We recently shot for a few days with the new Sony A7s II camera in SLOG3, and although we already knew it was a top performer in low light situations, we didn't need to go past ISO 3200. But just in case, I wanted to run my own personal tests to see how far this new camera can be pushed.
WARNING: This next video is boring, nothing scientific. I also looped the video 4 times (basically same video) but seen in 4 different ways. It was something I was doing for myself, but thought I would just share it anyways.
The video was shot in 1080/24p and recorded via HDMI to the BlackMagic Video Assist Recorder
I ran the footage through Davinci Resolve using the built in Sony SLOG3 to 709 LUT, applied noise reduction, sharpened it back, and then purposely overly saturated the image. Normally I wouldn't push the saturation this much, but I wanted to see how much color info could be recovered. The footage was shot in near darkness so it was surprising to see any color come back at all.
So anyways, nothing scientific or fancy. This was just a personal test to see how comfortable I would be in using these extreme ISO settings on projects if I really had to, and just how well they may hold up with some post processing. I really don't see myself going past ISO 6400, but it's pretty amazing to see even ISO 128,000 still hanging in there.
I'm seeing more and more people scooping this camera up right now, with all the confirmations about just how good it is. While out of stock in most big retailers, there's still about a dozen left via Amazon. (click here).
Sony A7s II 4K Video Full-Frame Mirrorless Camera
I've already sold my original Sony A7s. Besides 4K internal recording, better Slow Motion, and a more manageable SLOG3 profile, it was worth the upgrade. If you're an existing A7s owner, check out this article on a few reasons why you may want to upgrade (read article).
