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Axel

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  1. Axel
    If 4k was shown in 4k right now, I am sure we'd see immediately that it is poor 4k. The weird logic reads: Bad 4k is better than bad 1080 ...
  2. Axel
    Image quality is improved everywhere, at the cost of having to deal with ever more redundant data. 12 or 14bit raw for 8bit already means having - at least! - a ratio of 10:1 between capture and delivery. But we asked for it. We complained about the heavy compression of the consumer codecs, and bingo!, we got alternatives. I don't think that 4k TV sets will soon be a standard (the net, as explained above, goes with brilliant 720p rather, and television is likely to move from broadcasting to VOD in the not-so-distant future, 4k cinema, though it was predicted long ago, will remain an exception), so 4k then means the better 1080p/720p. Hollywood meanwhile seems to use 4k a lot, as the better 2k. Even Peter Jackson mastered The Hobbit in 2k. Of course computers considered fast 2 years ago for their ability to unpack AVCHD in real time and add a lot of effects now don't suffice. Why store all this redundant data in the first place? The answer is intelligent media management and Thunderbolt2. One can still believe 4k to be a hype created by the industry to sell the next generation of crippled hardware. I tend to subscribe to that view. On the other hand, 4k will become pretty affordable. It's just a matter of staying aware that not every 4k camera will be better than a good 1080 DSLR or raw camera.
  3. Axel
    Now we agree. Let's move on.
  4. Axel
    ;) @ markm You deliberately confuse everything. If you were told, 'use a 50mm' and you said you put it in front of a MFT sensor and wondered why the heck you needed to cross the street every time you just tried to frame a normal CU, I don't believe you.
  5. Axel
    All the confusion comes from the crop factor terminology, which only makes sense if you take a lens calculated for a different sensor size. And even there, focal length stays focal length. The only siginficant and not relative number that changes is the FOV angle. 50mm fullframe seem to equal 46,8° (for 3:2! - source: Wikipedia). Somewhere on blackmagicuser.net there is a large table, where someone has applied the formula to a bunch of lenses popular for the BMCC. Perhaps we should learn to estimate this to avoid misunderstanding. You got me wrong. Everywhere you read people are desperate to find a lens with a FOV > 80°, without which they consider themselves under-equipped. I just said everything over 70° is suitable for an action cam and really is not very sensible for narrative filmmaking (exceptions prove the rule). Sure enough: My favourite director, Stanley Kubrick, used extreme wide angles very often. For two reasons: 1. He liked to show the actors from head to feet. 2. He actually liked the distortion of perspective, when he moved the camera (I think he cited Welles). If there was a standardization in 'the industry', I wouldn't care.
  6. Axel
    Yes, this is a set with which you can start shooting (ND + IR filter needed, see parallel thread) - and wait or search for a good wide and a good tele.
  7. Axel
    Wow, thank you very much!
  8. Axel
    To further add confusion, there are three more parameters influencing the proper FOV for framing: 1. For storytelling, a noticeably wide angle distortion makes a scene look like a comic (Men In Black, many scenes in A Clockwork Orange, Guy Ritchie stuff). Therefore, very rarely will you see short focal lengthes in serious films or i.e. horror films. Cinema DOPs tend to use lenses above the 50mm full frame equivalent. Or they have an astonishingly small set that they want to appear much bigger. Then they use the wide lenses so that they appear as normal lenses. Good idea, one could think, but that requires care, experience and high quality lenses. 2. Full frame, as was said, has an AR of 2:3 (or 3:2, horizontally), but photography is a AR-independant art, it was and still is normal and expected to CROP the frame. We should stop to use the term 'crop factor', because we should also frame with multiple ARs in mind. The wider we go (WS, scope and beyond) the more we need to crop (I mean the framing). Longer lenses crop more. 3. If you don't use a wide angle lens in the Evil Dead way or in the reality soap way, you must stay aware that you will not capture a lot of textural detail (surfaces, fabrics), but distinguishable motif detail and that poor resolution will show, be it through inferior lens quality or sth. else. There was an old article on aliasing of the 5DMII, showing close ups of faces, where you thought you could see every skin cell individually. But then came the famous brick walls. A brick in the image was a hundred times bigger than a pore, but the camera didn't get it. What I'm trying to say: For artistic reasons, for narrative reasons, for practical reasons, you shall love crops. If you read threads about lenses and crop factors it looks as if people think they're the devil.
  9. Axel
    Yes, as I said: 5DMIII and ML make a dream team.
  10. Axel
    These filters may be top quality, but cost too much for my taste. What is more: They don't help at all (see below)! The reasoning is this: I know that an ND fader is not as good as a set of fixed NDs, but the slight cast that a *cheaper* set might introduce can be easily removed in post, given that you color correct every shot anyway. There is another issue with colors with our oh-so-affordable Pocket: IR contamination. Didn't you notice lights at 3200°K had a magenta cast? And blacks a muddy brown with other flavours? Read this. My conclusion (so far): It's not the ND itself that has the wrong color, it just doesn't block (and so attenuates) infrared light. There should be an ND fader with IR-blocker (or a set of combined ND+IR), optimized for the Pocket, so that one didn't have to stack filters. For this I would happily pay 500 € or more, but not for a set like that. EDIT: Well, there is (even with 700nm specs, close to BMs 680nm recommendation). I'd prefer 72mm though. EDIT2: Even cheaper.
