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Everything posted by jgharding
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I had a go with one yesterday (the prototype). It's so easy to use, really light (for a cinema camera) at 4kg and caused me much joy. The look is simpky no different to Alexa, it's the same sensor. I'm sure I'll have it on my shoulder a fair few times this year! You can't do 4:3 with it, which is a shame, so no using this new miniature beauty: http://www.angenieux.com/zoom-lenses/cinema-portfolio/optimo-anamorphic-56-152-mm-2s.htm
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8 Cinema DNG shots from Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera raw
jgharding replied to Andrew Reid's topic in Cameras
There are some good tips there but these are controversial: Some alternative thoughts: *** The first point i must strongly oppose. Those are tools, and can be used to create any grade or look, from natural to extreme. Looks presets for example are over the top cheese and pretty lazy agreed, but the toolset is incredibly powerful. The fast colour corrector cannot solve all practical issues. You cannot mask, saturate or de-saturate individual tones or areas, re-balance Lift/Gamma Gain, or be subtle with it. The idea that a complicated, full-featured tool with a huge variety of options is for "lazy people" is astounding and I can only assume the judgement comes from looking at amateur uses of these brilliant tools on YouTube and so on, and judging these tools on that. They are all in daily use where I work, all over the place, and to great effect. Blending small amounts of each can create pleasing non-linearities. The tools don't make the look, the user does, within the confines of the tools. Fast correcter is extremely restricted. That confines the look, along with the talent and experience of the user. A combination of Colorista, Looks, Film Convert and LUTs lets you make anything. Don't write it off because some people can't use it. *** On dynamic range: just because a camera can capture 12 stops or whatever, doesn't mean it's needed in the shot. Sometimes dark shadows are nice. Sometimes high contrast is good. Washed out, un-natural HDR shots are an aesthetic, but not a very nice one if you ask me. The video you've posted doesn't make good use of dynamic range in my humble opinion. The horses and cars and people and so on are glowing with HDR-style halos. This an example of dynamic range extended with an un-natural aesthetic for its own sake. It isn't believable or natural, or aesthetically pleasing, which appear to be your goals. They're valid goals but they aren't achieved here. Also on the grading monitor I'm watching on, the white isn't that consistent. I think it's close enough personally, I'm not too picky really, but if you're going to criticise the rest of the world... *** Real blacks and whites are uncommon with vintage film stocks. These are popular emulations now. People like emulating film stocks because film stocks look nice and powerful, if they are doing this, "real" black and white are kind of un-necessary. *** The camera does not sharpen itself, but excessive sharpening can lend a camcorder digital feel. Sometimes softer is nicer. *** Some people don't want believable, it's possibl;e to have nice but not "believable" as such. As a final note, many films are intentionally graded with a "print limit" LUT. That is to say, one that removes a huge amount of information because it looks nice. That's what film convert does too. Most blockbusters use this trick. Even ones shot on Kodak film (Man Of Steel is an example). The solution is practicing with all the tools, but if one writes em off or limit your looks to one type, I think one learns slowly. Please don't take offence though, there's room for more than one opinion B) -
More nasty anti-customer / pro profit tactics, this time from Nikon
jgharding replied to Andrew Reid's topic in Cameras
Urgh how dirty. Plain nasty play... -
The thing is, I can't see the reasoning behind the decisions, other than a relationship with Canon. The C500 looks repulsive in low light. All skin turns yellow. Here's his tests vs Alexa. I said the same thing in the comments. See for yourself, using Alexa all round would have looked a lot nicer I think. It's the best low light cinema camera by far, mostly due to dual readout from the sensor. You could make the Alexa look like the C500 if you really wanted, but not the other way round. The man is definitely better than me, and more experienced than me, I'll freely admit it and I'm happy to learn. But I'm not happy to just kowtow without thinking. I still don't see why you'd pick that camera. As a result the night bits in Need For Speed all have weird yellow skin. Sure it's a look, but it's one I don't like, personally.
