Axel

I can't tell you, but there are some aspects to consider: > FCP X 10.1 (free upgrade) can use more than one graphic card. It will probably run WAY faster on a MacPro. Same with Resolve. > Both FCP X and Resolve are primarily one-display softwares. You'd need one decent monitor, a big one with preferably 2,5k resolution, one that doesn't reflect and can be calibrated (imho if you don't grade for high-end-TV and if you don't aim at 10-bit, you don't need a so-called 'reference monitor', a Dell 27something might do). In Resolve, you can put the video scopes on a cheap, second monitor. > Think about what you actually need. 70% of all professionals (those who stayed loyal to Apple after they got ass-kicked with 'iMovie Pro') soldier on with FCS3. 32-bit, no native editing, no real-time in Color. It may look like an unbearable hassle to xml from FCP X to FCP7 to send to Color, but I did this the last two years, and I didn't need to buy new hardware. The node logic and real time performance of Resolve are deceiving, but hadn't it been for raw, I would have been comfortable with it. Now I experience the same dilemma you are in. Anyway, you can take your time. Apple goes Blackmagic: They have postponed the delivery of the new MP to february already ...

"Survey is invalid or no longer exists." I think they know what people miss on the Pocket at Blackmagic. Let me show my own list and please comment on it (in order of my personal priorities): 1. The remaining recording time must be shown on the OSD. 2. I'd like a little more contrast and saturation on the display (display menu settings: "Video"). 3. If I play back a clip and press OK during it, I'd like to be asked "Delete clip?" 4. I'd like a ProRes (without HQ) option. You don't shoot the beauty shots with PR anyway, and for i.e. interviews the lower bitrate survives the grading you apply to it. 5. I'd like the camera to remember the iris values and peaking after putting it off or battery change. Some things probably can't be changed, like audio quality. There is a project underway to make a specialized miniature stereo microphone with built-in pre-amp, based on a successful in-ear concept called Ohrwurm ("earworm") with distinct cardioid characteristics (self-contradictory though it sounds). It could be screwed to a cage and preserve the so-called stealth factor. This isn't going to be cheap. Otherwise there are external solutions, and with modern NLEs the need to synchronize in post has lost it's horrors. Card formatting in camera? Why? You need a computer anyway to store the clips.

Adobe never developed it's own high quality master codec (like Apples ProRes), but the AME does well with mpeg4. On a Mac? Export as ProRes. On a PC? Instead of giant uncompressed I'd try DNxHD or Cineform, others know better. That said, you really should try to export with the 40/50 mbps settings. Visually, there should be no difference at all. My friend does this all the time.

Yes, the Eclipse. Choose the 82, because who knows? Perhaps next year they sell a fantastic lens with 77 mm?

No problem, if a clip looks interesting after a few seconds, I start again in the vimeo/youtube window with full screen anyway. If not, I skip it. You really pushed the envelope with this old precious. I sold mine >yesterday :wacko: Time to change my avatar ...

Wow, impressed ....

No.

Imho the new MacPro is no big advantage for a typical DSLR-mpeg4 user. This only pays off if you have to deal with massive footage data. I have a MacPro Quad, early 2010. To update it to 4GB VRAM and 32 GB RAM would cost me ~ 700 € with third party hardware. For round about 1000 € I could have a Hackintosh with the power of the new MacPro - minus Thunderbolt. We don't like the idea, but on the other hand one thing is true: We pay a lot more for everything.

I advise you to wait a couple of days. Now we have FCP X 10.0.9. Within the next two weeks, the new MacPro will arrive, and a new version will be sold, 10.1. If Apple continues it's policy - an update is free, an ungrade isn't - you paid full for an obsolete, non-updateable software. And I doubt very much that it just adds the ability to use multiple graphic cards. The wish lists sent to Apple are long, and some things really should be done. One thing rarely discussed is the possible integration of CinemaDNG. I know it's wishful thinking on my part, but it's not sooo unlikely, given the fact, that FCP X could play back CDNGs from the start - if only as image sequences in the timeline, with the duration of each frame set to "1". With tiny mpeg2 or mpeg4, the 'philosophy' of hot-swapping external Thunderbolt-volumes would be close to pointless. With having to encode ProRes proxies from raw in Resolve in order to access them for editing the simplicity of the FCP X workflow is gone.

