QuickHitRecord

For those who are curious, here's my 16mm B&H footage. It has been stretched and graded slightly. No sharpening or window treatments whatsoever. The panning is to show distortion and falloff: Granted, I had to cut some corners to get here. I added a wide angle converter to the mix to get close to an S35 35mm equivalent while cropping in ML raw to 1344x1008 (I usually work with this crop). And this isn't a 50mm f/1.4 taking lens either. I find that the best taking lens for the B&H is the Olympus Zuiko 100mm on my 5D3 because it's so small and manageable. This combination gives me a neat 47.6mm S35 field of view (close enough to 50mm for me). Adding my new Sony VCL-HG0758 Wide Angle Converter brings me down to 33.33mm (S35). To answer Rich's questions as best I can: Can they deliver this field of view/dof combination? Yes, but only with a Wide Angle Converter. Can they deliver the above without adding CA or softening at f1.4? I haven't tried it at f1.4, but it's pleasantly soft at f2.8. Can they do this on a full frame sensor? See above. Can they do this without adding vignette? See above. Can they provide this without the need for additional support? I would recommend using a support. As a former Iscorama owner, I am still pleased as punch with this lens. I love the 2x stretch and with the modification I did, it rack focuses easily. There's no additional glass elements in front of the lens to worry about unless I need to attach the the wide angle converter. It's a pretty nice lens.

I think that this is a good idea, Rich. I'll throw my B&H into the ring if I can get the math right (and the appropriate wide angle adapter).

What is the mAh capacity of the batteries? How long will they last while recording video? Is the camera outputting 10-bit 4:2:2 via HDMI?

Incidentally, I just watched an in-depth presentation on camera ergonomics (presented by Sony about a year ago) that is worth a look: As a former FS100 owner and frequent C100 user, I think that Sony got it right with the FS7. Not only does the spec sheet check all of the boxes, but the ergonomics looks just about right.

I'd love to see a photo of this setup if you can swing it. Nice results so far.

Well, the full frame part isn't possible. But I'm squeezing >1080P raw out of a 2-year-old 5D right now, and whoever thought that would happen? Olympus has no premium video-oriented camera sales to cannibalize, so we'll see what they can offer.

Link?

I am not discrediting you, John. I am trying to remind you that it was not all take and no give from me. If you want to get into semantics, I did not discover the 16mm B&H. In fact, I would not be surprised if some of the people who designed the lens are still alive today. Certainly some of the old-school projectionists and collectors of such things are aware of its properties as well. I merely followed up on a one-off comment from a casual poster (in my book, an unreliable source), confirmed his findings, and then developed it into something that works for me. To my knowledge, mine is the first of its kind and I was excited to share it with the community. If you remember, >I gave credit to the original poster. Why "Top Secret"? Because it was not a widely-known fact to the anamorphic community, and I thought that with the right planning I could manufacture a rack-focusable 2x anamorphic and offer it for less than the price of a Kowa, but I needed a head start to make it happen. I shared it with forum members that I respected, and you were one of them. Turns out that I couldn't get my manufacturer on board in a way that was agreeable to me, so that dream died on the vine. Look, I really don't care if any information that I shared with you influenced your design. Private messages are private for a reason. And I don't appreciate having my wrist slapped for being curious about a competing product. That's all that I have to say.

John, It's true. You did make a great discovery (based upon my lesser but prior discovery, it would seem), and I appreciated your sharing it with me. You have created a marketable product which is more than I can say. Now, it seems that we were not the only people charting these waters. But while I applaud the Anamorphic Shop offerings and look forward to trying them out, you seem eager to "take him down a notch", which is exactly what I have experienced in my dealings with you -- and why you haven't been getting any emails from me lately. If you read back on this thread, you have now had several people express concern about your conduct. You can either write us all off as outliers, or you can take a look in the mirror and ask yourself some questions. I know what I would do. Nick

This is quite clever!

John, I don't appreciate content from our private offline conversations being referenced here, and I feel the need to state that I am in no way affiliated with John's Rectilux. We were merely comparing exploratory notes. Respectfully, I suggest that the moderation of this forum be handled by a neutral party who has no commercial aspirations. Nick

How the heck is he doing this? I can't wait to learn more.

Grading footage in raw is always best, but having a color-balanced, exposure-tweaked ProRes 4444 as a starting point is really, really good. That's how I've been doing it. It's a good program, as the linked article states. The only reason that I haven't been using it extensively is because BMDFilm color space has become a part of my regular workflow. But if you're not using that, then I can't see a reason not to use MLRawViewer. It's free!

