AJC04866-1024x683 Hedén VLC Zoom and Focus Control.
I have the Hedén VLC control box mounted on the rear of the FS5’s handle using the 3M Dual Lock provided with the kit.

For power I run it from a Dynacore BP-U type battery that has a D-Tap output. There is no on/off switch, so you turn it off by unplugging it, but the system doesn’t use much power and I barely noticed any difference in the life of the camera battery when using it this way.

The control box has controls for the motor speed, torque and direction. These controls allow you to fine tune the way the motor operates, so if you want you can have a fast snappy zoom, or if you prefer you can have a slower zoom. The control buttons are mounted below a soft waterproof membrane to protect the unit from dust and moisture. There is also a small LED display that shows the torque and speed settings. When zooming in or out this also shows the requested zoom speed. All the cables are connected to the box using very high quality Lemo connectors.

AJC04874-1024x683 Hedén VLC Zoom and Focus Control.
The Hedén VLC control box mounted on an FS5

I found that the FS5 zoom rocker with it’s limited travel seemed to work best for me when the motor was set to quite a slow speed. The motor has lots of torque, so it should have no problem driving lenses with quite stiff zoom rings. However I probably wouldn’t try to use it with a DSLR zoom. I dabbled with producing a zoom motor for DSLR zooms some years back, but found it very difficult. Most DSLR zooms are quite stiff, often have tight spots as well as only limited travel. This makes it very difficult to get a very smooth motion. Feel free to try it with whatever lenses it is that you have, but I think you will need to test the functionality with each photo zoom lens to see how it copes. For proper video and cinemas lenses with smooth zoom rings the VLC system should work very well.

With the Fujinon MK lenses the motor can be attached to the barrel of the lens via a dedicated bracket. There is also a bracket for two motors for those that want to motorize not only the zoom but also the focus.

vm35-60 Hedén VLC Zoom and Focus Control.
Dual motor bracket for the Fujinon MK lenses allows both a zoom and focus motor to be attached.

The benefit of having the motor on the lens is that it’s always in the right place and you don’t need rails etc. The downside is that if you have more than one lens you need to either, swap the motor and brackets each time you change lens, have multiple brackets or if you have really deep pockets a motor and bracket for every lens. Swapping the motor from bracket to bracket is very quick and easy, just loosen the thumbscrew and the motor slides out. So I would recommend having a bracket on each lens and simply swapping the motor over. The other alternative is to use one of the Hedén rail brackets to attach the motor to 15mm rails, then when you swap lenses the motor stays attached to the rails and it’s just a case of lining the motor up with the pitch gear on the lens.

vm35-40-1024x684 Hedén VLC Zoom and Focus Control.
Rod mount for attaching a single Hedén VLC system motor to a 15mm rod.

 

Not long after starting to use the system on my FS5 I was informed that there was an update for the system that could work with any 3rd party Lanc Controller. So I decided to give this a try on my PMW-F5. To make this work you need an additional aftermarket Lanc zoom controller. These are readily available and there are lots of choices.

AJC04889-1024x683 Hedén VLC Zoom and Focus Control.
The Hedén VLC zoom system mounted on my PMW-F5 and Fujinon MK lens. It’s much easier to find a place for the control box on larger cameras like the F5/F55 and FS7.

The Manfrotto controller I used allowed me to operate the zoom from from the pan bar of my tripod. Great for studio or ENG type applications. The only thing you don’t get with an F5 and a Lanc controller is control over record start and stop as the F5 itself doesn’t support Lanc control. So you still have to press the record button on the camera. But this isn’t a big deal and having the ability to zoom from the pan bar is great for so many applications.

AJC04888-1024x683 Hedén VLC Zoom and Focus Control.
Manfrotto Lanc controller mounted to the tripod pan bar.

Overall I am very impressed with the system. The degree of control you have over the lens is quite remarkable, it’s just as good as the control you get with a high end ENG zoom.  It’s very easy to setup and allows you to perform silky smooth zooms with ease. If you want smooth, slow starts to the zoom or extremely slow zooms, both are easily achieved with the Hedén VLC system.