GH2 and Nokton.

Hello friends! Sorry again, if this was already answered elsewhere. This is the situation: My dealer says, the Pocket Speedbooster will probably be in end of next week! I am sooo glad I stumbled over Andrews Sigma 18-35mm article, cause right now, I can sell all of my MFT lenses, and - together with my Novoflex adapter - cover 30 mm to 105 mm (full-frame equivalent) with just one lens! Now I've read a couple of reviews on ND-Faders and decided for the Genus. Usually, one would use a step-up-ring to take an ND with a bigger diameter, but do you need this with the speedbooster? And if, will 77 mm be enough or should I buy 82 mm?

Good, but I still hope a future firmware will show the remaining time directly in the OSD.

You are right. I just bought the only micro HDMI to mini HDMI cable I found on the net (to connect the Pocket to the Alphatron EVF), only to learn, that it's an ordinary HDMI-cable with two flimsy adapters. But it would need to fit in the Continuo cage:

My dealer estimates four weeks. Time to follow another 'best lenses for BMCC' discussion. I wonder why Andrew wrote, the Tokina 11 zoom was only wide on the Pocket. Anything below 20mm was considered super wide for full frame last time I studied lens descriptions.

I foresee in 2014 we'll see a lot of those. Some will be quite usable. We will need a remote focus with a proper joystick (for the thumb or so). By then thousands of Glidecams will flood the bay, and expensive OS lenses will be shopkeepers.

Is that an old manual FX-lens? I saw you get those old ones pretty cheap, and I wonder why. Where is the catch?

Both have three things in common: 1. They don't allow to control focus. So either you use auto focus, intuifocus or hyperfocal distance. 2. They prevent the image from rotating, the worst form of instability. 3. They make the operator independant from the optical axis of the system (unlike 3-point-stabilization or a shoulder rig), which also means he can't use a viewfinder, but needs the LCD/an external monitor. The FigRig doesn't absorb steps at all (though it is easier to walk with it than with a shoulder rig >independant from optical axis), whereas the Glidecam can. Two other commandments are valid for all kinds of camera movements: 1. Thou should not tilt! (of course there are exceptions, but keep them such. The FigRig allows to prevent unwanted tilting) 2. Thou should not change height! (this is a noob behaviour with steadicams, a camera is no beer glass, no cheers!. Always keep the horizon on the same level. Also possible with the steering wheel design of the FigRig. The first lesson of any steadi-walk tutorial covers that - it's hard and needs a lot of attention and practice). Which one would I choose? I would choose any device suitable for the task at hand.

You better start with learning one, your CC software with the manual or better yet with a complete video tut training. Then there are some very general advices on requirements and workflow: 1. Calibrate your monitor(s) ... 2. Backlight them with 6500k balanced lights. 3. Paint the wall behind with a dark, neutral grey. 4. Exclude all strongly colored objects from your FOV. 5. Don't allow reflections or light temperatur mixes. Workflow: 1. Optimize your clips (neutralize them). Don't trust your eyes. Use the scopes. This is primary CC. 2. Apply changes to selected areas of your images. This is secondary CC. 3. Find a look for the most enigmatic of your shots in one sequence. Now your taste and your good eye are asked for. Don't start this step when you're tired or not relaxed. This (on top of steps 1&2) is a grade. Copy the grade. 4. Apply the grade to the rest of the sequence, fine-tune it. You will find, that by now clips from different cameras or with different lenses or exposure will look 98% as much congruent as possible. 5. Finally, iron out the missing 2% by comparing all your shots with the tools provided by your software (split screen, lighttable, whatever). After you graded for look, now grade for consistency.

