Axel

[quote name='moebius22' timestamp='1343891562' post='14819'] Putting a hood on a swivel screen looks risky. [/quote] Soft leather, velcroed. Not much weight on the hinge or what do you mean? I am sure (own bad luck) that with external monitors much more cameras are destroyed. Rather sooner than later you accidentally hit against or draw at the HDMI cable and the jack is hurt.

Edelkrone (german for [i]noble crown[/i], sounds like a cheap beer) was formerly known as handyfilmtools, a turkish company. They are trustworthy and their design ideas are good. The clip about the pocket rig made many buy it. Most of them are satisfied, but also there are complaints about the manufacture quality. If you don't want to spent too much money for rigs, I recommend a few, some DIY: The pistol grip with a universal quick release plate, see my avatar. [img]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/57198583/Griff1.jpg[/img] You hold the GH2 like a Super 8 camera. You hold the grip with your right hand and press it to your eye (works without rubber eyepiece - this one indeed from an old Super 8 - but might cause some pain then and not in harsh sunlight). No shakes. Your left hand operates the focus, better than with any follow focus gear. Costs below 40 €, mainly for the plate. Weighs 170 g. Then I recommend the lightweight and small Hague MMC (ebay). Use it with another quick release unit, and you will have it balanced within a few seconds every time. Add this JJC lcd sunhood (~16 €): [img]http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Bt71FILZL._SL500_AA300_.jpg[/img] Hague, QRU, sunhood make ~130 €. This stabilizer works best with wide angles and preferably autofocus (i.e. kit lens, I use the Olympus 12mm). For a shoulder rig, use aluminium parts. This rig is made from spare parts (among others two rack blinds), and the three things I [i]bought[/i] were again the quick release unit, the foam rubber for the shoulder pad and the bicycle grip coating (~40 €): [img]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/57198583/Audio-Rig.jpg[/img] [img]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/57198583/Polster-1.jpg[/img] You [i]could[/i] built a rig for an external monitor, but what would that be good for? As tripod, I have the Sachtler Ace, which really gives you the most bang for the buck. Much cheaper tripods also do, but *if* you want to do perfect pans, they won't suffice. Imho, pans are almost as amateurish as zooms, but sometimes people know how to use them. Andrew Reid is one of those. His pans are porno. Of course, on the Ace, there is another quick release unit. No more screws.

I guess you could add another compromise by unscrewing your ND fader partly to have a four-in-one-solution (the usual 3-ND-filter-set plus a pol). I don't know why, but I experienced weird looking vignettes especially when shooting raw photos. They changed their appearance when I developed them.

[quote name='akiesels' timestamp='1343793930' post='14769'] Looking good, Andrew! Powerful imagery, as always. Bold move to shoot in direct midday sunlight without scrims/bounce cards. Most cameras can't deal with that much dynamic range ;-)[/quote] I don't know. Midday sunlight doesn't make so long shadows. Or allows to film shoulder-height with the sun as backlight as in the shot at 00:17. There may be some shots that were [i]not[/i] filmed in the evening. Much dynamic range I can't detect. I only see midtone definition, typical for shooting with an ND, underexposing slightly and raising the gamma in post. The right thing to do, but no demonstration of the FS100's special fitness for the kind of magic cinematography we are Andrews fans for. [quote name='akiesels' timestamp='1343793930' post='14769']Can you elaborate why a rotating lens front poses an issue with the fader? I have been using the new LCW Fader ND Digi-Pro HD with older Nikon zooms (non-G). Unlike Canon, these have manual aperture rings, so no need for an expensive Metabones adapter. But the front on the Nikon zoom rotates and, while this is annoying since you have to feel around for the the fader's dial handle, it does not seem to affect the image quality in any way. [/quote] I just checked it with my Heliopan Vari ND. Rotating the whole filter (before the eye) doesn't change the brightness. But things do look different. Must be because an ND fader is two pol filters rotating.

[quote name='AdR' timestamp='1343782074' post='14766'] @alexander, how did you measure GH2 footage and get 16-235? When I check it, I see 16-255, which gives it the same problems as the Sony. [/quote] AdR & alexander, how do you measure GH2 (or any) footage and get to ("when I check it") the values you found?