I probably wouldn’t use it for every shoot, especially with the FS5 as the control box is a little bulky. With the F5 or FS7 and other larger cameras this is much less of a concern, so I will probably use it more often with these cameras. I also want to explore using it with Lanc controller that I can use with handgrips when handheld (perhaps using the Vocas Arri rosette kit for remote attachment of the FS5 hand grip).

The biggest strength of this system for me though, is that it isn’t actually lens or camera specific. You can use it with just about any lens and camera. So as you add more lenses to your collection, or if you change camera, you will still be able to use the VLC system just by making sure you have the right motor bracket. The 15mm rod bracket should work with just about any lens. This means that it’s a system that should last you a very long time.

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cinematography, PMW-F55, PXW-FS5, PXW-FS7

What’s wrong with my viewfinder, my old camera had a much better viewfinder!

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This is something that keeps popping up all over the place and it’s not just one camera that attracts this comment. Many do, from the FS5 to the FS7 to the F55, plus cameras from other manufacturers too.
One common factor is that very often this relates to the newer super35mm cameras. Cameras designed to give a more rounded, film like look, often cameras with 4K or higher resolution sensors.
I think many people perceive there is an issue with their viewfinder because they come to these new high resolution, more rounded and film like cameras  from traditional television centric camcorders that use detail correction, coring and aperture correction to boost the image sharpness.
SD and even HD television broadcasting relies heavily on image sharpening so that viewers perceive a crisp, sharp image at any viewing distance and with any screen size (although on really big screens this can really ruin the image).
This works by enhancing and boosting the contrast around edges. This is standard practice on all normal HD and SD broadcast cameras. Especially camera that use a 3 chip design with a prism as the prism will often reduce the images edge contrast.
As most people will prefer a very slightly sharpened HD image or a heavily sharpened SD image over an unsharpened one, it’s sharpened by default. This means that the images those cameras produce will tend to look sharp even on screens that have a lower resolution than that of the camera because the edges remain high contrast even when the viewing resolution is reduced and as a result look sharp.
Most current manufacturer supplied LCD EVF’s run at 1/4″ HD with 940 x 560 pixels (each pixel made up of an RGB 3 dot matrix). In addition many of the 3rd party VF’s such as the very popular Alphatron are the same because they all use the same mass produced, relatively low cost panels – panels that are also used for mobile phones and many other devices. 
 
The problem then is that when you move to a camera that doesn’t add any image sharpening, if you view the cameras image on a lower resolution screen the image looks soft because — it is. There is no detail correction to compensate. Incidentally this is why often these same cameras can look a bit soft in HD and very soft in SD compared to other traditional or detail corrected cameras. But, that slightly softer, less processed look helps contribute to their more film like look. This softness and lack of sharpening/processing is particularly noticeable if you use the focus mag function as you are then looking at an enlarged but completely un-sharpened image.
 
It could be argued that the viewfinder should sharpen the image to compensate. Some of the more expensive viewfinders can do this using their own sharpening processes. But the image that you are then seeing is not the picture that is being recorded and this isn’t always ideal. If it is over done then it can make the entire image look sharp even when it isn’t fully in focus. Really you want to be looking at exactly the image that the camera is recording so that you can spot any potential problems. But that then makes focussing tricky.
 
There are a few 3rd party viewfinders such as the Gratical that have higher resolutions. The Gratical and Eye have screens that are 1280×1024, but in normal use you only use 1280×720 for the image area. This certainly helps, but even the 1:1 pixel zoom on these can look soft and blurry as you loose the viewfinders peaking function when you crop in.
 
