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I'm of the belief that if greater image quality than what can be had from true fullhd from the black magic pocket, or hacked canon 5dmk3 is required, then it's time to hire a camera for the job. The jump in image quality that will be had from anything within reach of consumers is going to be null and void in my opinion. It would take an expert to tell the difference between a hacked 5dmk3 and an Alexa shooting RGB into an external box. Focus on glass is priority IMO. A nice set of Contax Zeiss on a hacked 5dmk3 is gonna literally match or ruin anything else within the budgets of most of us. Full HD cameras are more than good enough nowadays.

Two weeks ago, a client asked me to shoot some nice photos of her employees. I told her that this would be a job for a photographer with his own studio and proper flash lights, things that I don´t have as I´m not a photographer at all. To be honest, I actually told her so because I really didn´t like the idea of driving 400 kilometers just to take portrait pictures of employees. But her answer was, well, shaking up. She told me that she wasn´t interested in high-polished, perfectly lit ultra high resolution photos, but rather something special and charming. I know she´s got the money and access to professional photographers, but she explicidly wanted me, because she appreciates my ideas. So I bought a "green screen" (actually a green carpet) from IKEA, grabbed some LED lights and my GH3 and took these pictures downstairs her company building. The end of the story: She and her employees couldn´t have been more happy, because the pictures looked exactly what they were hoping for. They are not perfectly lit, they are not perfectly sharp, but they have a special look and feel and thus represent the spirit of that specific company. Mission accomplished. This was an example, that can apply to all of my creative work. As long as I´m a self-employed and creative person providing a service, my clients pay for the whole package, including my own nature. They don´t pay solely for resolution or pro-looking equipment. Even in the future, some people will be able to sell precious 720p suff, while some highly graded, moiré-free 4K work of others won´t be worh a penny to anybody. Like I said, it´s the whole package and your knowledge of how and whom to sell it, it´s not your camera´s codec alone. Anyway, I will be pleased with all these 4K test videos on youtube and vimeo. Thousands of self-appointed filmmakers will show us thousands of arty video shots of flowers, dogs, cats, grain fields, dancing people and cars. Everything accompanied by gentle music from Ludovico Einaudi. Description: Testing my new GH4/Canon C50/Sony FS4K/Blackmagic Production Camera with lens XYZ... Testing, testing, testing, testing, testing, testing, comparing, testing, testing.... Oh look, there´s 8K on the horizon. This time it won´t allow us to make any excuses because of bad equipment. Finally we can tell our stories. With 8K we can. Finally. But seriously, while all these predictable and influencable "I can´t because of bad equipment"-guys kept on excusing, complaining and distracting from their own incapability, my good old GH2 turned out to be a cash cow. The only thing my clients complaint about was the form factor of my GH2. The couldn´t imagine, how this tiny box would be capable of producing such a nice image. But it did. I`m self-employed since 2010 and I started with nothing but a GH2, some Canon FD lenses, an old Macbook Pro and ingenuity. As of this writing, I haven´t lost one single client, despite rolling shutter. Today, it´s not the money anymore that keeps me from buying a RED or a Canon C whatever, it´s the experience that you can do so many things with the tools that you already have. Most of the time, it´s your lack of skills and imagination that seperates you and your clients from being satisfied. The easiest thing to do is putting the blame on anything and anyone but yourself.

Hello Forum! I'm from Russia This is my design - rig for BMPCC

Shot a short video with the Lomo Anamorphic 35mm Square Front on the GH3. It's true that the OCT18 version is difficult to work with, so I managed to make it work. The close-ups were shot with hand-held Hoya diopters. The simple rig that I used. ( )

I got my Black Magic Pocket in and my mother asked why I bought it. I told her it was a specialty camera and I wanted to learn the workflow (raw, color grading etc) She said, well, for that price you could have got a Canon! I told her if I wanted Coke or Pepsi, I could have bought Coke or Pepsi. Ironically she bought a used Canon DSLR that is broken... I didn't go there with her. The trust in that brand name is insane.

