Andrew Reid

Standard DSLR is dead for video. Who the hell wants to get a 7D Mk 2 over a 4K shooting 10bit GH4, or a mirrorless full frame A7R?

For your Photoshop grading pleasure here are some original Cinema DNG frames hot off the newly updated Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera. "A raw video monster in your pocket". Read the full article here

  If you already have 9, which came with a license dongle in the box of the Blackmagic Cinema Camera, the update to 10 is free.   The stand alone paid version of 10 is only useful for pros. You can do pretty much anything in the free 'Lite' version aside from render on multiple GPUs (SLI) and a few other things.

No the most important spec is 4K.   Not losing half the data from the sensor in the pixel binning process to 1080p, has a great affect on the image.   Even if you record 4K and downsample in post to 2K you are dealing with a full pixel readout... all the dynamic range, colour and detail that the sensor can see goes into producing that image.   Hopefully 4K will be 10bit 4:2:2 on it but if not and the debayer is 8bit 4:2:0, it will still look spectacular but you won't be able to push it as far in terms of grading, and you might notice some pixelation around bright red specular highlights.

NAB in April seems likely.   Atomos guy said there would be no less than twenty 4K cameras announced by then. We've already had some of them. But the majority are to come. Remember the Sony prototype 4K DSLR for instance?

  That's just a user preference, with the tint setting. The split screen makes it look like magenta vs green as if you can't get rid of the tint. Nope. It's balanced, but with my LUT I take a different approach to grey. You can have greys which are more purple, more reddish in tint. For me they are more attractive.   By default, in rec.709 you get greys which are more green in hue, and I don't like those at all.

  The first rule of Flight Club is that you don't talk about feature making on the EOSHD forum ;)   My future plans involve returning to shoot in Asia. But it won't be a feature, instead it will be pieces of cinematography, portraits of the place and people, with a message behind that. And I will try and make it as innovative as possible, through the visual techniques, the message and the audio. Berlin for me is like a base to refine and hone my technique. When I go back to Asia I'll be a better cinematographer and actually have something meaningful to film. That said, I am still working on music videos & trailers here in Berlin with a cast, and some more to come out in the winter. Here were the last 3:         The problem with making a feature is that it would be the end of EOSHD. I'd have to commit 100% of my time to the feature and they are years in the planning & making & promotion. A short narrative piece would be more doable.   I don't think people should see 'feature' as the main event anyway.   People tend to think of features as the ultimate goal of a filmmaker. Why? It's just one genre. Like pop is of music. An animated short is just as big of an achievement, and can take years to make. Cinematography on it's own is as much of an art form. A sensitivity to the material and personal take on the world has as much meaning as a fictional narrative from the best writers. Then there's the documentary area of filmmaking. For me those are the ultimate goal for me as a filmmaker. To make something like Koyanisquatsi which is basically a documentary told purely with images. A mixture of the art of photography and filmmmaking. Great sound track too, very important.   Feature film is just one sub-genre of filmmaking and no more of an achievement, often in fact much less of an achievement if you look at 99% of them!!!   Some of my shoots I enjoyed the most creatively and not just technically, were not actually tests although in the context of EOSHD they were presented that way...   This one is about the struggle of Taiwanese people to maintain independence from China...And it had a subtext about war...   https://vimeo.com/12472000   This one was about the disappearance of history from Chinese culture, with the new tower blocks looming over one of the last remaining temples in Shanghai...     This was a play on the themes in The Machine by Pink Floyd.... the people obsessing over mobiles, stuck behind a black mirror, trapped in a transport system, the drunk on the U-bahn, a study of Berlin....   https://vimeo.com/72605257   And this is about the modernisation of a small island in the Philippines (which thankfully survived the recent typhoon intact)...   https://vimeo.com/9853081   And this is about love lost... but living on in memories... That's what the padlocks represented for me, at that time in my life...     And my very earliest stuff, shot on the GH1 and 5D Mark II...   https://vimeo.com/14534844   https://vimeo.com/11349060   So if you have only followed my shootouts and tests, hopefully that puts it all in perspective a bit.

Yellow you're clearly very technical, but in danger of completely confusing people and overstating problems. Can we pick up more on the stuff that actually matters from now on? This isn't supposed to be an all out laboratory. There's no green shadows of magenta highlight problem with 5D Mark III raw DNG in Resolve 10.

