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Hello everyone ... I preferred to open a new topic rather than continue to abuse "my Journey to virtual production" With the carnival I was able to do some more tests with unreal and this time for I recorded my subject up against a yellow wall ... As you can see, in controlled working conditions, the results can be really good ... Obviously there is still a lot of room for improvement, for example I have to synchronize the two video tracks by recording a common audio track, I have to balance the gimbal better (I have a crane-m and with the mobile phone mounted I exceed the grams it can support, so it vibrates a lot) , but apart from that, if I had an actress who does something sensible apart from shooting all the time 🙂 I might at this point think I can shoot something decent ... What do you think? Opinions, advice?

@kye They all look nice, taken at different dates though. The GH6 looks quite natural. @Django Yeah I think the Komodo is the most compelling option right now. I'd be all over it if it wasn't made by RED.

Vintage camera, muaha! @BTM_Pix Funny and saddening thumbnail.

It seems to retain color much better underexposed than the GH5, GH5S or Pocket 4k. I don't mind noise that much, ARRI gets noisy underexposed but the color doesn't look wack.

I really like the shots in that video from the GH6. I could see myself slapping on the Lo Contrast Neutral LUT (there is an example at the end of the video) for real-quick turnaround stuff.

As far as I can tell... If the face moves out of the focus area, their face will still be "tracked," meaning their will be a white box around the faces (or faces if there are more than one person in the shots but no in the AF area), but the autofocus will give priority to what is in the AF area box. why use it? Say you are holding doing a product review in your living room and the camera is focusing on your face. You hold up a nice shiny lens / camera / whatever in front of your face (obscuring your face) and the camera should focus on the item. With the Human Detect AF, the camera MIGHT focus on a photo on the wall in the background of someone's face. I don't think it is a night-and-day difference in terms of accuracy. But more of a backup. If the person puts on sunglasses or a mask, or their are shadows falling on their face, or for some reason the AF system stops recognizing their face as a face, then if they are still in the AF area box, the camera will still focus on them. Also - and I have zero proof this is the case - I think that using the AF One Area just helps the camera AF system "concentrate" as it were. I don't know the scientific / engineering terms, but just that the AF system is less likely to get distracted. I don't want to get too negative on the system. Josh Cameron makes a lot of videos about the S5 and S1, and he seems to get good results using continuous autofocus with the 20-60 and 24-105 lenses. There are a few others that seem to be able to get usable results. There are many times when 85% is going to be more than good enough. For my needs, if I really need something to be in focus, I just have to go with either AF-S or manual focus for now. I would love to pick up a prime like the 24mm for use on a gimbal shooting 4K 60fps (which is in aps-c crop mode) and use it in af-c, but I am a bit reluctant to buy L-Mount glass if the AF isn't going to be improved significantly through updates (or new camera models). And as @MrSMWmentioned with his S1H, I would just set up my S1 as either manual focus (or single af) on a tripod, press record, and walk away, letting it record long events / interviews from a static angle.

It's hard to find fault on any of these latest-gen cams when properly exposed in daylight conditions. Komodo keeps being the one that impresses me the most: thick, rich & detailed without looking overtly sharp/digital. I'm shooting with one soon, can't wait to check it out for myself.. .

You are probably right, the differences in CLOG2 vs 3 on this camera are probably so negligible that it would be easier to just stick with CLOG2 even if on paper CLOG3 would technically be the better choice. My whole workflow is around CLOG2 so I probably will just use it for everything. I only have a single APS-C lens that would use it, and I would have to unbolt the speedbooster so I will probably skip it for now. If I do end up replacing my 5DIV with an R5 or R3 then I would pick up the straight through adapter.

The S1H is just fantastic but... even though I consider myself something of a minimalist, in order for me to do what I need to do, I use on every job: Stills camera (S1R) A cam video (now S5, was S1H) B cam video (S1H, was S5) Each of the above has a principle lens and an alternative lens based on circumstances. Back up and BTS cameras (ZV1 and Action 2) Drone 3 tripods, 1 monopod, 3 lightstands, 4 lights, 6 pieces of audio capture gear. You know those, "what's in my camera bag?" videos, well I have 4 bags 🤪 Sounds a lot but only at certain times am I using most of it at once such as during wedding speeches, I will have my 2 principal cameras on me, roving, (as I do all day anyway, ie, I never take them off other than to eat) while the B cam, back up, BTS, lights, off camera flash etc, are all tripod or light stand mounted and set up during quieter moments. I draw the line at flying the drone while attempting anything else though as I'm paranoid about crashing it into a tree. Or a granny. As I have done several times. (Trees, not grannies). The S1R is a big enough beast and having the S1H on my other strap for anything from 9-15+ hours is just that bit too much and the S5 is just a lot easier to handhold all day with cage and additional grip. The principle I believe with one area is yes, you generally 'point' that in the direction of your subject and if it's a face, it should switch to face tracking/pick it up and track as such. I need to give it some more time as I've only just switched to it from 'normal' face detect only, but in some back to back tests, it does seem better. I'm not sure what Quick AF is. Or I've forgotten. It's not a stills thing is it...?

