Leaderboard

Yeah I heard the original question, and I think that while the posts diving into complex grading are fascinating and useful to those of us who do post, I know that getting good color SOOC is a separate question. One big point about your question is that it doesn't break down by manufacturer. Not all REDs look the same, not all Sonys look the same, etc. I think the Sony FX6 looks fine, but I dislike the FS7. Also, most cameras have different profiles. Sometimes, there is greater difference between profiles on the same camera, than between normal/natural/standard/default/whatever profiles on many different cameras. And even within a profile, you'll have totally different results based on how many controls you leave on auto (such as WB) and your lens. SOOC and minimal grading are completely different. SOOC excludes log profiles, for one thing. There is budget as well. Best SOOC ever? Alexa 35, probably. Under $10k? C500mkII gets my vote. Under $2k? Nikon Z6 is solid. Are you including lenses in your budget? I like the color out of my Canon L 24-105 better than that of my Canon 50 1.8 (tested on Sony A7rII). Though I have also used terrible lenses for specific scenes, specifically to make them less appealing. If you want a specific answer or even a specific discussion, ask a more specific question because your original question is extremely open ended--which is fine to start with! But it's probably more useful and interesting to narrow the parameters a bit.

I like the look of it too. I think what it is benefitting from greatly, aside from the compositions, image quality and general shooting competency, is what I would call accidental environmental production design. The uniforms and demeanour of the subjects are consistent and tie together as does the station setting and its train and staff. When the shots are framed, as many of them are, to only include those elements then it provides the right aesthetic to sell the "cinematic" image. The proof of that, for me at least, is when other none designed elements stray into the frame and not just the obvious of modern vehicles etc but onlookers with modern clothes (particularly those out of the general colour palette) then the illusion is gone and quite jarring to be taken out of it. No amount of obsessive grading is going to cure that. Oh and the use of a tripod does absolutely no harm whatsoever in this as does the flattish light of what I am guessing is the archetypal overcast Bank Holiday day in the UK. All in all, aside from it being a good advert for a camera from "yesteryear" in modern terms, I also think this is more broadly a very good example of why "cinematic" doesn't just happen when wafting a camera at random scenes no matter what YouTube thumbnails will scream at you. When it comes to trying to do this in the wild, its definitely a case of granting ourselves the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the skill and vision to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Update is live: https://av.jpn.support.panasonic.com/support/global/cs/dsc/download/ff/dl/s5m2x.html

Right, but they are not the same as shooting log and then using Resolve color management as a 1-step modification. On my S5, shooting Vlog and then using color management > shooting standard profile. Or, if you mean a baked in user-specified LUT, that adds another dimension again. I know, I meant for the discussion. Otherwise... Alexa 35 is always the answer 🙂 These are hard questions because almost no test footage on the internet is SOOC, I haven't used every camera, and also of course there are many different film stocks so it really depends what you consider a film look. I'll also assume price new so the C70 is >$4k etc. But given my limited knowledge, and if the only consideration is color with zero post manipulation, for a generic project, my only answer is the Samsung NX1. Absolutely blows everything else I've used out of the water! However, I would never use NX as its a dead system with no active EF adapters. And there is no log profile. So my personal choice in that scenario would probably be a Panasonic S5IIx. But a good portion of my reasoning is based on Vlog, its pixel shift photo mode, and no strange crop factors and other limitations like some others. So not strictly color. This introduces another caveat in addition to the ones above, which is that color is the last consideration for a run and gun doc. My choice is whichever camera has the best AF, IS, sensitivity, audio, and reliability. So while the NX1 color is great, it's absolutely my last pick for the purpose. Overall, I would pick a C200 for the $4k budget, and C500mkII for $10k. They have great color and also fit the other criteria. Ergonomics play much less of a role here than for doc, but of course the big consideration is what the production looks like and what our goal is. Are we shooting natural light? Studio lights? Indoor with a couple 100-200W LEDs? What lenses? Since I can take my time, I'm absolutely shooting log and doing color work in post. So I wouldn't even consider the SOOC question for this scenario 🙂 For $5k I'm probably using a Z Cam F6. The ergonomics, sensitivity, and wireless control are huge, and the color is fine. For $10k the C500mkII looks pretty good. My friend just got a pair and loves them, but I haven't tried it personally.

