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Showing content with the highest reputation on 11/18/2014 in all areas

  1.   Samsung NX1 review is evolving, keep checking back. The NX1 costs $1499 body only or $1699 with the 16-50mm power zoom OIS lens. Expected availability in the US: 28th November 2014. I've been shooting with the Samsung NX1, an absolutely massive leap for camera technology - even a leap too far? Take a cup of tea and enjoy my rolling review to find out whether the NX1 is a petulant robot here to make your life difficult, or pushing the bar higher for 4K and DSLRs. Read the full article here
    2 points
  2. I fully agree on the HDMI! Glaring omission for drone users and will hurt sales. Sure I can forward the feedback to Matt. They are on our side. It's just sometimes a decision is made in Japan for engineering, technical or marketing reasons that doesn't quite chime with the demands of filmmakers.
    2 points
  3. I have checked many reviews, samples and specification before I bought this camera. If you would do the same, you would know about the lack of HDMI monitoring. Be angry on yourself. It's always like that. When famous photographer says that camera X is excellent for portraits, I would still check if it has all features I need, like controls or focal length I'm using most often...
    2 points
  4. Sony A6000 with Zeiss 50mm F1.4 on Speed Booster The Sony A600 is the best Sony consumer camera yet for video. A Nikon D5300 in a mirrorless body, with far more features, the image quality is closer to the FS700 in 1080p than to a NEX 7 or A5000. The pristine sharp EVF, a magnified focus assist which can be activated whilst recording (rare!), peaking, zebra, 16:9 screen and of course the mirrorless form factor. This is arguably the best current 'cheap' camera for video, de-throning the GH2 and GH3. At just $650 it is an absolute bargain. Read the full article here
    1 point
  5. Andrew Reid