I see it as the edit being another "dimension" of movement. In narrative it allows you to drastically alter the mood by action or inaction in terms of cuts. I'm a big fan of unexpected shot holds. The evermore frantic pace of editing in general is a bit of a shame as the actor's performance eventually ends up suppressed by the edit rather than enhanced. A fun one is music video, for example you can move cuts on and off the rhythm of the song to enhance different things. When you're on beat it's all tied together, when you're off it creates a change in feel, the picture becomes a little less attached to the sound so you can create an extra sense of "flow" this way. As you leave the beat its more of a film backed by music, as you tighten up to the beat it's a music film. YouTube editing seems to be inexorably tied to prescription amphetamine abuse, with even a still talking head head cutting to a new post-punch-in zoom every two seconds.

I'm coming round more to your (field) of view now. I haven't gone back over all your statements, but I do realise I was fundamentally misstating the role of focal reducers in the imaging chain, so I'll take another look at this. That's twice this week I've been wrong about something. Disconcerting, as I am usually only wrong about something around once a decade. I had an exhilarating run from my 13th birthday till turning 30 when I was right about *absolutely everything* 😅.

Yes I started off using face tracking but switched to one area + face and found that to be the best of all of the available options. Tracking AF is generally garbage. Tap to confirm focus makes a difference but I can’t remember off hand if that option comes up with one area + face or whether it is a purely face tracking option only…but it does improve things if available. The lighting situation and background plays a part in this due to the nature of how DFD works. Also not shooting wide open on say those f1.8 primes helps. Going forward (and my season starts in around 4 weeks and is then pretty relentless until early Oct) I have reverted my S1H into being my static (ie tripod) B cam and the S5 as my A cam which is on me at all times, handheld or monopod. Why? The S1H can do 30+ minute recordings without resorting to dropping to 8 bit and despite me preferring it in almost every way to the S5, there is one area I do not and that is weight. So it’s S5 back to A cam with Sigma 35mm f2 for indoor work which is switched to Sigma 65mm f2 for outdoor so shooting 4K 50p which is my go to, effectively shooting with a 50 indoors and a 100 out. I am keeping the kit zoom 20-60 close by though for those few times when I need the best tracking AF that I can get, ie, entrances, exits etc and shooting that at f4 or 5.6 at it’s widest focal length, ie, a ‘30mm’ equiv. Finally, in order to mitigate some of the chunk of the S1H, I’m welding on the Sigma 18-50mm f2.8 as that thing is tiny and very lightweight yet offers an equivalent field of view of 27-75mm so pretty flexible. This unit is pure static manual AF anyway. I’ll report back if I find anything new as this week is designated as another week of testing. More to keep some familiarity going than anything as even a couple of weeks off produces a surprising amount of initial ring rust.

He's actually not correct at all. The speedbooster doesn't make it a 50 f/1 lens as he states it. It makes it (roughly) a 35mm f/1 lens. Which on APS-C gives you... a 50mm FOV with the DOF of a 50/1.4. As I said, you cannot get the extra stop of light without shallower DOF, or vice versa. A speedbooster can't make the DOF shallower than the lens would be on FF, which seems to be his issue with it. And the lens is still transmitting the same TOTAL light as a 50/1.4, and the sensor captures the same TOTAL light as a full-frame sensor, hence the DOF is the same. If it made the lens a 50 f/1.0 then it would have the same FOV with and without the speedbooster.. obviously we know speedboosters widen the FOV. From the same distance, a 35mm f/1.0 will have about the same DOF and FOV as a 50/1.4 on FF.

It might depend on how the AF is reacting to the subject you are shooting. If it is pulsing, then you would want to turn the sensitivity and speed down. Also, for the best results I have gotten from continuous AF, I usually use one-are (or one-area plus) and turn on face detection. If you are using the first AF mode, which is face recognition, you should either tap on the face you want to track, or use the joystick and push in on it to track that particular face. (the same thing for the Tracking AF mode, although I don't find the tracking AF mode all that reliable at all). You want to "confirm" the face by tapping or using the joystick push in (as mentioned above) in case there are multiple people in the frame and then the camera will know whose face to focus on.

@webrunner5 Thanks for pointing out. I liked the young gentlemans approach. Footage not so much. Hard to believe that most of the GH6 footage looks worse than GH5 amateur clips. Andyax did the best so far for me. But that kid also made a Canon Ti shine like it was the hottest stuff in the universe, which it was back then to non GH2 users. 🙂 Edit: After glimpsing into the footage again, I must say i remembered it to be better. Right now I feel underwhelmed even by the colours from Andyax tests.

