jcs

In the DSLR and consumer/mid-pro video space Canon has the best color science and it's reflected in their sales. The ultimate camera for consumers might be a Sony sensor, Canon color science, and Apple product design and GUI. As noted in the post in the 5D4 thread, Sony can match and exceed Canon (and ARRI) in color science if they want to (F55 matching Alexa, F65 exceeding it). This is cool because we know we've got options if Canon isn't able to provide solutions we're looking for. The 1DC is a fantastic camera- it was priced at $12K and stayed there for a long time. There wasn't really any competition for what it offered. That's now changing, and thus the price drop. I have not used a 1DC, however the 5D3 also has Canon's color science. The 5D3 is currently the best value in pro-level DSLRs for stills (Nikon Dxxx are also pretty good). During still photoshoots, after we're done working with the 5D3, I'll take a few shots with the A7S and Canon lenses. Out of the camera Canon images look superior: much better skin tones and color. Talent always loves the look. The right amount of saturation in the mids (skin tones), nice highlights, shadows, etc. The A7S also looks nice, but must be tweaked in post to look great. In very low light, the A7S passes the 5D3 with better noise behavior (much less fixed pattern noise). I would expect the 1DC to exceed the 5D3 and it looks like it does in noise processing: reduced grain and artifacts. Cameras and lenses are our paint brushes and canvas- to create art, to inspire, to communicate. To capture and transmit emotion, to tell a story. Each tool will have a different effect on the art created, a different emotion. Many times when discussing tools we get trapped in logic, sometimes illusion, and emotion goes the wrong way while being ignored. The energy of our emotions propagates to others- do we feel better when we help each other? When we learn new things without our ego blinding us? At the end of our lives, what do we look back and think about changing? Sharing knowledge with others, helping others, making them laugh, entertaining them, or something else?

Given the 1DC price drop, it would appear Canon may be about to release a new 4K DSLR. Everyone on this forum would love to see a 4K 5D4(k). Having a high-end FF still camera combined with 4K and great color science in a single camera is very appealing. Especially if one has invested heavily in EF lenses. Sony and Panasonic have listened to us and given us great new cameras: the A7S and GH4. We have responded by buying them- lots of them. If Canon doesn't want our money, no sweat. The A7S II will likely have 4K internal, less rolling shutter, improved autofocus (perhaps with 'fancy pixels'), and improved color science (and possibly even IBIS). Case in point: if Sony can make the F55 match Alexa with a software upgrade (perhaps only with LUTs), and when the F65 beats Alexa at the high end in color science, it's clear Sony can 'bring it' with color science to the consumer market if they want to. The A7S can already closely match the 5D3 (RAW) with a bit of work with camera set up and post adjustments. A software update can make color processing more foolproof (as in the case of Canon cameras: tuned to make skin tones look good with little effort). While Sony's ergonomics and software GUI's are market trailing (I'm sure some folks at Apple are looking for new challenges and career opportunities!), their sensors are market leading. It would be cool to see the Alexa 65 compared to the F65 (65 vs 65). I was curious why Netflix went with the F55 for Marco Polo, which didn't look very good in the first episode but got better looking as time went on. I understand different teams were used, perhaps Sony provided support as well. Why would they use the F55 over the Alexa? With budgets shrinking, it appears to be more value for the dollar. Once it was clear the F55 could match the Alexa in a skin tone test: http://www.hingsberg.com/index.php/2014/06/f55-matches-arri-alexas-color/, and the F65 can exceed the Alexa in overall color (Oblivion & Lucy), it became clear Sony is in the position to take the lead from Canon and ARRI. Rumors of Canon using Sony sensors for the 5Dx, if true, would further the trend. Nikon is already using Sony sensors. Black Magic and Red also provide interesting options. For the types of shoots most of us do, a highly compressed, high quality codec which can be edited in real-time is ideal. Again, Sony leads here with 422 10-bit XAVC and 420 8-bit XAVC-S. These are simply marketing names for different flavors of the H.264 standard- nothing proprietary. H.264 also supports 444 up to 14-bits (the Hi444P spec). With high-quality hardware debayering in-camera (or a non-Bayer sensor) and Hi444p (perhaps even just Hi422P), there's no practical advantage to RAW or ProRes for most applications using modern computers. GPU power keeps increasing- any advantage to ProRes in terms of decoding is rapidly going away (ProRes is a marketing name for 10/12-bit 422/444 MJPEG). Someday we'll have great 'all around cameras'. For now, grab the 5Dx or Nikon Dxxx for stills (even the A7S for extreme low light), and any of a number of great cameras for video.