Sony’s Venice and the F55/F5 can use Sony’s new DVF-EL200 OLED viewfinder. This costs around £4.5K ($6K) and has a 1920×1080 screen. It’s a beautiful image, but even this needs a fairly good dose of peaking to artificially sharpen the image to be able to see that last critical bit of focus. Again when you zoom in the image looks soft and a bit blurry (even on a Venice) as the camera itself is not adding any sharpening. The peaking function on the DVF-EL200 is quite sophisticated as it only enhances the highest frequency parts of the image, so only sharp edges and fine details are boosted.
 
Go back to the days of black and white tube viewfinders and these used tons of peaking to make them useable. Traditional SD and HD cameras add sharpening to their pictures, but most of our modern large sensor 4K camera do not and as a result often the viewfinder images appear soft compared to what we used to see on older cameras or still see today on cameras that do sharpen the pictures.
 
All of this makes it hard to nail your focus, especially if shooting 4K. Even with a DVF-EL200 on a Venice I struggle at times and rely heavily on image mag (which is still difficult) or better still a much larger monitor with a good sun shade and if necessary some reading glasses to allow you to focus on it up close.

So before you get too critical of your viewfinders performance do also consider all of the above. Try to see how another similar viewfinder looks on your camera (for example an Alphatron on an FS7). Perhaps try a higher resolution viewfinder such as a Gratical, but don’t expect miracles from a small, relatively low resolution screen on a modern digital cinema camera. This really is one of those areas where you can’t beat a big, high resolution screen.

A7, PMW-F55, PXW, PXW-FS5, PXW-FS7, Scene Files and Luts, Venice

Venice Look LUT’s For 14 stop cameras A7, FS5, FS7, F5, F55 etc.

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Hello all. So after numerous problems for some people trying to download the official Sony s709 LUT for Venice, I decided to create my own Venice Look LUT’s. These LUT’s have been created using image matching techniques plus some small tweaks and adjustments to make the LUT’s work well with the 14 stop cameras.

Venice is a 15 stop camera with a new sensor and as a result the official s709 LUT’s are not quite right for the current 14 stop cameras like the FS5, PMW-F55, FS7 and even the A7 series. So the LUT that I have created is slightly different to allow for this.

The end result is a LUT that gets you really close to the way Venice looks. It won’t magically turn your FS5 into a Venice, there is something very, very nice about the way Venice handles the extremes of it’s dynamic range, plus Venice has Sony’s best colour filters (similar to the F55 and F65). So Venice will always be that one very nice step up. But these LUT’s should get you close to the default Venice 709 look. This LUT should NOT be used with Venice as it this LUT is restricted to 14 stops.

Of course do remember that the default look and indeed the official s709 LUT was designed as a first pass look. An instant viewing output for a DIT or for on set viewing. It is not really meant to be the final finished look. It would be normal to grade the Venice material, perhaps from scratch rather than using the s709 LUT for the final output. But, s709 is what comes out of the cameras SDI connectors if you use the default LUT/Look. This is what this LUT set mimics, with some tweaks for the lower cost cameras.

This is one of the largest and most comprehensive LUT sets I have ever created. There are versions designed specifically for grading in Resolve or other grading suites. The bulk of the LUT’s are designed to be used with S-Log3 and SGamut3.cine. There are monitoring versions with offsets for use in monitors such as the Atomos range. I have created a set with offsets for both the Zacuto and Small HD viewfinders and monitors and finally I have also created sets of LUT’s for use with S-Log2 so users of the original A7s or those that wish to shoot with S-Log2 on an 8 bit camera are not left out.

The LUT’s work best with the PMW-F55 as this has the closest native color to the Venice camera, but I think they work really well on the rest of the Sony range.

If you find the LUT’S useful, please consider buying me a beer or a coffee using the “Buy Now” button below. There are different drink options depending on what you feel is fair, it takes time to prepare these and there are costs associated with hosting the files. I’m not paid to run this website and every little bit helps and is greatly appreciated.

If you don’t wish to buy me a coffee, that’s cool. But please don’t host the files elsewhere. Feel free to link back here and share the link, but please don’t distribute these anywhere else.