⌘7 opens the videoscopes window. In the dropdown menu choose the >Waveform >Luma (this could be your standard videoscope, FCP always displays your latest choice on next start). This shows you a "scientific" representation of what's there. The legal parts live between 0 and 100, what is called broadcast range. Being the uppity DSLR freshmen we are, we dismiss this shit, and "bring the values into the range". You should not believe in any 8% rule, this is just changing one ancestral wisdom for the next. You should color correct using the exposure window and the balls for highlights and shadows whilst watching the lines in the waveforms. What I guess from the questions about any ominous workflow, there seems to be some insecurity of what acutally should be done. Don't be too scientific. You do this for a better looking image, so please trust your eyes! What is suspected by the lovers of 5D2RGB is that Quicktime cuts of values because it misinterprets the ranges. With 5D2RGB you can manually override the broadcast flags and choose full range for any footage. FCP X can edit all your footage natively. Of course, you really should have Lion (wait a few weeks before upgrading to 10.8, Mountain Lion, there seem to be sum bugs still) to complete the AV-Foundation framework. There you can easily judge for yourself, if a file from your own camera is treated better with 5D2RGB (download the lite-version, it's free) than as original or transcoded by FCP X to optimized media (ProRes as well). With material from 7D and GH2 I found there was nothing lost (judged by the waveform) with any of the methods. If you feel better then, buy the batch-ability of 5D2RGB and check [i]full range[/i] before you hit [i]convert. [/i]Note, that the values now do not fit into 0-100 in the other direction: The lowest values don't touch zero, the highest (even if clearly flatline-clipped) don't touch one hundred. Left to my own devices, I would interpret this as an actually [i]narrowed[/i] range, as baked-in false values.

[quote name='EOSHD' timestamp='1343651529' post='14721'] Not the individual MTS, you have to have the whole folder structure intact and open that in Quicktime with a double click. [/quote] With the "[url="https://eww.pass.panasonic.co.jp/pro-av/support/desk/e/download.htm#avccamip"]Panasonic AVCCAM importer plugin[/url]" (a plugin for Quicktime), QT plays back AVCHD from Panasonic cameras (like GH2) and (as QT7 Pro) exports conversions. Mpeg Streamclip then also does this, useful for batch-conversions. Also, if you open a folder full of mts-files, after a few moments thumbnails of the clips are created, they can be browsed with coverflow asf. This is particularly handy for comparing originals to ProRes-converted copies, because with QT-player you can have them run side by side.

[quote name='HurtinMinorKey' timestamp='1343661696' post='14723']Everthing is expected to look good, the margins between good and great are thinner than ever, and[color=#ff0000] it's almost impossable to show people something they haven't seen before.[/color] Holding all other elements of production equal, 99% of your audience won't care(or be able to tell) what type of camera you used. [/quote] Paul Schrader once wrote an essay about "narrative exhaustion". This is not because every story has already been told. Every story [i]has[/i] been told - one way or other. Some say there are about 200 stories that are only varied, some say only 50. Those who read [i]The Golden Bough[/i] (or the storyteller's variation of it, [i]The Hero With A Thousand Faces[/i]) know, that it is only [i]one[/i]. There were no fresh themes, no controversies, no taboos in our lives? We wouldn't feel estranged by any social development, we were not afraid of anything anymore? We were not tired of the perpetual attempts to overwhelm us, our spirits were not numb to the point where we can't tell where the phantom pain comes from? We never felt anger, frustration or a sudden nameless urgency to fucking [i]do[/i] something? We are completely superimposable with John Doe (the guy the entertainment industry figures we must be), perfectly happy having chosen the blue pill? No abyss in our souls, no longing? Only scratching together all little money and all the rest of energy to pay the bribe for the doorman, that is: waiting forever for the day the doors open for us, but fearing the moment, because there might be nothing behind them? Tell me that you don't go to the movies, munch nachos and think: Wow, to shoot a Batman film of my own would make all my dreams come true. Please tell me!

