sir_danish

The window has no influence on this effect, which shows up outside as well. I´ve done several tests and posted the results here: http://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=21564 Because nobody on the blackmagic forum with the same camera and lens wants to test it, so that I could compare the results, I´m aksing EOSHD members for help. It´s a fact that it´s not possible for me to get the left and the right side in focus simultaneously, without misalignment of the center. I doubt that it has something to do with the lens, as it works fine on my GH3. Because I have no second BMPCC to test, it would be very helpful to see if other BMPCC+Sigma 18-35+SB owners are getting the same results. Thanks in advance!

Hi, I´m using a Sigma 18-35 1.8 with a Metabones Speed Booster on my BMPCC. What I noticed is that the left side of the image isn´t perfectly in focus while the right side is spot-on. If I try to get the left side as sharp as possible, the middle of the picture and the right side will be slightly out of focus. Please take a look at the pictures below. Notice how the very left side seems to be quite blurry, while the right side isn´t that bad. The aperture was 2.5. '> '> I´ve tried two Sigma 18-35 and two different Speed Boosters, but the results were exactly the same. Has anyone else noticed similar effects? I would be very happy if someone with a Sigma 18-35 and a SB tried to shoot something outside with the lens wide open and focus set to infinity.

I have a similar problem, but I use my BMPCC with the speed booster and a Sigma 18-35. What I noticed is that I can´t get the center and the corners in focus at the same time. As if the focus plane was concave, no matter the the focal distance... Additionally, the left side of the image is always softer than the right side. That makes focussing really tought with the lens wide open. If the left side is in focus, the center is completely soft and the right side somewhat soft too. If the center is in focus, the right side is quite sharp too but the left side is completely soft... This shot was taken with the lens wide open and set to infinity. Notice how the right side is quite sharp, while the left side is very soft. '> Can anyone confirm, that this is a common issue when using the BMPCC speed booster with the Sigma 18-35? I would be happy if someone with a BMPCC + SB + Sigma 18-35 could do a test with the lens wide open and set to infinity. I´ve already replaced the SB and the lens, yet everything looks the same.

Two weeks ago, a client asked me to shoot some nice photos of her employees. I told her that this would be a job for a photographer with his own studio and proper flash lights, things that I don´t have as I´m not a photographer at all. To be honest, I actually told her so because I really didn´t like the idea of driving 400 kilometers just to take portrait pictures of employees. But her answer was, well, shaking up. She told me that she wasn´t interested in high-polished, perfectly lit ultra high resolution photos, but rather something special and charming. I know she´s got the money and access to professional photographers, but she explicidly wanted me, because she appreciates my ideas. So I bought a "green screen" (actually a green carpet) from IKEA, grabbed some LED lights and my GH3 and took these pictures downstairs her company building. The end of the story: She and her employees couldn´t have been more happy, because the pictures looked exactly what they were hoping for. They are not perfectly lit, they are not perfectly sharp, but they have a special look and feel and thus represent the spirit of that specific company. Mission accomplished. This was an example, that can apply to all of my creative work. As long as I´m a self-employed and creative person providing a service, my clients pay for the whole package, including my own nature. They don´t pay solely for resolution or pro-looking equipment. Even in the future, some people will be able to sell precious 720p suff, while some highly graded, moiré-free 4K work of others won´t be worh a penny to anybody. Like I said, it´s the whole package and your knowledge of how and whom to sell it, it´s not your camera´s codec alone. Anyway, I will be pleased with all these 4K test videos on youtube and vimeo. Thousands of self-appointed filmmakers will show us thousands of arty video shots of flowers, dogs, cats, grain fields, dancing people and cars. Everything accompanied by gentle music from Ludovico Einaudi. Description: Testing my new GH4/Canon C50/Sony FS4K/Blackmagic Production Camera with lens XYZ... Testing, testing, testing, testing, testing, testing, comparing, testing, testing.... Oh look, there´s 8K on the horizon. This time it won´t allow us to make any excuses because of bad equipment. Finally we can tell our stories. With 8K we can. Finally. But seriously, while all these predictable and influencable "I can´t because of bad equipment"-guys kept on excusing, complaining and distracting from their own incapability, my good old GH2 turned out to be a cash cow. The only thing my clients complaint about was the form factor of my GH2. The couldn´t imagine, how this tiny box would be capable of producing such a nice image. But it did. I`m self-employed since 2010 and I started with nothing but a GH2, some Canon FD lenses, an old Macbook Pro and ingenuity. As of this writing, I haven´t lost one single client, despite rolling shutter. Today, it´s not the money anymore that keeps me from buying a RED or a Canon C whatever, it´s the experience that you can do so many things with the tools that you already have. Most of the time, it´s your lack of skills and imagination that seperates you and your clients from being satisfied. The easiest thing to do is putting the blame on anything and anyone but yourself.