    Grading

    The official EOSHD thread for discussion of grading and colour correction. Techniques, software, codecs, etc.
    1 point
  6. Looks absolutely fantastic - certainly the best 60p slow mo HD image on the planet Link to You Tube to watch in 1080p HD Check the whole vid (its in Japanese and French) for features. Video footage kicks in around 9 minutes in
    1 point
  7. I'm curious to see how this camera would perform in the hands of a talented filmmaker. The very little stuff online including the demo reel is rather awful and brittle - yet the same can be said of most new camera releases at the early stages, in the awful aspects. ;)
    1 point
  8. The original was sadly completely serious.
    1 point
  9. Except for the fact that it's a side effect of the GH4 being used with external monitors and recorders. So there's no way they could leave it out if they wanted to. Pretty sure the feature wasn't added in mind that you could use it for FPV and monitoring on aerial shoots. So it's not quite the same. That's why I said that probably they do not expect you to rig the LX100 up and just use it as it is, because it is so compact, that's the key selling point, that it is all-in-one already. And yeah, it's a step below the GH-line, surely. But I'm not sure adding HDMI-out during recording to the LX100 would effect GH4 sales that much. So I hope they have a change of hearts then if it's technically possible to add it with a firmware update. The other point. Yeah, a couple of years ago you'd have to go with spycam(like) cameras. There weren't any gimbals around for consumers/prosumers, let alone an afforable FPV solution. So I did fly without seeing any livefeed... and still people are shooting without a live feed... just because it can't be budgeted for, so it's not impossible, it's not that insane, people have been shooting like that for years. But fair enough, those people then probably don't have the means to get themselves a multirotor with gimbalmount to handle a camera such as the LX100. So admittedly it's already more serious and I know it's not years ago now, we live in 2014 with all this technology availlable... except then for the lack of video-out whilst recording, lol. Well, I hope Matt will respond to this and maybe tell us if anything will be possible in the future. The range though... besides, people aren't fond of Wi-Fi signals when they're flying their multirotor. Wouldn't want to get signal mess-ups.
    1 point
  10. H264 or H265 are acquisition or diffusion codecs, never were they intended to be editable natively for that matter. Offline editing may not be always the fastest solution but it really is the best way. Managing media, transcoding, conforming, knowing the difference between working formats, and acquisition/diffusion format is a lost art, and it's a shame because in many situation it actually is the simpler process in the end (even if it doesn't seem so at first). If H265 not being an editable codec is the only thing preventing you (noone specific in mind, you the average reader i mean ;) ) from buying this camera... Buy it ! and learn how to deal with these situations, it will only make you a better editor, a better image technician, it will teach you professional workflows... It's a win-win really ;)
    1 point
  11.   Haven't had time to test yet but will do soon, image has a nice feel to it so far though.   Using Handbrake as a replacement for the Samsung transcoding app. Works great. Giving me 200Mbit/s H.264.
    1 point
  12. I remember the times that a livefeed was still something extraordinary. Now it may perhaps be quite mainstream, but enough people know how to live without it. So I agree, theres no reason it really cannot be used at all. That aside though, I also do not really see a reason for Panasonic just to leave out this option. I can't imagine them just 'overlooking' this ('ah shit, now you can only use it for 'playback', not 'live recording', guess we forgot, good point'). Maybe they believe nobody wants to add a monitor or external recorder to a 'compact camera'? They're afraid to many people would use it as an aerial cam, crashing it and using the warranty to claim Panasonic has given them a faulty camera? Not sure, I'd say techwise there wouldn't be too much to it. Perhaps it's even as simple as coding a few lines? Perhaps they'll even do that? They also didn't think the 4K Photo mode would be used for anamorphic shooting, so didn't give it a 24p mode. I can see them changing that, so if this really was an afterthought, then I do hope the people in need of such a thing will get it through a firmware update. But if not... remember, Panasonic never advertised the LX100 as being the 'ideal camera for aerial video', so being all upset and never wanting to buy something from Panasonic again is pretty uncalled for. I've seen people do great things with a DJI Phantom 2, H3-3D gimbal and a GoPro too... and again, people used to film without a livestream all the time, so it's still not impossible with the LX100 either.
    1 point
  13. Feedback / quick summary of thoughts: - The only colors that stood out from the reel that I'd improve would be the man's face at around 00:57. The face comes out as a bit too reddish in my opinion. - The logo animation: 1) I find the motion of it doesn't fit with the motion / fades of the rest. 2) Even if it matched the motion / fading / animation of the rest, I doubt it would add to the reel. I think an approach that doesn't distract people from the footage itself is better. - I'm a fan of minimalism and functionalism, so in a reel I find it most important that the footage itself stands out, and I find it does in your reel. Good colors, lovely compositions. The reel doesn't get tedious: it's interesting to look at. I find the minimalistic white text and the way it is used together with the footage a good mix. It adds a bit to the story, but doesn't distract the shots. - One thing I'm not sure about: the people speaking in the reel. I don't know if I'd keep it or remove it. It somehow brings me out of the mood of the rest of the reel. Suddenly it's like I'm watching a short film / doc out of the blue in a reel. I suggest testing it with just music and no voice audio and see what you think yourself is better. So as a summary, the reel I'd pretty much keep it as-is: I'd make my stance on the voice audio, as well as see what I can do to have the logo cleanly presented without having it distract from the footage, and I'd try to see if something can be done to the skin color of the man. Website: You are not selling the service of filming at events, you are not selling a 5 minute reel. You are selling the vision/idea to you possible clients of what you can provide to them = their emotions, their visions in their thoughts - what they believe that Matt can do for them. Keep that thought in your head at all times for a company site. If you keep it minimalistic and can manage to sell the feeling correctly in 5 seconds, you're half the way with your sell, people tend to be fairly convinced early on at a site (or early doubtful, first impressions matter). I can imagine a moody photo from behind the scenes at a wedding, as something that could be a great introduction, together with a bit of text and a shorter reel in