Andrew Reid

My advice is use Premiere and set the playback resolution to 1/4.

I see they listened to the pros at NAB.... "As expensive as possible please!"

Nice rumour. Promoted to front page. Happy Easter :)   Discussion continues here - '?do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent>>

Here's a rumour of the latest GoPro specs. Source is not known to me so take it with a pinch of salt until it goes official! Read the full article here

The AX100 is of a species we thought extinct in the filmmaking world... the consumer camcorder. I had a brief hands on with the camera to find out how much of it is high resolution point and shoot and how much cinema camera. Read the full article here

I have tested it.   Clean means no onscreen graphics or icons.   'Clean' in the sense of image quality means no moire, aliasing, false detail.   Uncompressed clean HDMI does not effect moire and aliasing.   On the A6000 the HDMI is free of onscreen icons so you can record from it. It is also uncompressed so you avoid the worse instances of break-up with the crappy internal AVCHD codec. However there's a lot of processing being done to the signal between sensor and HDMI output. I don't think it is 4:2:2 and the pixel binning process loses you quite a lot of the original sensor data making for a thin signal. End result is that although you can record it to a 10bit 4:2:2 file, it doesn't look like one. It looks only a little bit better than AVCHD!   Still lots of banding and blockiness especially in shadows.

The problems I encountered mostly had a lot to do with getting colour to look right and grading the weak codec.   Lots of banding in the shadows and a weird electronic look to colour.   I tried everything to get it to work, but just not for me.   You have to mega crush the blacks... loses you so much dynamic range... otherwise image looks odd.   When I went back to the 5D Mark III I knew why the D800 looked so 'off'.   When I then picked up a GX7 and started grading the 28Mbit/s 1080/50p MP4 codec in that I was really surprised. It holds up and I have got it to match / intercut really well with 5D Mark III raw footage.   I am not against small file sizes and compression or 8bit but it has to look 'right'.   GX7 will replace my Pocket Cinema Camera. That isn't getting any use since it still lacks too many features and Blackmagic have shown little interest in updating it.

Soon EVFs will be 14bit 4K OLEDs.   Then the flippy mirror will say bye byes.

I also found the D800's video output looks strange in terms of colour. Sorry but despite initial excitement, I don't rate it that highly...   Archaic as a stills camera.   Surpassed by 5D Mark III raw for video.   Like the Italian styling job though!

Much further along with my A6000 experience now since the introductory blog.   The codec has real issues. Lots of banding and mud. A very bad implementation of AVCHD I'm afraid. AVCHD can be good. On the FS100 it's fine! What a shame Sony do not pull a Panasonic and give us a proper codec on their stills cameras.   There is still some moire and aliasing too but then it's now more in-line with other cameras, and certainly not as bad as before. Better than the A7 for sure.   It's still a nice camera for the price but the D5300 will give you a better image.

I come from a digital world and the analogue way is just unnatural to me. When I look through the optical viewfinder I can't really judge accurate depth of field, accurate bokeh, accurate brightness, proper rendering of the lens especially wide open. Don't get me wrong, the viewfinder on the D800 is one of the best optical ones there is but it bares little relation to what the sensor gets. It's an out of place analogue part in a digital body, indeed a digital world. Time to move on.

  None of them do.

  I agree on the 5D3.   Today I took the D800 back to the shop. I just couldn't quite get excited about it enough to write that mini-guide.   It was interesting tuning the image in post and seeing how close I could get it to raw but in the end, it wasn't so much the video quality that turned me off it... I wanted it more as my stills camera actually... but realised the quality of my shots was actually suffering compared to when I am composing through an EVF or articulated LCD on a mirrorless camera.   The optical viewfinder just doesn't give you an accurate representation of the image. It looks lovely in and of itself. That's about it. Time and again I was misjudging manual focus and exposure because of it. Focus meter is horrifically inaccurate with manual glass and non Nikon CPU lenses.   The live-view implementation is absolutely horrid on the D800 compared to the 5D Mark III unfortunately. The exposure of the shot never seems to match up with what the live-view screen gives, and this was despite putting the lens data in when using a non-CPU Leica or Nikon lens on the camera. I had a bunch of Leica R lenses converted to Nikon (very easy to do, a DIY mount change) and with these the camera just doesn't want to meter properly, whereas the 5D Mark III had no issues.   When I went back using a GX7 I immediately felt I was taking better shots from being able to judge the image 'as the sensor sees it'.   Sometimes I yearn to get away from the electronic gizmo crap and go back to an old-school DSLR.   I have learnt that this is actually counterproductive and I've left the D800 even more of a big fan of 'electronic' shooting than before.

  Hahah!

  No, it's a passive mount adapter with no electronics. The AF in Nikon lenses is usually optimised for phase detect sensors and the GH4 uses contrast detect so even if it worked through a smart adapter, it probably would be a bit shit :)

In the D800's stills you have less noise in the very darkest shadows if you bring them up all the way in a raw file using Photoshop's ACR controls vs the same stills from the 5D Mark III.   However in video mode and at high ISOs the 5D Mark III is better in low light.

  The marketing team have a large hand to play in setting the price, that's a big part of their job.   They will be getting feedback as we speak and some pros with money to burn will be telling them that the A7S is a Jesus Camera and should be priced $6000 :)

  I did! And mind the language too.

Working on the moderators today, will get it set up.   Cheers all!

The D800 has re-emerged! We have the Mosaic Engineering VAF-D800 filter, compact $299 Atomos Ninja star ProRes recorder and now even a hack project based around the camera. So I've picked up a D800 and plan to see what I get out of it. Read the full article here

  I love this stuff.   You're right the price of the Pentax is amazing and it would seem Sony are making huge strides forwards with their CMOS business. Usually very hard to break performance and price barriers both at the same time. Somehow they are managing to mass produce sensors that have unheard of until now spec for the price.   If Canon are playing catch up in 2 years time and image quality on their DSLRs lags significantly behind Sony, and Nikon are using Sony sensors, it could spell a serious problem for Canon, something not easy to fix overnight as Sony has been building up to this level of sophistication for years and have surely spent many millions of dollars in the process.

We could have a separate forum for selling lenses, but I'm not sure about it.   The for sale threads in the anamorphic forum keep it quite lively and bring about discussion of various unusual lenses. If we hid these away in a sub-section it might make the place a bit more dead.   What do you think?

Very interesting.   I wonder why they insist on making the wafers circular.   36% of the area wasted on the full frame sensor yield is pretty wasteful.

Did I miss anyone? Julian would you like to have moderator powers too?   Misbehaviour sticky - I'll leave this as defined by wider society :)

I am upgrading some members to moderator status. If they choose to exercise their newfound abilities, this upgrade comes with the ability to delete and lock posts as well as the all powerful, all conquering ability to ban members who misbehave!   Thanks for their positive contributions to life here at EOSHD I am promoting RichG101, mtheory and jonpais to moderator status for the main forum and all sub-sections.   It carries no extra work or obligations - exercising their privileges will be entirely at the discretion of the moderator. I'll continue as the main admin. But I think having extra eyes and ears plus a few more trusted people with the ability to clean up posts and ban members will help me a lot.   Also since they expressed an interest, JohnBarlow will moderate the Anamorphic forum and Andy Lee will get his own sticky thread on lenses and lighting which may build into it's own forum section if it is successful.   I'll create the moderator privileges later in the week. Any objections or any opt outs please have your say on this thread!