[quote name='galenb' timestamp='1343596437' post='14709']I happen to be very impressed with GH2 footage I've seen. In fact, the GH2 is the camera that made me think, "Okay, now I have no more excuses for not making my own films." But the GH2 certainly doesn't compete with film. But I don't really see that as the point though. [/quote] That's what I think as well. The point is not, that Coppola, should he decide to shoot [i]Apocalypse Again[/i], would say, friends, we are going to the jungle, leave your cumbersome old film cameras at home, we put on a Lumix each and be done for. And whether Christopher Nolan should go on using film despite the high quality of our amateur equipment - is that our business? Where our views diverge is in your transition we can't compete now [color=#ff0000]but[/color] soon: [quote name='galenb' timestamp='1343551432' post='14696']Com'on people! :-D I really hope no one actually thinks film is going to be replaced by a $800 micro 4/3 camera? Okay so film kills GH2 but what about RED and Alexa? And really, we may not have the technology to make a movie that looks better then film right now [color=#ff0000]but just wait. In a few years...[/color] [color=#222222][font='Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif][size=4][background=rgb(255, 255, 255)] [/quote] This is the excuse ("Okay, now I have no more excuses for not making my own films.") not to express ourselves using what we have. Hollywood is like an army with helicopters, napalm, predator drones and everything, all aimed at our hearts, and we have only smartphones. What is the smart thing to do? Use our phones as clubs against the enemy cause that's the appropriate answer? Do I actually think that film is going to be replaced by an $800 Lumix? No, but my conclusion is not, give up, but stop caring about things you can't influence. What Hollywood is not particularly good at, is expressing my, Axels, views. I know how video looks on big screens. Neither do I dream of competing with [i]The Dark Knight[/i] aesthetically, nor do I care about Gotham. Today all talk regarding poor video quality really is lamenting on a high comfort level. Never before were the means to deliver [i]sufficient[/i] quality for cinema so affordable. Don't look at the aesthetics too close.[/background][/size][/font][/color]

[quote name='tony wilson' timestamp='1343563466' post='14701'] today in the post modern world we have nasa technology but intellectually,spiritually and aesthetically we are going back to the stone age. [/quote] You hit the nail on the head. Watch this: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ38CcJ-2vw[/media] It's 1964, that means film, of course (could also fit in the Christopher-Nolan-is-a-demented-analog-fundamentalist-thread). It's somewhere between a "test" and a fragment, the film never got finished. Here the trailer for the documentation about the film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF8q_7hGEYU

The images of video cameras affordable for the common people have always been improved. S-VHS was better than VHS, Hi8 and DV were better, HDV was better. Many said about the HVX 200 (below 1k resolution with pixel shift), now the era of indie filmmakers was just around the corner. And it was. Timeless principle. The con- and prosumers are too stupid to realize that they can't win the race if they accept the industry's rules. 4k? Haven't you heard (read andy lees posting above), that these resolution tags are buzzwords to fool the consumers? If your display was 4k and you watched your own 4k stuff on it, you didn't move closer, because the video lacked the true resolution in the second place. And it looked terrible in the first place, because it neither had color resolution nor color depth suitable for a BIG image. You think all this will change with the BM? It will, but in incremental steps (including the fact that you have to monitor the better quality, did you think about that?). At the time every hobby dad has 4k raw, the aestethic standards of cinema will be higher again. All this without mentioning makeup, constumes, good acting, good sets, good lighting, good sound design, music ...

[quote name='galenb' timestamp='1343551432' post='14696'] Red, Alexa, C300, these are just the prelude to what will come soon enough. I really feel like all it will take is just the right mix of 4K full-frame with a wider dynamic range. I mean, doesn't it seem like that's just around the corner?[/quote] You took the words right out of my mouth! An acceptable technique is always and forever [i]just around the corner[/i]. Do you know Franz Kafkas [i]Before The Law[/i]? Here is the summary, cited from Wiki: [i]A man from the country seeks the law and wishes to gain entry to the law through a doorway. The doorkeeper tells the man that he cannot go through at the present time. The man asks if he can ever go through, and the doorkeeper says that it is possible. The man waits by the door for years, bribing the doorkeeper with everything he has. The doorkeeper accepts the bribes, but tells the man that he accepts them "so that you do not think you have failed to do anything." The man did not attempt to murder or hurt the doorkeeper to gain the law, but waits at the door until he is about to die. Right before his death, he asks the doorkeeper why even though everyone seeks the law, no one else has come in all the years. The doorkeeper answers "No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made only for you. I am now going to shut it.[/i] [quote name='galenb' timestamp='1343551432' post='14696']Oh, and you guys should watch the [url="http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/sidebyside/"]SIDE BY SIDE trailer[/url]. [/quote] In which George Lucas says a damn stupid thing: [i]The digital process democratizes the whole thing. [/i] No way! How films are to be made was written by God. We need to follow the old paths forever. But then: What could you expect from the producer of [i]Howard The Duck[/i]?

