Andrew Reid

As a stills camera I liked the Fuji X100 - it was an actual die-hard photographic tool with gorgeous good looks in a sea of plastic consumer gadgetry. However the terrible AF and fly by wire manual focussing technology spoilt it, and the video mode was very much an afterthought. Fuji have taken steps to address all of this with the X100S getting a significant upgrade under the familiar retro style casing.

Wow this is going way off topic.   I have removed the video as it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the 1D C / 1D X. Feel free to post in the screening room Max.

  The firmware features are exclusive to the 1D C, and disabled in the 1D X code.

  They were not sales reps, I can't stress this enough. They were product managers in charge of the whole spec whose job it is to work with Japan to form a product.

A few months ago I reported back what Canon had told me officially at Photokina - that the 1D C had some very minor hardware changes over the 1D X (like a headphone socket) but that the camera was fundementally the same camera with a firmware update to enable 4K recording. The Canon product manager was technically knowledge and utterly adamant this was the case, there wasn't a hint of doubt in his eyes when I had this discussion face to face on the basis of mutual trust. Later Canon were keen to point out I had got it all wrong and that the 1D C had a different circuit board, etc. etc. and was well worth your extra $6,000. So why are there traces of 1D C firmware in the 1D X?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6m0l3Yr1B50   Enjoy!

  Erm, apart from 4K recording built in. Quite important no?

In May last year I reported that Pavavision were working with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on sensor technology for a possible digital cinema camera. In a surprise unveling at the International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography (Camerimage 2012) in Poland they have indeed signalled their intention to join the game. On offer is a prototype digital cinema camera aimed at bettering the Arri, Sony and Red. It has a huge by cinema standards 70mm sensor (similar in size to full frame 35mm).

Because the Scarlet is even more expensive, not as good in low light, not a full frame sensor nor does is it as good a stills camera.   I am in the 1D C camp but it could have been much better.   25p, $8k instead of $12k, HD-SDI and articulated screen... But then Canon are conservative.

One option to consider to avoid the crazy pricing of this admittedly rather attractive beast is to get it on a finance deal, quit your job, and sell the your 4K footage as stock. 4K stock footage is in demand. Also I am pretty sure you could undercut a lot of Red shooters for a job which specifically demands 4K material.   The image on this camera is lovely. The pricing is indefensible though, but business is business.

  Fine if you are not editing raw natively in Resolve. You need NVidia CUDA for that and none of the Mac Minis have a powerful enough graphics processor for raw editing.

How does it compare to the Kowa 8Z Tony?   These Bolex Mollers are rare, don't see that many.   Kowa is very sharp, better than my Iscorama 36.

[attachment=328:dpr poll.jpg]   Interesting results of the poll at DPR. A lot of love for Olympus but not much for Sony and Canon.   Telling.

With the raw format becoming affordable for the first time this year (Blackmagic Cinema Camera, Red One, Ikonoskop) many aspiring filmmakers are considering taking advantage. But to edit raw you need to up the ante on the hardware side. What is the most suitable (and affordable) editing rig for raw - Windows, Mac Pro or Hackintosh?

  They're about the same actually.

  Incorrect. It isn't the size of the sensor but the size of the pixels and the pixel design architecture which matter the most. This is why the FS100 is better than the full frame 5D Mark III in low light.   This is also why the Red Dragon sensor is rated for ISO 2500 native and is better in low light than the MX sensor despite being Super 35mm and yet higher resolution.     Again FS100 far better in low light than the 5D Mark III.   http://vimeo.com/42091083   Also you have the option of a T0.95 aperture if you need it (SLR Magic 50mm HyperPrime) and the fastest aperture on the 5D is F1.2. The EF 50mm F1.0 exists but is not realistic to obtain on the general market.

