Policar

He's right. Read the C300 white papers. I forget the details, but what it boils down to is that the 1920X1080 red pixels, 1920X1080 blue pixels, and one set of the two sets of 1920X1080 green pixels are added together as if they were stacked on top of each other (they're not, but close enough). The last set of green pixels is used for noise reduction or oversampling the first set of green pixels. Or something. So the 1080p image is derived from 3840X2160 pixels, and all the pixels are used to construct it, but there's never a UHD image anywhere in the pipeline because there's no debayering that takes place. There is UHD raw but it's processed directly to 1080p. This might be why the image is exceptionally sharp, like a Foveon image, but also why there's some aliasing in red and blue fabrics and some people feel the image is over-sharpened. If your clients demand 4k, get a 4k camera. If they don't, don't get one. The best buy is whatever offers the best return on investment, whether that return is financial (as a pro) or in enjoyment (as a hobbyist). What makes the decision hard is when you're something in between. What hobbyists admire most about a Red camera–the ability to construct and process an image with no internal noise reduction in high bitrate raw–is what makes it super obnoxious to pros and expensive for producers because of the added time to do that work... The question is: do you want to do the extra work because it's a hobby you enjoy or are you paying, out of your own time or someone else's, to do the extra work? If you're somewhere in between the two, what matters most to you? If I had a 4k tv I might be more inclined to buy a 4k camera, for instance, even if my clients didn't request it. Notice all the Reds being used on low budget music videos? And all the Canons being used on high end corporate? Corporate pays a lot better than music videos. It's a lot less fun. I'm a very big fan of Canon and Arri, but that's just one opinion.

How much would you want for them?

Compressed air/a rocket blower, kim wipes, and panchro spray (possibly just 95% isopropyl alcohol) applied to the wipe but not the lens, followed by condensation from breath applied directly to the lens (blowing on the lens) and more kim wipes, always starting at the center and cleaning in spirals outward, is how I clean my lenses. Not sure if this is different for older coatings, but it is what I was taught when I AC'ed and it seems to work well.

You aren't the only one who feels this way. Others have just give up on posting dissenting opinions because of how exhausting it can be defending them when, ultimately, they're just opinions, not critiques of others' taste. But no one likes rain on their parade. Birdman was fun. But generally Inarritu isn't my taste, either.

Still trying to figure out how to get this working but it's really promising. Might be useful! Reds stay a little too magenta and I have some issues that might just be white balance–but they match really closely overall. Only issue is the gamma curve seems close but the black and white clip points definitely aren't right. And while I tried to set that when generating the LUT I had to change it manually in Resolve in the curves, dragging 0 IRE to 10 IRE, 100 IRE to 95 IRE. The rest of the curve seems close. This is likely user error, my mistake. Colors are nicely desaturated as they roll off into the highlights, as they actually are in Log C. I think the Canon footage I'm working with is 2/3 stop underexposed. Surprisingly grainy and surprisingly good highlight detail, maybe a t stop f stop thing. Anyhow, very promising!

But this would't do a thing for gamma, would it? Just color... Still useful. You'd have to shoot the chart once under daylight and once under tungsten.

How do you do that? Would the match transform adjust both gamma and color? Gamma is quite different–annoyingly, Canon Log behaves badly compared with Log C–but color is definitely quite different in the reds and blues.

Does anyone have such a thing? Would be really useful.

I'm not sure what your opinion is, but fair enough.

Confused by what you mean by getting yourself to executives? No one I know who pitches on studio features even mentions camera... But obviously the crew is far more important than the equipment they were using and the cinematography is excellent here. Story is pretty bad, but there's a lot of excellent craft so if you see it check it out in theaters for sure. Then again I have never pitched on a studio feature. I have friends who have an have met with a number of a A list execs, but never witnessed the actual process. Just curious since I've been working with a lot of open gate Alexa footage lately and it has a very different look from this movie. Someone here said that only a small minority of the feature was shot on the 65 and if that's the case I want to know what parts because it fooled me. The low light stuff and some of the tighter coverage could have been open gate Alexa, but the steadicam moves and wides have a different feel and better tonality than the regular Alexa with flares and lens characteristics that do not appear similar to what I've seen from the Summilux lenses used on the standard Alexa body. The Alexa is also quite noisy in the shadows and the tonality they got from it here is better than expected. I know a lot of people who work at the company that produces Sharknado. Their goals are very different from what you'd think. The fact that their movies are even in the discussion is a victory. The company is very profitable and doesn't aim to be much else. Not a great point of comparison and also unfair to the crews they work with, some of which are quite good but limited by poor resources, restrictive network and studio notes, etc. It's not incompetent, it's just cynical.

I absolutely would if you offered such a disgusting and ignorant take on a subject I cared about. Come meet me. Except, he's a millennial. He's far from a peer. Who are you?

It's "successful" at being a movie... it should be for $60mil. Good production value, great photography, some good performances. How that makes it beyond reproach is beyond me. It's completely creatively dead in every respect but photography and the script and edit are just bad. Its politics and historical angle are incoherent, the whole subplot with his son is a mess, and the Malick worship, however visually accurate, is laughable, and pays off incoherently. It's a bad story poorly told and well photographed.