[i]Star Wars[/i] had two more all-dominant contributors. For the much underrated production design, this was Ralph McQuarrie. Without his paintings, long before anything was storyboarded, let alone built, the movie would have been [i]only[/i] the naive B-picture it actually is. [img]http://collider.com/wp-content/uploads/ralph-mcquarrie-star-wars-4-600x341.jpg[/img] It is important to stress, that the look & message of a film can be determined at this early stage. The artist paints a few key moments of the plot, without any respect to their logical function. And to their practicability. In the mid-seventies, the image above meant either an absurdly expensive giant set of the kind Ken Adams designed for the James Bond movies (usually the villain's headquarter) - or a much simplified trick that would betray the artist's vision and had no production value. At this point, a few trend-setting decisions were made, and this might be due to George Lucas and his biggest achievement. Everyone of the technical staff had to become a special effects specialist. Every technique available then had to be used to transfer the pure visions without any compromises to film. In this example the actors were surrounded by a matte painting, one of the oldest tricks of cinema and faithful to the way McQuarrie conceived it. Today, of course, it would be much more easy to do this, and the camera could actually [i]move[/i]. The second big plus for the impact the final film had was John Williams music. It was rich, something between a russian like Mussorgsky and Wagner. I was impressed as a kid, but today I hate this symphonic kitsch. [img]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/57198583/Tarkin.jpg[/img] [i]LOTR [/i]also needs the phantastic score by Howard Shore. He really composed a symphony, with themes that move you and transport a vision. It picks up many old traditions and evocates timeless values (as knightliness). Just imagine the production diary above without the music ...

[quote name='rjett' timestamp='1343420566' post='14649'] I too would like a translation of "the fix" for FCP X. We would be very grateful. Thanks, Richard Jett [/quote] Apparently there is a misinterpretation for the Sony NEX cameras, no problem for EOS or GH2, neither in Premiere nor old or new FC. yellow said it in the first 5D2RGB- Thread, and I think it is true for NEX also: [color=#222222][font='Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif][size=4][background=rgb(255, 255, 255)] [quote name='yellow' timestamp='1341272770' post='13363']But as mentioned previously if using a 32bit float NLE then there's really no need to transcode and squeeze levels, just grade in the NLE or a levels mapping, all the data will be there outside of the 16 - 235 range just the preview will appear crushed and clipped as the 'proper' range for 8bit playback is 16 - 235 ... [/quote][/background][/size][/font][/color]

This is really impressing. Yet, we need to see pattern tests. Moire coming from downscaled 2,5k? Wait, when did I recently see a 2,5k video? As we know, moire is the tip of the iceberg. And there was something in the first "Graded Screen Grabs" that was repeated here: Noise. And not very decent, watch the red chair between 6 and 13 seconds. The first seconds could have been the vimeo compression, unable to deal with the subtle pattern on the velvet as the camera pans over it. The last seconds are classic mosquito noise, a busy swarm. You criticize that the clip tries to look like film? Aren't we all looking for a camera that at least doesn't look desperately like [i]video[/i]? We [i]wanted[/i] something sexy like this, and Brawley, one of the new league of the unofficially sponsored camera tester professionals, gives it to us, and just tries to satisfy us a little bit too anxiously ...

[quote name='Jaskair' timestamp='1343371169' post='14597'] I use GH2 and edit with FCX. Like the workflow so much, not going for Premiere. Does the same clipping problem occur there? If yes, does it make any difference if I import (inside FCX) the AVCHD files from card > to ProRes ... or use some other conversion before importing to FCX? [/quote] I recommend the optimize media option during import (don't know if it is actually called so, I translate from german). You get ProRes then. This ProRes is identical in every respect (also in the exact bitrate and file size) to the ProRes 5D2RGB produces with the "709 Broadcast Range" activated. No wonder, since 5D2RGB doesn't provide a new encoder, it is primarily a new GUI for QT, with some options added. So in a way the suspicion that QT harms the footage is right. And wrong at the same time. You color correct anyway, don't you? And the finally exported clips look the same however you proceeded before.

