FS700 for Slo-mo Corporate B-roll

[Jon Fairhurst]

I've reserved an FS700 rental for shooting some slo-mo corporate b-roll later this month. We can shoot some stuff outdoors, though the sun isn't very bright this time of year in the Pacific Northwest. We have a 1k, two 650, one 300, and one 150W Fresnel lamps as well as some stage lights, so we should be able to get decent indoor stuff.

The camera comes with a metabones adapter and our lenses range from f/1.4 to f/2.8.

My main experience is with DSLRs, so I have a feel for the shutter/aperture/ISO balance under various lighting conditions, but I'm not sure what 0dB delivers on the FS700.

* Anybody know the native ISO of this cam?

* Also, any tips for a first time FS700 user?

We don't need 240/480 Hz. We'll shoot mainly 60 and 120 fps. We're shooting high speed mainly to give a dreamy feel and so we can stretch out footage that supports interviews. We don't need to show watermelon drops, hummingbirds, or other "amazing" stuff. Being a corporate shoot, we can tolerate moderate noise. It needs to have the right feel and be professional, but it doesn't need a Hollywood sheen. FWIW, we'll use a tripod as well as a Kessler Pocket Jib sometimes on tracks.

Thanks in advance!

[Will Salley]

You should have no issues with that configuration except to be mindful of focus. An external monitor with more resolution is a must when doing anything on the FS700, and especially overcranked.

[Gabe Strong]

Originally Posted by Jon Fairhurst

I've reserved an FS700 rental for shooting some slo-mo corporate b-roll later this month. We can shoot some stuff outdoors, though the sun isn't very bright this time of year in the Pacific Northwest. We have a 1k, two 650, one 300, and one 150W Fresnel lamps as well as some stage lights, so we should be able to get decent indoor stuff.

The camera comes with a metabones adapter and our lenses range from f/1.4 to f/2.8.

My main experience is with DSLRs, so I have a feel for the shutter/aperture/ISO balance under various lighting conditions, but I'm not sure what 0dB delivers on the FS700.

* Anybody know the native ISO of this cam?

* Also, any tips for a first time FS700 user?

We don't need 240/480 Hz. We'll shoot mainly 60 and 120 fps. We're shooting high speed mainly to give a dreamy feel and so we can stretch out footage that supports interviews. We don't need to show watermelon drops, hummingbirds, or other "amazing" stuff. Being a corporate shoot, we can tolerate moderate noise. It needs to have the right feel and be professional, but it doesn't need a Hollywood sheen. FWIW, we'll use a tripod as well as a Kessler Pocket Jib sometimes on tracks.

Thanks in advance!

Ha, welcome to my world. Summer is the best time of year to use the FS700, unless you like rain!
The FS700 has several gamma curves if you are shooting directly to the internal cards, plus
SLog 2 and Rec709 (800%) if you have an firmware of 3.0 or higher. The native iso depends
on what gamma curve you use, I think most give you native 500 ISO, but I think Cine4 gives
you native 640ISO (according to the camera itself.). I haven't had any problems shooting '
60 or 120 under lights, but you will certainly get flickering at 240, under some lights.

Remember, you've got built in ND's. If you are a DSLR user, make sure you use them
so you don't have to let your shutter speed go crazy high, or your motion will look strange.
Of course for the slo motion stuff, you probably won't need them as you need more light
for slo motion. Cine 4 gives you the most highlight latitude. Cine 3 the most shadow latitude.
Set your slo motion to 'end trigger' for unpredictable events or 'start trigger' if you can que
actors. You get 8 or 9 seconds of slo motion which doesn't sound like much, until you
consider that is like a minute and a half when you play it back. Remember to budget
30 seconds or so for the slo motion clips to 'write' to the card, during which time you cannot
be using the camera. Also, when you shoot slo motion, the video is being written to
the cards at 60fps, NOT 24fps, so it will look slower than usual, but you are not
getting the full picture of what it will look like when you watch it being written to the
card in real time. You have to go into the menu and actually play it back to see
what it will REALLY look like. Also remember, there is some line skipping going
on above 60fps, so it will be a bit noisier and not look as nice as the normal footage.
It still looks great, I use it all the time, but it IS a little different so if you have a chance,
shoot some tests. I don't push the ISO in slo motion as hard as I would for normal
speed shooting because of this.