Congratulations on your bad taste and your sense of entitlement/superiority that somehow derives from it. [...] millennial. Anyone know how much was Alexa 65? The photography was breathtaking. Too bad about the script and edit.

Bad movie, looked great. Is it true most of it was not Alexa 65 and that was only used for a few establishing shots? The lens flares don't look like Summilux lens flares and I think that was their S35 set... to me most of the wide angle coverage and almost everything but some of the tighter shots and night time work looked like older rehoused hasselblads. Very impressive. If it is merely open gate 3.2k Alexa they really exposed and graded well, it looked better to me than that.

An easy rig is $3000.

This is true. The full sized Ronin isn't any more stable, but it has the bugs worked out and can handle a near-20lb rig. More importantly, it can handle a much larger camera. However, it ends up being much more expensive because at that weight you'll also need an Easy Rig. But if you have $5k to spend, the full sized Ronin (or a Movi) will be a better choice.

I had no problems at 5lbs. Recently rented one of mine to a feature and they flew an 8lb+ rig on it no problem. It is surprisingly difficult to balance some cameras. The cage is too small. dSLR form factors should be fine, but the C300 and 1DC are problematic with large lenses, especially once you introduce a wireless FF. (Which, of course, is fairly necessary–and raises the price substantially.) If you are having problems at 5lbs your problem is likely user error.

It's pretty heretical of me to make this claim–especially since I haven't tried the competition–but the Ronin M is absolutely where it's at for the price. It's so good. Just remember that because it's so cheap and ubiquitous, a lot of people own them and don't know how to use them well. It takes some skill to balance and operate, particularly to smooth out footsteps. It will never match the precision of a steadicam, except in dual operator mode, and that takes some serious skill. But for simpler shots without a lot of pan/tilt it's even steadier than a steadicam, particularly if you can figure out how to smooth out the Y axis.

My old job was mostly shooting C100 as a b camera for an Alexa on features. Occasionally shooting with an Alexa. Often grading the two to match. Also worked with 35mm, Red MX, C300, C500, Epic, F5, F55, F3, GH2, GH3, GH4, dSLR (including 5D RAW), black magic, A7S, etc., too, and intercut them in all sorts of ways. The external recorder eliminates macro blocking, which is surprising rare in well-lit footage. A dolly move through dense foliage will bring it out in AVCHD, but it takes a lot. At very high ISOs the C100 loses a stop of dynamic range in the shadows without the external recorder... too fuzzy and jumpy to be useable... and in prores it's noisy but looks pretty good and you can get most of it back with NR. But at base ISO the external recorder only matters for theatrical exhibition where even slight macroblocks might be visible or maybe green screening or if you're really futzing with your footage. I think the C100 Mk II splits the difference and handles shadows much better without the recorder, but the recorder isn't necessary. Never have problems with banding or color or chroma clipping or anything using reasonable settings. I'm sure you can dramatically underexpose and ruin your image or possibly overexpose a sky enough in Canon Log to get a little banding, but it's sort of a mystery to me that 8 bit images are stigmatized for banding. I never see it. With dSLRs I do. You need to learn to expose, though. The Alexa lets you underexpose a lot and you get a lot of noise (it's actually a really noisy camera, particularly balanced to tungsten) but it's sort of "film grain" noise. The C100 has almost as much shadow detail, but quite as much richness in the codec so you get better tonality by avoiding extreme underexposure, and you lose some of it in AVCHD anyway. The Alexa has almost unlimited highlight detail and that's where intercutting became a problem. You can shoot a 14+ stop scene with the Alexa.... Canon gives you 12 stops. And by default exposure that's all in the highlights where you see a difference. So if you're used to shooting with the Alexa or film it will be a problem and just blasting HMIs through sheers in windows won't roll off as nicely and you'll need to film with the Canon. It'll feel more "video" when it clips. That said, nothing (not the Dragon, not Sony, though they have better DR than Canon by a bit) comes close to the Alexa or film for highlight rendering... so unless you're spoiled by those you'll be fine but you don't have your 5/5 under/over that most DPs anticipate. Think more like 6/3 or something. Banding and "8 bit artifacts" are not a real problem with Canon Log or WideDR. They're a result of poorly implemented color space in dSLRs and Premiere being incompetent. I'm sure you can force the camera to exhibit banding. It takes effort, however, and it's pretty invisible. A few more tips since it seems you're interested in using it as an Alexa b cam. Shoot your wides on the Alexa if you have a super high DR scene and just zoom in tighter to avoid the highest contrast areas with the C100. Or use ND grads. Do use an external recorder when mixing the two and do shoot Canon Log (otherwise WideDR is easier IMO). With the weaker codec and even when shooting to an external recorder, overexpose a stop or two unless it means clipping. The Alexa can push two stops in post (it won't look good), but with the thinner AVCHD codec or even 8 bit prores you need to avoid underexposing. The Canon reds are a bit orange and blues a bit teal vs the Alexa color palette so use the hue vs hue window in Resolve and push those colors selectively to match, being careful to avoid changing skin tones, which are similar on both, and greens are similar, too. I can't upload the footage I shot since I don't own it, but the short answer is the external recorder is only useful for low light or vfx or if anticipating delivering a DCP. The compression artifacts in Canon's AVCHD are much less than vimeo or youtube will introduce on its own. If you like dual system sound, the lack of HDSDI is a problem, however.

