Yet another Sony A7S Low Light Video - Wedding Party

[Noa Put]

just prefer the videocam body & not the DSLR

You answered your own question, the a7s is a dslr :)

[David Barnett]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

You answered your own question, the a7s is a dslr :)

well not really. I said I "prefer" the videocam style body, but am not adamantly against the DSLR. If the low light ability & overall features are far superior to the FS100 I'd go with it, but the two are pretty similar in abilities I'd likely go with the FS100.

[Chris Harding]

Hi David

I'm with you there all the way. I just don't like the DSLR form factor to shoot video ..it feels wrong to me so I use my DSLR's purely for stills and my Sony EA-50's for Video. The FS100 is almost as bad as the A7S regarding form factor and difficult to hand hold ... If you have to go with the FS100 then you might as well go for the A7S ...You can put either camera on a rig if you want to and the A7S has a FF sensor so it's way better in low light!!

If you need a genuinely traditional video camera without any DSLR features then there's only the JVC HM850 now which is a true on shoulder 3 chip camera.

Chris

[Kenny Shem]

You can add a handgrip to a7s if you find the body too small to be handheld. The handgrip also accept 2 batteries which will give you additional power juice to last longer.

[Peter Rush]

Anyone using the XAVC-S codec? I was filming a wedding yesterday using this for the first time and halfway through the day - despite having a 56GB card I got 'not enough room on card' message - I put it down to the codec requiring more card space and swapped cards - copying the contents of the card however shows only 15GB used - anyone have anything similar?

Pete

[David Barnett]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

If you have to go with the FS100 then you might as well go for the A7S ...You can put either camera on a rig if you want to and the A7S has a FF sensor so it's way better in low light!!

Thanks. It says the FS100 has a 35mm sensor I believe, does that come close to the full frame, or is it pretty far away in terms of low light ability?

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

the A7S has a FF sensor so it's way better in low light!!

Having a full frame sensor does not automatically mean it's better in low light, the 5dII, 5DIII and a7s all have a full frame sensor yet in terms of low light performance there is a big difference between the 3 camera's.

[Khoi Pham]

Originally Posted by Peter Rush

Anyone using the XAVC-S codec? I was filming a wedding yesterday using this for the first time and halfway through the day - despite having a 56GB card I got 'not enough room on card' message - I put it down to the codec requiring more card space and swapped cards - copying the contents of the card however shows only 15GB used - anyone have anything similar?

Pete

The manual said that 64GB card is the minimum for it to work with XAVC-S

[Noah Yuan-Vogel]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

Having a full frame sensor does not automatically mean it's better in low light, the 5dII, 5DIII and a7s all have a full frame sensor yet in terms of low light performance there is a big difference between the 3 camera's.

Well no but there is a very strong correlation...

[Kenny Shem]

Originally Posted by Peter Rush

Anyone using the XAVC-S codec? I was filming a wedding yesterday using this for the first time and halfway through the day - despite having a 56GB card I got 'not enough room on card' message - I put it down to the codec requiring more card space and swapped cards - copying the contents of the card however shows only 15GB used - anyone have anything similar?

Pete

Is there a 56gb card? should be 32/64/128gb right?

[Peter Rush]

My mistake - 64GB but I still got a message about the card being full even though it only had 15gb files when I got home and looked - despite formatting the card in the camera - never had this issue using AVCHD

[Robert Benda]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

Having a full frame sensor does not automatically mean it's better in low light, the 5dII, 5DIII and a7s all have a full frame sensor yet in terms of low light performance there is a big difference between the 3 camera's.

It may not mean it's better in low light when comparing cameras, but it does mean it does better in low light relative to if it had a crop factor sensor. There are other factors that matter for low light quality, and size of sensor is one of them.

For instance, we shoot with Canon 70D (crop factor) and a 5d Mark ii. If we use identical lenses, settings, and positions, the 70D is darker, so if I put my full frame 5d Mark ii on f/4, then my 70D is usually at f/3.2 to get the same exposure.

[Noa Put]

Well it can but it doesn't necessarily mean it will, that was what I was trying to say, just saying it's better in low light because it has a large sensor is not always true, there are currently camera with a smaller sensor then full frame that will outperform the 5d mark 2, one of that could be the c100. Technically a full frame sensor is capable of outperforming any smaller sensor camera when it comes to shooting in low light but there is more to it then just the size of the sensor, otherwise the 5dII would have performed the same as the a7s and there is a huge difference between those 2.

[Matt Sharp]

Clive (or anyone else with an A7S) do you also have an APS-C E-mount camera? Would you be able to take some test photos/frame grabs with preferably the same full frame lens on both with a focal reducer on the APS-C camera? I'm looking for the darkest environment possible, single candlelit room or similar.

I currently use a 5R, VG30, and FS100 with focal reducers on fast lenses, and while they can already see much better than I can in the dark, I'm looking for something even better and I'm trying to see exactly how much better the A7S is.

[Peter Rush]

Matt, while I can't provide any samples I shoot with a Sony EA50 and a VG20 - Both same sensors as your VG30 - I use a metabones speedbooster and for indoor shots with my Tamron 24-70 f2.8 (goes to f2.0 with the speedbooster) it's OK but when the lights really go down for the evening reception I'm finding my gain going right up to 24db - on the edge of acceptable for me so that's when I switch to my A7s - with the Tamron 24-70 f2.8 it pretty much sees in the dark - trust me! I did shoot with a 5D3 for a while but had trouble with focus but the A7s with peaking and zoom assist makes it a breeze!