Axel

[quote author=marike6 link=topic=849.msg6467#msg6467 date=1340583471] This sounds crazy but looking at the D3200 footage, I think it's crisper, and likely has better resolution than the 650D. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVq62xX9NE4 Don't know what kind of manual controls it has, but clearly Nikon is getting closer to producing a usable APS-C HDSLR camera. [/quote] Maybe. The sample doesn't tell. Resolution is not to be judged in a crisp looking, organic image. Don't take sharpness (also the amplified contrasts on the outlines) for resolution, it has nothing to do with it. Actually, the more artificial sharpening, the more line patterns appear and you realize poor resolution (If there had been a pan in the first shot with the white mug ...). Speaking of contrasts: They are way too strong in this clip, imho. A softer, more HDR-like grading would have been better. I won't be surprised if the shadows didn't hold much detail but were quite noisy, which was typical for Nikon video in the past. Owner of a few fast Nikon lenses, I hope you are right. BTW: To be precise: APS-C = crop x 1,6, Nikon-DX (for the D3200) = crop x 1,554

[quote author=Germy1979 link=topic=880.msg6437#msg6437 date=1340507506]When are you gonna post up an awesome vid from your fs-100!?  I'm interested in what you could do with that.  There's footage everywhere from it, but it's always the high shutter speed jittery stuff.  The right motion looks more filmic to me than resolution.  I'd like to see your take with the FS100. [/quote] I know it's OT here, but I join your request. At times I really miss the form factor of my former camcorders (Sony VX2000 and Canon XHA1). The FS100 seems to have some advantages over the whole DSLR shebang. Why are there no convincing clips on youtube? Also, I keep track of the ebay price development for the AG 101. Some got sold for only about 2000 €, body only. Now prices are going up. Could it be that the waiting for the perfect DSLR made peoples asses sore, and the unloved brick looked more and more reasonable? Especially when we take a glimpse at the progresses on the EOS front, as far as AF-capabilities and anti-moire are concerned: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE_rHgFzFpI

[quote author=markm link=topic=875.msg6343#msg6343 date=1340272385] Seemingly the GH2 does have clean HDMI out? http://atomos.activehosted.com/kb/article/input-sources/dslr-cameras/panasonic-gh2 Can this be true 8b it 4.2.2 or is there a catch? [/quote] No news. It's known to work, also before 1.1 The signal is progressive (although it says "1080i", same as the HBR-"i"), but it is 8bit, 4:2:0. [b]+[/b] > Beats all hacks, because better than uncompressed no se puede. [b]+[/b] > Backup [b]+[/b] > Good codec for editing and mastering, at least on a Mac (take ProResHQ) [b]-[/b] > Makes rig heavier [b]-[/b] > Difference between AVCHD and ProRes much, much smaller than expected (read [url=http://www.eoshd.com/comments/index.php/topic,534.msg3496.html#msg3496][color=red]this[/color][/url] posting), due not to the poor HDMI-signal, but to the advanced AVCHD (the A stands for advanced). [b]-[/b] > Doesn't help against banding [b]-[/b] > No audio out during recording [b]-[/b] > No EX Tele [b]-[/b] > Quite expensive

[quote author=Andrew Reid link=topic=869.msg6302#msg6302 date=1340185442] As for the 650D , the codec is not the weak point. I think the HDMI is an interlaced signal and it won't solve the moire or resolution issues - very unlikely to anyway. [/quote] Doesn't need to be a problem. The Sony EX3's output (via HD-SDI!) i.e. to a Samurai, also pretends to be "i", but only for some compatibility-thing, it still is progressive if you see the content of the frames. Same with the GH2. [quote author=Simco123 link=topic=869.msg6303#msg6303 date=1340186296]Why did Canon not mention clean HDMI? Maybe they don't consider it such a big deal given the small difference it made to colour space while Nikon trumped about it and some people were clearly duped. [/quote] The compression artifacts you have to deal with if you deal with compressed video are often misinterpreted. If with the 650D the datarate still is an average of 40 mbit/s, you don't have to fear a lot of those. What you then see as problems is from another cause, one which is not eliminated by uncompressed output. I think Canon is right, that clean HDMI out is not such a big deal. Other cameras have it long since, and therefore you hardly can sell it as a big thing.

