New Sony FS7 4K XDCAM at IBC 2014

[Christopher Young]

Yes I tried the 18-105 constant f4 on the FS700. Had it not been for the distortion I would probably have bought it. Martinez from Sony stated that there is a firmware upgrade coming for the FS700 that will have lens file corrections for a number of the later e-mount lenses. Due late this year. Will believe it when I see it!

Back to the 18-105. I found it to be pretty sharp but a bit of a horror for focusing and zooming manually as its all fly-by-wire. All very vague if you are used to B4 broadcast glass. If you spin quickly on the focus and zoom rings you can easily overtake the lens response. Feels like a fluid clutch type arrangement although I believe it's all electro servo in operation. In full auto mode it did what it was supposed to do with a reasonable degree of precision. Stabilization, focus tracking, face recognition all seemed to work okay.

I found with the zoom that using the built in servo switch it was pretty slow even on its quickest settings. Interestingly though when I hooked up a Varizoom Lanc controller the zoom speeds were considerably faster if required. As a guesstimation I would say up to 2.5 to 3 times faster. Why is this? Who knows.

Still concerns me that skinny little cable on the S7 hand grip. I guess time in the field will prove or disprove its durability.

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney

[Glen Vandermolen]

Originally Posted by Christopher Young

Yes I tried the 18-105 constant f4 on the FS700. Had it not been for the distortion I would probably have bought it. Martinez from Sony stated that there is a firmware upgrade coming for the FS700 that will have lens file corrections for a number of the later e-mount lenses. Due late this year. Will believe it when I see it!

Back to the 18-105. I found it to be pretty sharp but a bit of a horror for focusing and zooming manually as its all fly-by-wire. All very vague if you are used to B4 broadcast glass. If you spin quickly on the focus and zoom rings you can easily overtake the lens response. Feels like a fluid clutch type arrangement although I believe it's all electro servo in operation. In full auto mode it did what it was supposed to do with a reasonable degree of precision. Stabilization, focus tracking, face recognition all seemed to work okay.

I found with the zoom that using the built in servo switch it was pretty slow even on its quickest settings. Interestingly though when I hooked up a Varizoom Lanc controller the zoom speeds were considerably faster if required. As a guesstimation I would say up to 2.5 to 3 times faster. Why is this? Who knows.

Still concerns me that skinny little cable on the S7 hand grip. I guess time in the field will prove or disprove its durability.

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney

This sound exactly like the 18-200 we used on the FS7 - very slow. I asked the guy I borrowed the lens from how it works on his EA50. He also felt it was slow, but since I didn't try the lens on his camera, I don't know how to compare the zoom speeds. I'll see if I can work with the 18-200 on his EA50. If this very slow servo zoom only occurs with the FS7, I hope it's fixable with a future firmware update. Or just buy the 28-135.

As far as the 18-200's function, I had the manual zoom version on my FS100 and it worked just fine. I don't recall seeing much distortion and the images were pretty sharp. It was a workhorse of a lens, with its long zoom range. My favorite go-to lens was the constant f2.8 Tamron 17-50, which I tried on the FS7. Understand we could only base our judgment of the image on the monitor we had, but the UHD images we saw looked great. I was very pleased with the camera.

As far as the wire connecting the grip to the camera, if it breaks, you can still work the camera. The functions on the grip are duplicated on the camera body. You'd still have complete control of the start/stop, iris, extended focus, etc. It would be nice to have it removable on both ends, but it is what it is.

[Glen Vandermolen]

I tried the 18-200 on an EA50. It was also very slow to zoom. Must be a lens issue.

[Phil Goetz]

Slow is snail and fast is turtle. Tried the same. The SLEP18200...

[Brian Rhodes]

Sony FS7 Un-Boxing Vid

Sony PXW FS7 - unboxing - YouTube

[Rajiv Attingal]

Hi All,
Can anyone conform if we can backup from XQD Card to Built in SD / SDXC slot.

[Jean-Philippe Archibald]

No you can't. The SD slot is used to save user's profiles and config files only.

[Brian Rhodes]

Originally Posted by Barry J. Weckesser

I believe these are not true USA "street prices". The street price will probably come in close to the price as seen here ($550 to $600) : Buy - Sony XQD-128A (XQD128A) 128GB XQD G Series Memory Card for Professional Shooting.

Otherwise people will be buying all their cards from England - even considering $40 shipping charge it is still a "bargain".

Has anyone ordered XQD 128GB G SERIES cards from CVP.com?

[Barry J. Weckesser]

Sure have. The last of 3 shipments should be arriving at Miami airport momentarily and be delivered tomorrow. Postage $40 whether you order one card or 6. Sort of a no brainer as long as the company is reliable(which it is) considering that US street prices are still astronomical. 128GB G series costs less than 2 - 64GB S series XQD cards.if you compare the UK prices for the G series and the US prices for the S series

My first two shipments (2 cards each) were test shipments to make sure system works, no customs problems (media cards are supposed to be duty free between UK and US) and everything went fine. The last shipment is 6 cards.

I will be constantly shooting at XAVC-I UHD 30p which is only 40-44 minutes per card and I always like to have the original cards and original files (even though backed up on a hard drive) until I get them into my NLE and make sure they are editable. .

[Brian Rhodes]

Barry did you have to pay any addition credit card fees?

[Barry J. Weckesser]

Not at all. Just looked online - shipment of 6 cards just released in customs (whew!) so should have delivery tomorrow. They charge what they say online 345 pounds sterling - right now $540 + postage of $40 for - 2-3 day air - same for 1 as for 6 cards so I'm paying around $7 per card.. $550 vs $800!!!

Of course, as with the 4 other cards I will upload and download about 120GB of video files and check times that it takes just to make sure not a defective card (will do same thing with camera when it arrives).

[Brian Crow]

For testing cards etc. you may find h2testw software useful. (Free)
It will write and then verify what is written and give write and read speeds
And confirm capacity.

Brian Crow
Videographer and one man band
Cardiff UK

[Barry J. Weckesser]

Thanks Brian, I will try it out

[Brian Rhodes]

Sony and Metabones released new firmware today which are designed to improve the performance of the FS7.

FIRMWARE UPDATE V1.01
http://www.sony.co.uk/pro/product/br...w-fs7/support/


Firmware update V0.38 for EF-E Speed Booster ULTRA
Metabones®

[Barry J. Weckesser]

I know not many people have their FS7s yet but I was wondering if anyone has tried the Sigma 18-35 f1.8 lens paired with the Sony LAEA4 adaptor or a metabones adaptor for that matter. I was wondering about any significant cropping or vignetting (APS-C and s35 are not that different). Also wondering if there were any iris control problems such as what has been reported by Dan Chung and others (mainly on E mount lenses)