Any other questions, just ask.

More reading for you....
http://pro.sony-asia.com/product/res...3_handbook.pdf
Review: Sony NEX-FS700 “Super35” LSS AVCHD Camcorder by Adam Wilt
CAMERAS: Sony FS700 Dynamic Range Presentation by Art Adams

[Jon Fairhurst]

Wow. This is exactly the information I needed.

Since this is from a rental house and we will get it in a couple of weeks, I'd expect that we'll get the latest firmware.

Between SLog 2 (which I assume is flat and starves bits in the middle to give you latitude at both extremes), Cine 3 (shadows) and Cine 4 (highlights), it sounds like we can match the curves to the scenes and conform in post. I'm comfortable with this approach on DSLRs (use the bits where you need them), so we should be able to mix and match.

I've watched Philip Bloom's review at Brighton Beach, so I'm roughly familiar with the REC trigger options and the buffering. Frankly, it's brilliant. When researching cameras to rent for slow motion, these features and built-in ND filters sold it.

That's great information about 60 fps playback. Frankly, this makes a lot of sense. 24 fps playback might show the final feel, but it would be slow and I generally just want to do a quick quality review and move to the next setup.

I read that noise is higher above 60 fps. The line skipping explains it. That increases the noise by a stop. Regardless, we will probably shoot mainly at 120 fps where we have enough light.

We will pick up the camera late on a Thursday afternoon, so we can do some tests before the Friday shoot. And then we get the weekend for playing around...

I'll download the manual and study it before the rental. That might lead to some more questions from here in "Southern Alaska". :)

[Gabe Strong]

Just to be clear about the slow motion playback, I'll explain more what I mean.
For purposes of this explanation, let's just say you have end trigger set up.
You watch the action....and right after the action you want occurs, you hit record.
Now the camera will start 'writing' the previous 8 seconds to the card.....and you
can watch it as it is written to the card. HOWEVER it is being written to the card
at 60fps......which is why it only takes 30 seconds to write the whole 1 1/2 minutes
of video to the card (that 8 or 9 seconds is 80 or 90 seconds in real time). So, when
you are watching the slow motion footage being written to card, it will look like 60fps
footage....or basically 2.5 times slow motion (assuming you are shooting 24P). Once
you are done 'writing' the slow motion footage to card, you can go to your 'media' screen
and view it. Now, you will be seeing it in it's full 5x or 10x slow motion glory. You can
of course watch for 2 seconds and click back to the camera once you see what it looks like.
But many people start shooting slow motion on the FS700 and as the camera writes to the
card, they watch and think:
'That doesn't look any better than my FS100/AF100/etc... 60fps slow motion'.
Which is because they are not seeing the real slow motion until they play it back
after it has been written to card. So the playback is in true slow motion, but the image
you see on the screen as the camera is actually recording the slow motion.....is at 60fps.

It's actually a great camera for corporate stuff. It can do lots of stuff, slow motion,
timelapse with slow shutter for 'smeary lights' look, you can use cheap old lenses
on it, or get lenses with image stabilization with the Metabones adapter or autofocus
with the Sony A to E adapter. Emount lenses give you programmable 'focus pulls' where
you can set two focus points, and the time (in .5 second increments) it takes to rack focus
between them, you can use 'tap to focus' on the screen to show it where you want to
focus, and they have great OIS....which are all reasons the kit lens gets some use
from me. Plus you can strip it down and mount it on cars or conveyer belts or
fishing boats, or cranes or all kinds of places. It has tons of mounting holes on
the body so you can get neat shots by putting it on some sort of rig.
Basically it does a lot of stuff fairly well as opposed to one or two things
extremely well. Which is why I bought one!

You are actually kind of right on the 'southern Alaska' thing. Us Alaskan's in
the SE part of the state even have a ferry boat that runs to Washington and back once a
week. My brother is down there right now, selling all his seafood at farmer's markets
around Seattle.

[Jon Fairhurst]

Thanks for the 60 fps playback explanation. That makes a lot of sense. I'll have to remember to "review on writing" so we can see the playback immediately.

Oh, how about exposure tools? I'd imagine that it has zebras and a histogram. What method do you find the easiest and most reliable?