2 F35s? Along with a half-silvered mirror you can shoot 3D!

2k RAW does alias- really best for slomo only.

How about an 18-135 T1.5 zoom? That should make everybody happy (except perhaps the size, weight, and price ). The ARRI/Fujinon 18-80 T2.6 is about $20k used and looks fantastic. 5 $2k primes are $10k; a fast zoom in the price range that competes with the Fujinon in the same way the proposed primes would compete with Cooke makes sense. Zooms save time and money on set and also provide cool zoom effects such as the Dolly Zoom.

http://shotonwhat.com/?s=F35 http://shotonwhat.com/?s=Alexa

http://provideocoalition.com/f/story/adobe-premiere-pro-and-multiple-gpus OpenCL and AMD about 2x slower than NVIDIA with CUDA: http://ppbm7.com/index.php/tweakers-page/92-what-video-card-to-use

joema- H.264 decode and encode can be substantially GPU accelerated. In Premiere, there is a significant speedup when using Mercury GPU acceleration for playback and rendering/transcoding. ProRes is effectively 422/444 10/12-bit MJPEG and it too can be substantially GPU accelerated (especially the DCT). The MBP has an nVidia GPU, the iMac Retina an AMD GPU. nVidia GPUs are generally faster for video processing- that could explain a difference between iMac and MBP. Additionally, in my tests OpenCL is typically 2x slower than CUDA (not clear what FCPX is using internally, would guess OpenCL). The iMac Retina's GPU is much more powerful: http://www.game-debate.com/gpu/index.php?gid=2258&gid2=1715&compare=radeon-r9-m295x-4gb-vs-geforce-gt-750m-2gb-gddr5, however drivers and video processing (vs. games) can make a big difference in real-world performance. If FCPX is using CUDA (in addition to OpenCL, depending on what hardware is available), that could explain a performance difference in favor of the slower hardware. My 12-Core 2.93GHz 2010 MacPro with a Macvidcards modded PC version GTX770 is very fast for video, including 4K and only slows down with complex operations (really driver issues and Premiere GPU pipeline issues. FCPX also runs very fast, though only used for small projects and experiments. Faster hardware, such as the GTX970/980 (tested in Windows), doesn't make a significant difference. Now that the GTX980 Macvidcards version is available, I'll probably switch to it, if only for the lower power requirements. If doing video on the new MacPro, it would probably make sense to purchase an external PCIe case and install an nVidia GPU (or two if using Resolve (full version)).

Sure, different cameras, different lens, different brushes & paint. The camera we have with us most of the time- on our phones. We can shoot now with decent quality any time, anywhere (low light is tricky, but works well using the LED when up close). Great practice and sometimes useful for picking up shots for more elaborate shoots when we don't have a higher-end camera on hand. I have Filmic Pro though haven't used it much. For anything that requires high quality, I use a different camera. I don't have any anamorphic lenses- the $160 lens for the iPhone could be interesting to experiment with.

Agreed using a smart phone can be a marketing angle, though it won't make any difference unless the film is good. More info about the film here: http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/28/7925023/sundance-film-festival-2015-tangerine-iphone-5s . I've used the iPhone 5S for outdoor and well-lit shots (including slow motion) cut with much higher end cameras. It's a useful tool and takes excellent video with nice skin tones at 1080p. While folks (in LA at least) are catching on to DSLR video, the iPhone is still useful for guerrilla shots (folks don't think it's for anything professional). In the future, lightfield or similar sensors will be high enough quality to provide adjustable shallow DOF with quality that rivals full frame. And the ability to adjust DOF in post!

http://nofilmschool.com/2015/01/feature-film-blew-everyone-away-sundance-shot-on-iphone Another example of a compelling story is what makes a film. They did use high-end audio gear: Sound Devices 664, lavs, and boom mics (well over $5K in gear). Doing something great with a popular, low cost camera is an interesting marketing angle, similar to the Bentley ad shot & edited on iPhone and iPad (in a Bentley). If you ever wanted to try anamorphic shooting for low cost and you have an iPhone 5S, $160 for the moondoglabs adapter looks pretty cool: http://www.moondoglabs.com/store/#!/1-33X-Anamorphic-Adapter-for-iPhone-5-5S/p/39381552/category=8525657.

