Leaderboard

Still kind of amazing that the notion of buying your way into image quality with a camera is a thing these days. What others have said. Don't ignore the craft. Swap out an ARRI with a GH1 in certain production environments and you'd be, like, "Holy shit! That looks awesome!" Three or four stops of DR does not a good image make. It helps, but it doesn't make it. A decade ago a bunch of cinematic heavyweights, Coppola and the like, did a popular test screening of hybrid camera tech at the time. They were more than pleased with what the products, like a 5dII, were delivering. If it was good enough for them in 2010's, what the heck are we worried about? Also, who remembers that one talented dude guy filming in 720p on a canon rebel? I think his name started with a "Z"? Beautiful stuff because he knew how to use it. Would it have been better if it was an ARRI? Of course, but would that really affect the narrative? Anyway... And then, yeah, add in a bunch of YT knobs playing with the gear without any deep wisdom about gaffing, camera moves, and storytelling --of course the video examples of hybrids'll end up looking like crap. Here's an anecdote: I'm currently editing a documentary with a decent budget. The cinematographer on the shoots sucked balls. He filmed with an ARRI and two different REDS along the way. The ARRI has a look. It comes out of the cam with a lot of "thickness" to use, you know? Regardless, we recently had to hire a different guy to do a half day of pick up shots and he used his lowly GH5. He knew how to find the right light, frame an interesting composition, and (thankfully) knew how to hold a mother-f'ing-shot longer than 2 seconds. Grrrr. Guess which footage looked better and was more useful? We can (and should!) chase the tech if that's what floats our boats, but real creatives don't really give too much of a rip about the tech. "Is it working? Good. Let's tell this story." They make it happen with what they got.

It's a combination of things. The sensors, processing, better processing due to bigger physical size so better separate of circuit boards, protecting higher end cameras etc. But all that said, the bulk of that amazing image comes down to the workflow. Pretty much all the content you see coming off of the high end cameras are shot for movies. These movies are not only using an Arri Alexa, they are using A-list talent, the best make-up people, talented DPs with the best lights, diffusion, camera filters etc. They are also using very very expensive lenses and filtratration. Then the final images are sent to very expensive post houses for color correction, grading, and sometimes exclusive film emulation. All that to say that yes, the expensive cameras are genuinely better than current more affordable offerings. But, they aren't as much better as you might think. The whole workflow of talent from A-Z is what makes a gorgeous image, not just the camera.

There's a massive problem with all these tests. In the old days of GH2 vs RED, obviously the gap was pretty big, but you could still light a scene for the GH2's limitations, and fool Coppola into thinking it's a cinema camera. Now everything is 10bit LOG or RAW. So in these sort of tests you are basically watching a grading test and a test of the editor's ability to match the cameras. I mean the difference with the ALEXA is clearly there, but had you exposed for the window on the FX3 and lifted the shadows, it would be a lot closer. The difference between the BURANO / FX9 and FX3 is so small as to be practically zero, yet the price difference is many thousands of dollars / pounds. Besides, I also think that the way we watch these tests makes a further mockery of it all. Aside from being mega compressed, YouTube has no facility to download the original files, and now the original files are so enormous in 8K RAW or whatever... It doesn't even make sense to look at the original files other than to crop really close in and pixel peep. 99% of us don't have a display technology in our home to do justice to the source material... either not big enough, or not bright enough. So in a nutshell... Difference between $3k (even some $1k like used S1H) cameras and $25,000 has never been smaller in terms of image quality. The ALEXA still has a dynamic range advantage, but it's only a few stops and not noticeable in every use case. An X-H2 10 bit LOG 8K image for $1.5k is likely overkill for your display without pixel peeping or cropping. When engrossed in a movie it's unlikely an audience will even see a difference between the BURANO or a $1k mirrorless camera, yes even on a cinema screen.

Since I got lucky on a mint OM-1 for 900 euros, so about 750 quid... I thought I'd see what the best modes are for video. The 4K/60p and 8bit are indeed softer, but not end of the world softer if you set IBIS to mechanical only and turn off DIS. Rolling shutter is remarkable, something like 5ms? OM-LOG is a bit funky. Too much macro blocking in the shadows (on the colour chart in the blues you can pixel peep it). Bitrate too low? Hybrid LOG Gamma mode however fairs a lot better to my eye. Higher black level like Canon LOG. Grades better. Better tonality in the highlights. HLG 10bit 100% crop (graded): OM-LOG 400 100% crop (graded): It feels like to me that OM-LOG is being clipped in the NLE. The blacks are more crushed than in Hybrid LOG Gamma. Highlights as well seem to clip really harshly.

I reckon Sony / Leica pair-up does have a nice ring to it doesn't it? It's a Sony sensor they are using anyway so may as well cut out the middle man. It's most likely more cost effective to do this as well? Sony could build a very nice Leica Q, as they already have done similar cameras with the RX1 series. Sony would not cannibalise Leica's L-mount lenses with their own range either. It would be bad for Panasonic. But then Panasonic are more committed to green energy like batteries and digging up all the lithium for them in epic quantities. Truly a planet saving initiative.

Yeah, and he will be saying that the amount of people who are riding round Japan on these e-bikes means that they are making far more dosh designing appropriately sized panniers and baskets to be arsed about designing new appropriately sized MFT cameras.

There are rumours that Leica are unhappy with Panasonic and might scope out a deal with Sony in future. Leica own the rights to L-mount so they can keep that and still go Sony, they don't have to take E-mount as well. Panasonic of all the camera companies aside from OM Shit and Ricohdear are most in danger of being really on the rocks. Like I say just one activist shareholder away from being less of a sentimental business. Less of an enthusiast enterprise, more of a topic of euthanasia.