Jay: For our review today, we're gonna take a look at the internal 4K recording on that
A7R II versus the external recording, 4K recording on the Flame.
Kenneth: You won't believe what happens next.
Jay: Kind of interesting.
It's November, time to be thankful.
We're thankful that Syrp is gonna give away a $1266 setup here.
The Short Track of the Genie, and the ball head, and the cable all goes in the great
bag.
Go over to theslantedlens.com and sign up.
Maybe you'll win, and you'll be thankful.
[00:00:26] [Music] [00:00:44]
Jay: Hi, this is Jay P. Morgan.
Kenneth: This is Kenneth Merrill.
Jay: It's time for another camera review.
It's not really a camera review.
Kenneth: No, not really.
Jay: It's a comparison.
And I've been very interested in this, a comparison of the internal 4K recording on the A7R II
versus the external 4K recording on the Flame.
I wanna to see how those compare to one another, and is it really necessary?
Do you need a 4K external recorder when you're using the A7R II?
Kenneth: It's a big question for me, especially as we've been working together more lately,
and we're shooting on the external recorder all the time, and I'm having to change batteries
and the media.
It's just like another added thing that you have to worry about on your shoot, so it's
a great question.
Is it worth it?
Jay: So we're gonna take a look at that and see.
So we shot the footage on both of these, the internal 4K and the external 4K on the Flame.
And so let's take a look at it and see what we got.
Kenneth: So, first of all, I wanted to show a clip of the internal and the external ungraded.
Now, this is an S-Log 2 on the A7R II base ISO 800 and, obviously, a really, really flat
image.
This is the internal as you can see.
Jay: So that's what you love, really, really flat image?
Kenneth: I do love it.
It's more gradable.
But as you can see out of the gate, the gamma is much more flat on the internal recording.
Jay: Much more so than what you go to on the Atomos.
The Flame is a lot more contrast, doesn't have...
Kenneth: And the color has more saturation already.
In grading this...so far, for all these reviews, these comparisons, we've been grading almost
everything by hand.
And I tried doing that with this and it was a struggle.
I mean, you looked to the footage and it was wildly different between the two.
Jay: Very different.
Kenneth: And we're finding that the color, especially, the way the Atomos records the
color signal, it's coming out of the A7R II...
Jay: It's got a lot more color depth.
Kenneth: It's got a lot more color depth but it kind of accentuates the yellows and the
oranges and so trying to match the two is actually more difficult than I expected.
So we decided to go the easier route and apply a LUT.
We used FilmConvert, which I've used in the past.
I'm a big fan.
I dialed back the curve on that since it's pretty aggressive.
I didn't want it to be so contrasty so I dialed it back to 75%.
The film color was set at 100.
And then I applied a second coloring layer with just Premiere's regular coloring tool
and I boosted the saturation to give it more of a video look rather than...
Jay: More of a video look, huh?
Kenneth: Yeah, just because all of our other reviews kind of stuck to that wreck 709 punchy
look.
I kinda want to keep it that way.
Jay: Okay.
Kenneth: So moving on to that, we started a properly exposed image.
Jay: The A7RII looks fabulous.
Kenneth: It looks really great with the LUT.
Jay: And the color looks fabulous.
Kenneth: We should probably start using FilmConvert more often for these.
Jay: I think so.
I think that should be our standard here.
So, no, it is a Flame.
The color is much...it's not that different.
I mean, it is different but...
Kenneth: It's a little bit different but it's not as dramatic as it was before.
Jay: No, but a little warmer, still a little more orange, tiny bit.
Kenneth: A little more orange, especially if you look at the yellow shirt, the yellow
tank top to your right.
In the internal, it's like banana-colored, and the external recording, it's almost like
a sun...well, sunflowers are kinda yellow.
Jay: Yeah, it's a deeper yellow.
It's not such a banana yellow.
Kenneth: If you look at her skin, too...
Jay: Interesting.
Kenneth: She has a little more orange in her skin, and I think part of that is incandescent
that's on her right shoulder.
Jay: Well, it should just be on her right side, camera left side.
You shouldn't see it on her [crosstalk 00:04:12].
Kenneth: Right, right.
No, I think that it's generally a warmer thing but I think the camera eats up the warmer
tones more.
So especially on the incandescent side, like in the pink dress, you're gonna see a lot
more of that response to the orange.
Jay: So it's interesting because she looks like she's almost got...when you start to
over-expose a little bit here...
Kenneth: I think it's pretty comparable.
Jay: Look at that.
What are we at, plus five?
Kenneth: Plus four.
Jay: Okay.
I was looking at plus four to plus five.