It appears Cooke's imperfections help create their magic: https://www.hurlbutvisuals.com/blog/2014/03/why-do-we-want-flat-glass/ .

Product Design & Looks Regarding products not doing well because of looks, when looks don't effect the product's performance: Steve Jobs was so into perceived quality that he made sure that even the circuit boards were elegantly designed. While later his obsession with perfection became costly, it's clear that things that look good sell better: Apple has dominated product design and sales for some time. Regarding the look of cameras- it's human nature to be attracted to beauty. Perhaps it should be no surprise that the ARRI Alexa has dominated at the high end- sexy name and attractive camera design (and very easy to use). Sony is notoriously bad at software design, user interface design, and camera usability. However, their technology is many times the best in the industry. If Sony added cognitive engineering to it's engineering staff and also hired top product designers (for style and emotion), their products would do much better. Apple isn't perfect- sometimes they dumb down designs too far; Sony and other manufacturers could compete much better by understanding what Apple does right & wrong and take the good but skip the bad. Blindly copying designs is a bad idea for many reasons (and costly re: Samsung). For high-end cameras, ARRI has found a good balance. What's more appealing, emotionally, F65 or Alexa? Even tech nerd DPs/directors are influenced by art and emotion. Good to see Luc & team focused on image quality: Lucy looks great (and so does Oblivion). Anyone notice: Lucy = Luc + y? Bicolor LED Lights Found this but does not appear available for sale: http://www.newsshooter.com/2011/08/25/birtv-2011-brightcast-bi-colour-led-battery-powered-ringlight/. This looks decent (Hong Kong): http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Menik-LH-600A-36W-600pcs-Bi-color-Macro-LED-Ring-Flash-Bi-color-light-with-Flash/905451_2038189427.html ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/171406755289?lpid=82&chn=ps http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/171349208874?lpid=82&chn=ps​ Note that bicolor LEDs have about 1/2 the light of single color LEDs. So a 600 LED bicolor has about the same light output as a 300 LED single color (most designs don't run both LEDs at max (blend between them)). Advantages of Ring Lights LED ring lights/flashes have been very popular for years in still photography. They create a nice eye light reflection, and help produce shots with minimized shadows. I picked up the F&V R300 a while ago: have been using it as a general purpose light but not on camera yet. Thinking about the physics of photons originating near the lens, it makes sense that shadows will be greatly reduced, especially if the ring light is the dominant light (will test this shortly). When used up close, I would expect very little shadows for the face- which is like having near-perfect ambient lighting. I added the F&V 'milk' diffuser: the light is easier to look at. Makes sense Luc used a ring light all the time: very cost effective and simple way to get even lighting for the face.

Great article: https://community.sony.com/sony/attachments/sony/large-sensor-camera-F65/523/2/Lucy_Special_Report.pdf The Canon 5D (Mark III?) was used in some action shots (would guess RAW but they didn't say). Alexa and Red also used for some shots. The real reason the F65 hasn't been used much before Lucy: it's ugly! The camera body, not the images it produces. Since Luc Besson chose the F65 for Lucy, it's become a lot more popular! Luc operated the camera himself (except steadicam shots), using the Fujinon Alura 18-80 T2.8 zoom. Cook S4's were used on the second F65 (they bought two for the film). An on-camera ring light was used for most of the shots. F&V makes a nice one for $199: http://www.fvlighting.com/118150010201.html. It looks like the top camera for color and skin tones may now be the F65. If Sony puts their next top-of-the-line camera in a prettier body (along with a 4:3 sensor to allow shooting anamorphic without cropping), ARRI will have some competition! If history is an indicator, this technology will trickle down to consumer cameras in the future.