Here’s the link to the zip file containing the my Venice Look LUT set:

Click Here to download Alister’s Venice Look LUTs V2

If you are new to XDCAM-USER.COM please take a look around at the various tutorials, guides, tips and tricks that are hosted here. Click on the green search button at the top right to open a search window or follow the links in the drop down menus at the top of the page. Thanks for visiting!

PMW-F55, PXW, PXW-FS5, PXW-FS7, Venice

Sony Venice LUT.

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Sony’s new Rec-709 style LUT for the Venice camera is now available. This Lut was designed to work with the Venice camera to provide a new film like look with beautiful highlight roll-off.  In it’s current form it only works with S-Log3/S-Gamut3.cine material, although you could use the excellent LUTCalc app to create different versions.

Although designed for Venice the LUT works really well with footage from the FS5, FS7, F5 and F55 etc.

You can download the base LUT from here until the end of July. https://dmpce.cimediacloud.com/mediaboxes/8374a677e6224da2a170bd841f64302d

A7, PMW-F55, PXW, PXW-FS5, PXW-FS7

Why is the white balance limited to 3 presets when using S-Log2, S-Log3 or raw?

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This seems to be a source of frustration for many people shooting  raw or using S-Log2 or S-Log3 on a Sony camera. When shooting log and raw you should also be using a matching S-Gamut colour gamut if you want to get the best from the camera and this ties you into one of 3 preset white balances.

With a PXW-FS7, PMW-F5 or F55 it is possible to use custom mode to select a different colour space to mix with S-Log2 or S-Log3 and then have a variable white balance. With the Alpha cameras, PXW cameras such as the FS5 you can choose any Gamut you want in the picture profiles, but I don’t recommend this. For a start, if you don’t use one of the S-Gamuts you will be limited to Rec-709 Gamut, so you won’t be recording  the cameras full colour range. Also in custom mode there are some other things like noise reduction that you really don’t want when shooting S-log2/3 (it can cause banding).

So why is the S-Gamut white balance fixed to the 3 presets for daylight, fluorescent and tungsten? The main reason is to ensure you get the cameras full dynamic range in each colour. White balance is a gain function, it adjusts the gain of the red, green and blue channels so that white objects appear white under differing light sources. So if the light source lacks blue light – making the pictures look excessively warm – you add extra gain to the blue channel to compensate.

But the problem with this is that gain affects dynamic range. When shooting log (or raw) the camera needs to operate the sensor at the optimum gain level to squeeze the highest possible dynamic range from the it. Changing the gain in just one colour channel to shift the white balance could result in a reduction of dynamic range in the channel. This could manifest itself as colours in one channel that clip sooner than the others. This can be really hard to deal with in post production and can show up as things like bright clouds with a colour cast that isn’t in the rest of the picture.

Another potential issue is that because of the way silicon sensors work the blue channel is almost always noisier than the red and green. So you want to keep the gain in the blue channel as low as possible to prevent the pictures getting too noisy. This is particularly important when shooting log as you won’t see your end result until after the images have been graded. So manually shifting the gain of the blue channel in camera to correct the white balance could lead to footage that ends up noisier than you would expect.

So – Sony chose to fix the white balance to 3 carefully tuned presets designed to avoid this situation and maximise the dynamic range. After all, when shooting log or raw it is expected that the footage will be graded anyway, so the white balance will normally be adjusted as part of the post production process.

There are some people that advocate adjusting the FS5’s white balance via the picture profile settings, personally I don’t recommend this or feel that it’s necessary. But yes, you can do this, but just keep a very close eye on your highlights and if you can use monitor with RGB parade to make sure you have equal recording levels for your whites without one colour channel clipping ahead of the others. Also apply a LUT in the monitor that is close to your desired output so that you can keep an eye on the noise levels.

In summary – the white balance is preset to ensure you don’t encounter problems later on. You should be able to fully adjust and fine tune your white balance in post production to a far greater degree than is possible in camera anyway, so don’t worry if the WB is a touch off when shooting.