The highlights are just starting to go on the internal.
Yeah, it's very similar
Kenneth: It's very similar on the external.
Again, though, this camera holds the highlights like crazy.
Jay: It really does.
Kenneth: I can't believe...
Jay: That's six stops where it just finally falls completely apart.
At five stop, it was pretty bad but...
Kenneth: Yeah, if you had to sell just a shot at five stops, it might be doable.
But four stops over is nothing to sneeze at.
Jay: So this is minus a stop now.
Kenneth: Now with these underexposure tests, we used a variable ND just because that's
the way that the aperture came.
It kind of drag down the shadows a little bit.
The contrast is boosted with that variable ND.
So there's a little more noise than I think you'd normally expect.
Jay: At minus one stop, that's really...the noise is bad already at minus one.
At minus two, it's really terrible.
Kenneth: I will say that Sony's, in general, don't respond well to pushing.
But again, you're seeing more color in the Atomos but at the same time, the grain is
finer on the internal.
Jay: It is much finer on the internal.
Kenneth: My guess is it's because there's noise reduction that's coming out of the internal,
whereas the external signal doesn't apply [crosstalk 00:05:43] noise reduction.
Jay: Yeah, my history stops, it's just crazy.
So now, this is interesting.
The S-Log just in that live action situation, we got the bright windows in the background,
you got her with the apple up front.
Kenneth: Holding a lot of information, the highlights are held completely.
Jay: Completely held.
Kenneth: Definitely more contrast again in the Atomos.
The highlights are blown out a little bit.
Jay: Yeah, you see in the car on the left there.
It's a little bright.
Kenneth: And her face is much darker.
Jay: Yeah, it's not holding it near as well.
And this is just straight S-Log.
This is graded, though, right?
Kenneth: This is not graded.
This is ungraded S-Log.
Jay: This is not graded.
This is ungraded S-Log.
We almost get the difference that we saw back on the Canon, the C300 versus the FS7.
The C300 was not...it was a little more contrasty.
It was not...
Kenneth: Now, I mean, it's not necessarily a bad thing because in the end, you're probably
gonna take those lower stops and pull them down anyways because it's mostly noise that
you see in the internal.
So I don't know that anyone should look at this and say, "Well, I'm definitely not recording
on the Atomos because it's more contrasty."
Jay: No, that doesn't make any sense.
Kenneth: I think in the end, by the time you grade it, you're gonna come out about even.
Jay: The information's there.
There's no doubt it.
So where do we go next now?
Kenneth: We have an ISO test and at the end, I attacked on a couple shots for sharpness.
All in all, this turns out to be kind of boring test because they look pretty much identical.
Jay: Pretty much all the way through?
Kenneth: We shot this in picture profile one for the A7R II.
Jay: Which I like.
Kenneth: Yeah, I mean, I think...
Jay: I love it.
Kenneth: If you don't wanna do any color grading, this is a great profile to shoot in.
It's probably the best that you'll see a Sony look in terms of skin tone.
Jay: Yeah, absolutely.
Kenneth: I see.
Jay: Skin looks good.
The colors are very vibrant.
Kenneth: It's interesting to see that you don't see the difference in color using this
profile that you did shooting flat.
To my eye, they look identical exactly.
So that tells me that what's happening when you're color-grading this external footage
is that when you boost the saturation, is taking that kind of flat low information color
and it's boosting different parts of it, whether you're recording external or internal.
Very difficult to explain but the internal is recording the color in a slightly different
way than the external does.
So when you boost the saturation on that or bring out the curve from like a log curve,
then it's gonna respond differently.
Jay: Well, look at this, at 800, this is really, it's still very clean with both these.
Well, that's native for the A7R II so...
Kenneth: Yeah.
It's funny how shooting on like the 5D, you almost get worried shooting past 800, honestly.
Jay: Yeah, yeah.
I do.
Kenneth: But with these new cameras, you can push them so hard, they're fine.
Jay: Sixteen hundred looks just as clean as 800 almost.
You're not seeing any dancing in the blacks on the dress.
Kenneth: That's one of the benefits.
I'd say if you're gonna shoot high ISO, you probably should shoot in a more video profile
rather than in shooting a Log profile.
If you shoot in a Log profile and then you starve the sensor of light, you're really
dialing back on the information you have in the image.
Jay: I'm starting to see in that black dress now.
At 6400, that black dress is pretty alive there.
Kenneth: A little more noisy again on the external.
Also, looks like little less color, which is interesting.
Jay: Yeah, color is still pretty clean.
Obviously, it's very...the green is starting to come alive but the color is better than
the external.
