stephen

I have used both VND and fixed ND. VNDs are OK when shooting RAW as it is relatively easy to correct the color shift. For fixed NDs always use 180 degree shutter when shooting at 24fps and depending on the available light choose an ND which is a little bit stronger and adjust (usually raise) ISO for correct exposure. Or vary with aperture if possible. For examaple if I shoot at f8 may raise it to f11 or lower it to f5.6. If aperture is open and can't close it for esthetic reasons (blurred background) then ISO is the only option. You don't have to worry about base ISO because all modern cameras have huge latitude. Several stops (3-5) above and under the base ISO. Even if you overexpose 1-2-3 stops or under expose 1-2 stops you don't lose information or dynamic range. See for example Panasonic S1/S5 tests in 10bit 4:2:2 V-Log internal on slashcam.de or this test Normally use no more than 3 NDs and sometimes even 2. 3, 6, 8/9 stops, or only 3, 6 stops and then by stacking both 3 and 6 stops ND get 9 stops. This works with most lenses but not all. Vignetting at the corners is not a problem with most lenses because shoot at 2:1 ratio for video and corners are usually cut out of the picture.

It does only if you need: - external monitor - better, faster codec for editing - 4K 60p unlimited In terms of picture quality can't see any difference. Both internal 10bit 4:2:2 h264 and external 10bit 4:2:2 ProRes have the same dynamic range and colors. S5 can shoot 5.9K internal but with time limit and in 10bit 4:2:0 h265. This codec is difficult for editing, so I never use it. 4K is good enough for me. I had the Ninja and found the round trip from Final Cut to Resolve time consuming and cumbersome. So after Panasonic gave us BRAW external, sold the Ninja V and bought Blackmagic Video Assist 12g 5''. In BRAW color science is slightly different , Panasonic provides second color space conversion LUT additional to the one that does V-Log , V-Gamut -> Rec 709. Colors are slightly better, richer and you get the ability to set White Balance in post. For me 10bit internal recording is good enough most of the times. But have this maximalist kind of "Only the best is good enough" mentality. 😀 So I often use Video Assist and like it very much. First because I like having a bigger external monitor with cage and top handle. It makes my shots and camera movements smoother, better and easier. And second I like the extra flexibility in post (set white balance in post mostly). If I have to be nimble and don't want to draw too much attention, Blackmagic Video Assist stays in my bag and there is only a small cable hanging from the camera. Or simply shoot internally. If you have the Ninja V, just try if a small rig with Ninja V on top, or just the monitor on top is OK for you. And ideally rent Video Assist for a weekend if you can. I have found that trying equipment myself is critical and has no substitute. No amount of reviews or advice from colleagues can help me make a decision better, then trying it myself. We are different and have different needs. Found both Panasonic S1 and S5 second hand at a very good prices (around 1100 Euro per camera) So now have both and like them both 😀

No mechanical shutter. Wow, missed that. Brave move from Nikon.

Hm. I wonder what N-RAW could be. Nikon name for Blackmagic BRAW codec ? As said having in mind Nikon will use the same Exceed 7 processor for all cameras following Z9, we may see a more affordable hybrid camera shooting RAW video internally.

Price according to rumors will be somewhere between 5000$ and 6000$. Am not interested in Z9 but the camera Nikon will make after it. If processor can do N-RAW/ProRes RAW it means all cameras using this processor can have the capability to record RAW video internally. It will be purely marketing decision from Nikon if Z6 Mark III will be able to write RAW video internally or not.

It's a personal choice. If you shoot only internally Sony A7 IV looks like a better pick. But most of the times I'll add a 5'' monitor, cage with top handle to the camera anyway. With Panasonic S series it could be a recorder as well. It gives me 12bit BRAW which is great codec to work with in Resolve and gives slightly better IQ than 10bit 4:2:2 internal. Don't need tracking autofocus. Panasonic S5 costed me only 1100 Euro practically new. Until Sony gives me BRAW on external recorder and prices go down a little, Panasonic S series are my choice. Sony A7 IV is a great camera for the price, no doubt about it.