These are not exactly new "problems". Stu Maschwitz describes the limiting of values (that is cutting off blacks and whites) in his [i]DV Rebel[/i], and for DV, hence the name. I didn't understand why, it has to do with broadcast safety or what have you.The "fix" is quite simple: In your NLE (not limited to Premiere or FCP) open the luma waveform monitor. This should have a y-axis from 0 to 100. Lower the highlights until they all are crumbled under the "100"-line (some of them will go to 110 or so) and you'll get better defined whites, raise the shadows to "0", but not higher or you will get fog. Do all this with 32-bit floating point precision. [color=#ff0000]Premiere[/color] shows you the quality of any filter as an icon right to the filter's name in the list, it is something like a folder with "32" in the middle. The [i]fast color corrector[/i] i.e. has it. Never use just one effect without the 32bit-icon! [color=#ff0000]FCP7[/color] does [i]not[/i] show you if a filter uses 8-bit or 32-bit. There is this [url="http://documentation.apple.com/en/finalcutpro/usermanual/index.html#chapter=65%26section=2%26tasks=true"]list[/url], however, and there you see the little ¹ that indicates 32-bit-filters, the Color-Correctors are among them. As you can see, there are also many, many effects without 32-bit rendering. Don't use them. Let these things be done by Motion (where you change the bit depths in the projects properties, as in After Effects). In [color=#ff0000]FCP X[/color] grading is not only completely done with highest precision, it is also no longer an effect, but just the always available [i]info[/i] of the clip - just never, never, never use the secret analyzing, auto-balancing and autocorrecting method FCP X offers you when you import media! I tried the different settings of 5D2RGB, I tried ordinary Quicktime (did you know, that there is no gammashift in Quicktime anymore since Lion?), I tried .mov (7D) and .mts (GH2) as originals in Premiere, and I didn't find any permanent damage to the footage with any of the methods - as long as you do the contrast balancing described above manually and don't just hit [i]auto balance[/i]. 5D2RGB is useful though for FCP X, because you may not have Cinema Tools, that allowed you to flag a clip with a different frame rate (within Premiere you right-click >[i]interpret footage[/i] and change the frame rate). During transcoding 5D2RGB can change 60p to 23,98p or whatever .EDIT: My friend says, if you work for television, you are not to twiddle with the settings. Broadcast safe values were there for a reason.

[quote name='MOONGOAT' timestamp='1343282620' post='14535'] Reserve judgement. [/quote] Yes. Within a greenscreen hell, everything looks depressingly technical and clean. A good friend of mine is a production designer. She worked as draughtsperson for David Cronenbergs [i]A Dangerous Method.[/i] The studio filming was done on a big soundstage in Cologne. I often gave her a ride and saw the sets. Nothing spectacular, if you see the final film, but I still have a plank from the gangway Freud and Jung passed to embark their ship to New York. Not wood, painted plaster. But looking more convincing than any real wood ever could. This is something I find very fascinating. Cinema is about the meaning of things, or, to say with Freud, it's NOT about the cigar! Things that don't resonate in your soul don't make it to the final frame. This has nothing to do with reality, and it has nothing to do with pixel counting or frames-per-second-counting (although the different look of motion over time may have an influence on how we perceive fiction, we'll see). There is a beautiful behind-the-scenes clip of [i]You The Living[/i]. It demonstrates how film is "only" make believe: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK661yswOF4[/media]

[quote name='Chrad' timestamp='1343270782' post='14526'] The resolution of this film is going to be lower than that of the great 65mm epics, which look fine.[/quote] Oh no! The resolution of a 70mm film was better than that of a 35mm film, but with the old techniques (which I love like others love old locomotives) 35mm delivered a lower resolution to the eye of the viewer than 1k. WAY lower! Don't you remember the times when television meant 480i for NTSC countries, which is still WAY lower than 480p, and you went to the cinema and didn't have the sensation of a particularly brilliant image? Despite the fact that the old screens were smaller in comparison to the auditorium? Modern projection technique is much improved, but still can't reach digital cinema. 70mm would be in the ballpark of modern 2k, IMAX a little better, but certainly WAY below real 4k. But 4k doesn't change the look and feel of a film. Only few notice any difference, because resolution is quantitative. To see the limits of 2k being exceeded you'd need to sit so close to the screen, that the proportions get distorted, and people never choose those places voluntarily.