The only exception to this is the new Sony Venice. Venice has enough dynamic range and enough internal processing power to allow you to make a wide range of white balance adjustments in camera. Hopefully we will see some of this flexibility trickle down to the next generations of lower cost Sony digital cinema cameras.

cameras, PXW-FS5, Technology

PXW-FS5 II Secret Sauce and Venice Colour Science.

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At NAB 2018 a very hot topic is the launch of the FS5 II. The FS5 II is an update on the existing FS5 that includes the FS Raw output option and the HFR option as standard. So out of the box this means that this camera will be a great match to an Atomos Inferno to take advantage of the new Apple ProRes Raw codec.

Just like the FS5 the FS5 II can shoot using a range of different gamma curves including Rec-709, HLG, S-Log2  and S-Log3. So  for those more involved projects where image control is paramount you can shoot in log (or raw)  then take the footage into your favourite grading software and create whatever look you wish. You can tweak and tune your skin tones, play with the highlight roll off and create that Hollywood blockbuster look – with both the FS5 and the FS5 II. There is no change to this other than the addition of FS-Raw as standard on the FS5 II.

The big change, is to the cameras default colour science.

FS5II-1-1024x564 PXW-FS5 II Secret Sauce and Venice Colour Science.
New color science from the Sony PXW-FS5 II

Ever since I started shooting on Sony cameras, which was a very long time ago, they have always looked a certain way. If you point a Sony camera at a Rec-709 test chart you will find that the colours are actually quite accurate, the color patches on the chart lining up with the target boxes on a vector scope. All Sony cameras look this way so that if you use several different cameras on the same project they should at least look very similar, even if one of those cameras is a few years old.  But this look and standard was establish many years ago when camera and TV technology was nowhere near as advanced as it is today.

in addition, sometimes accurate isn’t pretty. Television display technology has come a long way in recent years. Digital broadcasting combined with good quality LCD and OLED displays now mean that we are able to see a wider range of colours and a larger dynamic range. Viewers expectations are changing, we all want prettier images.

When Sony launched the high end Venice digital cinema camera a bold step was taken, which was to break away from the standard Sony look and instead develop a new, modern, “pretty” look. A lot of research was done with both cinematographers and viewers trying to figure out what makes a pretty picture. Over several months I’ve watched Pablo, Sony’s colourist at the Digital Motion Picture Center at Pinewood studios develop new LUT’s with this new look for the Venice camera. It hasn’t been easy, but it looks really nice and is quite a departure from that standard Sony look.

The FS5 II includes many aspects of this new look. It isn’t just a change to the colours it is also a change to the default gamma curve that introduces a silky smooth highlight roll off that extends the dynamic range well beyond that normally possible with a conventional Rec-709 gamma curve. A lot of time was spent looking at how this new gamma behaves when shooting people and faces. In particular those troublesome highlights that you get on a nose or cheek that’s catching the light. You know – those pesky highlights that just don’t normally look nice on a video camera.

So as well as rolling off the brightness of these highlights in a smooth way, the color also subtly washes out to prevent the highlight color bloom that can be a video give away. This isn’t easy to do. Any colorist will tell you that getting bright skin tone highlights to look nice is tough. You bring down the brightness and it looks wrong because you loose too much contrast. De-saturate too much and it looks wrong as it just becomes a white blob. Finding the right balance of extended dynamic range with good contrast, plus a pleasing roll-off without a complete white-out is difficult enough to do in a grading suite where you can tweak and tune the settings for each shot. Coming up with a profile that will work over a vast range of shooting scenarios with no adjustment is even tougher. But it looks to me as though the engineers at Sony have really done a very nice job in the FS5 II.

Going forwards from here I would expect to see, or at least like to see, most of Sony’s future cameras have this new colour science. But this is a big step for Sony to break away from decades of one look and every camera looking more or less the same.  But do remember this change is primarily to the default, “standard” gamma look. It does not effect the FS5 II’s log or raw recordings. There is also going to have to be a set of LUT’s to go with this new color science so that those shooting with with a mix of the baked in look and S-log or raw can make all the footage match. In addition users of other S-Log cameras will want to be able to make their cameras match. I see no reason why this won’t be possible via a LUT or set of LUT’s, within the limitations of each cameras sensor technology.