The budget is just for the body and not for the body+glass? 1) Used GFX 100S - the video is good enough for vacation and the stills are incredible 2a) C70 - looks nice SOOC, built-in ND's, nearly the perfect camera for a fast turn-around 2b) GFX 100 II (Love mine) 3a) C70 - as before and the raw from it is flexible enough for anything I do 3b) Used Monstro 8K VV - I haven't actually shot with one, but they seem pretty nice and I sometimes consider doing some trade-in toward one - used models are now about 6k for the brain on reputable used sites

For my own stuff, I prefer it to be as 'faithful as possible' to the original scene, within the limits of the tools I've got and the amount of time I'm prepared to spend fiddling with it. I don't care what someone else wants to categorise that as, but I suspect it would come under your 'video' category. Personally the parts of the production process I find most interesting are being out-and-about recording the content, the basic editing (the clip choice, 'flow' and the cutting) and getting the best out of the ambient sound. Adjusting the image doesn't usually get much more advanced for me than brightness, contrast, saturation and sharpness, unless there's a clip that's particularly 'off' what I think it should look like in the lighting conditions at the time. But I'm perfectly happy respecting and enjoying other peoples artistic choices, including abstract art (which is inherently non-realistic). But nobody likes every piece of art they view...

My feeling is that H quality would be better than the lowest available bitrate in the camera (20mbps H.264 8bit) as it's 12mbps H.265 AND 10bit. I think the compression is about the same but with more color information. I haven't really tried the M quality- the compression seems massive in that though. It would probably depend on the scene. The quality of the H Proxy really looks quite acceptable. The L quality was a huge step down though. I'll need to try the M setting tomorrow. Concerning the EOIS at the wide lenses and vlogging style videos, it seems rather unnatural (as the video above indicated). Sure, it the background looks stable, but the subject seems to bounce around everywhere like a pinball. I think it's probably better as a traditional gimbal replacement where the camera's a little further from the subject and the operator is carefully walking. I have the Panasonic 70-300mm lens and it has great Dual IS 2. I haven't really noticed an improvement to already one of the most stable setups on the market. In face, I'd say the EOIS interferes with the OIS of the lens. Again, I need more testing.

You'd have to try it, as there are a number of factors that impact the drive speed required for editing, the distance between key-frames being a pretty critical one. If they've done a good job then it could work off a cheaper drive. Of course, if you're anything like me then you've got an older SSD that's too small spare, so with the reduced file sizes then you could put them on an older drive and work from there.

About five years ago I got the ingenious little Beatstep controller system (https://posttools.tachyon-consulting.com/davinci-resolve-controllers/beatstep-resolve-edition/) which seemed promising (and could be used for editing, colour, and Fairlight) but it was complex to set up and new versions of Resolve started to break things, and then I upgraded to an Apple Silicon Mac so I stopped using it. This is the issue with third-party products in general...the developer has to put in a lot of work to ensure compatibility with new releases of Resolve and if there's not enough demand for the product it eventually isn't worth the effort.

You can agree or disagree or bump whatever threads you want - I showed you examples from the real world. If bumping threads somehow changed reality, I'd bump as many threads as was necessary to make it so that I could get Hollywood level colour from my phone without any work in post. Hell, I'd create all the accounts and make all the posts myself if it would actually make it so. I am so vocal about this because what you are asking about is what I desperately want, but that just isn't how it works. To answer your question directly, no I don't say that the camera doesn't matter at all, but the camera doesn't matter in terms of getting great shots straight-out-of-camera without any work in post, because none of them can do it. Have you ever seen ungraded Alexa footage? It looks just like ungraded footage from any other capable camera (S1H, BMPCC, etc). In fact, you know what... here's your answer. The BMPCC 4K. Here is a comparison between an Alexa and a BMPCC 4K without any grading done in post except the ARRI LUT (and of course the BMPCC4K has had a conversion put onto it to make it match the Alexa). Juan is a professional film-maker / colourist and this is the real-deal, not a YT LUT bro product. If you think that any camera is capable of what you want then the Alexa must be, and as you can see, with that conversion the BMPCC4K can do it too. This is the product page. https://juanmelara.com.au/products/bmpcc-4k-to-alexa-powergrade-and-luts Knock yourself out!

You do realize technology matters? You do realize different camera produce differences in image that are pleasing to some and not others? Do you realize the original thread is about what camera you prefer to get the closest to your goal image with minimal work? Are you aware 99% of responses didn’t address that? Should I wear makeup?