The recent rumours surfacing of Panasonic releasing an AG-GH4 around the $3000 mark have been given a boost. Panasonic have now officially announced the existence of a 16MP Micro Four Thirds sensor which is capable of 4K video at up to 30fps, matching the rumoured specs of the GH4. Tantalisingly this sensor is even available as a customer part on the open market, making it available to Blackmagic Design. Read the full article here

Download firmware v1.5 from Blackmagic Just a heads up (full post to follow when I've had some shooting time with it) - the eagerly awaited firmware update from Blackmagic Design which gives the Pocket Cinema Camera raw video has arrived. This will allow you to shoot 12bit Cinema DNG in full 1080p. Blackmagic recommend the Sandisk Extreme Pro 64GB card for raw. I am going to be using the LOMO anamorphic rig shown above, which is mounted via an OCT-18 adapter to the Pocket Camera. I can highly recommend upgrading from Resolve 9 to Resolve 10. There's no reason to keep the old version. The new one is much better for editing Cinema DNG raw. You may also want to give the EOSHD Film LUT a go with Pocket Cinema Camera raw. It should give you an instantly appealing film-like look in Resolve 10 with no grading effort required. Full article later in the week!Read the full article here

Take the screen off altogether. That would lower the production cost ;)   Actually there's a market for a film camera with digital sensor, for sure.   It just isn't the Df.   Make it $1000, full frame sensor, absolutely the same ergonomics, build, and size as a Nikon FM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikon_FM   And it will take over the world. I'd buy it. No screen, no video, no nothing, I wouldn't care with something like that.   If you're gonna do a DSLR with silver top plate for $3000 I want video!!

Download the LUT now For the full guide to the world of raw video on the 5D Mark III - order the EOSHD Shooter's Guide book by Andrew Reid With the new version of Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve (10.0) you can grade and edit 5D Mark III raw footage. EOSHD Film LUT is an instant cinema style which quickly and easily improves the look of 5D Mark III raw video in Resolve 10. No grading skills required. This LUT gives you a more film-like image, a less harsh electronic look compared to the standard Rec.709 colour space and default settings. It gives you more detail in the highlights and a smoother more natural feel to colour. Read the full article here

Any Vimeo samples? I can't take YouTube seriously as an image quality test.

  Wrong I'm afraid.   It's just disabled in the firmware. The video code is already there in the Expeed 3 chip and the D4 sensor was designed to do it. There's no component Nikon have removed from the camera in not having video, aside from a record button.

Actually NIkon's implementation of Sony's 36MP sensor in the D800 is better than Sony's own, in the A7R. No AVCHD for a start. I don't believe that Sony have a no-compete clause on their sensors. You don't become the world's number 1 sensor supplier by bossing around your customers.   You do realise… the GH3 has a Sony sensor, right?

  Good post.

This is why I don't believe in the crippling theory at Canon and Sony, etc. Nikon have no pro video line to protect yet still can't be bothered to put the relevant range of jacks and decent codecs on their high end DSLRs.   Qué?!

You do have some valid points there.   But overall too negative, like Nikon.   You're absolutely right that a small component cost is the difference between having an iPhone camera and having a phone with no camera.   But I find it strange you pick up on the affect that feature has on the retail price and not the affect that feature has on sales and revenue.   Apple are not a camera company. They've worked hard and invested in camera technology. They have made a massive return on their investment by having a camera on the iPhone. It wouldn't sell as well without one. It would't compete as well without one.   The pessimist would go ahead and save $18 per iPhone on manufacturing costs by removing the camera. They wouldn't see the return.   I see the return on Nikon improving their video capabilities, starting with stills cameras. It's a solid business decision. There's clear demand for Blackmagic cameras. Huge demand for enthusiast DSLR video. Huge demand from pros for DSLR video. Add all that up and it is myopic in the extreme for Nikon not to capitalise on that simply for the sake of stripping back the camera to it's core stills tech and saving $xx per unit in manufacturing costs.   You have to speculate to acculate.   You have to add value.   You have to invest in features, even non-core features (like Apple with custom Sony camera sensors).   Look at the GH2 hack. Do you realise how simple this was? A few settings in the firmware between having 24Mbit IPB and 100Mbit ALL-I. If you can do that, why not do it? Because it confuses the average consumer who doesn't need it? So put it in a separate model and sell tons of them to filmmakers! Problem solved!

  It wasn't a weakness, it was playing on a strength. Canon had developed a JPEG engine fast enough to do 12MP stills at 24fps. They simply turned that into a half arsed video mode and called it "1D C" instead of "1D X".   Nikon haven't even done that!   I don't get the feeling either of them are applying their incredible technology in an intelligent way to the market, aside from Cinema EOS and that's only for the high end.