BTW, people on the East Coast wish they were in Southern Alaska for the moderate weather! (As a Seahawk fan, we often joke about how the media ignores us and thinks of us as Southern Alaska - this year, things change!)

[Gabe Strong]

It does have both zebras and a histogram. You can set the zebras to different levels (so if you want your
zebra set at 75% for skin tones instead of the usual 95% or 100%) you can do that. The histogram will
also put a line in where the zebras are falling if you want it to (set Histogram to on/zebra point in
the menus). This will put a yellow line in the histogram, wherever you have your zebras set to, so you
can see how much of your image is going over your zebras. So if you set your zebras to 75%,
there will be a yellow line drawn in the histogram at 75% and you will quickly see how much
of your scene is exposed higher than your zebras. Also, there is a small 'shaded' area at the top
end of the histogram. This represents the 'super whites'. The camera records from 100-109% which
you have to remember, and that is what this area is representing. You have to remember this,
because some NLE's don't show it. I recorded a wedding on top of a glacier, and because of
the run and gun nature of it, I got back to the edit bay and found I had blown the highlights.
Except, I actually hadn't. They were just recorded in that 100-109% space, and when I brought
the highlights down with an adjustment in the NLE....presto.....suddenly I had detail where previously
there was pure white. Which was crazy, I'm used to 'once it goes white, it's gone forever'.
I wouldn't want to make a practice out of this, and would try to keep things out of this 'shaded area' in
the histogram, but you can, pull something back from that area in post. I actually use both, the
nice thing, is both the histogram and zebras have a button on the side 'mapped' to them so they
are easy to turn on and off if you want to clear your screen of one or both of them.

I just saw yesterday how there was this big winter storm for most of the US. We are having our
normal winter of 35 and rain. The Seahawks are lucky, the Packers on the other hand get
to play in some subzero winter storm, from what I am hearing. No thanks, I'll stay right in
cozy warm Alaska......

[Jon Fairhurst]

Thanks again, Gabe.

We rented the FS700 last Friday. It surpassed expectations. We were able to shoot at 120 fps quite easily under existing lights without flicker. We didn't need 240 as we were shooting for feel rather than for extreme effect. We only bumped it down to 60 for a couple of low light situations where slow motion wasn't as important. We also did a bit of timelapse, which was also simple.

Some of our shots were under extreme yellow/orange IR-free (clean room) lights. We push the white balance to the extremes and nearly neutralized it. In post, we can get the backgrounds cloud-white. The only give away is that computer screens and windows to other rooms are super-saturated, deep blue. :)

The gamma curves are especially powerful. We ended up using four presets: low and high contrast plus extended white and extended black. We'd just eye the scene for the most important information and choose the best match.

My son studied the UI and operated the camera. His only wish was that the exposure tools were more extensive.

The end results look great for our needs. There's a slight hint of "video" that is likely due to over-sharpening. It's more than filmic enough for a corporate shoot. For a feature film, I'd want a softer feel. Then again, the look we achieved was with available light on our first, single-day rental. With tests, practice, and the right lights, settings, and filters, I'm confident that one could deliver the goods with this camera.

The only blemish on the day was that the Metabones adapter pulled itself apart as we prepared for one last (optional) shot. We rolled the Kessler Pocket Jib into the parking lot. When the surface got rough, I noticed vibrations. We stopped moving, looked at the camera, and the lens was drooping by about 10 degrees(!) The adapter is held together by four tiny jeweler screws. The 100/2.8L IS lens had ripped three of the four from their holes. If you use this adapter, support your lens and baby the camera between setups!

FWIW, we used the 16-35/2.8L II and 100/2.8L IS Macro as our go-to lenses. We used the 50/1.4 for a single shot for its focal length, not its speed.

At the end of the day, I'd love to own this camera. It exceeded expectations. :)

[Gabe Strong]

Jon,

Glad you had a good experience. Not that this is any help to you now, but if in the future you are
looking for a softer 'film' look, I'd turn down the 'detail' in the Picture Profiles. Even though it is
set to '0' by default, the range is from -7 to 7. Changing the number to a lower (negative) number
helps a lot. Also I'd suggest that you take a look at FilmConvert. It has specific setting for the
FS700 now. All this is of course, for when you are attempting to get a 'film' look as opposed
to more of a 'corporate' look.