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Nothing wrong with shooting an Alexa, but I do think that anyone in film production that truly believes technical superiority offers the best path to creative achievements has some goofy priorities. I get why aspiring filmmaker folks want to do their best technically, but to prioritize it above the artistic craft is nuts. It's there to support the thing you're trying to accomplish, not the thing itself. There's no real way forward in being a filmmaker with that attitude.

What I found interesting in that opening post link is that someone actually used the BM pocket cinema camera for a cinema film.

I feel that these fell out of the buzz a bit, even now when they are out in the stores. And specially now when there is so much buzz around the Fuji MF camera. I mean who doesn't want Medium Format on the cheap? The adapter + a $100 Pentax 645 Lens + a $500 A7 gives you a pretty affordable Medium Format kit. I had the A7 and liked it a lot. Much more than I liked the A7ii and A7sii because of the quality/$. Obviously Im not interested in gaining any resolution like some, Im after the MF aesthetics. Meaning, being able to use a portrait lens with its DOF and compression but from a nicer distance. So pretty much the same but opposite reason why MFT and APS-C is so nice for street photography and manual focus. Philip Blooms Cat tests with the adapter + A7rii. Personally its still the cost holding me back. I dont care about using it for video and for stills Film is still way cheaper. My old Yashica D for $100 is sharp as a knife. My old $50 Zeiss Nettax is pocketable. My mothers old Certo can be had for $10, is pocketable (jacket) and is simpler to use than a smartphone. The problem is that they aren't exactly street photo friendly. Usable bur not ideal. Not like a range finder. So after two days of constant hovering over the order button on the adapter and late nights looking at samples form the Fuji GX I decided to go another route. 6x9 Medium Format Fuji Rangefinder Compact Camera

Nofilmschool can fuck off.

Here is some clips with the anamorphot SLR Magic, the one with the focus module Rangefinder integrated, on LX100

A great lesson in not sweating about tech and focusing on composition, editing, sound etc.... this is well worth a watch.

Thanks again! I really like it, too. Awesome suggestion (which you btw have quite often, maybe you should become a creative thinkthank lol). And no, the curly blonde is a very good friend, my girlfriend is the other blonde btw: replaced the original video.

Great idea! I tried it immediately, however since I only recorded with the built-in mic there are too many wind noises. Instead, i took several fragments and put them at different places during the clip. Tell me what you think (PW is mercer):

Yeah nice lens. I read Mattias singing Olympus lens's praises but I'm not sure I ever saw anything from any of their lenses. One note that could be a cool effect... maybe take the audio of you and your friends laughing and talking and place it over the entire track, not as in sync audio but as a low background track. If you mix it with the sound of rustling leaves, the pedaling bikes and wind... almost as an echo... it may add a little more of a nostalgic memory feeling to the piece. I don't think it's necessary but it could be nice.

The a7s doesnt have as much of a yellow cast as the a7sii, so dialing down the white balance matrix settings Andrew provided (matrix not white balance) might make it warmer. Also if your using s-gmaut as a substitute on the a7s, use the V2 version for the a6500.

This is astounding footage Thank you all for your replies. I will post test results when I assemble the camera and lens

Well a 57 Chevy was probably only 1200 bucks new either but now...

Glad to hear you want to learn so much about digital video and color science.

Alexa packages are getting cheap. If i were making a narrative, i'd still buy this over any of the new stuff, if i had $17k http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?154082-FS-ARRI-ALEXA-CLASSIC-PACKAGE