[quote author=Mirrorkisser link=topic=862.msg6261#msg6261 date=1340089922]Edit: Alright, to add more confusion: the hack is 88Mbits while the card is able to produce 45MBs. So it should handle the hack fine right?[/quote] In theory. If the camera can exploit this capacity - which it can't. Someone explained it and I didn't understand the details, but you're right, a 45 MBs card should shovel up to 360 mbit/s and not stall at 88 mbit/s, so there you have the proof. I still have two inferior Transcent cards, class 10 though, but people made bad experiences. Me too, so I also bought the Sandisk. The Transcent is sufficient for Vanilla. For a medium bitrate - I believe it was about 70 mbit/s with GOP 3 - the [url=http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/2123/gh2-cake-v2.3-reliability-and-spanning-in-720p-hbr-24p-and-vmm-at-2-2.5x-stock-bit-rates/p1][color=red]Cake[/color][/url] - patch seems worth trying. Just now I shot a few minutes with V2.3, even on a cheap Transcent, and until now everythings seems okay. Looks good also.

How do you improve a little wonder? Cheap, light, customizable. How do you improve without destroying some of the good features? > ND? Nice. I would add 50 € to have it built-in. If not, I don't know. > Lighter? Why not? I would pay 100 € more (I also have an MTB that weighs only 9 kg, it's great!). > Smaller? No way. If it got smaller, considerably, I won't buy it at all. > Weather proof? 50 €. If it will be as sturdy as (as Letus used to say) "milled from one solid block of aluminium", 100 €. > HDMI out whilst using EX Tele? Daniel, you are right! It's a bug that needs to be fixed. Should'nt be charged extra. > Earphone jack? 50 €. > Bigger LCD? Okay. It's already announced to have better resolution. Not willing to pay extra. > Peaking? Pulling life focus through the EVF has become so intuitive for me, I don't need colored peaking (though I wrote to Panasonic and asked for it last autumn. They answered! They said, perhaps with the FW-update. So it must be simple. But, as you know, they didn't implement it). >AVC Intra 10bit? I (and everybody else in their right mind) would pay [i]at least[/i] 500 € more. It would be easy for Panasonic, because they developed the codec, and it's the coolest codec ever. BUT: For once I subscribe to the conspiracy theory, that the industry cripples their products intentionally the better not to lose the pro market. >1080 50/60p? 100 €. > Global shutter? 200 €. If you sum up all the things I would pay for extra, you get into another price class. If most of it was done in a new GH3 for below 1100 €, it would be just too good to be true. Literally.

