hmcindie

  Review? You can actually do a review without touching the cam or shooting with it?

Peaking isn't really used for actual narrative productions. They are used for one man band operations. When you plug a monitor in so the director can see the image, peaking is always turned off.   I do use peaking when I operate small cams like the Nex-5n but with cams that have larger display, I always turn it off because it is distracting when you try to look at the complete shot. I also turn off histograms and waveforms.   Agreed though that it should be there.

"A CCD sensor generally has better colour reproduction and sharpness than CMOS"   What? There is no difference in colour reproduction or sharpness between a CCD and CMOS. There are two main variables. Light streaks with CCD and rolling shutter with CMOS. Everything else depends on the actual engineering of the CCD/CMOS, not the type. And even then you can make a global shutter CMOS if you make the space for the electronics needed.

It seems quite odd that "post-sharpening" has increased resolution on the 5dmarkIII. If you are gonna do something cool and get cameras into a resolution list, then they would actually need to be measured. Changing sharpening in post does not change results from a real resolution chart.

  Canon HV20 had a SPECIFIC mode for progressive 25p footage. That was actually completely progressive and great looking to boot. It was inside a 25i file (because that's what HDV was at that time) but there were no interlacing lines and there was no need to deinterlace anything. NLE's at that time didn't do deinterlacing automatically (except FCP which occasionally caused quite big problems as it wanted to deinterlace stuff that didn't need it. Still some people fall for those pitfalls and then you see "testvideos" which have 50% less resolution)   It also shot 50i the exact same way an RX100 does it.   You would not see any interlacing lines with the HV20 in progressive mode. If you see those lines in quicktime (or a player that does not do deinterlacing, WMP actually does do it) then it means that a) it is interlaced and b) it has 50 frames interlaced in it.

I think you guys are quite confused with 50i. Yes, you can drop that into a 25p sequence and edit away but the NLE will just deinterlace the material quietly in the background. You can also drop a 50p sequence into a 25p timeline and the NLE will just drop half the frames.   I can guarantee you that the RX100 does shoot in fact 50i.   "Opening it in Quicktime or Photoshop will show you the interlaced lines." If you have interlacing lines then you are dealing with interlacing. Interlacing means that you have 50 frames interlaced into one 25p file. That's how it worked in the "old" days. Those frames are then extracted by either bob-deinterlacing (preserving the 50 frames per second) or just by dropping half the frames - and resolution - away and staying at 25p.

Imagine if the Blackmagic had the e-mount... ooooo

A lot of production houses do buy regular cams like the EX-1, PWM-200, Canon xf305 etc. If you compare the price of the 1d-c to them, then it's not really that bad. For example, Freddie Wong bought the EX-1 to do all their stuff a couple of years ago. Would you buy that cam nowadays for narrative filmmaking? But FWong put that cam to use and really made a fanbase for himself over the youtube those couple of years.   I suggest though not buying the 1D-C but renting it if the need arrives. The price will come down.   Also a Scarlet/1D-C won't immediately make anyones cinematography better. When CorridorDigital switched from the FS100 to the Red Scarlet, it didn't make their films look 50% better. They are slightly sharper but the lighting hasn't really improved at all except maybe for the couple of newest ones. So put some of that moolah into lighting. It's just a better way to get some production value.

The aliasing and moire is because you are shooting overcranked. When you do that the camera will lineskip the 4k sensor.   So the actual aliasing/moire will be pretty much the same as on the FS100 (non-existant) when doing regular HD.   FS700 also has great cinegamma modes which the FS100 lacks with great DR so you should be using those. There are 4 different, each with different profiles and some that use highlights that go over 100.   I shot this one for a friend of mine, used the FS700, 5dmarkIII and Sony nex-5n (for a couple of short shots) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQIZySJVwbc   I have a love/slight dislike relationship with the FS700.   A lot of that low spatial frequency noise can be removed with Neat Video but it did take me some time to build a perfect profile.

  No, that was actually because of 4:2:0. That's why dvd's where there is a predominant color (blue/red), the chroma looks horrible. Has nothing to do with 8 bit.   One thing that takes away most of the banding in 8bit material nowadays is Neat Video. Great noise reduction but when using it in a 32-bit workflow, it really does miracles. You can just use it with almost no noise reduction at all and it will still smooth out the material into 32-bits really, really well. Surprising how well it works really. I've had shots where regular 32-bit grading showed a bit of banding that disappeared completely after a very slight adding of Neat Video.

  -20c, same as here in Finland. Good thing the 1dc is weather sealed. That's one of the great things about DSLR's, they tend to be way better sealed than videocams.

I'm usually not a very positive guy (being from Finland and all) but this is just an awesome piece of invention. I always wondered why lenses on cropped sensors couldn't really be faster than f1.4 or why no one build them like that. I mean, you can make an f1.4 lens on a fullframe, why not the same lens as an f1.0 on a cropped sensor, because the only thing you need to do is tighten the output circle.   And here it is. Someone did it. Someone else than a lens manufacturer.