Most very low budget (under $10 million) features and indies shoot prores. What's more remarkable is the success of such an inexpensive movie. The Alexa's prores looks 99.9% as good as its RAW and 10X better than most other cameras regardless of recoding format. The difference between prores 422 and 4444 is probably bigger than Alexa prores vs Codex. RAW is not a distribution format or a format that you can see without it first being processed. RAW must be processed eventually and the in-camera processing is very excellent on the Alexa. It's not that the 5D makes a better RAW file than a JPEG; it's that the 5D turns out a worse JPEG than a high end PC turns out a .TIFF from the RAW. The 5D's built in processing needs to be quick and dirty to stay fast and consume minimal power. And this carries over doubly to the 5D's terrible built in video. But an Alexa has that high end PC built in (why it's so big and heavy and battery hungry) and beyond that you're going to a high quality intermediate codec, which you'd go to anyway for vfx, same as you'd go to a TIFF to get to Photoshop. So you're getting the equivalent of a 16 bit TIFF processed with the best settings of the best RAW developer, and that's the best you can get from RAW anyway. It just happens to happen in camera with the Alexa. RAW is not an image until it's processed, so what's being debated isn't even the superiority of the format but where the processing is done. It is done poorly in a 5D. It is done well on a high end PC. And it's done well in an Alexa. Unfortunately, this issue became politicized when Red marketed a problem (you need to offload the image processing because the early Reds lacked the power to debayer properly in-camera) as a feature ("in camera RAW"). Unfortunately it's still politicized and people are ignoring that this is among the least important aspects of technical image quality. The DIT discussion is also politicized. It's a contentious position from both sides. Decent rates ($1k/day is very low for wet hire) that take others years to earn and an attack from producers trying to devalue the position on low budget work. Most of these politics do not relate to enthusiasts (same as Arri raw vs prores) except to further largely unrelated business interests by changing how conventional wisdom perceives something's value.

Don't worry about it. Someone is just misconstruing the adverse lighting/exposure situation for actual camera performance. This is the YouTube world we live in. A beautifully lit scene on a crappy 10 Stop camera can look better than an Alexa in a bad lighting situation... but try explaining why to a beginning enthusiast is always gonna be a challenge.

There's some interesting people talking about DIT's in this link. http://nofilmschool.com/2013/10/defining-dit-biggest-misconception-dits

There's no point being anti-raw when you have it on something like a 5D Mark III, and it turns out to be a million times better than the compressed option on that camera.

Alexa ProRes (particularly in 4:3 mode with anamorphic lenses) is without a doubt a theatrical format. Many, many movies have been shot this way, and it's standard procedure for films that are under $3-5 million to go this route. Arriraw is expensive and extremely data-hungry. The Codex workflow, while bulletproof, requires a pricey on-set Vault system, and a skilled DIT to run it. ProRes can be handled with a laptop and a couple of hard drives. Boom. Direct to edit.

Sure thing. These aren't final grades, but should give you a better idea of what the profile is like to work with.

The Infamous NX-1 Varavon Armor II Cage is back on sale... Only $50 (US) YEAH!.... $30 shipping...BOO.... $83 delivered... I just wish they made that has the battery grip option.... Also the NX-1 Armor II Pro Cage... its the same but has a C 100 style Rosette Adjustable Grip $60(US) http://varavon.com/collections/hot-deal-zone/products/armor-ii-nx1-pro-cage?variant=4096862915 http://varavon.com/products/armor-nx1?variant=1176714847 Also various other cages. A7s, 7D Mk2 BMPCC, Various prices... http://varavon.com/collections/hot-deal-zone

To give a rough idea of the macro anamorphic setup I've configured - here are some stills from a video I shot late last night (hence the bloodshot eye). The actual moving image is terrible, as I was filming my own eye and looking at a monitor so is very shaky. The focus plane is crazy thin, so these are really not as sharp as is possible to get when setup is more controlled. Image 1 is result from full 16x9 ML raw capture with 1.75x anamorphic and diopters (16x9 desqueezed to show centred focus plane in context ) Image 2 is 5:3 ML raw + crop mode desqueezed (crop mode is 1:1 crop of sensor) Image 3 is same as Image 2...(it's my top lip btw - not my 'front brush') Images all lit with iphone torch - hence the horrible shadow green skin tones. Images 2 & 3 will make some wonderful profile pictures for my online dating application methinks. ML crop mode is killer for macro work, as it effectively windows the sensor to 1:1 where higher resolution raw recording options can be selected as well as turning any lens into 3-5x it's rated focal length. 5DMKIII ML raw - 100mm taking lens on +1 macro ring - Kowa Inflight 1.75x - Tokina +0.4 - Various power singlet close up lenses (+4+2+0.5) Focus distance was approx 12 inches.