A7R owner with no expereince with the olympus, so this is biased... I agree that the A7R video is somewhat lacking in resolution in this day and age. however apart from that, the camera is faultless. No gimmics like image stabilisation and speed boosters can compete with a true full frame sensor in my opinion. Particularly a 36mpx sensor like this. If I need a long exposure or a steady shot I'll lock it to the tripod. I can put a 50mm f1.4 planar on my A7R, set shutter to 1/50th sec and set auto iso bracketing to 200-3200 and take pictures in low light that are better than anything I could have taken with a Contax RTS, fast film and the same lens. I could also walk into a studio and photograph a Ferrari with the A7R and the images would be good enough to be compared to the same images taken on all but the best medium format systems. M4/3 is to me like a toy when it comes to still photography. As an all out photographers camera I personally cannot see how anyone can look at m4/3.

  Well they already have image quality in spades, so the 4K revolution isn't as important for the Alexa.   We're going to be comparing a consumer 4K camera like the GH4 to the GH3. Much bigger difference, a much bigger leap.   Just wait until you see the 1080p from both cameras, one oversampled from a 4K output and the other pixel binned on the sensor at the earliest stage in the imaging pipeline.

Hard for me to tell for sure in the Blunty video. I'll do a test with my 14 (28), 28 (56) and 135 (270) mm lenses (as that's all I packed with me on this trip to NY). I'll do locked down, panning, tilting, handheld (but static), handheld with vertical movement, handheld with horizontal movement, and then some walk around hand held. Figure that also might be a decent test of the codec. If there's anything else you want to see let me know!

Yes. I think this is where Andrew is going as well with the article: If you want to manufacture a camera with a lot better performance in 1080p, you are already designing a camera that can output a decent 4k video mode, since you want at least four (RGGB) sensor pixels for every 1080p pixel output. If the new Panasonic will output 4k at 10-bit 422, that video downsampled (in-camera perhaps or in post on a computer) will be some awesome 1080p 10-bit 4:4:4 material. So, from a manufacturer's standpoint: - They can already get sensors that could do 4k at 24fps or more (which can be used for really nice downsampling to 1080p). - With the right codecs you could encode 4k in fairly nice bitrate even to SDXC if the camera doesn't have CF / SSD. - Another option would be providing HDMI/SDI output to recorders. What's the remaining component then? - Processing the data fast enough in realtime with high enough quality. Doing that is a challenge when you want the highest quality of the downsampling. Here in fact, it might be easier to output a faster 8-bit/10-bit 4k and let people downsample it in post, rather than to attempt to do the high quality processing & downsampling to 1080p in-camera. And to think about the processing restraints: What's the major issue on BM pocket camera? ...and how long does the battery last in movie mode on a Panasonic G6/GH3/xxx or a Nikon D800/D5200/xxx? - The main difference in power draw is not the display nor the sensor, and there's probably not too big of a difference in writing to the card either - it's the processing. And that's still on a camera without 4 pixels (RGGB) per one 1080p pixel output. So, imagine the power constraints for designing a camera like the BM pocket camera and multiply that datastream by 4... The power & processing issues can be solved of course. But it will require more processing, more cooling, more power = bigger, more expensive camera. Want it done on a budget - get a decent 4k 10-bit and do the processing on a computer.