  11. Axel
    Right. You may have heard the saying IT'S NOT THE CAMERA. A truism, but true nonetheless. And also IT'S NOT THE LENS. Things have become too easy, and people don't care (see my motto below) for appriopriate style. Once (say, in the seventies) it was hard to capture something worth filming, because the film stock was slow and the lenses were slow. Things needed to be manipulated more rigorously, also in front of the camera. DOPs would have been very happy to have the sharpest, fastest lenses with the cleanest and most neutral specs. Now your examples show more expertise of the DOP/colorist than advantages of one lens over another, imho. Yet I think, nice imagery, but why the heck should I bother? What I am determined to do is this: Find a good subject/story, prepare everything so that it fits the intended mood (moodboard, production design, location scouting, choice of colors, lighting), capture every nuance of it without destroying anything and then grade it so that it looks better than I could have imagined in my boldest dreams. What I'm determined to stop: Reacting to nice looking things in my environment, recording them with some general pleasing look on my mind but no idea what sense all this makes. All beautiful clips on youtube or vimeo are as trivial as the worst kind of holiday movies. Point and shoot with no concept whatsoever. I don't say the Sigma is the best lens for the Pocket. Perhaps the Samyangs are better. But it was reasonable to buy it, and I don't care for any cinematic look or videoish look.
  12. Axel
    I gave up the quest for the "filmlook" (german anglicism by origin, meaning cinematic look). Because when we had camcorders once with essentially absolute depth of field, mostly interlaced video, very low dynamic range and so forth, we used to compare them to 'the real stuff' and tried to overcome these characteristics. The VDSLR revolution made the filmlook accessible for everyone and the grading softwares completed it, to a point, where real film (analog or digital) looked clean and natural in comparison. So I understand what you wrote about the Sigma, that it looks videoish, like btw the Oly or Pan MFT lenses also do. This is the cinema camera though, and imho it's time to consider a different approach. If you are a woman, you don't dress like a transvestite or you will look ridiculous. But different strokes for different folks ...
  13. Axel
    Only minor problem is, that the Speedbooster can't be exchanged in a hurry. It comes with a small "riser", which is needed not only to support a heavier lens like the Sigma, but also to allow the camera (the riser actually) to be mounted on a tripod plate. My Contineo cage doesn't help either: It doesn't add enough height (still some 5mm or so are missing). And then you have to disassemble the SB's riser (two tiny screws) before you can mount the SB with the cage's front in the way. With the Novoflex (or any other adapter) the problem persists. Unless you use very small MFT or c-mount lenses, you definitely need a special plate beneath the BMPCC, preferably lightweight and not higher than max. half an inch. The Contineo riser kit is not what I want.
  14. Axel

    REDpooliRIG for BMPCC

    Axel replied to pooli's topic in Cameras

    Well thought out!
  15. Axel
    With the Sigma 18-35 and Speedbooster, you cover all FOVs equivalent to 30-60 mm full frame (I know this is an awkward way of translating it, but people are not used to think in FOV angles yet, perhaps in a few years). This will be sufficient for 80 % of situations. What is missing for about 15 % is a moderate tele. With a Novoflex Nikon to MFT adapter (~150 bucks), you'd add 52mm - 100 mm with the same lens. For the rare occasions when you plan steadycam-like shots or a landscape, you'd need a very wide lens.
  16. Axel
    This could be the solution: http://www.enjoyyourcamera.com/Hand-Straps/Quenox-Camera-Grip-for-Compact-System-MFT-and-DSLR-Cameras::6248.html?language=en
  17. Axel
    For Safari, almost complete customizable preferences: Here, go to "Entertainment", scroll down to "YTO", make your settings, done. No more commercials, 720p or 1080p, autostart or not, with or without pre-buffering, full-size or not, etcpp
  18. Axel
    Know no one who has one yet. I assume it looks gorgeous. It's not that hard to see one's own video on a big screen. Once it was talking to the projectionist, give him a USB stick, make an appointment (best times around noon, before the shows start or late at night, when the shorter films are already over and The Hobbit still runs an hour or so), spend some coffee or pizza. Now you probably need to talk to the owner/manager. You know psychologically people feel good when they can do someone a favour, so be forward but charming.
