Andrew Reid

luisrjm, wow I would love to have that guy in the room at an equipment test on the set of a big Hollywood production...   "Hey put that camera down!! The script needs more work. Hey! Stop evaluating the flare of anamorphic lenses. Can't you see Clooney isn't right for this role?? Hey stop messing with robot arms and projection systems Alfonso. You've gotta give the festivals I call, get a slot at Cannes!! HEY!! Don't you think Sandra's character needs a bit more balls? HEY?"   Give it a rest man!!

The AA filter / OLPF is a source of great confusion out there.   The truth of the matter is that it has ZERO affect on video.   It only affects the very high frequency patterns - i.e. stuff which occurs subtly over a 36MP still.   It has no affect at the 1080p level. It'd have to be a very strong filter to soften 36MP so much to affect 2MP! No camera has a filter in it this strong as it would impact on the sharpness of stills when viewed at 100%, giving the camera a disservice in photo-orientated reviews and on pixel peeping charts. The only filters this strong are the Mosaic Engineering ones for DSLRs.   Moire and aliasing is 100% down to the way the sensor is scaled - i.e. the way pixels are binned or skipped.   I found out the hard way when I removed the OLPF from my 5D Mark III. Aside from also removing the IR cut filter which made my image purple, it had no affect on sharpness in video mode. Though the IR contamination did give me more dynamic range :)   The Sony rep here is putting out bad info without having ever seen the video output from both cameras and compared. He may as well reel off the spec sheet.   http://vimeo.com/77758977

  Agree with you on usability. I actually think usability are the A7R and RX10's strongest points. Very practical tools. The A7R video is much better than the NEX 7 that's for sure. Cleaner at high ISOs, larger sensor, less moire and aliasing. But I haven't yet done an extensive shoot. This was literally just an hour long hands-on.

  Sounds like you definitely need to check out the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera then.

  I shot with it at ISO 3200 but couldn't do a proper low light test in a bright room. The RX10 is definitely an interesting run and gun video camera. As for narrative run & gun, where you can start and stop the action, I think that gives you time to change primes so maybe you'd be better off with an A7R or Blackmagic… But the RX10 is definitely the most usable in terms of the features it gives you.   Shallow depth of field - yes plenty. That lens is a beauty.   Stabilisation is very good on it too, but at the very longest end of the zoom it doesn't quite hold steady enough so you will still need to have a few contact points on the body for run & gun if you want to make use of the full zoom range.

  Interesting. Yes saw the 4K DSLR earlier in the year. I think it's only right that convergence applies to Sony's divisions as well as their products. You can see that very clearly in the RX10. It's the best ever fixed lens hybrid camera and really does give the GH3 a run for its money. If you only use the GH3 with the 14-140mm kit zoom, the RX10 is better. Peaking, zebras, ND filter, F2.8 lens, it packs a LOT in. Love the handling too. LCD top panel is great. It is as if Sony sacked all their NEX engineers!

Pricing is pretty competitive for full frame cameras. 1499 euro for the A7 and 2099 for the A7R.   I think the decision hinges on which camera you use for stills and video at the moment.   If you're a Blackmagic user you will like the practicality of the A7R and RX10 but it isn't a step forward in terms of the image, only in terms of the lensing and sensor size.   That full frame look CAN be special, but you might miss that 10bit and 13 stops dynamic range more. The choice is yours.   The A7R may well replace your stills camera. The 5D Mark III and Nikon D800 have a dwindling amount of advantages, namely the AF system and their lens ranges. If you're into MF like a Leica user and haven't invested in 20 L lenses the Sony will easily replace your full frame DSLR. Easily.

Quite unexpectedly today at the Sony Centre at Berlin Potsdamer Platz, demo units of the A7 and A7R were available to try including the more video-orientated RX10. The dilemma over which to pre-order for video is over! [url=http://www.eoshd.com/content/11380/new-sony-a7-a7r-rx10-exclusive-hands-look-video-quality]Read the full article here[/url]

Speed Booster gives it a larger than Super 35mm sensor so I really don't think that's a problem.

Our source mentioned "10bit/8bit". I would suspect the lower bitrate recording options are 8bit and top settings for 4K are 10bit. Another possibility is that 10bit is just via HD-SDI for external recorders and it does 8bit internally. But AVC-Ultra definitely supports 10bit internal recording.