[quote name='jonjak2' timestamp='1343134939' post='14417'] Can you point me to an example of something you've done that is digitally shot and looks like film? Very curious because this all comes down to what 'film' looks like to you. [/quote] How would you compare it? Youtube? Positive examples for digital in it's own right and dignity are the latest films of David Fincher. The photography in Stanley Kubricks latest film, [i]Eyes Wide Shut[/i], is a good example of how the tissue of the canvas and the brushwork shine through. A good example, because Kubrick certainly tried to get the imagery as clean as possible, despite the extreme low light concept. Note, how the high speed graininess increases the depth of field! I am sure, if Kubrick lived, he would have been an early adopter of digital cameras. I liked the look of Jesse James, but I am not sure how much of it is purely analog and how much digital post. I like the films of Christopher Nolan, but I think his insistence of analog recording is a luxury that's still affordable. This will change. Film is dying. Wave goodbye.

[quote name='jonjak2' timestamp='1343119715' post='14400']Your point about sets becoming more realistic in the future, this is actually what the [i]problem[/i] is. Everything is becoming more realistic. But film has a dream like, distant, mysterious quality to it.[/quote] This has more to do with the attitude the artist has to his work than with the technique used. But you are right: If you fail to win over your audience, you fail.

@ andy lee Thank you. I knew this before, but this lecture is a compact way of explaining it. [quote name='sfrancis928' timestamp='1343091904' post='14384'] Uh, film had been around for many many decades before those films were made. Good digital hasn't been around for long, and it's still getting better. I'm sure time (and not much of it) will give us digital films that (subjectively) match the beauty of those films.[/quote] Audiovisuals (to avoid saying [i]film[/i]) are not live. You can't experience them [i]unplugged[/i]. Right now what we are talking about is akin to the feel of a real life instrument causing the air to swing. All the imperfections of analog film - as well as it's desirable characteristics - will soon be mimicked digitally. But how long will we go on comparing film to video, when film no longer exists? And it won't exist much longer, because the costs for providing the stock and keeping the laboratories running will rise exponentially. Five years from now, we will add simulation of film stock, grain and lower frame rates as effects in the same way as we add rumble, tube amplifier sound asf. to completely digitally mixed pop music. These filters will then not be considered old school but cheap tricks.* *EDIT: Cinema is itself a cheap trick, in the origins, when it was a fairground sensation, and now, when you put on the 3D glasses. Christopher Nolan made a film about cinema (as I understand it): [i]Prestige[/i]. Magic works by making the audience believe, and all the techniques that Nolans magicians invent need not be real. In fact, a real teletransportation device can be outsmarted by ... (won't spoil).