  19. Axel
    I had been a projectionist for a long time (now this profession has died), and from 2000 on I had also been a digital projectionist. Until 2011, when automation finally killed the job, I used to compare my own stuff to the DCPs, side by side on the big screens, in the last two years also as DCPs, when easyDCP and openDCP became available. The largest screen was 78 feet x 32 feet (that's for scope, for 16:9 the width then was 58 feet). First thing I noticed is that resolution doesn't influence sharpness to the expected degree. And it also doesn't influence subjective quality very much. In fact, an upscaled SD DVD ( anamorph pixels with scope-crop, really the worst way to treat a video) could be shown to a big audience, and (back then) nobody complained, the class-A hardware scalers made it look good. I know this is hard to believe, but we once had a festival with student films, ranging from DVD, BD to genuine DCP (a Red!), and the one best looking was a masterfully graded HVX200 short, played from SD DVD. On the other hand, there was a way to know instantaneously what was film and what was video: Colors. I know this comparison is only 8-bit, but I have to find a way to describe aesthetic subtleties here. With a camera like the GH2 ("Musgo"), for example, one would be well advised to fill the frame with detail, textures (resolution, that's the GH2s strength) and not with skies and other big areas of glorious colors. Right now we grade for 8-bit, so 12-bit raw is *just* a bigger palette for grading. Color depth seems to add a new dimension to our video. It's fun to tear the, er, bloom off the images and to dive through the colors. Would it stand against an Alexa? I can't tell, really, but I'm convinced it would do better than many others. I can't wait to see a DCP with the 12-bit preserved in my old cinema.
  20. Axel
    There is contradicting "evidence" on the net. This video shows that it's parfocal: This video shows that it isn't: Well, mine isn't. If you zoom in, focus, and then zoom out, the focus has changed slightly. Subtly. Barely noticeable. But it is not parfocal. The zoom ring is porno. Very soft, yet very strong resistance. Easy to ease-in-ease-out. Harder if you want to zoom fast. There is another peculiar effect with the SB: The backfocus changed. ∞ is not ∞, but a little closer. Perhaps this is normal: There is a mark on the focus ring before ∞, and that's it. Strange. What many will not expect is the degree to which the SB in combination with this lens amplifies, er, light. In daytime, the zebra flashes indoors, and you obviously can't close the Sigmas aperture enough with the SBs 1-7 stops. So I will need an ND solution, even if I don't look for shallow DoF, but just for the extended FOV. I talked to a photographer, and he said he'd prefer good fixed filters over an ND fader, for quality reasons. You could change them fast with a magnetic adapter like this. Cost more, all in all, than a Genus Eclipse or Tiffen VariND. But better than a mattebox with filter trays. Because to get the same quality, you'd need to spent a fortune. You'd have to rent them. Never think that Pocket implies pocket money ...
  21. Axel
    Point is, everything is interpretation. If you didn't seriously under- or overexpose during recording, you have total freedom to extract any graduation or colors you want. Insofar there is no right or wrong way. See >here.
  22. Axel
    Hi folks, everyone have a nice christmas! I have the Pocket, the Pocket Speedbooster and the Sigma 18-35mm now for a couple of days and - of course - made some test shots. A lot of them, to be precise. I will upload anything worth showing as soon as I'll have figured out how to do it right. All my preoccupations have vanished. This camera is great fun for me. My computer can't yet handle raw with Resolve, so I'm using ACR within AAE (slooow), until I have decided whether I will upgrade my current machine or buy a new. However, I was not yet able to produce any moire, I found ETTR to be the correct way of exposing (I was able to produce noise, when not overexposing), I think there is a way to deal with everything. The display isn't as bad as was hawked, it just needs a Z-finder (similar products by Kinotehnik and Kamerar). No need for a rig with the Sigma. I just drew a nylon strap (leftover from one of my various camera bags) through the slit of my ACE plate. I basically hold the lens, not the camera. Together with the Z-finder, I will have 3-point stabilization. To all purchasers who wait in doubt and despair: Don't worry. EDIT: Definite workaround for the "ETTR-issue". In raw, set ISO to 400, this will lower the gamma at which the image is displayed in display and later on the computer (manner of speaking, actually the gamma point is set to a higher value, the lever exposure in ACR is a gamma-corrected curve). Expose as bright as possible without 100% zebra flashing. The ISO settings have only influence on the metadata in raw. Proof: If you switch through 200-400-800-1600, the subjective brightness changes, but the zebra areas stay the same. It actually is easier to expose with the Pocket.
  23. Axel
    And isn't that just great? Watch The 36th Chamber Of Shaolin before you start grading ...
  24. Axel
    More important than buying the better hardware is becoming smarter in using the devices one has. I heard this argument before, that the people at home have terrible displays. But they are used to them, they color correct any cast or gamma offset subconciously, and they can tell a badly graded clip from, say, The Hobbit. With awareness and intelligence, you can can reach 95% of a perfect setup. With the best hardware, you are prone to forget that your own eyes are the least reliable instruments when it comes to grading.
  25. Axel
    You said it: You can have the scopes and the viewer on the second display, they have to share it (don't know if this true for 10.1 as well, did not yet load it). That's akward. I find it more useful to put the events on the secondary, but anyway, the position of the windows can't be customized enough - particularly if you compare with other NLEs. Then, as mentioned, Resolve can use the second monitor only for the scopes. Without a Blackmagic card, you have one monitor. If I could afford it, I wouldn't blink an eye. I just spent 3000 bucks for camera, lenses, equipment *stuff*, and I feel Jobs' disapproving eyes over me, since there is nothing left for Apple. I'm a complete failure as a fanboy, let them plan their obsolescence, and let others dance around the golden calf. I'll join them on the chill out beach ;-)
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