At which point 12-bit ProRes 444 is available, the only advantage of RAW would be more detail/less artifacts (where RAW is 12-bits as with the FS700). At 4K the slight detail advantage for RAW is moot unless delivering and viewing in 4K. 2K RAW is significantly softer than 4K downsampled to 2K. 2K RAW makes sense for continuous 240fps slomo. Are there tests showing 12-bit RAW providing more DR than 10-bit ProRes with Log encoding? Otherwise, if 4K isn't needed, consider the 4K to HD ProRes option.

​If one is on a limited budget and uses a Mac, definitely get FCPX ($299). If one also wants to do visual effects, consider Hitfilm ($299). Also consider Apple Motion ($49). For ultra low budget, Resolve Lite is free and can do basic cuts, crossfades, and titles. Resolve Lite is of course also stellar for color correction/grading. If one can afford Adobe's subscription model, add Premiere (and Photoshop, After Effects, Audition, Illustrator, etc.). Free trials are available too. Beyond cost, NLEs are really personal, depending on how you like to work. There is no one right way- the best way for you is usually the solution in which you can work the most efficiently with the least headaches, focusing on creativity vs. solving tool issues.

The closest you can get is 50fps: Go to Menu/Wrench-Symbol/System Frequency (page 5/6), set 50Hz (PAL), then power cycle camera.Go to Menu/Camera-Symbol/Rec Quality and select FHD 100M | 50p.Record footage- slow steady pans are helpful to judge motion cadence.In your NLE, create a new sequence/timeline at 50fps.Add 50p clips and render to check motion (a fast computer+GPU can render in real-time smoothly. If not fast enough, render to disk).Premiere Pro, for example, doesn't support a 48fps sequence. 50fps is the closest. if your goal is to get exactly 48fps playback a la 'The Hobbit', you can render out the 50p sequence and bring into After Effects (or similar tool), and Conform to 48fps and using Audition, rate stretch with pitch preservation the audio to match the video. If your goal is 2x slomo, you can place the 50fps clip in a 24fps sequence and set Speed/Duration to 24/50 = 48% (you can also preserve pitch; Audition/Pro Tools etc. have better audio quality vs. Premiere Pro). Enabling Frame Blend might also help. Check slow pans to see if motion cadence is acceptable. You can do 2.5x slomo by shooting at 60p and dropping the clip into a 24fps sequence, setting Speed/Duration to 24/60 = 40%. 60p also provides audio on the GH4 (when not using VFR mode). So you can switch between audio at normal speed and slomo at will in post (and either preserve pitch or not for audio).

FS700 + O7Q, FS7? Both cameras can provide a 1.1x crop in 4K (SpeedBooster), the 4K has more real detail than the 1DC, XLR pro audio, tons of fastmo/slomo options, built in NDs, etc. The FS700+O7Q can also do 12-bit RAW, including bursts of 120fps 4K, continuous 2K RAW (up to 240fps), and very high quality 4K and 1080p ProRes (10-bit 422). The FS7 does up to 180fps in 422 10-bit XAVC (1080p), up to 60fps 4K. It also supports ProRes and RAW with the interface unit (extra bulk, but worth it for some productions). The 1DC is only 8-bit with a 1.3x crop, no XLR audio, no 4K slomo, and very large files with an ancient codec. For faster turn-around, Canon has the best look out of camera- looks the most filmic, etc. However, once the camera is understood, it's possible to do whatever you want in post for a filmic look using 3D LUTs, Filmconvert, from-scratch in Resolve/SpeedGrade, etc. ARRI/Canon produce the best looks with the least effort so far, however Sony is catching up. Here the F55 matches the Alexa: http://www.hingsberg.com/index.php/2014/06/f55-matches-arri-alexas-color/ Sony cameras do indeed take a bit more research and work in post, but once figured out, do very well against ARRI/Canon, along with many more useful features. At which point the FS7 can closely match the Alexa in post, it will deserve the top spot on any list which includes cameras in the $8000 range. Things will get interesting when Canon releases a new camera to compete in this space. If they follow their traditional business model, they'll leave out critical features provided by Sony/Panasonic, and thus leave the door open for Sony/Panasonic (and now perhaps Samsung) to get their out-of-camera color science for skin tones closer to Canon (Nikon is also doing well here). Sony's F65 can look better than Alexa in terms of color, including skin tones (not clear how much work that takes in post). Examples: Oblivion and Lucy. If the F55 can match the Alexa for skin tones using just software (in the test above, I was surprised that the F55 looked better to me), it's clear that the A7S/FS700/FS7 can look even better than they do now with firmware+LUTs-in-post. After many hours of testing the cameras side by side, it's clear that the A7S's sensor (and even the FS700's) are superior to Canon's sensor in the 5D3 (apparent even when using RAW). If the 5D4 has 4K and a decent codec (422 10-bit), at least 60p slomo, it will be very appealing to be able to use Canon lenses without adapters (and hopefully with high-quality autofocus- extremely helpful in many situations, especially 4K shooting of dynamic scenes). If Canon drops the ball, there's now lots of other compelling options for video. For stills, the 5D3 is currently the best for the money.