[quote author=Mirrorkisser link=topic=827.msg6178#msg6178 date=1339937865] alright, i bought the hague mmc grip now. i hope it can take the gh2+rode video mic pro and a canon fd glass.[/quote] Hm, maybe too much. You don't happen to have the kit lens? That would be perfect @ 14mm & f4.0. Certainly without the external microphone. My review of the Hague is reliable because I have some experience with different systems and indeed I have a second GH2-rig in use: [img]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/57198583/Flycam2.jpg[/img] It's the U-Flycam, cheap indian system inspired by the ABC Handyman. It works. When you put it together, you need a minimum of ten minutes every time to find the proper balance. It is slightly more stable than the Hague - for a few minutes! Since it weighs about two kilos (with camera) and it's not a system supported by vest and spring-mounted arm you won't hold it any longer without shivering. People tell you otherwise, but this is my experience, and I go to the gym. With a lightweight system lens, the hague weighs below one kilo. The counterweight can be reduced, because the gimbal has a slight friction that makes the movements slower. Put a little quick release plate on top, and you are ready to shoot within seconds. That it supports only cameras up to 800 g should be believed (okay, maybe one kilo). [quote author=Mirrorkisser link=topic=827.msg6178#msg6178 date=1339937865]I have been watching some documentaries by Volker Koeppen lately and i noticed that the camera guy just shoots out of his hands without any assistance, it looks shaky sometimes, but it did not disturb me that much.  which just reminded me that the quest for the clean shot is pure bogus.[/quote] I saw a german TV doc "Nachtschicht" (Nightshift), you can watch it completely [url=http://www.n-joy.de/leben/nachtschicht165.html][color=red]here[/color][/url]. It was done with the GH2 and the Nokton 25mm. Pre-hack-era, no Andrew-Reid white-balance-shift. 720 50p. Handheld or stabilized by a light tripod as "rig" (Sound: Beachtek SLR, Sennheiser G3 radio mic). I like the way the people are made irrecognizable by the blur. Stable enough. And what is more, a little instability lets emotion move the frame. Did you see anything from Rodrigo Pietro, the DP of the Iñárritu films? That's it!

[quote author=Per Lichtman link=topic=848.msg6126#msg6126 date=1339791135] Axel, dealing with that level of extreme contrast is a normal part of my shooting. That is one of the reason I love doing HDR timelapse. :)[/quote] Yeah, HDR timelapse is filed under "art" in my own view. This is [i]Desparate Housewives[/i] lit by Caravaggio. All the DPs say, be authentic, be a person, feel what you light. The mundane suburbia with the smalltalking neighbours does not fit the big contrasts. Arguable. How can such a prominent show be uploaded out of synch? Do they not control the stuff before? I don't get it.

[quote author=Juggernaut link=topic=848.msg6117#msg6117 date=1339781316]The ungraded footage of the GH2 was very surprising - it looked massively underexposed, but with Driftwood's patch they managed to really get into it and pull it up amazingly well.[/quote] I think what the film shows is that the GH2 boys pumped some fill lights into the shadows and then underexposed everything. If your sensor can't read 14 stops, you have to scale the values in front of the lens to fit into 5 or 6 stops. With a high bitrate hack, the shadows have much less noise (possibly the only effect such a hack has). So the whole thing can be brightened a little, and the highlights look fine and the Epic looses one of it's three advantages (frame rates and image sizes remain). About the set-up: It may well mimic a real situation, but the extreme contrasts of outside and inside don't look natural to me. No?

@bloodycape The Zacuto "Revenge" road show is going on "in selected cinemas" these days, but the overall results have already been published: It's not the camera anymore, it's you! I contributed to a concert recording for multicam with my GH2 with a long lens on a tripod. There was a GoPro2 hidden behind the musicians. There was a mobile PMW EX3, but also instructed to film long shots with the good old zooms. There was one 550D and one 60D, both on shoulder rigs, to cover portrait shots. It was well planned. The good resolution cams for the wide shots, filming uninterrupted. The EOS for the beauty shots, with breaks to let the sensors cool. No problem at all to mix these sources in a multicam edit. The wedding you described also respects the particular strengths of the cameras. Nothing helps, of course, if the photographers are allowed to flash ...