Man, that complaining is just so funny.   So let me get this straight. A 5dmarkIII is "no good". A C300 is "no good", and C100 is "no good". BMC is apparently the greatest cam ever. You are getting sponsored by Panasonic and about 50% of your articles is bashing Canon cams. But no mention of the horrible Panasonic AF100? Or the suckiness of the FS100 (which you have actually bought). You do know that it shoots shitty AVCHD with horrible highlight rolloff? 5dmarkIII is comparably more low resolution but it does have a more beautiful image than the FS100/700. Joseph Kahn complained that the FS700 looked like video and shot his newest music video with the 5dmarkIII and made it look great. I guess he didn't hear the complaints?   So the Canon C100 which arguably does make one of the best 8-bit images around is trashed to the mud because the C100 is a bit more expensive than the FS100?   I don't get the logic here. But I'm not a GH2 fanboy so maybe I'm misguided.

This was shot with the 5d   https://vimeo.com/55403443   Absolutely astounding. Doesn't get more cinematic than that. It's awesome how people in the Reduser forum were fooled into thinking it was film until the colourist herself confirmed that it was 5d.   http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?92063-quot-Sleepwalking-In-The-Rift-quot-Anyone-Know-What-This-Was-Shot-On

Forget Windows 8. Stick to 7. It's a very stable, professional OS. OS X is a kids tool compared and Windows 8 is a weird joke.   You can easily build a great Xeon/i7 pc for quite a bit less cash than an equivalent mac. Actually you won't even get an equivalent mac. PC's just go way higher in performance/cost, especially when self build.   One thing about graphics cards... The GTX690 is an absolute monster. You can run Resolve in two gpu mode with it. After Effects raytracing utilises all the cores. It blows the GTX580 (which is old and discontinued anyway). The only problem is Premiere, you have to disable one of the gpu's for Premiere to work. Thankfully that happens with a couple of clicks. It costs a grand but still way less than Quadro cards.   One thing about Ubuntu is software support. If you do a lot of editing, vfx work and just generally are in the biz, you need an OS that has good software support. Ubuntu can be used for certain things but I wouldn't recommend it as a general OS for everything.   cseeman: You were kinda comparing different things there. Xeon processors and i7's are not really that different. That article actually compared TWO xeon processors to one i7. If you plan on going one CPU, go with i7's. They are cheaper and clock higher.

  I have no problems shooting f1.4 with the 5d mark III. I really wonder about the skill of people who can't do it.   Yes, it is quite difficult with a 70-200mm but with a 50mm it's already quite manageable and looks absolutely great in lowlight.   I haven't used the FS100 but the 5dmarkIII is better in lowlight than the FS700 I used. Same shooting locations, 30mm f1.4 on the FS700 and +30dB gain = unusable. ISO 10 000 on the 5dmarkIII was usable if the shadows were slightly pushed down.   I also wonder about some of those comments about shadow noise and compression issues. Granted, I usually shoot at intermediate ISOs which tend to be quite clean. But I get absolutely great shadow noise. For example the shadow noise with the FS700 is quite bad in higher ISOs. It gets blotchy and murky. Same with the nex-5n although even worse. You can push it down with the FS700 because the dynamic range is off-the-charts but with the nex-5n you can't.   Everything depends on which you compare it to. If I would compare it to the Alexa and BMC then yeah... it's not as sharp or detailed and has more compression artifacts. But when doing an actual shortfilm or musicvideo, I feel that the positives really outweigh the negatives. When I got the 7d I was like "you know...if they fix the aliasing, moire and less compression...I would never need another camera". The 5dmkIII basically did it. I have no need for anything better, until there is a significant difference. BMC looks to be great but I can't use RAW anyway until I have lots and lots of cash to burn.   Plus stills. I've fallen in love with full-frame photography.

It's not even that extremely soft. It just lacks a lot of artificial sharpening out of the box. Which is actually great for independent and low budget filmmakers without that much experience. Vincent Laforet wrote an excellent blog which also highlights a lot of problems about 4k especially for low budget filmmakers. And HFR.   http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/2012/12/19/the-hobbit-an-unexpected-masterclass-in-why-hfr-fails-and-a-reaffirmation-of-what-makes-cinema-magical/   The 5D3 and fullframe give a somewhat magical look that you don't get with sharp smaller sensor cams. I got more interesting shots with my 5D3 as a b-cam than the FS700 as an a-cam.

DPreview studio testing for stills is done under studio lights and only changing shutter. I do not consider the results bunk.