Kenneth: So now, I wanted to pair up a couple shots at 100% punched in.
So this is 4K shot punching to 2K just to compare the sharpness.
Now, we shot a full frame.
I know, already, a lot of people are gonna be upset about that.
We probably...
Jay: Stop being upset.
Kenneth: Probably should've shot at super 35, but coming from a photography background,
sometimes, it's hard to change.
If you look at these shots though, the internal 4K is actually much softer...
Jay: Much softer.
Kenneth: ...than the external.
Jay: We didn't change the focus on this.
Kenneth: Didn't change anything.
Jay: Because the external is much sharper than the internal, boy, drastically so.
Kenneth: My suspicion...this is speculation.
But I wonder if that's because the camera's outputting a signal from the entire sensor
and the recorder is actually doing the downsampling rather than pixel bending in the camera.
I could be totally wrong.
Jay: I have no idea.
Kenneth: Either way, it looks sharper.
Jay: It looks sharper, no doubt about it.
It looks sharper.
Kenneth: I forgot to mention, when I graded it...so we applied the FilmConvert LUT, and
then to achieve a more punchy videoy look, I applied a saturation boost, a little bit
of a mess with the exposure and contrast, obviously, to compensate for the exposure
adjustments.
But I have to say, consistently, the internal had to be boosted in saturation by about twice
as much, which means that you really are gathering more color with the external recorder.
Jay: Yeah.
Well, and that makes sense.
You're doing the difference of...what's the difference between the two of them?
Kenneth: Eight bit and 10 bit.
Jay: Eight versus, and 10 bit, yeah.
Kenneth: So that makes sense.
Jay: I mean, you would have to gather more color information.
To me, there's some major advantages.
I use the system setup all the time.
Well, you know, we use it together all the time.
And the reason is, first off, I always wanna monitor anyway.
I want something large to look at.
This is a gorgeous monitor.
Kenneth: Well, and it's a 4K monitor, too.
Jay: Four K monitor.
Kenneth: Judging focus by the screen on the back of the A7 series cameras is just the
worst.
Jay: Yeah, there's no way.
Looking through the EVF is best.
Kenneth: It's fabulous, yeah.
Jay: Yeah.
But if you're gonna look at the little screen on the back, there's no way.
Kenneth: There's no way.
The monitor on the Ninja Flame has waveforms peaking, faults color, zebras.
Jay: But we're not seeing earth-shattering advantages when it comes to picture quality
to dynamic range or...
Kenneth: Yeah.
I mean, you can see the increase in sharpness.
I think you can see the increase in color information.
But can your client see it?
That's the real question.
Jay: I know that increase in sharpness is pretty stark to me.
Kenneth: Maybe.
Well, I mean...
Jay: Well, it is to me.
Kenneth: I agree with you but if you're downsampling to like 1080p anyways...I think it really
depends on your deliverables and who your client is.
Jay: But I would walk away from this with the sense of I can take an external from the
Flame 4K footage and I can feel more confident punching in on that.
We do that all the time because it's almost as if you've got, now, two cameras from that
one camera setup.
I can punch into a medium shot out to a wide shot or vice versa.
It's just...
Kenneth: And looking at like this punch in, so this is a 2K image now.
Jay: This is gorgeous.
Kenneth: Yeah, very sharp.
You can definitely punch in all the way down, whereas the other one did definitely look
a little bit soft.
Jay: But now, the advantages of the A7R II on its own with internal is you don't have
this great ball just hanging on here and you can just run and gun with that thing.
And you got a very small camera platform, you can get in, you can certainly look through
the EVF and you can focus through that.
I'm looking at this thinking there are some real advantages to just using the internal
4K as well.
Kenneth: Definitely, and just in terms of...especially if you're shooting on your own.
When we should together, we're changing batteries constantly.
Jay: Constantly.
Kenneth: Constantly on the Atomos.
It eats this thing for breakfast.
So if you're shooting on your own, if you don't have a charging station, if you don't
have someone that can run the batteries, run the media for you, if you don't have someone
to be offloading because one of those cards could take 30 minutes to offload if you have
like a 500 gigabyte card.
So it really adds more production to the whole process.
Jay: It does.
So my question about this is really a comparison in the amount of data you're storing versus
the internal versus the external?
Kenneth: Right, because data is a big concern.
Jay: Huge.
Kenneth: People say, "Oh, well, the cost of drives is coming down.
You can get huge hard drives for very little money."
But here's the thing.
If you're storing your footage for years like you or I are...
Jay: I store everything I've ever shot, everything.
Kenneth: ...then your one terabyte needs to be duplicated at least once.