More examples of bad lighting. This was a 709 shot from my GF3, which obviously couldn't auto-WB far enough to compensate (yes, this looked white in person): My best attempt at grading in post also couldn't compensate well enough: But the real demonstration is on a project. Here's a camera test I shot. These are the images after grading: They all look pretty straight-forward, but it took a lot of work to get to that. Here are the shots SOOC: Note that adjacent shots have considerably different looks - SOOC: After: Obviously I've let the flaring lower the contrast on the middle images to a certain extent because otherwise it would look too forced, but the tint of the first image and second ones needed to be evened out as one had the sun in it and the other didn't. I've shot these tests by the beach many times, using many different cameras (OG BMPCC, BMMCC, GH5, GX85, XC10, GF3, iPhone, GoPro, etc), shooting manually and in auto, in RAW / LOG / 709, etc etc. All required decent amounts of work in post to even them out and look normal. It's like anything - the natural look takes the most amount of work and is, in reality, the least natural. You keep saying you want nice looking images without doing any/much work, but I've been working super hard at this for quite some years now and it's just not possible. You either get nice looking images with work, or you wave the camera around and you get out what you put in - a film that looks like a dad with a handycam. The myth that you can buy it was created by equipment manufacturers trying to sell you cameras and LUT bros on YT trying to sell their LUT packs.

....and if that image doesn't illustrate the problem with lighting, how about this one. SOOC HLG: With a basic grade: These lights all looked white in person! I sat down, pulled out my camera (GH5 again), looked through the viewfinder and was stunned at the green/magenta mess the camera saw.

Sure. You just have to hope that the world is perfect and doesn't give you mixed lighting. That every shot you take has the same lighting ratio. That your camera doesn't have metameric failure as the WB changes to match the lighting changes. Etc Etc. Even on completely controlled film sets, colourists still tweak each shot to even them up between angles etc, so even if the world was perfect your results still wouldn't be.

The image I posted with the bad lighting was GH5, shooting LOG, with a standard conversion to 709. The GH5 is a huge capable camera, the issue was the lighting not the camera.

Clearly great points. But I think it’s still missing the mark, given that the user in my scenario wants a quick turn around in many lighting conditions outside of our control what sensors currently produce an image you love with minimal effort. the gx85 image is lovely but also the kids skin looks deathly anemic. Another sensor and processor would.l render that scene differently. That’s the conversation

True. Especially if you wanted to have good control over it independently across the 6 main colours. There's a lot of talk about how these two plugins are going to put DCTL writers (plugin scripts essentially) out of business. I don't think it will, because DCTLs can be made to do a lot more things than they are currently used for, but it's an interesting observation that the DCTL writers were using them to do things like this because they weren't so easy from the UI. In the same way that a new camera gets everyone on here excited and then start to argue with each other, discussing film emulation has the same effect on the colourist groups. I've found two things: 1) The more I read these discussions the more I realise I don't know. 2) The more I read these discussions the more I realise I don't care! Seriously, the focus for the colourists who are arguing seems to be how accurate they are. What is interesting though, is like here with cameras, the people arguing seem to care a lot about tiny little things, and yet the people out in the world doing the things also don't care about the accuracy of the tiny little things, but just see the emulations as useful for actually doing real work. I suspect that the niche for Dehancer is likely to either be that it's more accurate, at least for certain film-stocks, or that it is more useful in some feature or other. These are the kinds of things that colourists seem to care about. The fact you tested it with a stills film rather than a motion picture stock might also be significant as the colourists likely don't care too much about those.

Why? I have version 6 on my X-H2S that I use to video birds.The tracking AF for video in version 6 does not work any better than subject detect in the previous firmware. In fact, I find it to be a PITA. With my eye to eyecup I have to use the joystick to select the subject. Version 6 still loses the tracked subject and goes OOF. Why? Because it is essentially the same autofocus algorithm that does not work well for subject detect. These folks have had years to perfect their phase detect autofocus and two years with the X-H2S. But it is still the lack of video autofocus performance we have come to expect from FujiFilm. Not certain why this is the case. Is it lack of technical skill from the autofocus team? If it is, then they should be terminated. Maybe there are issues with X-Trans and this is the best they can do. If that's the case this is a management issue. All I can tell you is that Fuji is yet to figure out video autofocus. At this time there should be no more excuses.

The end is near: https://petapixel.com/2024/04/16/the-trailer-for-the-worlds-first-fully-ai-generated-film-is-here/ Kinda irrelevant. Even if prices jacked way up so that the price matches the costs, that's still going to be dirt cheap vs the price to make a film the traditional way. Plus you're just thinking about the costs today. What was the cost of a gaming machine to run Doom back in 1997?? Kinda pricey! $$$ What does it cost these days to run Doom? Next to nothing is the cost https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Can_it_run_Doom%3F

🤷‍♂️ It looks great to me. I'm not looking for an image that looks exactly like reality. It's definitely desaturated, but I don't agree that it's low contrast. No offense to the photographer of that shot, but that looks like it could have been shot with any standard profile from a camcorder in auto mode. As far as... how can I judge the image... look at the skin tones... the weight of the image. It looks and feels like a real movie.

I bought FilmConvert years ago but balked at paying for Dehancer. And yes, of course you could do subtractive sat before now, but nowhere near as easily as slices and FLC make it.