​Right on Jon- it looks great now! Way to go on the camera test- all camera tests should have a story! I've seen timing bugs in PPro in the past (causing stutter); haven't see it in a while. Would be curious what caused the stutter once you find out.

In AE if you import CDNG's as a sequence, ACR will apply the changes to all the frames. However, you may want to open a preferred frame first in PS, apply ACR settings, save those settings as a preset, then when ACR is open in AE load the preset. When you render out your composition from AE, all the frames will be processed. Make sure you have Multiprocessing enabled in AE (faster). The method sam mentioned also works: http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=5683.msg43962#msg43962 This will work only with AE. Unfortunately PPro doesn't use ACR (though it can load CDNG sequences directly).

24-105 F4L and 70-200 F2.8L II. I've heard good things about the Tamron 24-70 F2.8 VC.

​Hey Oliver, it looks like Adobe fixed that issue: http://noamkroll.com/adobe-premiere-pro-vs-final-cut-pro-x-round-2-h264-compression-update/ FCPX is indeed a cool editing app, I use it from time to time (along with Motion- also excellent and 'underrated') to see how far it has come along. One reason I still use Premiere is it provides a lot more control for audio editing (prefer doing as much as possible in one app vs. round tripping to Audition, Protools, etc.). The other reason is Premiere also runs on Windows (where for the most part it runs faster (but not always- a recent project required finishing in OSX as the NVidia drivers had freezing issues in Windows). Regarding another way to solve the banding problem- ffmpeg could be used to transcode MJPEG to ProRes 444 10-bit. While Resolve 11 is mostly GPU accelerated, it's not clear if the MJPEG decoder and/or ProRes encoder are GPU accelerated (would guess they are using standard libraries/licensed, etc. and perhaps are not GPU accelerated). I recently complied ffmpeg for the first time (to get 10-bit 422 support for H.264), and if there's interest in custom software tools to help with production (with features not available in existing products), I'm open to suggestions to potentially develop them. Andrew- could you post a very short 1DC clip which has the banding issue so I can run some tests?

The A7S performs different processing for live view in stills mode vs. movie mode. Colors also shift. Recommend shooting video in movie mode, especially if using an external monitor (no HDMI reset at record start/stop as with stills mode).

Can't find any specs for SLR Magic in terms of F-stop, only T (transmission number), guessing it's F2.0? In 4K and 2.3 crop, a 10mm F2.0 lens is equivalent to a 23mm F4.6 on full frame. Not too shabby, and not particularly shallow DOF. The Voigtlander 10mm F.95 is 23mm and F2.2 equivalent- much tastier for shallow DOF. I have the Voigtlander 25mm F.95 and love the look on the GH4. The fact that the lens isn't super sharp wide open really helps the GH4 look more filmic (without needing to add a filter (which will affect highlights, etc., something that blurring in post can't match. Also, noise grain on soft image looks different than blurred noise grain in post)). The specs for the SLR Magic F.95 25mm CINE II look very similar to the Voigtlander. Is SLR Magic using the same lenses/internals as Voigtlander for that lens?

The Grand Budapest Hotel had so much excellent camera work that I purchased it to study. Great story, acting, pacing, art direction, music too! Haven't seen Birdman- heard it was great, will watch it soon.