richg101

A great lens for character on smaller chips like 4k gh4 and bmpcc, but as Tito has said... this aint single focus.

Since you're familiar with the a7s I'd immediately suggest the Sony. You know it's limitations and will know how to get the most from it. and since you just want to stick a lut onto the footage anyway why not just disregard s-log and use a nice and solid neutral picture profile with the contrast dialled down. Using the in built exposure meter it's almost impossible to blow highlights and since the image is so noise free you can pull shadows up and get all that info back anyway. Get your white balance right and the image will be lovely. The A7 range is weather sealed enough to accommodate any weather situation where you;d be happy to also allow your lenses to be subjected to the same arduous conditions. If you intend on shooting stills of wetlands birds in the pouring rain or a rugby match in the rain then go canon 1dc. you'll need expensive cards and external monitoring with the 1dc (the external monitor will also need to be weather sealed to the same standard as the 1dc in order to benefot from the weather sealing of the 1dc- so good luck finding one of those). you wont find a replacement 1dc anywhere but from a specialist dealer, where a7s's are ten a penny in just about every camera store - available to walk in and buy to get the job done. a solid 50p full hd image from the a7s2 will also be advantageous for a music video I imagine!

The film made me look more deeply into the US Presidential Election this weekend and Bernie Sanders appears to be a possible end to the nightmare the hidden hand (Rothchilds, Rockafellas, Bill Gates, etc) behind government and ultimately controlling what happens. Problem is he'll suddenly get a brain aneurysm or get shot by a maniac before he gets to make a change. They'll make it happen. Then another Bush or Clinton will get into power and keep the war machine rolling.

This stands out to me as one of the best tutorials. what he shows in this video provides the basis for just about anything else you;d want to do as far as grading is concerned.

I imagine using maybe a speed booster 0.64x bmcc version on a M4/3 to E-mount adaptor ring will make that 120p 2.3x crop an advantage.

An anamorphic squeeze of around 1.75x to 1.8x is actually a really nice number. good levels of defocus, without much loss of sensor area when cropping a 16:9 sensor to deliver a 2.4:1 end result. It's not about resolution from a big sensor area for me anyway, - it;s all about fov/dof ratio that comes with the bigger sensor area. to me a reduced squeeze ratio like 1.75x used on a wider sensor delivers a better image than a 2x on a less wide sensor. a bigger sensor dictates a shallower dof since a longer FL taking lens is selected for the same fov. the reduced squeeze also allows better image quality over a 2x unit. 16:9 sensors are here to stay. 4:3 is getting more and more rare. if a camera has a 4:3 mode it's usually a crop of a 16:9 sensor (ursa etc). The sensors are not tall enough to fully deliver the look of 4 perforation 35mm as can be achieved with the alexa 4;3. even the new red 8k sensor only just provides enough sensor height At the moment I see the most exciting prospect within the scope of affordability as an anamorphic system for the black magic micro cinema camera. this in combination with the 0.58x speed booster and a fast 35mm spherical lens and a high quality 1.75x anamorph will be the ultimate. global shutter, super low light, smaller sensor meaning easier achieving of image quality within a accessible budget. I think an anamorphic speed booster would also be a wonderful thing to behold! the a6300 looks to be an ideal candidate and will no doubt get the speed booster type adaptor sales booming again thanks to its aps-c sensor yep. it's that feeling of width while also maintaining the defocus separation of the longer lens I love.

It would appear we have a new member who has shares in Nikon..

I wonder what the 1dc mk2 will have under the hood? and for what premium over the price of the 1dx mk2

A thoroughly enjoyable watch. The pace of the subtitles feels great. Imagery is beautiful. Feels very much like the way they shot Lost in Translation. The big camera hand held in public makes for a wonderful aesthetic.

I use it and to reduce damage to the grain by youtube/vimeo I find it best to oversharpen the main output before export. So I don;t apply any sharpening to the footage, then I overlay some fine grain like 4k gorrilla grain, then apply sharpening onto the nested grain and footage. get the sharpening to the point where it's perfect when viewed at 100%, then boost it a tiny bit more so it starts to look a bit graggy. then go back to half way between 'perfect and 'graggy' the grain and footage behind it glue together nicely and the grain has enough edge to be seen as detail to be preserved by the youtube/vimeo compressor. I also feed them a 2560x1440 file rather than a 1920x1010 file - even if the original footage was only 1080p. seems to maintain more of the grain.

I got to say since seeing the official specs this beast is looking superb. Always loved the image I;ve seen from the 1dc and probably would have bought one if it was £6000 at launch. That form factor - perfect for meat pie fingered lumps like myself. Wish the A7 series was this bulky and solid.

looks like a7s and a canon 24-70 L series to me.

elaborate please. I thought it had a nice visual. tbh I felt the trailer didn't do a very good job of informing me what subject the piece is really tackling. Informing a widespread audience needs a more cohesive and direct trailer IMO. - particularly when asking for funding from said audience.

the interesting thing that happens when an oval aperture disk is installed is that the overall image quality goes up drastically. - since the width of the aperture reduces to around the same diameter as if the aperture were closed down to around f4-f5.6. Since the height of the largest 2x oval (f3.2) remains the same as the diameter of a circular f2 aperture the actual depth of field remains almost as shallow as it would be with a typical f2 circular aperture. The result is a magical balance of shallowness of dof and the refinement of horizontal image quality from the smaller aperture width. also, the illumination of the sensor becomes more even since instead of projecting a circular image circle, the image circle becomes slightly brighter on the horizontal plane. - this reduces vignette and tends to create the look of a higher end lens which has been closed down to reduce vignette. The only real downside is the reduction in light transmission. However since at f2 most lenses don;t really provide a refined enough image/deep enough dof for scripted images anyway the slower lens speed just means a shoot can usually be undertaken without the need for more lighting than you;d use for a typical shoot. The 250% extra light exposure from the speed booster and the 800 base of the bmpcc somewhat makes up for the light losses anyway!

lush. It's the grain I love from the bmpcc. - as shown in this gif. running base iso in night time where a lot of the areas of a frame are underexposed, then applying a careful colour noise reduction in raw - leaving the luma grain sharp and intact renders a superbly filmic look. I've had lots comments of how nice the 88mm, 0.58x sb and bmpcc work together and have not tried the combo myself. the defocus rolloff on this shot looks great - as I;ve said, that sb 0.58x is creating a very good mimmic of a bigger 35mm format. I also like the lower frame rate that gif is exhibiting. is that 15fps?

