New Sony A7s to shoot 4K video

[Matt Sharp]

Originally Posted by Philip Lipetz

..this signals a US price of closer to $2500.

Right on the money! B&H has the A7S for preorder at $2,498, body only. B&H Photo Video Sony A7S

[Philip Lipetz]

DR is spec is stated to be 15.3 stops. Nikon D800 is DxOmark measured at 14.4 in still RAW. DxOmark DR measurement for RED Dragon is 14.8.

[Peer Landa]

Originally Posted by Philip Lipetz

DR is spec is stated to be 15.3 stops. [...] DxOmark DR measurement for RED Dragon is 14.8.

But that's DR for a still vs a frame grab, right..?

-- peer

[Philip Lipetz]

Originally Posted by Peer Landa

But that's DR for a still vs a frame grab, right..?

-- peer

Yes, so this issue is how much of still RAW DR transfers to the S Log 2 profile. Den Lennie says that the A7s has DR similar to his F5.

The real issue is that measured DR drops drastically as you go beyond base ISO. The A7s has outstanding performance at higher ISO, and this should mean that the A7s has less decrease in DR as ISO increases, so that it has the potential to be DR king above base ISO.

[Phil Goetz]

Limited supply of Sony A7s tracked to arrive today, Wednesday July 2.

Sony Alpha a7S

Just in time for the holiday weekend!

[Steve Kimmel]

Originally Posted by Philip Lipetz

DR is spec is stated to be 15.3 stops. Nikon D800 is DxOmark measured at 14.4 in still RAW. DxOmark DR measurement for RED Dragon is 14.8.

Yes, but A7s on DxOmark (apples to apples) DR is only 13.2

[Alister Chapman]

S-Log2 can only hold 14 stops, so there is no way to record more than 14 stops with the A7s at this time.

[Phil Goetz]

This card does NOT record XAVC-S on the A7s.

Panasonic RP-SDUC32GAK

This card DOES record XAVC-S on the A7s.

Panasonic RP-SDUC64GAK

Though this thread is NOT discussing it, this is also the case on the Sony FDR-AX100 4k camcorder.

[Craig Chartier]

so the Panasonic SDXC DOES and the Panasonic SDHC does not. although both are U3 cards?

[Phil Goetz]

That's correct.

[Mark Rosenzweig]

Originally Posted by Phil Goetz

This card does NOT record XAVC-S on the A7s.

Panasonic RP-SDUC32GAK

This card DOES record XAVC-S on the A7s.

Panasonic RP-SDUC64GAK

Though this thread is NOT discussing it, this is also the case on the Sony FDR-AX100 4k camcorder.

The AX100 requires that the card be formatted with exFAT. SDXC cards (64GB+) are exFAT; SDHC cards, like the 32GB one, are not likely formatted that way. The problem is most likely the card formatting, not the physical card.

Check the formats of the cards.

[James Hobert]

To shoot XAVC-s on the A7s you must have a 64gb card or higher. You can still shoot AVCHD on smaller cards, but not XAVC-s, regardless of speed. It's in the manual. I got two...killer cameras. Unreal in low light, great handling, etc.

[Alister Chapman]

The manuals are quite clear on this, you need SDXC for XAVC-S, SDHC cannot be used.

SDHC cannot be reliably formatted using anything other than Fat16 or Fat32 as the controllers and error correction processes built in to the cards are designed purely for these formats. It is possible to format an SDHC card using another standard, but it won't be reliable and there is a high likelihood of data loss. So Sony won't allow it.

SDXC is designed to work reliably with ExFat which allows for the larger file sizes that are common when shooting using higher bit rate codecs such as XAVC-S.

As there is very little price difference between SDXC and SDHC there is little reason to remain restricted to small files, segmented clips and all the other issues that come with SDHC and Fat16 or Fat32.

[Cliff Totten]

This A7s is NUTS! Really incredible camera and I'm VERY surprised that Sony actually made this thing.

The amount of internal Sony "cannibalism" potential between their upper models and this A7s seems to be unusually high for Sony to tolerate. In past years, I can't remember any $2,500 Sony camera challenging it's 10,000+ models so aggressively.

When I was at NAB 2013 I noticed that many Sony "pro" staff seemed a little "uneasy" when I asked them what they thought of the "consumer" A7s compared to their F3 / F5 / F55 / FS700.

This is NOT a direct quote, this just sums up the "feeling" I got from the Pro Sony guys: "Oh God, what is Sony doing to us with this CONSUMER DIVISION thing...are they mad?" lol

Anyway, Sony snagged another $2,500 of mine and I just added this to my existing Sony collection! ;-)

I did a quick Gain/ISO test. I simply scrolled up through the ISO values and spoke them out as I recorded them in XAVC-S. I then popped the card into my AX100 and noted the gain values that are displayed on playback.

Here they are with S-LOG2 turned on:

ISO 3,200 = 12db
ISO 4,000 = 15db
ISO 5,000 = 15db
ISO 6,400 = 18db
ISO 8,000 = 21db
ISO 10,000 = 21db
ISO 12,800 = 24db
ISO 16,000 = 27db
ISO 20,000 = 27db
ISO 25,600 = 30db
ISO 32,000 = 33db
ISO 40,000 = 33db
ISO 51,200 = 36db
ISO 64,000 = 39db
ISO 80,000 = 39db
ISO 12,0400 = 42db
ISO 128,000 = 45db
ISO 160,000 = 45db
ISO 204,800 = 48db
ISO 256,000 = 51db
ISO 320,000 = 54db
ISO 409,000 = 54db

Crazy....really really crazy numbers here...

Luv it

CT

[Michael Thames]

This is not a very flattering video for the Sony A7s..... I'm considering a purchase but after seeing this I'm going to wait to see if someone comes up with a better video displaying the full attributes of this camera.

EOSHD Sony A7S looks for S-LOG 2 on Vimeo