I couldn´t agree with you more! Once more the industry will be successful in creating desires rather than long-lasting and solid products without calculated shortcomings. Three years ago, everybody was blown away by the "cinmatic look" of DSLRs, just because of the shallow depth of field, respectively full-frame. Soon after: disillusion! Shallow DOF was fine, but now everybody cried for a better codec, because the low bitrate AVCHD crap wasn´t the best to work with in post. After the GH2 hack and some other improvements: disillusion! Why? Because Blackmagic joined the game. Rich colors, RAW(!!!), high dynamic range, rather small form factor and affordability! Now everybody agreed, that the "cinematic look" was all about sparkle and dynamic range, etc. Shallow depth of field and full-frame suddenly weren´t at the top of the list anymore, and all those gadget fetishists ran after that lovely BMCC. RAW became the most desirable thing in the indie film world (look at the 5DIII RAW hype)... at least for a very short time, because now it´s 4K time. Suddenly 4K means everything, it´s the holy grail, the solution to all those nasty aestetic shortcomings of DSLR footage. You don´t even need a dolly or a tripod, because hey, you can pan around and stabilize in post! This is the new triumphal march of all the camera manufacturers, that kept all of us on the short leash for a good reason: money. This is planned obsolescence in all its glory, this is the industry of never-ending desires. Some of you may call it "technological progress", but we are talkling about creative tools here, not cars! There wouldn´t exist one single piece of impressive art, if all those great artist were always pinning their failure to external circumstances like screens, cameras, paintbrushes or whatever.

Huh?! I've never had to fight with my GH2/3 to make it work. I don't have to fight with them in post either. Even if I had to do so, would that fight be tougher than it would be with your C100´s 8 bit AVCHD codec?

I can only endorse the outrage (and enthusiasm at the same time) of the majority on this blog. Some of us are "painters", you know? Some of us do not need efficient codecs, nor do some of us need all those features, a "real" camera offers. Some of us, like myself, are painters, and this ML update finally gives me the color palette I need to create lovely paintings. A picture is worth a thousand words and now I have the right tool to not only create beautyful pictures, but also bring them into the dimension of time. Without spoken words, you know? And without having to spend a pile of money on bulky machines, that need countless accessories to actually work. I´m a supporter of the intuitive approach and this is the way I get my work done and earn my money with. Intuition and observation skills. A Scarlet (for example) doesn´t serve my approach. A DSLR does very well and a raw shooting DSLR does even better!   I´m very impressed by the (graded) raw footage of the 5D. These are moving paintings! But it seems to me, no one ever talks about that aspect of "film" making. "Efficiency! Storage! XLR! That´s what we have to care about!"   Aren´t some of you upset, because affordable and uncomplicated raw shooting tools could have been in our hands for years now, but they weren´t, because some money-hungry bastards wanted (and still want) to sell us extremely overpriced toys with "efficient 8-bit codecs"?

I wanted to buy one of these cages and tried to contact the guys at ReWo two times, but I think they don´t want me to buy it, because they don´t answer my mails. There´s another guy at the BMD forum, who wrote to ReWo about 6 times (!), but again, no reply.  Can anyone tell me, how long these XPal batteries can power the BMCC? Thanks!

