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Reading a lot of the reaction to the Shootout Part 2 is making me cry a little inside. I want to offer my view of it and rebuff what I think are the misconceptions out there. I am sure Steve can chip in as well to correct me if I'm wrong. [b]Misconception - "Coppola did not pick "the GH2" as having the best technical performance, he picked the way it was used as being more appealing than the way some of the others were."[/b] This is only half true. Any shot is a marriage of 'the way the tool was used' and 'the technical performance'. The resulting shot is the sum of all parts. You cannot give the camera no credit or say the camera doesn't matter, even if the lighting was a bigger factor, the camera still plays a critical role in delivering the image. [b]Misconception - "Gear does not matter. It's you."[/b] "It's you" is the correct part of this statement and the part I think Steve is getting across. "Gear doesn't matter" is often used as shorthand for saying "talent matters most" which is fine but unsurprisingly the way people are interpreting it is often very literal, very black and white. Of course gear matters. Filmmaking is a marriage of man and machine, of the technical and the artistic. Both aspects matter [i]greatly[/i]. "It's you... And a thousand other things". Let's not over simplify it. [b]Misconception - "Clean images look too plastic"[/b] I've seen grungy stuff that is so out of place. Sometimes I cry out for that highly saturated HD look. A silky smooth image with no noise. Grungy images are just one of the paints in the filmmaking palette, they are not automatically more cinematic than a clean image. I personally like putting the life back in with old lenses, film grain overlays, etc. But it doesn't mean I will shoot everything like that. Just the stuff that needs it. [b]Misconception - "Content is king"[/b] This is shorthand for saying that unless you have a narrative script which goes from A to B, you have no content. For me, a beautiful shot or a small unspoken moment can have as much content as 10 pages of dialogue. For these kinds of shot, how you shoot it visually is more important than the literal interpretation of the script. It actually transcends the content and the words on the paper. If we count everything in front of the camera as 'content' and crown it king, that also is wrong - because you can have a complete dummy behind the camera with no feel for the language of cinema and piss that content right up the wall. [b]Misconception - "Grading is cheating / Grading doesn't matter / Grading is essential"[/b] Again extreme arguments when the truth is never that black and white or one trick suits all. Overheard a quote elsewhere about the Shootout and think it is worth drawing attention too... "This is crazy that people are basically implying that the lighting and coloring was a form of cheating. Guess what camera looks good with no regard to lighting/post work? None of them." Whilst I don't agree that footage automatically looks rubbish if you don't grade it I do agree that to imply that grading and post work to lift the lower end cameras in the Shootout was a form of cheating is ridiculous. It is a viable and established technique in filmmaking and all the cameras were touched by the colourist even the F65. [b]Misconception - "Lighting is king"[/b] Lighting is very important but sadly there are many many many people who have a very boxed in view of what lighting is. A key light, a fill light, a man literally moving an electronic light source into position. 'That is how you control lighting'. No it isn't! Your key light could be the sun. Your key light could even be the god damned moon. Your fill light could be a rear window, it could be the end of a tunnel or even a cloudy London sky. Woody Allen likes Europe because of our shit weather. Our shit weather is his fill light. Go and square that with your Arri Fresnel set! [b]Misconception - "It is bad to be more interested in camera gear than everything else"[/b] Filmmaking is a collaborative effort that brings a range of people together. They are focussed on what they're most interested in, only the director, writer and producer have a very broad overview of the whole thing. If I hire a DP I'd be worried if he was NOT interested in the camera technology. I wouldn't want him as a writer that is for sure :) Some of these obsessives who talk about cameras and pixel peeping are future cinematographers. They are not merely hobbyists.

[img]http://www.eoshd.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/compact-cine-systems-nex-5n-cinema-housing.jpg[/img] [url="http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?icep_ff3=2&pub=5574929666&toolid=10001&campid=5336727214&customid=&icep_item=120951703965&ipn=psmain&icep_vectorid=229466&kwid=902099&mtid=824&kw=lg"]Click here to purchase your Cine Housing for the NEX 5N[/url][img]http://rover.ebay.com/roverimp/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?ff3=2&pub=5574929666&toolid=10001&campid=5336727214&customid=&item=120951703965&mpt=[CACHEBUSTER][/img] Due to demand Richard Gale has decided to go ahead and put into production his Compact Cine Systems housing for the Sony NEX 5N. The housing is designed to be used with the NEX 5N, Sony CLM V55 monitor and lens. It is built to order and made in England.

RX100 casing would be cool, especially if you came up with some sort of anamorphic solution.

Some people who was featured in that video were average DP you probably might not have heard of had they not got famous because of video dSLRs. They were given the opportunity to play with a prototype or early production models by the manufacturer and released an early clip. It almost seems like each manufacturer when releasing something new would designate someone for fame, they released a footage benefited by the fact the camera will do well anyway. Vincent Laforet is a photographer but he epitomise someone who became a respected film director due to the publicity surrounding his few minute video clip made from the 5DII. Now we have John Brawley who is a DP whose name we would not have heard of 4 months ago but his name is going be sealed in the videographers Hall of Fame and no doubt soon rubbing shoulders with the likes of Coppola, Lucas, Tarantino, etc because he was given a BMC prototype to play with. We have manufactured popstars, celebrities and reality TV shows, I suppose manufactured celebrity DP has made it present known in the last few years because of affordable video capable dSLR and the likes that is more accessable to the masses.

Hello Mr Rao :) I'm not really crying, it was a figure of speech :) The only time I cried was when Spike snuffed it. That was far worse than some misconceptions ;) Remember the above is just my opinion - others may disagree. But I hope to have balanced my subjectivity with enough facts to make it useful to read.

Couple of things. Let's talk about the GH2, the hack they used was not stable and crashed a lot. I don't think it would be viable in a real production. One thing that seems to be misunderstood is that the scene was supposed to be very dark. The original lighting was supposed to be a room with a few practlcle lights on in the house and the extreme light coming in form the window. What Colt and Jonny did was to over light the scene and make it a bright room. I think people interpreted this as having the most DR as opposed to being the most pleasing and artfully done. I preferred Polly and Rodney's interpretation, it was more about retaining a moody scene. There are two tests. In part 3 you are going to see how the cameras look out of the box in an apples to apples test with no lighting changes. In part two you saw what talented DP's can do with these cameras. Together this shows you the comparison of what is-- and what is possible. Steve