I'll come back when I find words to describe my reaction to this. For now, I'll stick with "mindblown and mesmerized". How strong was the diopter you were using? Just triple checking, it was diopters AND macro rings? How are you doing this crazy light that moves so smoothly with such beautiful hues and shapes? Damn, I need an episode on this.

Cheers. It was a quick test with Magic Lantern x5 crop mode with diopters on a regular anamorphic setup...I could have gone way closer, if I used a different taking lens (and will do in my next test). So to answer the question, it was a bit of both - closeup ability, with an effective sensor crop of the full frame by using ML crop mode. The subject of these stills was a 3inch diameter glass ball with shower gel/glitter and other liquids poured over it - and let to run down the surface to diffract and sparkle at different depths. It was an experiment to see how easy it is to create ambient light / fluid effects. Password: macro Ive got lots of old enlarger lenses I've put into Chinese helicoids that work really great for macro work...extreamly sharp and extreamly cheap, so I'll probably dig those out soon for a better test.

I second that!

Wah, these pictures are gorgious ! Can you explain the setup a bit ? DO you need macro rings or is the close-up ability only done with the diopters ?

I don't see a Pana GH4 or a GH5 being taken very seriously at all in LA. My daughter lives near there, and people in California have tons more money than any other state other than say up East. BMW's are as common as a Honda Civic out there. I would imagine a Red is nearly as common as a GH4 in the Cine community out there. At least many having a C100 or better. I know that camera does not matter that much in reality, but if you show up with a GH3 and a guy has a Red well not too sure your talent counts that much. Place is crawling with talent!

I'm done with camera bodies till the 8K revolution is full on swing... But Im very interested in other stuff (lights, supports, lenses, laptops/PC, monitors, recorders, mics and speakers). May be there should be a sub forum for all deals and discounts.

GH5 hands down. neuman raw footage proved good color can easily be get from GH5. GH5 has millions of advantage over 1DC which is a old piece of tech. Put a 42.5mm 1.2 Leica on the GH and tell me about mojo

This should help you with creating your own LUTs: https://cameramanben.github.io/LUTCalc/ You can also create transformation LUTs from Slog to Slog2 or 3 if you prefer, but I don't think it's necessary. I would suggest to transform your color space from original S-Gamut to S-Gamut 3.cine and then do a REC709 conversion, because original S-Gamut has a pretty bad color. It's funny when people suggest to work in ACES without knowing what ACES actually is.

Great content! Still looks ungraded to me - flat.

Maybe Kodakchrome could come back but it wont. What was it, 7 baths or something to process and an archival lifespan of just 20 years? I dont know many Hipsters that shoot film. Frankly I dont know any, they are a lazy bunch. It smore for people who really enjoy photography and film making as an art imo. I believe the reason its coming back is because after all these years digital still can't beat it. Digital is nice but film is nicer. Every time I watch a Blueray of any old movie I blown away of how much digital suck in comparison Also digital large format doesnt exist and medium format is still out of reach for most. A film MF is $7. (This of course depended on your definition of "better" and what aspect of image quality you rank highest.) Ps. Fun fact I heard but dont know if true, Fujifilms Instax division is currently their most profitable business... I know Im throwing money at them for my Instax printer

You shouldn't feel at all crazy! There's so much to be desired in film that digital has yet to nail down. The dynamic range, color and shutter/motion that film has to offer combined with vastly improving film scan technology is a worthy enough pursuit. I've posted this before I think, but check out this gorgeous 2K scan from super 8 film:

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