I´ve also noticed macroblocking in all-i mode. I´m not an expert, but many people say, this is due to the fact that 72mbps isn´t enough for all-i. I do avoid this mode and use 50mbps IPB instead. It looks much cleaner with less noise and more detail.

I agree with you. But we all know how the "big players" play their game. Do only the bare necessities! Only if the number of sales decreases or the competition catches up, only then make an effort. Look at all those Panasonic (consumer) G cameras or the Canon 700D. Actually, this is planned obsolescence, rather than real innovation. By the way, does the GH2 really have 11 stops of DR?? I thought it would be less...

Why are you using Portrait, if you don´t mind my asking? Are there any advantages over "Natural"?

After two years with the GH2 and two months with the GH3, I doubt that the moiré on the GH3 is only "a little" bit worse... This is only a very short test shot to show you what I mean. Please download the originial file, if you want to see the psychedelic crazyness on those roof tiles. I don´t know how to work around this problem. The same buildings were also shot with the hacked GH2 and the roof tiles looked MUCH better. The image isn´t free of moiré, but it´s negligible. Another thing I noticed is the visible difference between 50mbps and 72mbps All-I. Meanwhile, the downsides of the All-I mode are widely known, but I didn´t know they are that obvious! A direct comparison between IPB and All-I showed clearly, how the high bitrate mode produced a rather muddy image and quite some noise, while the other one looked nice and full of detail. But still, the All-I mode cuts a fine figure on the data sheets and the Panasonic website for promotional purposes... Anyway, the GH3 feels so much better than its predecessor and, except for the already mentioned downsides, it´s much more fun to shoot with it. The GH2 was my tool to make money with and now it´s the GH3 + some beautyful Canon FD S.S.C lenses.

  Same here! I´m quite a bit clueless now. I make my bread with graphics design, animation and some video work (corporate film, etc...). I´m in a situation where I don´t want to spend my money on a FS700, but want something significantly better than my GH2. But there is a big gap between these cameras.   Blackmagic won me as a customer and lost me at the same time because of their stupid strategy to reveal cameras, that are going to exist somewhere in the future - maybe. I think they are losing more potential customers than they are gaining that way. If I were Panasonic or Canon, I would thank BM for their impatience, because they give me enought time to think of how to react to their future products. The fact that they can´t even satisfy demand and do reveal all details and specs of their non-existent cameras beforehand makes it even easier to find the right answer...

According to a sales and service manager of a rather big shop that specializes in cameras and equipment, he doesn´t assume that they will deliver in July. They have so many pre-orders, still from the last year, that they don´t know how satisfy requirements.   Even if Andrew claims that this is due to the sensor supplier, I think Blackmagic, at least at the moment, mainly exists on paper. I bet it will take another year (or more), until all three cameras will actually be tangible for everyone. Before than we will see some reviews and tests here and there, just like we do at the moment.

I don´t think the new BMCs will be available in July. I´ve just received a message from a german reseller, regarding the availability of the "old" BMCC with MFT mount. According to Blackmagic, the BMCC MFT will be available by the end of the year, at least in that particular store, which is - after all - an authorized reseller, listed on the Blackmagic website. I don´t care about the price tag of those cameras - if a company isn´t able to actually deliver a product that´s been introduced 1 year ago, I don´t even want to think of their customer and repair service.   To announce two new products and state their delivery date, while the first one didn´t even leave the essembly belt after such a long time, is an evidence of incapacity, rather than clever PR.   Just my two cents.

Regarding GH2 25p, hack and ClipWrap: Has anyone noticed those "interlacish" lines in the footage, when exported to ProRes 422 with ClipWrap? If I just "rewrap" it, it´s fine, the image looks like the original mts files. But if I convert it to ProRes, there are those lines. They remind me of interlacing lines, but the footage is progressive and the lines show up in every player and also AE. My GH2 is hacked and I thought, this effect has something to do with the hack, but the unhacked footage looks the same...