  Well you could rewind Bloom's argument to the standard def era and say you absolutely must have 1080p but don't need it, shoot 480p.   Practical considerations over creativity.   Creativity is about discovering the new technology and applying it in interesting ways. I can see that if you turned up for a spec shoot for a client and they only needed a 480p master, it would be silly to take your 1080p camera to the job and that is really what Philip Bloom is getting at. Nothing more.   What Panasonic need to do is move way beyond the GH2 hack era. Get rid of the need for Vitaliy (he's awful!) give us reliable high performance out of the box. The GH3 didn't go far enough from the GH2 hack in terms of image quality. To have a community based around a Russian hacker rather than your own camera features is nuts.

  Why? AF series ergonomics are outdated. Small cameras is where it's at. Just look at the Epic. Easier to rig and easier to customise. More stealthy too. The only thing I miss from the AF100 is the built in ND filter. Exposure is important. Every camera should have it.

Compelling Panasonic GH4 rumours have come in from two good sources. Disclaimer: I'm not a rumours site but if I was I'd give this a high rating. That said, it's still a rumour! Nothing official has been announced by Panasonic. The model has a pro-range product code. It will be dubbed the Panasonic AG-GH4. [url=http://www.eoshd.com/content/11371/detailed-panasonic-gh4-rumoured-specs]Read the full article here[/url]

User has been banned. Thanks for the reports.

1D C owners have to send their camera to a Canon service station because they don't want to release the firmware to the public domain.   Now you may ask why...   It seems the only obvious answer is they don't want Magic Lantern getting the firmware and putting 4K on the 1D X.   This proves more than ever to me that the 1D X and 1D C are essentially the same thing.

Finally! Very useful. I hear Nokia are also working on a Lytro style focussing method too where it takes multiple shots in quick succession at different focus distances. Not the same technology as Lytro obviously but simple to do.

The good thing about the GH3 is the files are easy to handle if you're shooting a lot of stuff and to a tight deadline.   And often a lot of paid work doesn't need to have the ultimate image quality.   In terms of cinematography as an art form and shooting paid work you have to balance the artistic choice of tool with the practical realities of using them.   Raw is not that difficult in reality, you press a button, record, fill the card up and put a new one in.   The problem is when you are shooting 7 hours worth of interviews in raw and have to edit a cut together by lunch time the next day, especially if you don't have the hardware required to crunch through it and store it.   For raw think ProRes but with a transcoding step.   You don't have to edit raw, you can convert to ProRes but it takes time.

  This is a good point, it is the quality of the colour and detail in the shadows, mids and highlights that a wide dynamic range goes towards improving.   There's no point having 13 stops of dynamic range if the shadows are ruined with noise, banding and compression. No point if the highlights have a sudden roll off. No point if the mids have about 12 colours in them. No point if the grading is poor or shooter error.

  This is not the right thread for discussions about the art of filmmaking.   We don't go on scriptwriting forums to talk about how important 14bit raw is at the expense of story discussions, so I won't tolerate the derailing of camera tech and cinematography discussions with that tired old obvious argument "content is king". Nope! There's no such thing as ONE most important aspect in filmmaking, it all matters right down to the details.   It isn't that I don't want discussions about content and ideas creation on the forums, it is just that I don't want it derailing the camera discussions!! So put the right debates in the right topics please people.

In the end people are free to make their own choices and choose the right tool for the job. I can just put the information out there and show it how it is, as well as stating my own opinion because EOSHD is a personal blog as well.

  Anyone tried the FS100 handgrip via LANC on the Pocket camera yet?

  More useful tips... sigh.   Don't forget to use actors, words and to take the lens cap off.

On BMCC should work. Might have soft edges or vignetting on the GH2 though.   GH2 is APS-H with Speed Booster. That's larger than Super 35mm, for which the LOMO anamorphic is designed for.

  Bottom of the lot for the stock video quality overall.

[media]http://vimeo.com/77268402[/media] 68GB worth of material was used to get a studio based test this finely tuned, with the cameras matched in post as close as possible. This effort to remove the variables of grading and camera settings leaves behind a truer picture of the differences in hardware capabilities. The 5D Mark III raw (from Magic Lantern), if it were a film stock, would be Fuji. Warm vivid colours which may need taming a bit in post. The Blackmagic is more Kodak, cooler and more muted, it often requires the opposite treatment in post to the Canon cameras. The 7D is totally back from the dead - with Magic Lantern raw and the Mosaic Engineering VAF-7D tested here, it offers lovely image quality from a Super 35mm sized sensor, at a similar price to the Pocket Cinema Camera. The Panasonic GH3 - best of the standard system cameras out of the box without modifications does a good job keeping up with them. The scene was lit three ways to test resolution, dynamic range and low light performance. [url=http://www.eoshd.com/content/11350/depth-test-5d-mark-iii-7d-raw-vs-blackmagic-pocket-vs-gh3]Read the full article here[/url]