Interesting

[Noah Yuan-Vogel]

Worth a look if it hasnt been posted already:
VideON | Shooting with the new NEX-FS700: High Speed and Low Light | NXCAM & AVCHD Camcorders

particularly the 14+ stops (useable? maybe not) of latitude in cine4 :)

[Felix Steinhardt]

Frank Glencairn posted some good stills from the different gamma modes.
Cine 4 indeed has the highest DR but highlights don´t look very good...Very colored and harsh, more like REC709 with knee.
Cine 1 looks best in my opinion.

What´s startling in this video is the resolution charts. Only 800 lines horizontally? The FS100 was measured with 850 lines, so we have the bigger brother - future capable of 4k - resolving less than 1080p. Kind of disappointing. Also the moire in SSM could prove very problematic like in the old days with the 7D etc.

[Matt Davis]

Have to say I was loving CineGamma 3, with the 109 whites. Frank's 'money shot' shows more detail in the FS700, and aside from charts, I'd say there's enough detail to be picked out by sharpening slightly in post. What detail they may lack over, say, an EX1 is made up for in the lack of noise (though I am seeing a faint whiff of 'grain' in the FS700 over the FS100).

The FS700 I was playing with purported to be quite a 'late' one and up to 240 fps, the SSR looked a little better than some of the examples shown, though it does exhibit a nit-picker's bit of aliasing. Again, fully concur with their theory that it's just a truculent but quick way of reading the image off a 4K sensor rather than the rather more considered mode between 1-60 fps.

I did discover an oddity with the loaner I had - Knee was still active when CineGammas were selected, I found this when I was trying to get SuperWhites on CG3 & 4. Had to set knee to 109/0 - effectively off - and everything was fab again. EX1s disable Knee as soon as a CineGamma is selected, but I had to manually sort it out. Not sure if this will hang over into release units.

Judging by the HORRIBLE aliasing I occasionally see on British Broadcasting TV these days, there's nothing about the FS700's foibles that worries me. As soon as I saw the results with the CineGammas, I ordered one. No cadaver yellow posterisation & red clip, highlights handled far nicer, baby F3 image rather than 'better than AF101' image.

[Noah Yuan-Vogel]

Did you notice during your time with the FS700 if it suffers from the same issue the FS100/F3 and some other sony cameras have where primary colors shift before clip? Red turns yellow, blue turns cyan, etc. It's pretty painful to see when shooting performances or nightclubs that have a lot of primary red and blue lights flying around etc.

Is that the thing you are talking about? But you make it sound like the F3 doesnt have this problem. In my limited experience and from footage I've seen it definitely does, but maybe not in S-log or something?

[Matt Davis]

There's two anomolies here:

i) the intense colours combined with very high contrast in stage and nightclub shoots can be a little too much for the internal 4:2:0 colour, and its affected all the cameras I've owned, and in the thick of it (tight shots on the band, whatever) it looks like a cheap plug-in. I'll be experimenting with a 4:2:2 recorder next time I have a chance.

ii) The red-clip thing I was talking about can be approximated on a v2 FS100 by combining CineTone 1 gamma with Rec709 Colour, and overexposing ash or beech blinds in strong sunlight. Rather specific I know, but it's repeatable. That 'cadaver yellow donut round a spot of tipp-ex' mark of Cain on skin's specular highlights was for me an AF101 trademark - but you could be unlucky and get something like that on the FS100 with CineTones if your colour was dialled too high (I think most of us are using -2 now).

[Noah Yuan-Vogel]

I'm pretty sure neither of those are what I'm talking about. You will easily see what I'm talking about if you shoot R G B primary color ramps at pretty much any picture profile mode on an FS100. I've also seen this on a lot of F3 footage, but I don't own one to test as thoroughly.

[Matt Davis]

Hmmm - do you have a screenshot of it beside a WFM parade?

[Frank Glencairn]

Yeah, would be interesting - I never run into that.

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Felix Steinhardt

What´s startling in this video is the resolution charts. Only 800 lines horizontally? The FS100 was measured with 850 lines, so we have the bigger brother - future capable of 4k - resolving less than 1080p. Kind of disappointing..

Have a look at Matts charts here: http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/sony-nxc...700-fs100.html and look closely at the central circles, which represent 700 and 800 lines.

Most obvious fact is that for both cameras the resolution of horizontal lines is far better than for vertical lines. Both the 100 and the 700 easily reproduce 800 horizontal lines, and probably much more. But look along the horizontal axis and it's a completely different story for vertical lines.

No way does the FS700 resolve 800 vertical lines, and if you look closely at the FS100 it's a similar story - though here we see aliasing rather than plain grey. The FS100 may make 850 lines on the vertical axis, nowhere near on the horizontal. I'd say they were pretty identical in terms of (unaliased) resolution.

As for "future capable of 4k" then this will need a RAW read out of all the photosites, and a software deBayer. In current mode they must be doing something similar to the C300 with it's direct read out - trading resolution for simplicity. Strange that it doesn't give similar results to the C300 for hor axis resolution then.......