DJI delivers as fast as Black Magic makes promises. Fear them or join them.

Do your clients ask for 4k? If not I would go with the C100. It sounds like you're going to love the C100. As regards image, it doesn't do anything particularly badly or particularly well. It's a safe bet. The color is really nice, though, and it makes people look good. Canon is second only to Arri in that respect, and arguably they handle skin tones even better. Very sharp, too. The learning curve is there, but fairly simple (mind your super whites and don't throw them out in post because highlight dynamic range is not super generous, use your waveform monitor, learn the focusing aids) and once you get past the learning curve, operating, even as a lone gun, becomes a transparent experience. Likewise in post, but I find skipping Canon Log entirely–unless you're shooting b cam for an Alexa shoot and really need the flexibility–and using WideDR keeps things really simple as you can forget about LUTs and the weird Canon pseudo-log (necessary for retaining tonality in 8 bit space and nicely executed, but like... annoying to grade compared with Log C) and just play with a low contrast rec709 image until it looks good. A lot of what people look for in hobbyist communities like this one or reduser is the ability to emulate what the pros do on a lower budget... sort of hunting out and mastering a complex workflow for the sake of mastering it or finding a weird hack or alternative. From an editor's perspective, its like using Avid on your short film just to use Avid... But, ironically, a lot of "pros" are after simplicity above all else, only they have more resources to draw on and can hire a great DP and a great colorist and they're picking people rather than gear and software... and wouldn't pick the same gear and software without access to those people–goodness knows I wouldn't want to work with an Alexa unless I had enough people in camera department to support it. Canon's baked in look and pineapple form factor does a lot of that work for you... it's less flexible, it's less fun, but it's reliable and looks great consistently. And if you don't have Company 3-level skill set and two ACs and a loader, well, you can't really afford to use a more convoluted workflow and complex camera unless you have a LOT of time (or very little work)... The C100 is a safe investment. If you want to tell a story or shoot a doc without a big crew but still get a good image it makes that experience way more transparent. That's also why it's unpopular on some online forums... if your hobby is in the intricacies of shooting and grading esoteric formats, a nice AVCHD image that can only take so much abuse in post but only really needs a little bit of abuse in the first place is... Boring. By which I mean, quick and painless. Great for business. Less fun for a hobbyist DP/colorist. (Really fun for a hobbyist director/DP, however, and perfect for pros without huge wallets.) I like the black magic camera if you have a lot of light and are shooting vfx plates because of the resolution and lack of skew. But it has even worse highlight roll off and I find the fixed pattern noise to be highly problematic above 400 ISO. Also rigging it is trickier... the only complaints I hear about C300s and C100s from a rigging perspective are from pro ACs, who are forced to rig the pineapple as though it were an Alexa. As regards rigging, all it needs is a lens (and an LCDVF if you get V1 and not Mk II).

Sony and Red push tech boundaries while Canon and Arri are very conservative. We saw how this played out on the dSLR field: Canon is losing marketshare to Sony. But Canon can hold higher margins and get away with it nevertheless. I'm very intrigued by the FS5. I mostly shoot content that I don't have the resources to grade properly and need a simple workflow for so Canon works extremely well. Arri works well, too, and lets you shoot log properly. Sony requires more inventiveness. But also a more flexible image for a lot less money. One pound and 240fps. Damn. With the right grade and right firmware updates you can do a lot. You'll also have to, unfortunately. For those who just want to tell their story–either hire a colorist or shoot Canon. For those who like engaging with the technical experience for a superior result... Sony is making leaps and bounds, especially with the A7SII. If the FS5 has fixed its bugs, likely that, too. I'm still a Canon/Arri guy, but hey, I work in post, and when I shoot, my ratios are really lush. FS5 and A7SII are very very tempting. But I'm broke.

What did you use for the grade? Resolve? Any LUTs or film convert? What grain? Looks very nice.

A lot of directors who start in theater are exceptionally good at blocking. Sometimes they don't know how to move the camera, though. Reading Sidney Lumet's book you get the impression he takes a pretty theatrical approach to blocking. It works. Polanski is great at blocking. Spielberg is the best in that he can block well and move the camera. Having a background in acting is great. Wish I had one! Just saying this isn't really a forum that's as concerned with performance so much as playing with toys. Nothing wrong with that, but there are better communities if you're interested in storytelling and performance.

On most sets I've been on the director wasn't worrying about lighting, plot (unless it was a writer/director), or producing so much as performance, blocking, coverage, storytelling, etc. Maybe I've been on the wrong sets.