[quote]And in what may prove to be the camera's biggest feature from the videographer's point of view, you can bypass video compression altogether by exporting uncompressed video footage from the camera's HDMI port. (...) Whether using HDMI-enabled output to record the highest possible quality footage or to simply use an external monitor as viewfinder, this is a feature we expect to become increasingly common.[/quote] Clever eyewash, I think. The "highest possible quality" turns out to be limited to the same video, just not yet compressed. And compression, though it has a bad reputation, is actually the most effective operation in the whole video recording process. There is no better color sampling, no other bit-depth (the codec of the external device doesn't add real information). [quote]Unfortunately, shooting uncompressed video really isn't as simple as it should be. You can only record in uncompressed mode with an external hard drive attached via HDMI, which makes perfect sense (the footage really is enormous) [color=red]but if a card is still in the camera, footage will be recorded in compressed mode, regardless of whether you have an external device attached[/color].[/quote] This is not true. HDMI is uncompressed per definition. Wikipedia: [quote]HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) is a compact audio/video interface for transferring [color=red]un[/color]compressed digital audio/video data from a HDMI-compliant device ("the source" or "input") to a compatible digital audio device, computer monitor, video projector, and digital television.[/quote] It is not uncompressed as a special feature for quality-aware semipros. Compression just happens afterwards. There is always the uncompressed information, but it isn't saved. The allegedly compressed output must be s.th. similar as the 5Ds switch to 480p during recording. Unusable, but still uncompressed. The main difference to the compression is of course intraframe. And: [quote]Another annoyance is the fact that by default, the D800/E's HDMI output includes exposure and focus information overlaid on the video output.[/quote] The "biggest feature" doesn't look so big anymore to me. That said, the compressed movs are good. Not a bad VDSLR.

Beautiful shots, kirk. Saw [i]In The Fog[/i] also. Didn't read it was Sweden first, but thought, hey, this could be Sweden. Why I thought so, though I have never been there? Must be through films.

DIY solutions with the Igus track as basis are well documented (as I have learned just now). Have a look at this timelapse, pseudo HDR footage: https://vimeo.com/16533808 You will find a lot of instructions via Google. Thanks, kirk!

[quote author=Mirrorkisser link=topic=827.msg5950#msg5950 date=1339363729]well i will continue on my quest for good dolly and tracking shots. do you use auto focus or smaller apertures (4+ for a bigger area in focus) with the hague grip? [/quote] I use AF (with Olympus 12mm). But doesn't help if the place is too dark, therefore the aperture too wide, therefore the focus too critical. With the right lens and sufficient lighting, you'd get everything sharp, with or without AF. With any steady-system you should practice. Download the Steadicam Merlin manual [url=http://www.tiffen.com/images/content/Merlin%20Manual%20Nov8_Lo.pdf][color=red]here[/color][/url] (right click safe as, pdf). It was partially written by the inventor of the Steadicam, Garrett Brown, who for instance worked for Stanley Kubrick on [i]The Shining[/i]. No matter what system with a gimbal and counterweight you buy or build, the principles apply to all of them (don't tilt while you "dolly", stay on the same level, learn the positions to best hold and control the camera [i]with both hands[/i] asf.). Sure, the small devices are too small and lightweight to really look like they were operated by a giant, and our skills of moving them will never reach those of Larry McConkey (the [i]Hugo Cabret[/i] scene above), but we needn't be ashamed to use Mercalli, Smoothcam, Warp Stabilizer and the like. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSoJ96ntYEI&NR=1 With the assistance of those, an already pretty steady shot won't need to be scaled too much to look perfect.

[quote author=Mirrorkisser link=topic=827.msg5947#msg5947 date=1339351400]can you do nice horizontal tracking shots with the hague grip? i mean Tarkovsky style for like 2 meters or more?[/quote] I am a big Tarkovsky fan too. The answer is yes and no. The smoothest dolly shots are obviously done with a dolly the size of a locomotive (or a [i]real[/i] locomotive?). But many of the well-known camera-movements in my favourite films are not so stable as I remembered them, among them the most memorable images. You know the girl whispering the prophecies at the "zone" in [i]Stalker[/i], where the camera half pans, half dollies above the muddy treasures of a - flooded floor? The shot is perfect - but not perfectly smooth. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPUyR3aFMJQ There are examples of absolutely mindblowing shots, but upon closer look it's not their elegance that makes them stand out, it's the artists vision. Very close to dolly shots are the majestic, always narrative pans in Tarkovskis films. Something only few people care enough about (because pans can be so boring if performed by amateurs). [quote author=Mirrorkisser link=topic=827.msg5947#msg5947 date=1339351400]the pico dolly works with the gh2, but you are always on a relatively low level height wise. what i like about it, is its portability.[/quote] You need two heavy lamp tripods with Manfrotto superclamps. Between them you can clamp any kind of board as a surface for the skateboard/pico. If it's inside a house, you surely can borrow a door.