Yes, but dependence on cigarettes to chill you out and coffee to wake you up is certainly changing the way your mind works. the amount of time wasted on smoking breaks is out of this world. the amount of damage to sleep patterns because of dependence on coffee is devastating to our ability to think and act cohesively. I say this being a 100% caffine junkie. when i'm on coffee I need it to function. when off it i work 1000% more efficiently and feel less stressed

Come on, obviously not. I've just personally had more instances where clueless ladies have been the brunt of the problem - getting more stressed, uptight, flapping around etc. it's the stress, not the hard work that tires me out.

I think working 8;30-6.00 + travelling an hour each way to get to the same office job day in-day out, then drinking and snorting cocaine to forget their boring life (or worse, having to fulfil the needs of a partner who does the same, - on your two days off going to the super market, clothes shopping, does more damage to the body and soul than a lifetime of sporadic long days on set. Not that I've had much experience on set but from my handful of situations where I've been involved in film making on a production basis I hated with a passion the art of collaborating with hopeless wannabe film makers. I expect I;d have enjoyed working as a runner on a Kubrick movie since there was method to the madness, but when you see just how dumb, jumped up and backstabbing most of the people involved at the lower end of the spectrum are, it is draining. Noisy and self important 'creative director' females unable and unwilling to carry gear are the biggest drain on the creative process when working on crap jobs. The main problem with film makers is that they all seem to smoke and drink lots of coffee. This ain't gonna help their already confused sleep patterns and stress. I think if I ever direct my own film I'll ban coffee and cigarettes from set and instead make people drink lemon water. Everyone would be a lot fresher and positive 5 days into a crap job.

Love it!, only problem... the dumb asses made it with the hand grip on the wrong side! I'd have bought that straight away if it was reversed correctly:(

Hacks are so 2012. In 2016 we have an onslaught of stills cameras capable of surpassing the needs of all but the highest end film makers. Based on Andrews recent article I'd expect the 1080p iq from the new xpro2 to be no exception.

exactly. the barrel distortion, the gradual degradation of iq as you get further to the edges, the defocus distortions, the wider fov. all of which combined make a lot more of the anamorphic look than the flares. if anything the horizontal streak is usually overdone. That said it would be nice if the newer 16:9 attachments from isco would flare up just a bit more than they do. being such a sharp and fast lens (huge rear element and reduced strength of 1.33x) and using a fast 50mm and a 16:9 fullframe sensor area for a 2.39:1 ratio is definitely gonna deliver a magical combination whether it flares or not!!.

wow man. great to see you;ve started putting the lenses to work! and also great that you;ve been able to do something with the limited wide options in the current focal length range with the smaller sensor, indoors. i definitely think the bmpcc is an incredible tool - particularly when used with the 0.58x speed booster. And once this damn 24mm/2 is ready i think it'll just about fulfil the wide end (even with the bmpcc). from those stills it definitely looks like aps-c/s35mm rather than a little s16mm sensor. feels 'proper' so to speak. i bet that 1.75 stops of light transmission gain is a godsend with the oval aperture inserts! Awaiting the moving images with baited breath!

One of the main problems with attempting uncoating of lenses is that the coatings are usually harder than the glass underneath. so what can sometimes happen is that you end up going through the coating in one place first then in that area you end up changing the surface flatness and 'quality' while you proceed to uncoat the remainder of the glass. MC coatings from the era when your lens was made will be very tough and will need a lot of work to take it to bare glass - and in this time you'll almost certainly not be able to ensure every part of the lens face receives the same amount of abrasion/polishing. also, becuase of the way the lens is made, you'll need to uncoat elements behind the two focusing elements. Going a professional route and having a bare glass face of the same quality of the lens as it currently stands will almost always require tooling (to hold the glass during a regrind/polish of the optical face you want decoated) as well as a grinding/polishing tool that suits the curvature of the lens. since these are cylinderical lenses the cost goes up even more. I have a specially made orbital polisher I designed for use on my lathe which works extremely well with spherical lenses but wouldn't work on cylinders. Personally I think it would be wise to play around with UV filters. a cheap 95mm uv filter up front and a 67mm filter on the back will promote some additional reflections and boost the flares quite drastically. also you might find that using moder taking lenses makes the flaring from your isco more obvious since it'll be less masked by the flaring from a vintage taking lens.

would be rather exciting if they decided to offer 10bit prores 422 / LT. Similar to Leica, they don;t have a professional broadcast / cinema range to protect by crippling this. Though I wouldn;t be surprised if Sony made it a condition that the sensor can;t be used in such a way.

it's pretty irritating they gave it to a guy who goes right ahead and shoots the test in rolling shutter mode showing us exactly what we expected based on our experiences with the bmpcc. isn;t it a given to use the global mode for a test of a camera who's key selling point over the previous model is the global shutter mode... I'd have rather seen unscripted footage with lots of movement and a bright sky and lots of shadow so I can decipher whats going on with the global shutter enabled. Come on BM give the camera to Andrew Reid next time and stop messing around.