Leaderboard

Hi all, New here! I'm a student hoping to get some feedbacks from the community here! Would like to share with you a video I made in Cambodia. The video is about the dreams of a Khmer. Hope I can get some feedbacks on improving it! Thank you!

I'm in as I've said already, I like the test results, just a note: when they made the first copies of their VM 1.5x anamorphic, I bought one and the results weren't so good. Hopefully, the second/recent/newest example that they made, was much better... So, based on this experience, I'm not sure if in the (not far from now) future, they will make an even better copy of the FM too. And all of us who will buy the first examples will run to sell them so to buy the evolution of the first FM examples... Just my thoughts ;)

Well, it may be as goofy as Barbarella back in the day, but you don't really worry about that too much, because your attention is arrested by pretty much the same "thing" as it was back in the day when Jane Fonda was living her prime years. ;) As for your merry way of distributing "constructive criticism" and rooting for your fellow filmmakers, whether you like piece or not, at least he's walking the walk, instead of just talking the talk. With the resources he's got right now. Who knows what all that will become, eventually. Both in terms of storytelling and technical. One thing is sure, though, just talking and criticising technical shortcomings won't take us anywhere. Let's give jcs some credit for actually doing something with the gear and putting it out there for everyone to see, instead of just bickering about the specs of the gear on online forums. Personal projects are the things that get us going, aren't they.

Pascal- thanks for the feedback. I can probably fix the green screen shots if I understand what you are seeing as fake. Can you describe in more detail what exactly looks fake? The jump into the pool was real, no green screen. What aspects of the explosion look wrong? I understand there should be major waves on the sea, however that was beyond our budget (this could be done in 3DS Max or AE with a suitable plugin and rendering time). I thought about using a convolution reverb on the outside voices, however no one had an issue with the sound until now. I can take another look at it. Quirky- thanks for the kind words. I recently saw Barbarella for the first time after wrapping Delta. It was entertaining in many ways, though not for the story or acting. The color was amazing, and after researching how it was done, was very interesting (the history of color and Technicolor film). It was also interesting reading about how they did compositing back then, all with film processes (no computers). Jane Fonda looked great, with and without clothes, and the 60's sets had a fun vibe. And interesting to learn the band Duran Duran took their name from Dr. Durand Durand from Barbarella. Our goal with this project, never having done any sort of narrative before, was to get it done in a timely manner. I wrote the first draft script in a couple of hours. We revised it as we shot, and the Planet Dominous scene was written on the drive to the Salton Sea where it was filmed. The original idea was more Zen philosophy and less drama. After showing a rough cut to a few friends and family, we refactored it for more drama. We now have a better idea what we'll need to do in the future for a more engaging story. Moving forward, our primary goal is making sure the story is decent before we begin shooting.

Ebay.

By recommendation from Andy I purchased the Mitakon Turbo / Canon>MFT ( I have a G6 camera). I use the Mitakon with a C/Y>EF adapter for my Yashica ML lenses and it works just fine. When using the Mitakon with my Yashica lenses wide open though, - especially the 28mm lens, - the picture gets rather soft in the corners. I´m not an expert on the subject, but in my experience the wider vintage lenses you use, the softer the corners are wide open and this will be intensified when using a speedbooster, that being a Mitakon, RJ, or Metabones. Just got a used Metabones Speedbooster/C/Y>MFT, but have not got the time to compare it to the Mitakon. I have also tested the Mitakon with my Sigma 18-35mm Art lens, - excellent results. The Mitakon is a very good option IMO.

If that's your budget I'd go with a 50mm f1.8 and just do without the wider FOV. I shoot a lot with just the 50mm because I like the character and it's not that long really on S35. Somewhere between normal and portrait, which I think is a good combo.

28mm 2.8 AI-S serial nos: 635274 to 837751 http://www.photosynthesis.co.nz/nikon/serialno.html

Which camera, sensor, Daniel? an 18mm on a Canon APS-C would be 28mm (but RAW would be 54mm), on a BMpCC it would be 47mm. Just trying to save Andy a step here ;)

I find that for 99% of situations S-Log on the a7s is pointless. Particularly since most of us shooting with the a7s don't have the capabilities to post process a log profile effectively. The creative styles are very powerful tools - particularly with the a7s since the dr is a lot greater than the same creative styles on most of the other sony/nex cameras. you can actually pull down the highlights or pull up the shadows quite effectively if required, and get some of the apparently lost data back. My personal favourite is the 'Neutral' creative style. but with the sharpness and contrast dialed down to -3. saturation left untouched. granted there are some peaked reds, but since I was shooting at 16000iso for the majority, letting the camera do auto exposure (due to the fast paced workflow required), where 95% of the light was coming from neons and other nasty lights. Very little grading was applied to the footage.