  If you push the shadows down that is the same as lowering the ISO. So what you mean is that ISO 10,000 is too noisy and you push it down to 6400 to get acceptable results. This is why crushing the blacks works so well at ISO 12,800 on the GH2 in black and white. CMOS sensors have a signal to noise ratio per pixel and if your signal is high enough it masks the noise which is why well exposed bright areas of the image are cleaner even at ISO 12,800. Think of a raw image at the native ISO of 800, it will look noiseless over areas of a shot where the luminosity only requires ISO 200, and where the light is dim you need to adjust the curve to bring up the shadows and that is where you see noise.   The 50mm at F1.4 remark is a bit odd. There's a reason most films are shot stopped down to T5.6 as a default. You need a margin of error and for when something is moving back and forth quickly you certainly can't keep them perfectly in focus 100% of the time at F1.4, not even a ninja focus puller can do that on ALL types of movement. Some movement is random and you cannot account for it. With a locked down shot, of course F1.4 is fine. For most stuff, your actors will be going in and out of focus especially at closer focus distances, which is often not what you want.   I use very fast apertures a lot but only for locked down shots where there's no focus racking.

  Can't feature something I've not shot with regularly. Also there are small things that stopped it from reaching the top 5 like:   - Lens mount isn't as adaptable as Canon (can't use my Contax Zeiss on it for example) - Mild moire & aliasing   Still, I'm tempted to switch.

Starting with number... 5. Sony RX100 http://vimeo.com/45682834

  I'd love to see what your solution is in low light for manageable depth of field. Stop down to F5.6??? I don't think so! Also there are no PL mount adapters on the 5D Mark III. Mirror in the way and sensor too large for most Super35mm lenses.

  The dynamic range is better than the MKII and GH2? Really? I don't see it.   The highlights blow slightly sooner than the MkII and the shadows are horrendously noisy compared to the FS100 at ALL ISOs.   And CineStyle is crap. Horrible colour and banding.   I've used the Mk II for 3 years on and off, Mk III for 1 year and GH2 for 2 years, so to say I am going of paper specs is bullshit my friend.

  Talking about stating the bloody obvious.   But you are missing the point as usual. A great deal many customers use it to shoot video and so the lack of improvement in image quality and functionality relative to much cheaper DSLRs was a let down.   The 60D has an articulated screen and photographers love it. Helpful not just for video on a tripod but for stills too. Almost every good STILLS camera has an articulated screen nowadays.

  You don't wait 3 years inbetween iPhone updates.     How is the codec a huge improvement? Image quality where regards the codec (and the difference it should make) is almost identical to the 5D Mark II.

Aside from being cleaner at high ISOs and having less moire & aliasing, the video quality of the 5D Mark III isn't any different to the 5D Mark II and we waited over 3 years for it. Do you guys really think that is progress? The 5D Mark II and the 5D before it blazed a trail. The first affordable full frame camera, then the first full frame video mode. So I was expecting innovation again. We didn't get it. 720p HDMI output, and not clean. They said the hardware couldn't do it. We now know this isn't true. No articulated screen. They said it would compromise weather proofing. Also not true, since the OM-D and GH3 are weather proof and have articulated screens. No 1080/60p. New codec, but it isn't much of an improvement over the old one. Still a lot of compression noise in the mids and lows, banding, 4:2:0 colour sampling, 8 bit very hard to go back to after you use the Blackmagic. Then there was the price at launch - a good deal higher than the Nikon D800 for less image quality. All the criticism is justified. The argument over whether it is capable of lovely images or not is a different thing. Every camera is capable of that in the right hands.   If it wasn't for the Canon lens mount I'd be a D800 user by now.

The clue is in the term 'LOW light'. You need to test CMOS sensors in situations of under exposure and dim lighting. A well exposed area of the image is much cleaner at, say ISO 12,800, than a shadow area. If the whole frame is well exposed with no shadows, and under strong studio lights, the results aren't accurate.   You can see with the GH2... Set it to ISO 3200 and operate it in day light. Clean as a whistle.