So you're looking at two or three terabytes of storage on different drives, and those
drives have to be replaced between every two, four years, depending on your system.
It's a lot of drives.
The internal data rate on the A7R II in 4K is 100 megabits per second.
The data rate on the Atomos in ProRes HQ should be about 700 megabits per second.
So you're talking about seven times as much data...
Jay: Seven times much data.
Kenneth: ...for the same amount of footage.
Jay: Wow.
Kenneth: So the question you have to ask is, is the image quality worth the seven times
investment in terms of data?
Jay: That is really a good question because what I'm seeing on here...but again, what
I'm seeing on here just out of the gate, the color is super good on the internal camera.
So the color doesn't make...not an argument there.
It's really this punching in and the sharpness.
Kenneth: The focus, the sharpness.
Jay: The sharpness, all of a sudden, is what really, is kind of making me feel like if
you're gonna punch in on things, you kinda have to do it.
Kenneth: But I am wondering if in super 35...and there are tests out there that show super
35 is sharper than full frame.
I wonder if it'd be more comparable if you're shooting super 35 on the internal 4K.
Jay: I'll bet it would be.
Kenneth: I bet it'd be pretty similar.
Again, seven times more data.
Jay: It's a lot of data.
Kenneth: Gotta keep that number in your head.
Jay: Yeah, it's a lot of data.
All right, well, there's a look at those two and a comparison.
I know it's a bit of a camera geek thing but it's something I've really been curious about.
What's the advantage of having an external recorder like the Flame or what's the advantage
of just...why not just shoot the 4K internally?
Kenneth: I will say cameras are getting better and better all the time.
Three or four years ago, I think this would have been a lot more relevant.
When the data rates for internal recording were lower, 4K sampling really does make a
difference.
You just have that much more information to play with so you don't have so much more RAM
banding.
So external recorders, I think, are becoming less and less important, especially if you
look at like the GH 5.
It's gonna be shooting 10 bit internally here soon.
But at the same time, given the situation we have now, I still think they're relevant,
and it's a really nice monitor, so.
Jay: I go back to that.
It's a great monitor.
It's a great 4K monitor.
For $1200, on that range, you put in a great monitor and a great recording device on your
cameras.
So I think it's a great way to go.
Kenneth: So I think what it comes down to is what kind of work are you doing and do
you need the extra sharpness, do you need the extra color, or do you need it to be more
compact.
Really, that's how it comes down to with all these cameras, what you need it for.
Jay: Yeah, yeah, what do you need your setup to do and how you can make...I want everyone
to know we are not sponsored by either of these companies at all.
This is just our look at these two products.
And how we thought they work and how we use them was really, for me, very much, a curiosity
question.
I wanna know how does this look compared internally.
So there you have it.
So you know what, if you have desires to buy any of these products, you can check out our
affiliate links.
You can help support us here in The Slanted Lens if you go to the B&H link or to Amazon,
and you'll be able to pick up any these kinds of things.
If you like to support us in that way, it'd be fabulous.
Kenneth: Yeah, huge help.
And if you wanna see more of these reviews, let us know what you wanna see, what kind
of cameras you wanna compare, what things do you have questions about.
And go ahead and tell us how you're using these products or, you know, what did we miss,
because no review is complete.
Jay: And we know you're not shy about telling us what we missed, so tell us what we missed.
So we have a great time doing this, because it answers questions that we're thinking about,
but we wanna make sure we're answering questions that you're thinking about as well.
So keep those cameras rolling.
Kenneth: Keep on clicking.
Jay: We're working on that.
Kenneth: I'm not an actor.
Jay: We've got a great downloader offering here at The Slanted Lens called "Stop Motion
Basics for Beginners."
Trisha Zemp takes all the information she's learned on how to do stop motion, from how
to shoot the stop motion to how to edit it and post it and put music to it on Instagram
or YouTube.
It's a fabulous journey where she'll teach you everything you need to know to be able
to do stop motion.
If you're interested in stop motion, this is gonna teach you the process of what you
need to do, so go to theslantedlens.com/stopmotion to get your copy today.
[00:17:47] [Music] [00:18:09]
So make sure you're subscribed to The Slanted Lens.
Kenneth: We've got a lot of reviews coming up, and you still folks, you're not forgotten.
Jay: No, we got great still reviews coming up on different cameras.
That's gonna be part of our process here in the future.
So make sure you subscribe, don't miss out.
Kenneth: And join our Facebook group, too.
Jay: Yes.
Kenneth: We wanna hear what you think.
Jay: We do wanna hear what you think if you do think.