Century Optics make a very nice x0.7 wide adapter that can fit on the front of your helios 58mm making it wider with no visable loss in IQ I am a big fan of glass with the same look and colour tinge

I'm sorry, but this isn't doing anything for me. Mainly because the green screen shots are very very obviously fake, and the digital effects like the explosion or jump into the pool are anything but convincing. Add to that the sound design and mixing which don't make any sense. Like all composited shots from the 7:15 mark on, which have dry studio voice over sound, while they're standing outside. The main problem I have with these technical aspects lacking, is that they draw me completely away from the story. So much so, that I couldn't even tell you what this short is about. Nor that I want to watch it again to find out.

First of all I'd like to say hi to everyone on the forum :-) I guess I would've never have the guts to post my video (No More False Alarms) here, so big thanks for Inazuma for letting me know about the thread he started. That really made my day, thanks! :-) I just wanted to chime in about the Tiffen Ultra Cons. I have used the #3 with 5Dmk2 (at that time I've found #5 to be an overkill as well), but when I switched to GX7 everything changed. Most of the test posted here were done in pretty low contrast conditions already. In that case Ultra Con #5 seems like an overkill. An it will be. Unless you shoot in the summer, in the middle of the day. 30% of my footage from Crete was shot in broad daylight. Of course you have to be careful when shooting backlight. I had some vignetting from the lens hood - which was unavoidable, but my love of "fake anamorphic" (i.e. cropping the image) took care of that. Stronger Ultra Con really helps with front-lighted subjects, taking harshness off things. Of course I got some pretty washed out shots sometimes, but was surprised how much of the image I could recover with simple levels/curves adjustment in post. So I'd say - get both. #3 for our European gloomy days, #5 for this happy one week of vacation :-]

Hello! I'm a student hoping to get some feedbacks from the community here! Would like to share with you a video I made in Myanmar. I am trying to highlight the happiness within the people despite the rapid development of Myanmar through this video. Hope you like it!

I've been fooling around with using DNxHD 220x with Ninja 2 attached to C100 MK 1, and for C-log it's pretty incredible how much of a difference it makes. You gain a ton of detail (yeah even more!) and colour separation, secondaries work incredibly well... you basically gain a stop or so of usable dynamic range as you don't lose all the detail in the darks. it's quite brilliant. The price of C100 MK 1 and Ninja 2 are both dropping so in combination it's gonna be really good for indie film making, just jack the audio into the camera too! I don't mind using the AVCHD for reporting and that kind of thing, but the DNxHD has ten-times the data and whips it into touch if you want to do post. IT ain't 4K, but it'll look damn good. For promos and slow motion stuff though the FS7 is a much better bet, but it'll cost you twice as much. OR you can hire it for 150 a day. It seems it maintains the Sony cool, Kodak-y look, which is certainly a look. It's one i like, though it's not as friendly as Canon.

Overexpose it a bit if it's noisy? You can bring it down later in post.

Can't believe I forgot BitWC was shot on C300's! Far from being a limiting factor the C300 was in fact integral to the film's success. All those walking scenes looking directly into Adele Whatshername's rather bewitching face; the 1000's of takes the cast and crew were forced to do; the completely independent vision of the director (low-cost shoot, so unrestricted by big studio). You could argue the film depended on the C100. And the image is everything in this film. Its pure cinema - cinema in its most base form. If you can do that with a C300 then for me the argument is over. Sure Malick might need film or Fincher a RED, but BitWC is pure cinema as far as I'm concerned, and not only did it loose nothing from being shot on the Canon, it gained something very special. What an amazing film it is: far too long; ethically very dubious (treatment of its young stars); gratuitously compelling sex scenes; depressing as hell. But challenging in a way far too little cinema is (I was shaken for days after seeing it). I can't say I liked it, but it affected me in a way very few films ever have.

What's important to remember is that dynamic range declines fairly quickly as you go up in ISO. I've shot a lot with D800, and I know that the 14+ EV steps that Dxomark has measured is real at ISO100 when I shoot raw stills - it's just miles better than what I've been able to pull out of other cameras. However, on the D800, not all of that DR translates to useful DR in compressed H.264. The D750 probably does a whole lot better than the old D800. But, since DR goes down when you go higher up in ISO, what's interesting with A7S is if you check the following graph from Dxomark: For stills, D800 and D750 has an advantage as long as you're around ISO100 to ISO400, and the A7S catches up at ISO800. What is amazing with the A7S is how it can keep a high DR as the ISO increases. Almost 9 EV steps at ISO 25600 is pretty impressive. That's where the A7S really shines in comparison to other cameras - it can keep a very high DR at a large ISO range. Dxomark measures DR for still photos, so it's hard to say how this translates to video since a lot happens to the image frames when they get processed and encoded into a lossy video format.

HI Andy, I picked up a few Topcon RE lenses today, 35, 58, 100 and 300 (which appears to have a broken iris). Just ordered the Topcon to nex adapter. I figured the 100 is worth the $95 I paid for all of them. Anyway, should I do some sample video or do you already know what these lenses do?