[quote author=Mirrorkisser link=topic=827.msg5944#msg5944 date=1339336964] thanks for your post kirk. sounds relatively easy to build. do you think a rather ungifted person in handcraftship can build such a thing? @axel: i was looking a bit deeper into the pico flex dolly. do you think it can hold a gh2 or canon 5d? [/quote] I use to assist a friend of mine who shoots music videos. He has an actual dolly (Stu Maschwitz: "If you can ride it, it's a dolly" - a slider can't be controlled to the same extent), self-built, but quite big. I never tried to build a slider (though a few dollies, none successful). The only solution that seems to work is the wooden plate - [i]two[/i] plates screwed as sandwich for stability - on skateboard-wheels that run on plastic tubes as rails). Impromptu slider, not looking sophisticated: The camera on a heavy pelicase that sits on a velvet cushion can glide perfectly on a smooth and even surface. Since I am not Scorsese, I enhance my Hague's stability with the warp stabilizer occasionally.

The french/german channel ARTE had a shoulder rig with a clever follow-focus solution combined: https://vimeo.com/39065279 Also check the vimeo-channel for the other creative devices (or the "ARTE Mediathek", and here "Trick17", if you need a german translation). ARTE is always closer to Lumière and Méliès than to Zacuto stuff, and the clips look funny and unprofessional. However, the ideas can be followed and pimped ("newest shit"): https://vimeo.com/43200226 There also are DIY-suggestions for jibs, steadycams and many funny cinematographic engines, that can really be used (but look like something from Nemos Nautilus, as Jules Verne described it). The most simple DIY stabilizer is a bar with two grips (also described in The DV Rebel's Guide), self-explanatory, looks s.th. like this: [img]http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2557/3847442714_a937d31df1_z.jpg[/img]

I own, owned and rented quite a few different stabilization systems. Now I own the Hague MMC, which is similar to all the similar looking devices on the market, and it works. Don't expect the shots look like those: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhEOa82KL_c ... but what is shown in the demos really works: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_F-L7hZo10 EDIT: You should have a wide angle lens for this. With the kit lens, stay at 14mm, use AFC with center focus field. As for the skateboard: Good idea. But a [url=http://www.google.de/imgres?q=Pico+dolly&hl=de&sa=X&biw=1920&bih=944&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=FchIROE5V5jqLM:&imgrefurl=http://www.ephotoinc.com/pico-flex-skater-dolly-dslr-camera.html&docid=lQjlI9BBgiEjSM&imgurl=http://imgs.inkfrog.com/pix/rr8747/pico_flex_dolly_4.jpg&w=600&h=300&ei=mGzUT9C0MJDU4QSnu7T-Ag&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=529&vpy=317&dur=298&hovh=159&hovw=318&tx=190&ty=101&sig=108061027616659538085&page=1&tbnh=92&tbnw=184&start=0&ndsp=45&ved=1t:429,r:11,s:0,i:105][color=red]Pico Flex dolly[/color][/url] isn't too expensive either. You might consider. Stu Maschwitz, author of The DV Rebel's Guide, always has good ideas for indie filmmakers. Buy the book. Read his blog (http://prolost.com). In the said blog there once was a terrific trick (link broken), but I found the corresponding video on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqPX0gH2id0

You are referring to page 42 "It can also be assigned to a programmable button on the camera body." I think you are right. Also, the function is not in the Quick-menu. You could combine it with a C1-C3, but I don't recommend it. My advice is to get used to monitor the histogram, which also shows clipping (only not the specific parts of the image, but these shouldn't be hard to find). The histogram can be manually dragged to the least distracting position (i.e. bottom right corner), and in case you don't want it to be displayed permanently, you can access it in the Quick-menu.

