Bristol Harbourside filmed with a Sony A7s - YouTube

Kevin, does the focus in this look right to you?

Andrew

Kevin, does the focus in this look right to you?

Andrew

Unless it's just the youtube encoding, certainly looks too soft here... How does a frame capture look?

I am finding there's a definite loss of quality when uploaded to YouTube.

Kevin - in my opinion is something wrong with your lens. Definitelly bad loss of shapness near edges. And most time it looks worse on left then on the right side.

Really noticeable at 0:38 - What lens/adapter are you using?

Ivan, I think you may be right about the lens. It appears to be worse on wide shots and better when zoomed in.

I used a Sony 18-105mm OSS F4 lens.

Looking at other videos I've shot using the Sony Zeiss FE 55mm lens, the softness isn't there.

Is there anything that can be done if the lens is at fault?

Yup. New lens.

You're welcome. :-)

Andrew

Following some research, it appears this lens has some distortion problems when used with cameras without 'in camera' correction. Apparently the FS700 had a firmware update to sort the issue. I presume the A7s doesn't have this feature. Does anyone have any more info on this?

It's a bit of a concern that a lens has distortion that bad, and requires in-camera correction for it to be able to be usable.

I can always shoot some video footage with my A7II and upload if it helps. I've got the Sony FE 28-70mm lens on it (only $300-ish worth). You might find that the night and day comparative results enough that you wouldn't even mess around with that lens any more.

Andrew

Actually, I've got a feeling that the flange distance in the camera mount for the lens will be what is doing this. If this is the case then the idea thing would be to have some sort of adapter. Else, use a crop factor mode when shooting with that lens.

Have a go at this (the crop mode) and see how it works for you.

Andrew

Thanks for the info. The FE 28-70mm is a very good value zoom. I'm sure it won't be as good as some of the other FE zooms but they're much higher priced. It could be a good back up to my FE 55mm Prime.
How do you find yours for video?

Better for video than I was expecting. I've only done a few quick test shots to check out the recording ability and not any serious filming. I actually bought the camera for only shooting stills, having a Sony PMW-300 that I do my video shooting with.

Those more expensive FE mount lenses are made by Zeiss and have better optics. Apparently they are pretty dang impressive and you do get what you pay for. I just haven't had one of them to play with yet.

Andrew

He's a very rudimentary video that I shot with the camera and lens. I've barely even read the manual. The focus is hunting around but there is enough to give you an indication of the quality.

I've uploaded the raw .mts video file directly to YouTube and the camera would have been shooting video at roughly ASA2000 (based on on-screen feedback in photo mode).

Andrew

http://youtu.be/rKEFMtRh_yM

Here's a video I shot today. I switched back to my Sony Zeiss 55mm prime lens. Images are much better and sharper all round compared to the 18-105mm zoom. I'm looking to order the 28-70mm zoom to take its place which will hopefully compliment the prime lens.

The Ghost Ships, Bristol filmed with a Sony A7s - YouTube

I can see that the lens is definitely better. It just looks a bit softer than I would have expected - possibly from encoding settings or something.

It's beyond me what is doing it. More contrast needed, perhaps?

Andrew

I think the encoding to You Tube is definitely making a difference. Pictures are much sharper and brighter on my laptop.

Is it possible to encode to 1080p at 10Mbit/sec mp4?

Andrew

I have the default You Tube export setting in FCP X set to 1080p and Better Quality for the encode.

But, the You Tube Ghost Boats upload file size is still only 521MB compared with the normal Pro Res 422 which is much, much bigger at 3.29GB. So, regardless of how you shoot, it's still going to be compressed quite a bit which will lead to a reduction in quality.

Even a raw camera video clip uploaded direct to YouTube would be a start for a proper test sample (much like what I did).

Andrew

I would suggest that isn't a matter of applying in-body lens correction. That's really wonky looking. Looks like Vaseline is smeared on the right side of the lens. Defiantly not right. (I upload a ton to YouTube, and can confirm that's not an artifact of their transcoding.)

The strange thing is other footage shot using this lens a few months earlier looks much, much better.

And, even on this video, when zoomed in their isn't any smear/bluriness, etc - it only appears on the very wide shots. I do use a screw in ND filter but it's the same make (Hoya Pro) as on my other A7s lenses and I've not had any problems with these.

Strange indeed...anyone have any thoughts as to why this may be??