BRAW is not technically RAW. That's correct ! It is partially debayred in camera to workaround the RED patent and not pay royalties. But if you are not satisfied with BRAW, ProRes RAW is technically RAW and this option is available too for Panasonic S series. Don't see visually differences between BRAW and ProRes RAW. Colors are the same. Prefer to work with BRAW because it is integrated in Davinci Resolve so well. And has more options for compression. This review shows some of the differences between BRAW and ProRes RAW. BRAW coming out of Panasonic S1/S5/S1H + Blackmagic Video Assist 12G is 12 bit Panasonic V-Log. Colors should be 444, because it is RAW. Of course it's not possible to match Alexa Colors and S curve 1 to 1 with a LUT. Also noticed the magenta tint in the video comparison above. But it's close enough. And am not saying that Panasonic S1/S5/S1H is as good as Alexa. Agree with TomTheDP and already said that if you are in the industry or entering it, having Alexa experience will be beneficial. But for the rest of us Panasonic S1/S5/S1H + external recorder is more than enough. 🙂

Alexa Classic will give you 1 stop more dynamic range, better rolling shutter and a lot more weight 🙂 , compared to Panasonic S Series. cined.com has the measurements of Alexa Classic and some of Panasonic S Series in their reviews section. Nobody will notice 1 stop of difference in DR, when export format is REC709 with only 6 to 7 stops of DR. Difference in rolling shutter may be noticeable. Alexa codecs are ProRes at 1080p and ArriRaw at 2.8K. You'll get 95% of Alexa image quality with Panasonic S1/S5/S1H and a lot more in terms of IBIS, some sort of autofocus, much larger lens selection, 6K RAW, etc. There are even LUTs that will give you ARRI look / color science or at least very close to it. Some people don't realize that movies shot on Alexa are a result of the work done by a lot of high skilled professionals including colorists. Some just want to have this legendary weapon at their side. Can't blame them 🙂 But it will cost more than 4K in the long run, that's for sure. It's good to have this experience if you want to enter the industry at the higher end (movies, commercials, etc.).

Ninja Star is 130g but it requires a mounting plate (55g). So total weight is 185g. Ninja V is 380g. The smallest NP-F battery is 100g. Question is: Are 200g difference really a problem? Would not call BMPCC 4K huge. It is slightly bigger than a DSLR but weight (721g) is in line with Panasonic S5, GH5, Sony A7 series etc. Having in mind you can use a smaller and lighter lens with m43 difference in weight if any is negligible. Same for Ninja V and Blackmagic Video Assist 12G 5'' - they are relatively small and compact. If their size bothers you, there is a solution. Leave them in the bag and do not mount them on the top of the camera. There will be a tiny HDMI cable hanging from your camera. No big deal. Start/stop recording and monitoring from the camera. It is another question altogether is it a good thing to have small and light camera setup. It turns out weight is good for handheld shooting. Over the years struggled with handheld footage stabilization. Until found the youtube channel of Mark Bone. Mark is professional documentary filmmaker. Same as with color grading learning from the pros helped me improve quickly. Following his advice use a cage, top handle and external monitor/recorder so the whole setup has some weight. Shooting that way is very comfortable and footage stabilization is much better than anything else I’ve tried. Whole setup is 2.5 kg. Not the lightest and smallest but good for stabilization. Most of the time I carry bigger bag and more weight. When I want to be more inconspicuous and look like a tourist and still shoot in BRAW or simply want to carry lighter, smaller bag, will use something like Panasonic S5 with Blackmagic Video Assist 12G 5''. And leave the recorder in the bag as described above. BMPCC 4K + external optical viewfinder attached on top can also be used in this tourist style and would be even lighter than Panasonic S5 + Blackmagic Video Assists combo.

Agree with others. My number one worry also would be color matching footage from both cameras. For an interview, your background will be thrown out of focus and blurred to some degree even if you shoot at f4 on FF. Never see background in focus during interviews or youtube presentations. Out of focus background is the look almost everybody goes for. Sharpness in this case will be important only for your main subject / person and this will be the central or near central area of the lens.

If it is not easy to get rid of the moire then for commercial work and projects it would be better to get S1H and not waist time.

Yes it is possible. Switch to film mode, then first menu/tab on the right (camera like), scroll down on the left and look for SS/Gain operation. On my S1 it is the second sub menu. Choose angle/ISO, then adjust to 180 degree from camera.

Didn't shoot much with Panasonic S1 + BRAW to notice the moire / aliasing. IMHO it is mild. Yes, using Black Pro Mist filter (1/8 in particular) will be probably first on my list. Or Black Satin 1. It has less halation than Black Pro Mist. Not a big fan of halation and prefer Tiffen Black Satin when shooting people. Will also try: - Shoot in 6K, then reduce resolution in post to 4K. It may help. Panasonic 4K 10bit 4:2:2 internal doesn't have this problem, so there must be a way to get rid of it when down scaling the image. - Use Gaussian Blur filter in post on the zones with moire / aliasing - Shoot at f2.8 when possible. Or even f4. Shooting people at open apertures deals with moire and aliasing quite effectively in my experience as most of the picture is not in focus anyway. On FF my preferences are to shoot at f4 or f2.8. So again f2.8 is not always possible and f4 may not cut it in terms of moire and aliasing. Manually pulling focus on FF camera at F2.8 may also be close to impossible in some situations.