I just want to see some progress!   DSLR video is 4 years old this November. D90 was a long time ago. 5D Mark II was also a long time ago. Just about the only significant progress since the 5D Mark II Canon or Nikon has given us has been 24p and a fix for moire (D5200, 5D3).   Only Panasonic have given us constant progress. GH2 was a clear advance in image quality over GH1. GH3 was a clear advance in features, build quality and ergonomics over GH2.   I find it strangely discomforting that this market has been best served by hackers and an Australian post production company over the last 4 years, rather than the enormously profitable manufacturers.

Where is the stalling apparent? Are you kidding me? 7D has not had a replacement for nearly 4 years now and the 5D Mark III was a lukewarm reheat. Those aren't low end.   You can ask anyone, even people completely disinterested in video about difference in image quality between a 7D, 600D, 650D, 700D over a period of over 3 years and they will be hard pushed to find any!   In that time Sony made so much progress on sensor technology, they came from behind Canon, to being in pole position. In terms of image quality AND CMOS sales.   Canon pioneered CMOS image sensors in DSLRs. Where are the Canon CMOS sensors in the lucrative smartphone market?   As for video enthusiasts...   It's been torture, and I know it because I lived it. The low end may be a mess but the high end 5D Mark III made no exciting improvements to the video mode in its factory form. The sensor scaling to avoid moire only became useful when Magic Lantern liberated the raw feed. The new ALL-I and IPB codec Canon put in was rubbish. Noise and banding everywhere. Soft as hell resolution. Very poor internal digital sharpening. If it wasn't for Magic Lantern and raw I'd have sold mine the moment the Sony A7R was announced, because now it is outgunned for stills as much as it would be outgunned for video by the D800 and A7R if it wasn't for Magic Lantern. I can use my Canon lenses on the Sony so nothing is stopping me switching to full frame E-mount for stills.   New enthusiast / semi-pro DSLRs 70D and 6D have pretty much the same poor image quality as a 550D from 2009 before any DSLR shot a single frame of professional video so don't tell me that isn't stalling FFS!   On the sensors side, 36MP and 24MP Sony full frame sensors are ahead of the equivalent Canon full frame sensors on dynamic range. Canon don't even yet have an answer to the 36MP one!

Actually Nikon have a huge support network worldwide and recently moved a major service centre to downtown Hollywood http://nikonrumors.com/2012/07/02/nikon-moving-el-segundo-service-center-to-hollywood.aspx/   http://www.yelp.com/biz/nikon-corp-los-angeles   I'm not suggesting Nikon step in at the pro end only, I'm suggesting they do the simple stuff better -   - D5200 already has a Super 35mm sized sensor from Toshiba which does very clean 1080p raw output with no moire problems   - Add professional codec   - Add video optimised form factor (i.e. remove mirror, optical viewfinder, etc.)   - Sell it

The gap between Nikon beginning the Df concept and putting it on sale was 4 years. Are camera manufacturers moving too slowly? [url=http://www.eoshd.com/content/11479/eoshd-weekend-report-4-long-years]Read the full article here[/url]

  The DSLR video community seem to believe that because freelance pros like Philip and Nino are now moving on to much pricier gear, that DSLRs are no longer used by pros. In fact lots of pros are still using DSLRs. Lots of production studios and broadcasters still have a fleet of 5Ds and GH2s, including BBC contracted companies.   DSLRs coexist alongside the ENG broadcast cameras and cinema stuff (C300).   So the market is not restricted to low budget DPs, owner-shot stuff with no crew, film students, etc.   Problem is, improvement seems to have stalled especially on Canon and Nikon side. It's getting harder and harder to intercut between compressed DSLR and the latest & greatest raw from the F5 or Blackmagic.   For enthusiasts and consumers it is becoming harder to justify the loss of image quality, and a lot of them will move to Blackmagic.

Of course Nikon have a business to run.   Here's a thing... Good video does not decrease the sales of stills cameras. Fact.   D800 sold thousands more units because of the video mode, indeed even a lot of pros bought it for video, as well as stills.   Convergence is happening.   Now Nikon need to grow some balls. They have been incredibly poor at diversifying their business. Passing up on chance to own Adobe before they were big. Passing up on chance to apply their existing optical and imaging tech to a video or cinema camera.   Where's the business logic here?   Cinema EOS is doing very well for Canon's bottom line. High value, lots of mark-up.   Putting a decent codec in a DSLR is not expensive or hard for a company like Nikon... Just get on and do it.   Blackmagic have done 10bit 4:2:2 ProRes for $999.   Nikon say they took 4 years to develop the Df, beginning in 2009!   The Df is a normal DSLR with a retro style top plate and dials.   So are Nikon saying they took 4 years to add a few dials and a silver top plate to a DSLR? Or are they really saying the D4 took 4 years to develop and the Df took 4 minutes?