I got my GH2 from B&H online. I likely would have anyhow but there is literally no place for a normal consumer to buy one here, in a decent sized city, or GH3 if I was to look now. Panasonic just isn't a popular enough brand here for anything but consumer A/V equipment. I had a devil of a time trying to find a back-up battery some months ago and ended up, after half a day's search, finding a small shop that carried this generic brand (that lasted half as long with no feedback to the LCD, but I wasn't about to be picky that day). They were a rental house with a small retail space up front so it was a good guess that if they had a GH2 rental package they might carry some replacement batteries. Mailorder has decimated the local camera shops and exchanges who have pretty much all shut down save for one good sized store. I just loathe to go in there because when I do I'm usually looking for something mildly unusual and the retail monkeys just look at me like I'm speaking in tongues. I kept trying to think of different ways to describe a "lens collar" to this one guy and you'd think I was asking him for a warp drive.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts Andrew. Always look forward to your blogs especially ones on the future. Overall I get the gist that 4k is going to give us better image quality compared to what we can currently get on pro/consumer cameras. However, consider the fact that plenty of big budget films being shot digitally right now and until next year on the Alexa will still be doing so at 2.8k. I know it maybe dated now, but even Hugo in 3D was shot in 1080p. Most DPs who choose the 2.8k Alexa over 4k RED say it was the resulting image quality that made them go with Alexa even after upscaling it for 4k projection. Help me out here because I'm at a loss as to why if it's not an issue for big budget films then is it a concern for us. Shouldn't we be pushing for a cheaper, reliable, feature filled camera that does it any any decent resolution but gives us amazing image quality? I think we all agree resolution is just one aspect of image quality and how DPs are choosing their cameras in hollywood proves that point. I just hope we're not giving up on pushing camera manufacturers to truly gives us image quality + features, which is not easy to put a marketing term to, as opposed to "4K" that in reality doesn't even mean anything to those with limitless budgets. Thanks in advance to any replies.

Do people realise that blogs are an opinion and that an opinion is entitled to be in favour of something?   It isn't always about being objective.   Personal opinions matter a lot.   Unless the skewing is for reasons other than just liking something.   When people criticise Philip Bloom for example, for being skewed in favour of a camera, it's his opinion and he can be biased if he wants. It's his choice to use what he likes. We all have our personal reasons for using something in the end...

I'm curious as to the gear your photographer has suggested you get? If it was as simple as pulling together a shopping list, there might never be another flame war on the Interwebs!! A quality photographer would have some good ideas for shooting stills, but shooting film consistently so that your editors don't want to stab you is a whole different ballgame (workflow suggestions anyone?) ;) "I raised close to $200k on a crowdfunding website to build an online yoga video platform" - this sounds like $200k for the ENTIRE project/solution, so clearly you aren't spending everything on gear. Off the top of my head (and based on the sample video you linked): Camera department - bodies, lenses, follow focus, matte box, rigs (shoulder, steadi, tripods and heads), monitors, storage, etc, etc Grip - dollys/sliders, stands, weights, flags, etc Gaff - what sort of lights to balance the ambient? LED, HMI, Tungsten, Fluoro, plus power management Audio - recorder, mics, boom, monitor (notice the audio is all over the place on the sample vid? They needed multi-mic, including lav, not just the boom) Data - a wrangler will need transfer gear, or you'll need to record externally (such as onto an Atomos or similar). Data handling and workflow may affect the types of cameras you can use (and may force you towards Nikon for 4:2:2 in a DSLR vs C300 in a Canon) I'll cut to the chase - shooting regular content with consistent quality that doesn't bury you in the workflow requires significant planning and has all sorts of variables to be considered. That's not even including getting some experience on the set - On my projects, we would sacrifice gear to save money just to get a really versatile AD, grip or gaffer on the set, worth their weight in gold!! Is this for MyYogaPro? It actually doesn't matter - if you raised $200k crowdfunding, expectations are HIGH that the quality will be HIGH and the deadlines won't be missed!! I hope it all goes really well for you, you've got a very busy few months ahead!! :D (was there a reason this was posted in Anamorphic? I suggest for this project you DON'T use anamorphic, IMHO)

2 x Red Epic Dragons 1 x Kowa anamorphic set Massively impractical, completely pointless and it will probably bankrupt you. Might be fun though. :) Or just keep the money, move to Cuba and change your name to Miguel.