There has been a lot of people that seem unhappy with the FS5 II. I think many people want a Sony Venice for the price of an FS5. Let’s be realistic, that isn’t going to happen. 10 bit recording in UHD would be nice, but that would need higher bit rates to avoid motion artefacts which would then need faster and more expensive media. If you want higher image quality in UHD or 4K DCI do consider an Atomos recorder and the new ProRes Raw codec. The files are barely any bigger than ProRes HQ, but offer 12 bit quality.

Given that the price of the FS5 II is going to be pretty much the same or maybe even a little lower than the regular FS5 (before you even add any options), I am not sure why so many people are complaining. The FS5-II takes a great little camera, makes it even better and costs even less.

 

HDR, PXW-FS5, PXW-FS7, Technology, Workflow

ProRes Raw and Atomos Inferno and Sumo – BIG deal for the FS5 and FS7!!

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proresraw-logo ProRes Raw and Atomos Inferno and Sumo - BIG deal for the FS5 and FS7!!Over the last few days there have been various rumours and posts coming from Apple about how they intend to get back to providing decent support for professional users of their computers. Apple have openly admitted that the Trash Can Mac Pro has thermal problems and as a result has become a dead end design, which is why there haven’t been any big updates to the flagship workstation from Apple. Apple have hinted that new workstations are on the way, although it would seem that we won’t see these until next year perhaps.
Another announcement came out today, a new version of FCP-X is to be released which includes support for a new ProRes codec called ProRes Raw. This is BIG!

PRORES RAW.

Raw recordings can be made from certain cameras that have bayer sensors such as the Sony FS5 and FS7. Recording the raw data from the sensor maximises your post production flexibility and normally offers the best possible image quality from the camera. Currently if you record 4K raw with these cameras using an Atomos Shogun or similar the bit rate will be close to 3Gb/s at 24p. These are huge files and the cDNG format used to record them is difficult and clunky to work with.  As a result most users take the raw output from the camera and transform it to S-Log2 or S-Log3 and record it as 10 bit ProRes on the external recorder. This is a bit of a shame as going from 12 bit linear raw to 10 bit S-log means you are not getting the full benefit of the raw output.

Enter ProRes Raw:  ProRes Raw will allow users to record the cameras raw output at a much reduced bit rate with no significant of quality. There are two versions, ProRes Raw and ProRes Raw HQ. The HQ bit rate is around 1Gb/s at 24fps. This is not significantly bigger than the ProRes HQ (880Mb/s) that most users are using now to record the raw, yet the full benefit of 12 bit linear will be retained. A 1TB SSD will hold around an hour of ProRes Raw, compare that to uncompressed raw where you only get around 20 mins and you can see that this is a big step forwards for users of the FS5 in particular.

ProRes Raw (the non HQ version) is even smaller! The files are smaller than typical ProRes HQ files. This is possible because recording raw is inherently more efficient than recording component video.

It is claimed by Apple that ProRes Raw will play back in real time on MacBook Pro’s and iMacs without any additional rendering or external graphics cards, so it obviously isn’t terribly processor intensive. This is excellent news! Within FCP-X the playback resolution can be decreased to bring improved playback performance in less powerful systems or mutistream playback.

It looks like you will be able to record from a 4K DCI  from an FS5 or FS7 at up to 60fps continuously. This breaks through the previous limits for the Shogun of 30fps. The FS7 will be able to record 2K raw at up to 240fps and the FS5 will be able to record 4K raw at 100 and 120fps for 4 seconds. Other raw cameras are also supported by the Atomos recorders at differing frame sizes and frame rates.