[quote author=HurtinMinorKey link=topic=800.msg5863#msg5863 date=1338919234] Were they static test shots? Unless I am mistaken, the extra detail should only be noticeable when you have a of elements changing frame to frame.[/quote] This is what the video engineers tell us. You need to "stress the encoder". A lot of random detail, movement, wind in the foliage, raindrops, pans where no pixel stays in place. This was demanded of the set-up. But there is a second theory, connected directly to the situations where the patches shine. What if an image seems so [u]simple[/u] that the original firmware's bitrate gets too low to describe very fine differences in shadows? The engineers tell us, no, this is not the case. However, to me it seems obvious that when I find compression artifacts in a clip that uses only 16 mbps of 24 mbps, this could after all be a point. It will also be tested.

In the popular german site [i]slashCam[/i] someone finally set up the ultimate test in a thread called [i]The Naked Truth About The GH2 Hacks[/i]. He mounted two identical GH2s with identical lenses (Nokton 25mm) and identical settings on a rig. There were only two differences: 1. The slight parallax, comparable to that of the two human eyes. He could have used a 3D rig to avoid this, but he didn't have one. 2. One GH2 had standard FW 1.1, one had Quantum v9b. He had a hard time comparing cropped parts of the test shots. [u]There is no more detail[/u]. If there could be a small difference, it was dubious if for the worse or the better. Only at extreme lowlight, the shadows of the unhacked camera were filled with more colored noise that looked worse in motion and made grading difficult. This noise didn't disappear in the Quantum clips though, it just became finer and looked better. The screenshots were ambiguous, but he promised to upload original files for everyone to compare. > Unless you don't use to shoot at night: Unhack! It is ridiculous to state that all people who experience problems with hacked GH2s (are "let down") are all in the wrong because they used the wrong cards or didn't swipe them properly. If Magic Lantern had so many failure reports as the GH2 hacks ... > Use a hack only, if you make short, instantly controllable takes. Don't rely on a hacked Lumix if you are in the situation. Get yourself a second body to switch faster. > I have lengthy recordings of a two hour concert, filmed with only the 29'59" restriction removed (for the same reason, reliability). It looks phantastic, and if I told anyone of the fundamentalists at personal view that it was an Intra-hack, they had believed it. > Next step in the test series is, with what patch and at which bitrate the postive effect described above will be distinguishable. I am curious for the results and will link the thread then (you can translate it with Google, funny read), stay tuned!

The reasons why so many clips from the Scarlet don't look so good: > the images need to be graded, and only few people [i]can[/i] grade. > not the camera is responsible for a good film, it's the operator, a truism. The Scarlet probably has as many enthusiastic believers as the GH2s fan community, a company with solid financial background would rather choose the Epic. > there are carefully composed images (as there had been for millenniums) and there are careless "test shots" ("Either you care - or you don't", Stanley Kubrick answered Nicole Kidman to the question, why some takes were repeated 50 times). You can get tired of the latter. The reasons why a GH2 can win against (or at least measure up to) a big fat Epic: https://vimeo.com/36254775 > the GH2's resolution at 720p (used for slomo) is asgoodasitgets. Downsampled higher resolutions (i.e. for the above vimeo comparison) result in lower resolutions, maths (resolution is NOT the amount of pixels!). > the "eye" (the perception of images) forgives lack of detail. Before a difference in resolutions strucks the "eye", the difference needs to be big, a leap (i.e. 480i > 720p > 1080p > 4k, and those need to be real numbers!). > the undeniable advantages of the Red don't show in common resolutions. Better color depth and -sampling apply to big spaces, big compared to the field of vision. You can't zoom a 720p film too much, and it's normal size won't show problems. If the competitors in the Zacuto revenge shootout for the GH2 were wise, they used the good spatial resolution to hide the bad color resolution. A lot of fine structures, no big and almost evenly colored spaces. A kind of dither-effect is probably also responsible for the better acceptance of Driftwood's hacks, since former comparisons already disproved that there is an increase of resolution. As of now, the FS700 neither has 4k nor a better codec, and nobody knows when or if this will come or how good it will be. What we see now looks good because it's honest, and the FS700 is a top 1080p camera. 4k - if at all - is good for cinema.