The other way around. Analog film was always 24 fps, 23,97something was 99,something the speed of native film cameras. This has to do with the power frequency in the USA and other countries and NTSC television. With progressive video, there is not much to worry though. In PAL countries, the 50Hz frequency made 25fps the standard. For TV and DVD, the 24p films where just sped up, so they were exactly 4% shorter (in former times, the pitch changed slightly, and people with absolute pitch heard that the music was in the wrong key, this of course is corrected nowadays). So changig the frame rate doesn't swallow a single frame, it affects the duration of the feature and the sound. But of course, if you know you shoot for DCP, use 24p, blu rays officially support both frame rates (as 1080p). And television? I don't know. As of now, frame rates for youtube and vimeo are limited to 30fps, but otherwise you have free choice.

Yes, recently there was a big budgeted movie (for german dimensions) shot in great parts with several GH3s (I will link to a trailer as soon as one is released). As far as DSLR-videography is concerned, I am tired of shallow DoF and of flat skintones. And when I now see my early efforts with the XH A1, the Letus extreme and a bunch of Nikon glasses, I begin to wonder, whether a laborious and burdensome method (compared to VDSLR) has actually a positive impact on the final image. And also, a decade earlier, when I developed my own 16mm TriX Pan film in my darkroom, shot with an ancient Bolex with spring mechanism, when every second meant money rattling trough the camera. This is not the fault of the technique itself, which was undoubtedly improved since then, it is my fault. That's why I feel that raw might be the thing for me. Doesn't have to encourage wide open apertures. You can as well return to the virtue of composing an image with absolute DoF, isolating your motif by light, motion blur, golden ratio variations. In these days of blurred vision (good name for a film company) it would stand out. Yes, also true for GH2/G6. Solution: Use them from f2.0 and up. Yes, and then again, ultra wide FoV is either good for landscapes (which I am not at all interested in) or an MTV reality soap camera style (which I have to use sometimes when shooting weddings, but which I am not proud of). I really like your work very much, but I am no run&gun fan. Barrel distortion is as bad as moire, mostly. I pray it's not. It needs light, I suppose so. There is another thing I am tired of: Low light. Nothing special about a city at night anymore. My frigging iPhone makes quite acceptable low light stills. This is all so boring (good title for a short). Thank you. Encourages me.

Could be the lens. I had two Oly MFT lenses and the kit lens on the GH2, and those produced moire as well. Sold them. I hope with these lenses there will be no moire on the BMPCC: Kowa 8.5/f2,8/T3.0 (announced for early 2014 at ~600€) SLR 12mm Voigtlander 17,5 mm Voigtlander 25 mm

It was in the 'shot with BMPCC' group. Obviously by mistake.

I know. But it's comparable to reducing 12-bit to 8-bit through grading. And it's even more comparable to grading for Hollywood-blockbusters, where the intentional reduction of tonal values makes the remaining ones more 'powerful and loud':

You don't disagree. What I say is, that the consumer end of distribution is and will remain small, portable and compressed to the limit, both in the audio world as in the video world. For music, uncompressed audio to work with was always affordable. CD and DVD-Audio didn't last, because the quality of mp3 was sufficient for the customers. Until recently, less compressed video was not affordable. Now it is, but that doesn't change the 8-bit 4:2:0 compression we finally watch the video in ourselves, let alone the standards of the average audience. We compress 12-bit to 8-bit, deliberately (and because nothing else makes sense, unless we produce DCPs) and imho that's comparable to audio compression in pop music. I am not an audiophile either, but I believe a recording of Beethovens 7th symphony will lose much more detail as mp3 than, say, a song by Pink. What looks like high dynamic range is really lowest possible dynamic range and making the triangle (the coin in the shadow) as loud as the trumpet (the grey rock in the sun).