BMCC? This looks great, by the way; both technically and and non-technically. Where did you go for the dunes? Sand and cameras, lots of fun...

a1ex has suggested that he is moving away from developing the video side of ML in favor of the photo side: Source: http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=3072.825 It goes without saying that this would be a huge drawback to the ongoing development of this incredible software.

@burrencrawler It is great that you are thinking about these things, but the clamps on the market today are good because they can be adapted to fit many different kinds of anamorphic lenses. With your design, you'd lose that versatility. Also, not all anamorphic lenses have rear threading.

Isco is the company, and Gottingen is the city in Germany where the company is based. Some of their big 2x projection anamorphics also carry the 'Gottingen' inscription. I am not sure if it means anything beyond that. This is a tricky lens to use. I really fought with it to shoot the little chess vignette above. The Iscomorphot is much simpler to use, but be prepared to stop down quite a bit to minimize the veiling flare.

I don't use FCPX, so I don't know. But you can import the Cinema DNG files from RawMagic into Resolve Lite (which is free), and then export them to any codec that you want.

If you buy RawMagic to process your Magic Lantern raw files, then the workflow is about on-par with raw files from the BMPCC. If you are already creating a lot and telling stories, you are already ahead of most of the people who visit this site. Ride the wave. Don't get bogged down with technology (including new cameras).

I posted this in another thread, but thought that it might be helpful to those reading this thread as well:

I have committed to shooting raw with the 5D3 and invested in this system. If I can't make something good with this camera, then I can't make something good with any camera. I agree that color grading is what sets people's work apart and my choice is also an investment in myself to take the time to learn how to grade properly. The full-frame sensor of the 5D3 turns almost any cheap lens that I use with it into a virtual Voigtlander Nokton in terms of light transmission and shallow DOF. If I want the look, it's there without much additional cost, and that has a lot of value to me. There are irritating things about the shooting raw on narrative projects with the 5D3. I have been systematically attacking them to make this a more usable camera. Here are the major ones, and how I am dealing with them: CF cards. I bought a Komputerbay 1066x 256GB card. It hit my wallet, but this way I can get 48 minutes of raw 1080P, and this is plenty for me. No corrupted frames so far. I don't even think about it anymore. Batteries. I have a handful of Canon LP-E6s. They are so-so in terms of battery life. For shooting with a larger rig or tripod, I bought one of these to power both my camera and my SmallHD monitor simultaneously: http://www.ebay.com/itm/161336168920 Lack of flip-out LCD or viewfinder. Shooting with a loupe (in my case a Kinotehnik LCDVF) and a pistol grip is freeing, comfortable, and very battery-friendly. There are also solutions like this:http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=937481&gclid=CPeksIHL2b8CFVFp7AodEAsAdg&is=REG&Q=&A=details Workflow. RawMagic 1.21 is a breeze to work with. It removes vertical stripes automatically, joins spanned files and syncs audio, and it does it FAST. Thomas Worth is always improving it, so there have been frequent updates in recent months. Storage space. I'm still working on this one. I am experimenting with CineLog in Resolve to replicate Alexa Log-C as closely as possible, and then exporting the files as ProResHQ for the edit. If this works like I think it will, I won't have to hang on to the raw files anymore. In closing, I believe in Magic Lantern. If you look at the changelog for any of the nightly builds, you'll see that they are always hard at work trying to perfect their software. There are improvements on a daily basis. No one knows what tomorrow's build will bring.

For smaller sensors, I'd go with the Olympus Zuiko 35-70mm f3.6. The 55mm front ring does not rotate, and it is parfocal (which is why I bought it). The only downside that I can see is that it extends when focusing OR zooming, so it's best used with 8mm or small 16mm anamorphics only.

Thanks for the write up and the video. I was surprised to see the A7s's color moire on the factory at the 4:00 mark. It is the first time I have seen moire in any A7s footage. Personally, I think that the A7s is a huge step in the right direction. But I think that I'm going to stick with the 5Diii with ML raw for now. I'm getting good results using the ETTR Hint in the raw histogram at ISOs I wouldn't touch before, and the camera is forcing me to learn how to grade the right way.

Here's another wonderfully done no-budget short that hasn't gotten nearly enough views:

Reinforcing Ed's discovery, here's another Full Frame VS APS-C example: