I shot a Stouffer grayscale in both AVCHD and in 2K. Two differences leap out…
1) Look at the granularity of the 8-bit AVCHD recording on the waveform monitor, and compare it to the 12-bit linear raw recording. Can you see the horizontal, quantized bands of information in the AVCHD (mostly a function of its 8-bit-ness, not so much the compression)? What will happen if you have to grade that severely, compared to that smoother, 12-bit signal?
2) Look at the contrasty edge on the blown-out highlight. Both the FS100 and the FS700 show this in AVCHD recording, but thankfully the 2K (and the 4K) raw images are free of that particular defect.
So, let’s look at an overview of the FS700’s AVCHD recording capabilities…
Here’s what the camera offers in raw mode:
Here’s a screen grab of the new, beta version of Sony’s Raw Viewer software (click to open full-size):
It’s comparable to REDCINE-X PRO in its scope, professionalism, and polish—by far the most comprehensive, elegant, and useful camera-file-wrangling software I’ve seen from a large Japanese camera company. Full browsing, metadata viewing, look management, and transcoding to trimmed raw, OpenEXR, and DPX files. This version handles FS700 raw files as well as F5 / F55 files, giving you a single tool for dealing with all three cameras. Fast, flexible, user-friendly… I enjoyed using it quite a lot.
Here are two FCPX screenshots, looking at AVCHD and raw clips shot simultaneously:
The AVCHD clips, each shot with a different gamma / look setting.
The raw clips, exported from Raw Viewer as DPX with S-Log2 / S-Gamut, then flipped to ProRes in DaVinci Resolve.
Notice that regardless of the look baked into the AVCHD files, all the raw clips came through as 12-bit linear, with look metadata associated but not baked in (there’s some brightness variation as I changed exposure on some clips, but that’s it). All had a consistent look applied in Raw Viewer, and that’s what they traveled with thereafter. By outputting ’em as S-Log2, I kept as much tonal information as possible for later manipulation.
OK, raw has some limits for Super Slo-Mo: only 240fps or below in 2K and 120fps or below in 4K, but the 2K can record forever, unbuffered!
Next: the ever-popular resolution charts, for AVCHD slo-mo and for raw…