a happier mood. Remember for such a trailer: you are selling the idea/vision of what kind of film you can make for them, something that should be true to how you work and what you can produce as well as the mood that they will want to associate to their wedding/event (in general tems happy/close/emotional). I've been working with web design and print for a long time now, was in advertising for a while before I headed back out to IT (where I still do some advertising, although more honest such :)). I just can't stress enough how the best tip I can give about selling something is that you should never ever sell a product, you are always more effective at selling the experience/idea of what the product can do. The right photos / moody video sequences, correct music and a little bit of text will get you a long way with that. (and yes, a lot of your footage has such quality, choose the suitable footage, set it with the right music and you'll be able to affect people into the right mood). If you don't have the perfect shot for a wedding, find something else that is emotional, that you think a person will be able to associate with the emotion they want to experience in the video they want. Or if you find you don't have anything fitting - maybe get out and shoot some event / wedding / party or something of your friends and use that. And keep in mind that you should be able to sell the idea of what you can do in 30 seconds. Great if you have a lot of longer material to watch for the people who really want to go through all of your material - but for most people, if you have picked the right things in short form, they will be enough convinced in 30-90 seconds (I wish I'd have the detailed statistics of how many people that just scroll the pages watching the photos of apple.com and how much of the text they read before committing to buy something. Those images that paint the vision of what you can do sell really well). Also, I don't think it's a bad idea at all to have more than one reel on a company/portfolio site. A much shorter one with a bit different mood, as earlier suggested in the thread, is not a bad idea at all if you want to do more shoots of weddings and such. It tends to be good to cater to people who want information quickly: images, video and a little bit of text that. Then there's also the kind of customers that do spend more time, checking things out thoroughly. They are the ones that will sit through a five minute reel, while many impatient people might quit after 20 seconds if you focus on communicating via a long reel. Gosh, wasn't such a short feedback as I thought I'd type. Hope this gives you a few ideas.
    1 point
  14. That is some spectacular footage. When I first watched it, I was only interested in looking at the difference between the cameras, but I didn't even notice the first one, I was that captivated by what I was watching, no exaggeration!!! It is very obvious to me that you have a great eye and I really wish I could tag along with you to watch you shoot, just to see how you pick your shots. I think the one that impressed me the most was towards the beginning of the reel, the shot of a train in an urban setting (London?) travelling over a bridge, bathed in an amber light (morning?). It is the type of establishing shot that I see made so mundane and dull at every level of the profession, yet you took a really complex scene and made it look, as others have said, like a living painting. Absolutely brilliant. I don't think the reel is too long, but I have to agree, the tone is downbeat, which may not sell you to every potential customer. There are just a few things I personally would include, that for better or worse seem to be popular with clients - shots of really nice looking gear being used, a few really crisp "HD ad" sharp images - remember how they advertised HD TV's on an SD screen, just a few like that, bright colours too. Lastly, I would include a shot that I refer to as the breath-taker - a shot which people (and remember the public have a vastly inflated sense of their ability behind a camera) do not feel that they could replicate, even if they knew how it was done. Doesn't matter if it's a trick and in fact it's the easiest shot in the reel, and it often is! But don't think that I'm suggesting you add all that to this reel, make several so you can choose which one to show which potential client. This one I think will sell you very well to very many people, especially to people who are perhaps in the industry already and looking to hire someone on a project because they will really understand what you've achieved here! Also, because I believe you want some constructive criticism (if not, ignore this paragraph) - I found the intake of breath as the very first person to talk fades in a bit jarring and could be feathered a little more. So apart from that tiny nit-pick, I think this is amazing!
    1 point
  15. I've been a Director and lighting DP for 25 years now shooting on film for 15 of that ! The first set of lenses I bought where Zeiss Super Speeds and Angenieux zooms.
    1 point
  16. These are also very good points. Thank you. :) My main interest is on the documentary side of things, but like any filmmaker I occasionally daydream about doing a narrative piece. I'd love to. But time, money, people, life, ideas ... you know ... life is short and very full. Maybe one day ...
    1 point
  17. I've always felt that the Cooke look had that extra feel to it - I'd always described it as if the focus sort of blends out into blurriness and so it feels like the shot has a lot more depth, whereas on the Zeiss glass I was comparing to at the time it was just a really sharp fall away in focus. Leicas are great glass, as are Zeiss and Cooke. They all do a great job. As with film stock (and these days camera choice), lensing is another creative choice DPs have in our arsenal to create a specific look for a film. The infamous 'Cooke look' isn't right for every film. If I wanted something a bit more clinical, I might shoot RED Epic with Ultra Primes. For a drama, I might go Alexa with Cooke S5's (or maybe older Cooke Speed Panchros!). I've shot Super Baltars on Epic before for a funkier look. It's all a personal thing, though - there's no right or wrong look, and no right or wrong lens choice. It's funny, when you've worked with a lens set enough you can start to almost pick the lens based on the bokeh... The one thing I dislike about Cookes is the stop-light bokeh... Though I've seen some Panavision lenses do similar things.
    1 point
  18. One thing I love about the a7s is the shallow DOF / Cinema look for video. However, I threw the 18-200 original silver lens on it yesterday and shot my daughter's indoor gymnastics. Full continuous AF, with a range equivalent to 27-300mm. It worked out fantastically! My 5 year old girl ran from one side of the gym up to our seats and it held focus very well (of course I was hard set at F/8, but still). How cool is it that this camera bascially doubles as a run and gun / camcorder when you need it? The OIS from that lens was simply...brilliant. Highly recommended for any handheld video. Face tracking works a treat, and so does object tracking. Never even tried these before as it's my only Sony lens. FYI Shawn
    1 point
  19. jcs