Good thread! [quote name='moebius22' timestamp='1343018220' post='14334'] [i]There Will be Blood[/i] is one of those movies you either love or hate. [i]No Country for Old Men[/i] had a retarded ending in my opinion. The Cohen's are gifted film makers but their output as of late (apart from [i]No Country[/i]) has been lacking in my opinion compared to earlier work.[/quote] When I left the cinema after [i]There Will Be Blood [/i]I was sure my heartbeat could be heard by the others and my face was hot. Therefore I was mildly shocked that many in the audience disliked the film. A group of intellectuals compared Daniel Day Lewis to James Finlayson, the favorite victim of Laurels & Hardys slapstick brawls. [img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/ca/JamesFinlaysonPublicityHeadshot.jpg[/img] What you say about [i]one of those films[/i] hits the mark. [i]Enter The Void[/i] and [i]The Tree Of Life[/i] belong in this category. If everybody likes it, it may be entertaining and solid workmanship, but hardly great art. I found another thing to be true with those films: You [i]must[/i] see them in a cinema. And if you [i]can't[/i] see them there, make your home a cinema. Make the screen / the TV panel as big as possible, move close to the image. Dim the lights. Turn up the volume. Turn off the phones. And psychologically? Be open for a new experience. [quote name='jonjak2' timestamp='1342994911' post='14319']If you look at a well lit shot/scene on film, and then the same shot scene on the GH2 (with adjustments for highlights/shadows), the differences are far from subtle to me. The GH2 does not look like film under any circumstances. Can it look cinematic and fool you into thinking it's 'filmic' with the right lighting/lenses and all that stuff? Yes. But as the Zacuto Shootout showed, it's base image really looked videoey and pretty nasty, at least that's what i felt. Compared to film it isn't remotely in the same ballpark.[/quote] I would have had to drive roughly 400 km to see a screening of the Zacuto Shootout. But I think I know what you mean. The problem is not resolution. andy lee above knows what he is talking about obviously, he may also be a projectionist (who else keeps frames of different film formats?). Resolution is overrated. Fresh owners of the Red Scarlett complained that the comparison should have been in 4k, and the GH2 (among others) would have lost immediately. I wish them the best luck in producing such a blockbuster, that only the biggest screens are booked for their film, because 98% of all digital cinemas project 2k - and will continue doing so. The problem is not dynamic range. An image of real HDR would look rather flat on a device capable of reproducing all the shades. Hollywood always grades, which means reducing tones to express something. The set up of the Zacuto scene wasn't right for that. The problem is 8-bit. I saw a lot of my own videos as DCPs on big screens, and I know. No problem on a small screen, no problem at home on an 8-bit display. How does 8-bit affect the quality of an image? This is not easy to describe, because it deals with aesthetics. Like how you would explain how interlaced video compares to progressive video. But I try. With a motif like a multi-colored sunset you point to the glory of the colors. There is no such glory with 8-bit. 8-bit is almost enough to [i]represent[/i] the natural colors, but they look dead. In a way comparable to SD resolution. When there only was standard resolution, we were not aware of anything missing. There was exactly enough detail to inform us about all that mattered to the scene we watched on our old tv set. HD was an extra. It doesn't tell us anything more, but it [i]is[/i] more. [quote name='jonjak2' timestamp='1342950645' post='14303']'Care' will never make a GH2 look like film.[/quote] No. If I only had one or other 35mm camera on the shelf, enough cans of film stock, enough chemicals to develop the film and everything! Your sentence implies, that film right now can look better than digital. It will be surpassed by digital in the not-so-distant future. And once we realize that we need to overcome film, we can as well embrace new characteristics. The main thing is - everywhere! - if we care.

[quote name='jonjak2' timestamp='1342950645' post='14303'] My point is about the basic aesthetic features of film. 'Care' will never make a GH2 look like film. People compare digital to film because film has a particular aesthetic quality that is currently unmatched by digital, the same way artists may prefer particular paints, and so on.[/quote] I understand this. Perhaps it is too early. We had the same discussion with analog photography. Some fifteen years ago I lost my former job in a photo laboratory where I made enlargements in the darkroom. I went on developing my own photos for a while because the look was better. I also follow the discussions about 48p. I even kept defending 24p as the more cinematic frame rate. Actually I believe these things will some day be just history.

Shooting with film does'nt make Nolan a purist. His films need digital post to a very high percentage. He is like the cook who insists on shooting the deer with bow and arrow and then nuking the roast and adding flavor enhancer. As a successful director, he has the means and anyway the right to make his films the way he fancies best. This includes ignoring almost all traditional rules of filmmaking, as this clip demonstrates: [media]http://vimeo.com/28792404#at=0[/media] If anyone sees Nolan as exemplary, he should consider this aspect. To all those who are attracted by the "chaos theory" above, I recommend the famous Odessa steps scene (youtube keywords) by Eisenstein, which is accepted as one of the first masterpieces of dramatic editing. How many rules are broken there? Answer: Every Rule. I wrote this before: When cinema was invented, the absence of rules made people inventive and pushed their creativity. Now we have a freedom from technical restrictions as never before, but still we compare the look of the images to that of analog film. It is the [u]care[/u] that is invested in big screen cinematography that makes it different from amateurish stuff, not "film".