At the moment the only recorders listed as supporting ProRes Raw are the Atomos Shogun Inferno and the Sumo19 and it looks like it will be a free update. In addition the DJI Inspire 2 drone and Zenmuse X7 Super 35mm camera will also support ProRes Raw.

Whether you will be able to use ProRes Raw in other applications such as Resolve or Premiere is unclear at this time. I hope that you can (or at least will be able to in the near future).

SEE: Apple Press Release.

SEE: Apple ProRes Raw White Paper

SEE: ATOMOS ProRes Raw INFO PAGE.

 

 

Everything Else, PXW-FS5, PXW-FS7

Sony Cash-Back Offer Ends Soon (Europe).

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Camcorder-Accessory-Promotion_home-medium-EN Sony Cash-Back Offer Ends Soon (Europe).Sony are offering up to £220/€250 cash back on accessories purchased with an FS5 and up to £400/€450 cash back on accessories purchased with  FS7 or FS7M2 if you purchase one before the end of March 2018. So there’s only 2 weeks left to take advantage of this offer!

So if your looking at investing in a nice camera kit with perhaps one of the excellent UWP-D radio mic kits that connect directly to the cameras MI shoe or some extra batteries this might be a great way to get some money back from Sony. There are various terms and conditions so please take a look at the promotion page for the full details. Here’s a link to the promotion page.

 

PXW-FS5, PXW-FS7, Shooting Tips, Workflow

Use the cameras media check to help ensure you don’t get file problems.

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Any of the Sony cameras that use SxS or XQD cards include a media check and media restore function that is designed to detect any problems with your recording media or the files stored on that media.
However the media check is only normally performed when you insert a card into the camera, it is not done when you eject a card as the camera never knows when you are about to do that.
So my advice is: When you want to remove the card to offload your footage ensure you have a green light next to the card, this means it should be safe to remove. Pop the card out as you would do normally but then re-insert the card and wait for the light to go from red, back to green. Check the LCD/VF for any messages, if there are no messages, take the card out and do your offload as normal.
 
Why? Every time you put an XQD or SxS card into the camera the card and files stored on it are checked for any signs of any issues. If there is a problem the camera will give you a “Restore Media” warning. If you see this warning always select OK and allow the camera to repair whatever the problem is. If you don’t restore the media and you then make a copy from the card, any copy you make will also be corrupt and the files may be inaccessible.
Once the files have been copied from the card it is no longer possible to restore the media.  If there is a problem with the files on the card, the restore can only be done by the camera, before offload. So this simple check that takes just a few seconds can save a whole world of hurt. I wish there was a media check button you could press to force the check, but there isn’t. However this method works.
It’s also worth knowing that Catalyst Browse and the old Media Browser software performs a data integrity check if you directly attach an SxS card or XQD card to the computer and access the card from the software. If a problem is found you will get a message telling you to return the media to the camera and perform a media restore. But if this is some time after the shoot and you don’t have the camera to hand, this can be impossible. Which is why I like to check my media in the camera by re-inserting it back into the camera so that it gets checked for problems before the end of the shoot.
cameras, PXW-FS5, PXW-FS7

How does the Panasonic EVA1 stack up against the Sony FS7 and FS5?

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This is a question a lot of people are asking. As I’ve mentioned in other recent posts, sensors have reached a point where it’s very difficult to bring out a camera where the image quality will be significantly different from any other on the market for any given price point. Most differences will be in things like codec choices or trading off a bit of extra resolution for sensitivity etc. Other differences will be in the ergonomics, lens mounts and battery systems.

So it’s interesting to see what Keith Mullin over at  Z-Systems thought of the EVA1. Keith knows his stuff and Z-Systems are not tied to any one particular brand.

Overall as expected there isn’t a huge difference in image quality between any of the 3 cameras. The EVA1 seems weaker in low light which is something I would have predicted given the higher pixel count. The dual ISO mode seems not to be anywhere near the same as the really very good dual ISO mode in the Varicam LT.

Why not take a look at the full article and video for yourself. http://zsyst.com/2017/12/panasonic-eva1-first-look/