    A7s + the 18-200 "kit" lens

    The SEL18200 is indeed excellent, shot most of our SciFi short with it (FS700 kit lens). The SELP18200 (black, with power zoom) also works well (slow power zoom can be useful). As an event lens on auto-everything (100% A7S with SEL18200):
    1 point
  20. I don't know if this has been posted before, but here's Mauri Galiano's very nice test which compares the GH4's various aspect ratios in 4k "Photo" mode using a Bolex 16/32 1.5x, an Isco 1.7x and a 2x Proskar. This sealed my decision to finally pull the trigger on a GH4. The only limitation I see right now is it's only in 30p and 25p. Apparently someone within Panasonic is pushing hard for 24p. Otherwise the GH4 (except low light) is an embarrsment of riches. eris
    1 point
  21. Here are some tests shots I did to see how stable I can be with the help of the internal stabilization in the LX100.
    1 point
  22. I've finally received my lens today! The package arrived in not so good condition. A lot of scratches and tears but the contents inside was packed carefully. The lens and rod support work good. I feel the rod support could work better if it does not rotate easily because the screws aren't so secured. The Iscorama itself has some stiff focus movements around 1.6m - 3m not sure why he didn't fix that. Also he somehow made some scratches on the Iscorama label on the front part of the lens but that's okay. Even though it is a nice modification, if I would have a chance to choose again I wouldn't send my Iscorama to get modded!
    1 point
  23. If you're buying a camera in the $5k+ range, you're looking for a camerat that's going to help you book work. Camera purchases are usually bad investments unless you can pay it off within about 18 months worth of work. What sort of work would you normally doing where you'd provide your own camera? Maybe docos and corporates? Is an F35 practical for those, and are you going to make enough from those to cover the cost of the camera (say $10k+), recorder, lenses and also still be able to cover your own living costs and bills? That's the question you sohuld be asking yourself if you're thinking about investing in any camera. If you're doing narrative type stuff, do your clients normally have a budget to hire cameras? If so, why would you not simply hire a camera? If not, do they have a budget to pay you? If they don't, then is it worth buying a $10k+ camera to shoot it on..? The only other way to make money off a camera purchase is via rentals - if you have a RED or Alexa, then sure you're in a decent position to make money off rentals if you price your packages right. If not though, what's the rental demand for F35s? Is there any? It will usually depend on your market, but you should definitely look into it before you commit to buy. It certainly has nice images, that's for sure. But in the grand scheme of things I would say it's a nice option that you can rent quite cheaply when you have a low budget. I don't think I'd be investing in purchasing one. You can grade A7s images to get pretty close. The F3 on the other hand - if you don't care about resolution higher than 1080p; I know of friends/colleagues who are selling their old ones with the Sony primes it came with for <the price of an FS7. Which is pretty decent value if you ask me. An external recorder and you'd be good to go with three PL mount primes @T2.
    1 point
  24. "Blackmagic Design today announced an exciting Summer Special discount for the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera for the low price of US$495. With a normal recommended retail price of US$995, this Summer Special represents incredible value and is available for a limited time and will end on the 31st of August 2014... http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/press/pressdetails?releaseID=61418
    1 point
  25.   Because Canon have taken great pain to separate their cinema and photography range. Cinema EOS was a big investment in marketing and R&D for Canon. Convergence is not yet part of their strategy.   This may change in the future of course.   But I cannot see their DSLRs being allowed to challenge Cinema EOS in any respect, for the time being.   Sony is different, they have always pushed the consumer electronics to the maximum performance. They are a consumer electronics company. That is their core business. At Canon, photography is their core business. Different perspective.
    1 point
  26.   Whilst there's some truth to that, image capturing and creativity is about a lot more - and part of that is the ability to keep rolling, for a long time. With raw you can't do that. And if you shoot a lot of stuff over months and years, you simply have no choice but to start deleting raw files, thus losing vital masters and all the advantages of raw in the workflow.   Artistically, it's utterly spellbindingly beautiful, but practically - not on all projects but some - it is a problem at times. The A7S is close overall and in some aspects even better - in low light and for highlight handling (it has a smoother roll off). The A7S doesn't need me or anyone else to be an apologist for it. What's to apologise for? It's a superb machine and we're very lucky to have it. If it was left to Canon, we'd be paying $10k or more for it.
    1 point
  27. '?do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent>>
    1 point
  28. Ordered :) Now what's the best way to use electronic aperture EF lenses with it?
    1 point
  29. In stock at the new price at B&H here:   http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/964117-REG/blackmagic_design_blackmagic_pocket_cinema_camera.html/BI/6943/KBID/7492   And Adorama http://www.adorama.com/BMCCP.html&&1&KBID=66885 â€¦
    1 point
  30. Kasper Mols

    Lenses

    Love the new sigma 18-35mm for sharpness and convenience. But worked as an AC for a DP with leica lenses. Darn that 100mm was tasty!
    1 point
  31. andy lee

    Grading

    this will be one of the most subjective threads on the forum as everyone sees things in their own way. There is no rules on this as anything goes , there are some techniques that are useful to know , but mostly I do this totally by feel and look.
    1 point
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