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Sony A7s II 4K low light beast topic
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  • I have asked and was told that you could NOT charge while shooting. Tomorrow I will find out for myself. 40,000 ISO looks really good so does the Banana Mana hand held 4k recording.

  • Hi RRRoger, we made the BananaMana Films review. Yes - the USB does charge while the camera is on. Not sure if it's actually charging whilst recording though. I tried it with just a USB battery pack for phone charging and it worked. Think it'll be helpful since these batteries are the same as the Sony a7s batteries. Thanks Vitaly for posting our video. Hope it's helpful.

    BTW here's the Youtube version of the above video in 4K:

  • jasonkkchan "You can actually charge the battery while shooting" I will find out today after the new camera arrives.

    I typically shoot with my A7s for 1.25 and 3+ hours at a time while recording with a 7Q+. I use a dummy battery powered by a 74.9 Wh NP-F990 for plenty of power. However, what I would prefer is to use my 3200 mAh Poweradd for both the camera and recorder for a much cleaner setup.

    Today I will try shooting my new A7sII for the first time. It will be internal 1080P120 (no Odyssey 7Q+) with internal battery + power through USB charging port. We will see how long I can record total with that combo while restarting the camera every 29 minutes or less.

  • RRRoger - look forward to your results! Be very interested in you can power for long periods using just the USB charger - was worried it wouldn't charge as fast as the battery is draining.

  • The output of the USB charger will also be relevant. If a 1A charger fails, a 2.1A may still be worth trying.

  • Yes, you can actually charge while shooting. No, it does not keep up with battery drain. Also my A7sII shut down in less than one hour with an overheat message. By going back to using a dummy battery attached to a NP990 I can solve both overheating and active camera time. Problem is that the internal recording is limited to 29 minutes, and my Odyssey 7Q+ does not support 1080P120 yet. So my 3 hour unmanned Video recordings are currently limited to 4k and 4k DownRes to 1080P30 or just 1080P60.

  • It would nice if the USB port was Quickcharge 2.0 or 3.0 compatible; you'd probably be able to operate/record and recharge the battery.

  • Regarding overheating, is this something that presents itself only with long UHD clips, or 1080 as well? Only when recording, or from simply being on? Is there risk of over heating from shooting short UHD clips but in a short period of time?

  • The battery heats up when you charge it It also heats up when you discharge it. By putting a dummy battery in, that heat is avoided. I assume the dummy battery also aids in heat dissipation because I can run the camera over 3 hours continuously with an external battery and external recorder. Of course the processor does not work as hard when not recording internally.

  • Sony A7SII vs Sony FS7 - Slog3 S-Gamut3.Cine Test

  • Here are some grades of some 4k Slog-3 footage from the Sony A7S II s that Andrew Reid made available for download here: https://vimeo.com/album/3613956

  • Slog3 seems to grade a lot nicer than Slog 2. However - watching the a7sII vs FS7 video, I was blown away by how much more color the FS7 could pull. Regarding Andrew Reid's clips - I hope this is not a testament to the IBIS!

  • @theconformist,

    I'm not too familiar with IBIS, does it have to be turned on or is it suppose to be always on automatically? Hopefully, in these example clips, it was not turned on.

  • "I was blown away by how much more color the FS7 could pull."

    FS7 was way better. But if you read the comments, they basically just applied the lut without any other adjustments. So the Fs7 was better. But I believe this just means the a7sii may need a little more work. I can tell right away the contrast and saturation need to be pulled up. Whether it can look as good as the fs7 with a few adjustments .. I can't be sure.

  • Looking at the photo on the EOShd article it appears that the lens used is a Canon 85mm with a Metabones. If it is indeed that lens, or another Canon with image stabilization, and the lens stabilization is turned on, I'm not surprised at the jitters. Looks to me like the lens stabilization is fighting the in-camera stabilization. Solution- turn the lens stabilization off and let the camera do the work. It works brilliantly for me with Canon glass.

  • @chauncy Could be, and the editor admits they didn't adjust beyond the LUT, but with the a7s any way (and maybe it's an Slog2 thing) I could never really get true blues, always that gray/blue as seen in the Slog3 footage. Here's hoping.

  • If the camera heats up because the battery heats up during charging, it may pay to get one of those micro electric fan (it is very quiet) and have a small breeze going. A tiny bit of wind will do wonder to convection cooling.

  • Alpha 7RII and Alpha 7SII Tech Talk

  • Lost the manual already.. How do you record in HFR mode so that the resulting file is 5x slo mo (instead of doing it in post?)