Did you use the two LUTs provided by Panasonic for ProRes RAW conversion: First one conversts RAW V-Log to V-Gamut V-Log Second one from V-Gamut V-Log to Rec709 For internal recording in V-Log 10bit 4:2:2 you need to apply just the second one. But for correct ProRes RAW conversion both of them are needed.

True if you use ONLY Resolve color space transform from V-Log to Rec709. Magenta cast is easy to correct. You can do it once then save it and apply it on all clips. Or use corrective LUTs. Leeming Luts is one good option. In his review of Panasonic S1, Gerald Undone showed that once corrective LUT is applied, colors on vector scope match. See at 12:59 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CphwVNgX32s Here is another solution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWzJG-822Iw Having in mind you can shoot RAW with Panasonic S1 and adjust the colors as you wish, that's not a camera limitation but your personal preference. Like Blackmagic cameras and own one. What Panasonic S1 have and BMPCC 4K (and even 6K) doesn't is full frame sensor. Not because am full frame or bokeh fanatic, S35 is more than enough for me. But because of lenses. Most lenses in photography before digital era are Leica 35mm format (full frame). It's nice to use the lens at it's focal length as it was designed to be used and not with a crop factor. For example Helios 44M is 58mm in full frame land at a focal length close to what we call normal. In S35 it is a telephoto lens. And so on. Full frame camera makes my life easier when shooting with vintage and modern FF lenses, specially at the wide end. With speed boosters you can close to FF on Blackmagic but not exactly match. Still a small problem. Also with FF you build a lens collection once and never worry again when new cameras arrive.

Yes, it does. 🙂 With firmware coming on 10th of July, Panasonic made Lumix S1 irresistible to me. Full frame 6K BRAW from a camera that has gorgeous EVF, best in class IBIS (not that important to me, but thank you), 10bit 4:2:2 internal for the projects where BRAW is not needed, great low light, 60p, the list goes on. And all this for less than 2500 Euro (Panasonic S1 camera + Blackmagic Video Assist 12G 5inch Recorder and Monitor). It's a great value and incredibly good camera for video and very capable for photo. It's underrated because of the auto focus. But hey I use manual focus lenses all the time. Wish Panasonic to stay in this game. We need them.

Here is my understanding: Noise is digital destroys information and integrity of the picture. Grain in film just gives a flavor to the picture Noise in digital often has a pattern as digital sensor have such a pattern, grain in film is random. Noise in digital is not pleasant to the eye, grain in film is. Maybe because we are conditioned by watching film for many years. That's why noise is undesirable, grain often is. If you watch the video that published above, you'll see how information is actually recovered after denoise. That's why in post typically you denoise first, then add grain. If of course, you want to simulate some of film characteristics. Also worth to note that when grain is too big or too much it also can affect the picture quality negatively. For years landscape photographers used Velvia emulsion, because of it's fine grain. In landscape photography you want all fine details to be well visible and defined. So we can't put a blanket statement that grain is always good. It depends on it's quality and quantity. Same for digital noise. Some small amount of digital noise is tolerable for me and most people. It is also my observation that some of pro colorists and DP, try to emulate if not all at least some of the characteristics of film while using digital material. Film is with us for more than 100 years, we learnt quite a lot about images and did quite many studies and improvements in this area.

RAW video is always much nosier because it come strait from the sensor. In camera video recording is heavily denoised. Great performance of sensors in low light when using internal recording is mostly result of good in camera denoise. When using RAW footage and high ISO you'll have to denoise in post production. Result will be even better than in camera denoise but unfortunately requires powerful GPU and will take a lot more time for the final rendering. Actually one colorist said that you have to denoise always when using digital camera. 🙂 Another way to reduce the noise of RAW footage with Panasonic S1/S5/S1H would be to shoot at 6K, then reduce resolution to 4K in post. It automatically gets rid of some of the noise. It is also well known fact that BRAW is partially debayered in camera otherwise it will infringe RED patent about compressed video. External recorders are not affected by the patent. While not true RAW, BRAW recording results are more than good for me and major factor to buy Panasonic + Blackmagic Video Assist. BRAW has other advantages as for example multiple quality settings and as result reduced file size. And of course ability to edit straight from the recorder in Davinci Resolve. Using ProRes RAW or Blackmagic BRAW is more choice of NLE than anything else. Quality differences are negligible and visible only in some cases and with heavy pixel peeping. Here is a good test of Blackmagic BRAW vs Prores RAW which demonstrates well the noise problem and differences between the two RAW formats: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPB6wrVKHiw