Thank you!

@yellow You really seem to know what you are talking about. But once you know typical situations when banding occurs, you can see it in the viewfinder [i]during recording[/i]. There is a fail-safe way to produce banding: Film a fluorescent light on a wall (best at night, when this is the only light), the falloff, the gradient, move the camera up and down. So there [i]is[/i] this problem, and it's not (only) caused by QT, the GPU or a badly calibrated monitor. If you detect during filming, you can change the lighting or the framing and avoid it. [quote author=yellow link=topic=786.msg5696#msg5696 date=1338151253]It is possible to 'improve' any videos you have suffering banding, where there are no MTS files any longer to redo the project by using a debanding filter and gradient rebuilding dithering tool, again Avisynth based plugins with noise reduction -> debanding -> gradient rebuilding at 16bit -> Adding encoder friendly dithering back to 8bit before reencoding. [/quote] Sounds very good. I didn't know about the possibility to "deband" in post. So there is another reason to use Bootcamp, not just the Ptool. Do you recommend Avanti as GUI?

[quote author=npa201 link=topic=786.msg5688#msg5688 date=1338130052]What is interesting is when I initially set up my camera I set up all video record to Smooth with I think Sharpness, and Saturation to -2 and Noise Reduction to -2 as well.  I guess I just shot these when it was just really beautiful out and it caused these issues.[/quote] Hey, you did it right the first time! With high values the banding would have been [i]worse[/i] then. Solace: With more experience, banding will become very rare! [quote author=npa201 link=topic=786.msg5688#msg5688 date=1338130052]And I will also try out the filter as well.[/quote] I have it, but I seldom use it. Why? Because indoors, the contrast is seldom a problem. And outdoors I rather have the ND on and either film > completely in the shadow or > completely in the sun, where I try to capture not too many shadows.   [quote author=npa201 link=topic=786.msg5688#msg5688 date=1338130052]Do you think that using any other software like Final Cut Pro (or express) would help improve the output?  Are there good grading tools in it (iMovie really lacks here).[/quote] FCE (no longer available) used the AIC as well, no difference. FCP Studio used ProRes and had 32-bit floating point color rendering in [i]Color[/i]. FCP X also (inexpensive, but you need a lot of RAM to let it run stable). Improve? If you want to start color grading in earnest, yes. But no software erases banding. [quote author=npa201 link=topic=786.msg5688#msg5688 date=1338130052]Also, when taking photography I've been advised to underexpose and then pull shadows later on.  Would you suggest the opposite with shooting video and slightly overexpose and just deal with blown highlights?[/quote] No, you should [i]never[/i] overexpose. You can underexpose *slightly* by watching the histogram in the display/EVF. On the right side, no value may be cut off! Later on, in iMovie, you may find the clips a little too dark. You can adjust the video by very subtly rising the exposure value (not the brightness). You can grip the right and the left handle of the histogram there and adjust whites and blacks. What is the difference to the bigger applications? iMovie calculates with the 256 integer numbers, the others use the places after the decimal point and only round the results at the very end. If you perform ONE operation in iMovie, the very end is reached, what you see is what you get, and there will be no difference. If you change a second value, the calculation is made on top of the first change, cutting off [i]a lot[/i] of original data already and, after even more changes, possibly resulting in banding and artifacts. It seems you have a good eye. Your exposure looks perfect. If you always work like this, you could very well save the money for a new software.