Beginner How worthwhile is an A7S mk1 for high iso video straight out of camera?

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John
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I'm not a big video person and more stills but recently I've been getting on well with my phone and a DJI gimbal but this setup is obviously poor in low light. With DJI releasing the Ronin SC gimbal which is lighter weight version for mirrorless cameras, I've been looking at a new camera for the gimbal and was initially toying with a Sony APS-C camera (I have an NEX-6 and few lenses already) but I've been drawn to the A7S which is reasonably cheap second hand and its low light video performance still seems outstanding. I have looked at the A7S mk2 but it's around double the price which I don't think is worth it for my use, I tend to downsample my 4k video to 1080p anyway, the camera will be on a gimbal so no IS is less of an issue, it's going to be short clips I use it for so the short batterylife shouldn't be a problem and the shots will likely be static so the slow AF also shouldn't be an issue. At the moment it's the Sony 28mm F2 I have in mind. The camera will be purely for video as I've other better cameras I use for stills.

My concern though is how good the video is straight out of camera as often with sample videos they're taken by people who really know what they're doing and straight out of camera, I may not get as much benefit as I'm expecting. With stills photography I find with FF sensors that in full auto on jpeg mode the large sensor is almost entirely wasted and you need to be working with the raw files to extract the immense capabilities of the sensor. Can I just boot the iso up high and get great low light videos or is this likely a waste of money? The videos are only for myself and sharing with small groups so I'm not fussed about ensuring they are at a professional level or anything like that.
 
I don't have one so cant help directly, but can your local dealer let you shoot a sample clip? My local camera shop are very helpfull, they always let me take test shots with gear I'm looking at.
Sony certainly have a great repuation with low light stuff.
 
I can't speak the A7sI but I've used the A7sII extensively and its mind-blowingly good in low light/high ISO, I would be totally comfortable shooting up to 12800ISO but have in the past pushed to 50,000ISO.

I have the 28mm f2 lens but tbh since I got the 16-35 f4 I've preferred to use that along with adapted Nikon lens. The 16-35 to me seems a little sharper than the 28mm and better in colour.

Having said that, im selling up all my sony kit as im back with Nikon now.
 
I don't have one so cant help directly, but can your local dealer let you shoot a sample clip? My local camera shop are very helpfull, they always let me take test shots with gear I'm looking at.
Sony certainly have a great repuation with low light stuff.

There are good local camera shops but it's a really tricky one as to try out the high iso I'd need to take the camera to somewhere dark preferably at night so I can't really do that in a camera shop.

I can't speak the A7sI but I've used the A7sII extensively and its mind-blowingly good in low light/high ISO, I would be totally comfortable shooting up to 12800ISO but have in the past pushed to 50,000ISO.

I have the 28mm f2 lens but tbh since I got the 16-35 f4 I've preferred to use that along with adapted Nikon lens. The 16-35 to me seems a little sharper than the 28mm and better in colour.

Having said that, im selling up all my sony kit as im back with Nikon now.

I can definitely see the limitations of the S series cameras and I'm caught between the fact most people prefer a more flexible camera and those who are really serious about video when I'm in neither camp. Having bought into four systems already I really don't want to start doing the same again hence I was thinking I could keep it cheap (don't laugh!) by going with the original A7S, the 28mm F2, the 50mm F1.8 and the 24-240mm which will do all I want.

I decided to bite the bullet and ordered a second hand one although unfortunately the grading is a load of rubbish in this case as the camera in a very poor state with very heavy wear marks and scratches on the body and with a sensor that visibly has a lot of dirt on it which gets worse when you try to use it:

i-BMZCLBQ-X4.jpg


I've had a little try of the camera at iso 100000 in a very dark house out of interest even though that's likely far more than I need but wanted to see how it handled it. To my eyes the rooms were dark but the Sony was able to extract a staggering amount of detail so while this particularly one is going back I think it's going to do what I want.

I'm not sure about the 28mm which I can't fully test as I only have crop Sony bodies, it looks in good condition both the front/rear elements and the main body so suspect it's fine but on the other hand I kind of feel maybe it's best just to return the whole order.

Have you put your A7SII up for sale yet?
 
Dxomark score for low light are freakish good. I didn't know full frames could score that high
 
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