I still wonder (and wouldn't be surprised) if we get BRAW to the Black magic recorder as the GH5s has it. I really hope so. Since I use a PC and Davinci this would be amazing

I don't know I am often needing dynamic range indoors when dealing with windows and often shoot at 4000 iso on my S1 indoors. Dynamic range in lower light situations is helpful, especially in the shadows which is where the DGO sensors seem to shine. Yeah it would be nice if the GH6 had more dynamic range but its honestly very respectable and maintaining color accuracy throughout the dynamic range is more important than the dynamic range itself. The S1H released with terrible NR baked in but it was later fixed. The S1 released without that issue and looks incredibly organic. The GH5 had the same NR issue upon release but was later fixed. The GH5 always did have a sharpened look, but the S1/S1H doesn't have that. BRAW has sort of a softer look, not sure why but its some sort of processing going on. If you shoot CDNG on BM cameras you'll see the difference in texture. It's a pretty subtle thing, probably doesn't really matter. Would be more apparent on the big screen like anything else.

Really? I aways thought GH series had that sharpened / NR look. BMD cams in contrast have very little image processing especially if you shoot RAW. As for GH6's "DGO" sensor, it does seem a little underwhelming when compared to the P4K. Also pretty annoying DR boost mode turns base ISO to 2000. I'd rather it be at a low value like 400. At 2000 you're going to need ND's or close the iris during daylight which is when you want that DR boost.. odd choice.

Here you go, try it with this thumbnail to tick all the boxes that will get you on the front page.

They have similar highlight latitude but when underexposed the P4K doesn't do as well, especially with color. Now the P6K is pretty excellent in that regard, however I have heard issues of fixed noise patterns when the sensor gets hot. The P6K also has no so great rolling shutter. Panasonic has also been known to have a less processed image with more texture.

The 150mbit 10bit codecs on the GH5 and especially on the S series are very robust. It smokes the 240mbit codec from the FS7. It's no contest. The flavour on S1, S1H, S5 also does well compared to Braw being equally robust in the shadows. I was amazed by the Gh5 under good and moderately low light. S series have a powerhouse of a 10bit Long Gop codec. Panny is a big boss when it comes to codecs.

Adaptors could be a tight fit with the OM1 https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65980877 “Heads up for anyone who uses metabones or viltrox EF to M43 adapters. Some of them do not fit on the OM-1 because they did not leave enough room. The adapter back hits the hump. I tried the metabones EF-M43 T adapter and viltrox speedbooster. I imagine other adapters could have the same issue,”

Mmmm.... So I've been looking further into this today and its actually a complete mess. And not just because of the app. First off, I should have been clearer in the original post regarding the requirement to use an UltraSync Blue unit (€150 approx) for syncing multiple Zoom, Atomos and iOS apps over BLE. Which brings us to an issue... The Zoom units with BLE functionality can use the connectivity for the app or for wireless timecode but not both simultaneously. This is a menu switched option (such as on my H3-VR and the new F3) but the F2-BT doesn't have an obvious mechanism to change this on the fly as it has neither a screen nor a switch to do it with. Unbelievably, Zoom's solution to this lack of UI on the the unit is that you have to connect it via USB to a Mac or a PC running Zoom's F2 Editor application to switch its mode. The F2BT unit has five physical buttons on it that Zoom could have used to control that switch on boot up (i.e. hold down Stop button when switching on for Control and hold down Play when booting for timecode mode) but instead have opted for an utterly ridiculous and clunky solution. So dynamically changing it on the hoof is completely impractical. In terms of control from the mobile app, it is inexplicable why it can't control more than one device at a time. I've had a bit of a hack around interrogating the H3VR this morning and I can see that there are enough BLE Services and Characteristics to make it happen to address units individually within the limits of how many simultaneous BLE devices can be connected. A more simplified app option for multi units that did basic rec start/stop and signal present leds rather than full metering and settings changes etc would be perfectly doable and adequate for at least four units. For now, in terms of rec start/stop its doable across multiple units if you close the app and re-open it to choose a different unit on the initial scan but thats clunky as hell too. So, as it stands, to do two timecode synced F2BTs and the F3 they would have to all be in timecode mode (and you'd have to have set the F2s up beforehand) and started manually because there is also no mechanism to do a record start/stop command for the whole group. OK, so considering that the F2BT has a run time of about 15 hours on batteries and an entire recording for that period would take up a fairly trivial (compared to video files) of about 8gb then the solution would be to sync it to the UltraSync Blue, put it in record and use the lock mechanism to keep it there and then pressing Record on the F3 and leaving it running all day. But you'd have to be careful with that too as what this guy shows in his video review is that it is easily possible to think the F2 is in record when it isn't due to the enormous delay after pressing the Rec button and it actually beginning the recording. In essence, I don't think any of this is insurmountable and can be filed under first world problems considering the amount of scope on offer here by having a couple of F2-BTs, an F3 and an UltraSync Blue but its infuriating that Zoom seem to have had such a massive failure in joined up thinking on how it hangs together as a full system. The easiest solution to fix this would be to have an option in the Zoom devices to start/stop recording on receipt/suspension of Bluetooth timecode and use the UltraSync Blue as master controller by using its start and stop run function. Maddening how short sighted Zoom have been here.