I'm just gonna post my opinion here too:   I thought it was horrible. I mean it was so good, that it was bad. EVERYTHING was completely unnatural, especially the lighting. You could see how everything was lit, done on a soundstage somewhere with a bunch of greenscreen. The caves looked plastic. Weapons were horribly weightless and plastic. The wooden planks that fell on everyone were not wood. Daytime scenes were color corrected to look like Emmerdale. Everyone had fake beards and I thought I could see the glue on them. It was...theater. Theater with cgi. The night scenes...oh my god. A huge ball of blue light is supposed to be the moon? And another huge yellow non-moving blob is light that comes from the small bonfire? Everyone was backlit the whole time. And when you can see it so clearly, it really pulled me out of the film on occasions. Normally these things don't matter. These guys are lighting these sets like we couldn't see that they are sets. I'd rather take a C300 and film stuff for real under moonlighting than look at this. Grain and warts and all. Where's the atmosphere? Not in this cgi-land. Only the Gollum scene really worked and brought back memories from the original LotR. Now after that rant... I can see the technology having great potential. But Jackson didn't do it any justice. Maybe Cameron will. Atleast he won't be doing those stupid 3d-camera moves all over the place that Jackson loves. "Oooh, look at that camera move itself around!". Hey, I'm not the camera! I don't want to be the camera. I want to be one of the characters. On a journey. Not a fucking camera going across the walls.   Now the movie itself? Completely pointless. There was no story. No drama. Nothing for me to latch on to except the visuals. Which were bad. Only in the Gollum scene was I immersed for awhile and in some other scenes where there was a modicum of an idea. I really liked the first LotR and semi-liked the rest (too many battles and deus ex machinas), but this was just... pointless.

I just came from seeing the film. I disliked it as a film. There was one part that worked, and that was the gollum stuff. Everything else blaah.   I really had no problem with the 3d 48fps...except that the movie was so boring that I constantly looked at the fakeness of everything. When it worked, it really worked (gollum scene) but Jackson isn't talented enough to make this work properly. I have a feeling Cameron will pull it off way better.   You NEED a proper story. With proper characters. And better sets...this looked like it was shot on a soundstage somewhere. You can't film stuff like you used to when we can clearly see all the trickery. Like lighting rain from the front so we can see it. Yeah, we can also see how it is lit. How the cave is plastic. How unnaturally lit everything is.

You can still do stuff like this with a Canon 7d http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCDGlGK2aaQ

And still there are loads and loads and loads of people... who watch films with motion interpolation turned on with their LCD's. AVSForum is full of people who say stuff like this:   "Outside of AVS forums, I've actually experienced the opposite. In fact the first time my wife ever saw a 120hz lcd with frame interpolation active she said "that doesn't look like TV, that looks like real life. It's weird!" Go figure."   and stuff like:   "I really was surprised at just how bad "pure" 24p looks without any kind of interpolation after a year of watching films with it on."

  Yeah well no. That's complete horseshit. Human eye sees things quite different, there is no fixed FPS. For example, if you switch from a 60hz LCD panel into a 120hz you will immediately notice a much smoother mouse. When you move a white high contrast object around (like a mouse pointer) it's quite easy to spot differences especially if you track the object with your eye. When you watch a 3d film and an object moves closer to the eye, it can be quite straining to follow it in 24 fps as it flickers around. In 2d it is easier.   So there are a lot of variables. Contrast, motion blur, 2d/3d, all contribute to "smoothness." Gamers know this. Apparently filmmakers are still finding out. Yes, it's more "artistic" when everything judders and the screen of full of anamorphic lensflares. But it's not "better" or "worse". It's different.   48fps DOES FIX a lot of the problems with 3d. Ghosting, judders, hard to focus areas. Those are all gone. Side-effect is that everything will look too real. That is something that filmmakers will have to address. Maybe add some grain?

So you guys haven't seen it for yourself have you? Remember what critics said about "Fellowship of the Ring" during release? Stuff like this:   "It's full of scenic splendors with a fine sense of scale, but its narrative thrust seems relatively pro forma, and I was bored by the battle scenes."   "Everyone on screen is all exercised about the mission, but after three hours it's hard to see why anyone in the audience should be." "Tolkien completists won't find any of this overkill, but for those uninitiates among us, less is more is still a dictum worth heeding." "The only thing worse than a bad movie that thinks it is good is a three hour long bad movie that thinks it is good." "It's a collection of spectacular set pieces without any sense of momentum driving them into one another. The damn thing just goes on and on." "It is remarkably well made . . . too bad it wasn't equally entertaining." "The sights are ga-ga, but the storytelling gets fairly turgid." "Maybe it's too early to criticize the trilogy when we're just getting started. However, if this signals the direction the series is going to go, I'm not sure if I care to find out what happens" ... And in the end, "Fellowship" is still the best LotR film. So before throwing stones around maybe consider seeing the film for yourselves?

Markm: Stop being such a baby. You can use a 200mm handheld especially if it has IS. Without IS it get's quite tricky.