1. Do we expect from engineers creating cameras, sellers selling cameras, technicians repairing cameras to be artists? Does it mean they know nothing about cameras in their respective roles ? Obviously not. Some do. 2. Cameras are not used only for artistic work. TV, sports, reportage, corporate, personal and family even some commercials and weddings videos are not art. Would say that people using cameras for artistic work are minority. So what? People using cameras in all those mentioned areas are not qualified or entitled to have their opinion? Or don’t have knowledge and experience with cameras ? 3. The art part cannot be completely disregarded in youtube channels related to technical reviews. But in a different role. My observations are that success of a youtube channel is greatly affected by the presenter. How it speaks and act in front of the camera. What's so great about Casey Neistat reviews and similar to him who have millions of followers on youtube. Or Patoto Jet. They are all great presenters and somehow good actors. It's fun to watch. It's entertainment also. That's why they are popular and with lots of followers. Why was top gear so popular ? Because it's about cars and technical reviews or because it's a great entertainment led by great presenters, screenplay writers etc. ? People and I mean 99% men like technical stuff. We like to talk, play and occasionally use cameras. Just kidding. 🙂 That's why Gerald Undone channel is much more popular than Mark Bone's channel. Mark is a pro DP and also Canadian. I like Gerald Undone channel, lot's of useful information. Does it mean that will rush and buy Sony A1 ? Not likely. Use those reviews only as guideline. At the end it's my budget and personal experience that decide what to buy and use. Don't blame the reviewers, there is interest, they satisfy this interest and make a living of it. There is some advertisement but it's easy to skip. Lived in a world where only reviews were in Popular Photography and magazines like that. It's much better now. Lots of reviews from different people. More or less independent. If you don't like it, don't watch it. So simple.

BRAW external was only for Panasonic S1H. S1, S1R got ProRes RAW. Now they will get BRAW external similar to S1H. This is great news for Davinci Resolve users like me. It's unbelievable how much Panasonic is giving to us. More than two years after the release they still keep adding valuable features with new firmware. And the prices keep falling. In my country S5 now goes for 1450 Euro and S1 for 1700 Euro. Brand new from the shop. Add 750 Euro for Blakcmagic Video Assist 5G and for 2500 you get full frame 6K BRAW video camera with in body image stabilization, great EVF, tilting LCD screen, etc. And it is great photo camera as well. Definitely am buying one . The only question is: which one S5 or S1. :)

Walter's master class was epic ! Knew that it is a rare opportunity to get knowledge from a Company3 senior colorist for an incredible price ! But he went far beyond my expectations. 4.5 hours that changed my video editing and color grading world for ever 🙂

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagicraw Blackmagic BRAW Open Standard and Free to Download Cross platform and license free! For Panasonic and others Blackmagic is a competitor in camera business, so they prefer to use their own codecs internally. I doubt any Japanese camera brand will ever put BRAW inside their cameras. They didn't put ProRes codec too. Which is a pity because BRAW is very good codec and integrate so well with Resolve. And only Nikon and Sigma allow use of Blackmagic external recorders. Panasonic and Sony don't. Again for business reasons. It's another story if those buisness reasons are valid or not.

Interview with a professional colorist at Dolby. Lots of tips and great info. At 24:40 about noise reduction. Also remember another interview with professional colorist, will try to find it where he said: "We apply NR to all material / video from digital cameras" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K9oe7aEpdg

Tried 10bit HDR Log V3 with my Samsung Galaxy 10+. Not impressed. Maybe it's better on IPhone 12. Keeping my EOS M for a cheap small and light camera with impressive image quality. Gorgeous colors, great resolution at 2.8K crop mode. Especially after 4K up scaling. Endless fun 🙂 ML Raw at 2.8K crop mode from Zeek:

Nikon Firmware 3.2 for Nikon Z6 and Z7. Adds ISO and Color Temperature control for ProRes RAW in Final Cut + BRaw support. https://www.nikon.co.in/en_IN/about/product_news?ID=templatedata/en_IN/taggable_content/data/news/products/Nikon Z 7 and Z 6 firmware Version 3.2&Category=product_news&Section= Nikon closes in Japan Factory https://fstoppers.com/business/nikon-reported-have-closed-its-japan-factory-ending-70-years-domestic-camera-539119 But says things are getting better now for the company https://fstoppers.com/news/nikon-says-things-are-getting-better-company-538866