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8 Cinema DNG shots from Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera raw
jgharding replied to Andrew Reid's topic in Cameras
Thanks! :D Yes of course, for these frames I used standard Adobe Camera Raw for initial balance and exposure then tried something different out, that I figured may give an individual look: I used photographic software to process it. This is something you could do to sequences I believe, with Photoshop macros, though it would be complex, but I think the result is very very film like. I'm glad it comes across as a good photographgic style, though workflow wise it'd be slow. The software used was Alien Skin Exposure. I don't own it personally, an older version (3) is on a work machine. It's now on 5. As you can see, it has beautiful film emulations that are very customisable to create deep looks. http://www.alienskin.com/exposure/index.aspx A blue and red primary shift in ACR are two of the major parts of this particular look, blue goes more teal, red a little orange... maintaining skin tone but twisting the world a little on its colour wheel, no secondary required. The result is the blockbuster epic feel without the ludicrous orange skin you get in Transformers and the like. If you don't mind shipping an SSD or hard drive, or setting up a big download for me, I'd like to experiment grading a full piece in raw like this! -
Horse for the course and all that. If you don't need stills, slow motion, or very very intensive post for ultimate quality go for C100. If you mainly handle corporate etc just go for C100 and thank yourself.Day to day I mostly handle and shoot with C300 in paying work. Once you know it, it's pretty sexy. Cheap to hire! Great results if shot beautifully. Raw is wonderfully flexible but very time consuming. Apparently the video above doesn't exist, I'd like to see if you get a chance to relink though!
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Minus the remote second operator control and wireless app setup configuration for the gimbal follow speed, but also a hell of a lot less expensive!
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New Kids and Cooking scene modes! Now everyone can count to potato.... Full stats: http://www.ephotozine.com/article/canon-eos-m2-announced-in-japan-23603?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Ephotozine+(ePHOTOzine) Yep, it's that sensor again. Sigh...
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F0.74 - new Metabones Speed Boosters break boundaries
jgharding replied to Andrew Reid's topic in Cameras
Pixel vignetting! First I've heard of that, good info! -
There are a lot of sites with more interest in pleasing the sponsors and "donors" than promoting honest and free debate. I rarely read the site in question, so I can't say if that's the case for them, but in many parts of the internet, it rings true.
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F0.74 - new Metabones Speed Boosters break boundaries
jgharding replied to Andrew Reid's topic in Cameras
After playing with your shots from BMPCC I love them. Lenses and low light were the only issues really. If they make a version of this speed booster for either EF or C/Y I'm in... I've never known an SLR that didn't need a bag of batteries TBH... -
Though it's not always easy to do the first list, it's an ideal, and that second list is a wonderful summary. Hats off!
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It's the compression and scaling use in making the videovideo. Compare your video to a still shot in the same time and place and you'll see.... Canon H264 is a very degraded image compared to raw
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Indeed if you get your white balance perfect all the time it's not so much of an issue. It's easier with Red and the like though, because that's post ;)
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I don't think that's the lens personally. I've used Zeiss still lenses on everything from EOS to Epic and they're great. The Nikon ones, for example, have the exact same glass as the compact primes. I trust them to make great glass, and I'd guess the lens makes up a large part of the hefty price tag. It's something on the sensor side that does this to Sony cameras. It's why I sold the RX100, despite all its positive points. It just felt digital when cut with EOS footage, which managed to fool you into thinking it was a bit more organic. Same with the FS series too I think, though a little less. Maybe it's the way the channels read the sensor, or how it's all encoded or processed. Either way, even the high end ones have it to my eyes... It's their look in a sense. Some like it, some don't.
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I had no idea about FCP actually using a differet rate, I thought it was just a rounded display number. That's very stupid...
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Sample Video - Comparing The Sony Rx10, A7R And Fs100
jgharding replied to Andrew Reid's topic in Cameras
For everything camcorder-ish where you don't need over 29 mins, it looks like you're laughing! The C300 may grade better, but it is 15000 quid... -
24 fps is for going to actual film. If you want to print your digital back to film us this. 23.98 was a way of squeezing into 60hz so things stay synced that's stuck with us. But Blu Ray supports both. It was a bit of fudging for NTSC power when analogue TV moved from black and white to colour. There was some sync issue with the signals. Then it kinda stuck. So use 23.976 or 23.98 or however it's put to be safe, unless you're going to turn it into real celluloid at some point. Or if it's web only and you're not shooting under 60hz lights (or you have flicker free lights) you can use 25fps for example. Though 25fps won't fit on Blu Ray. It turns into 50i or something. But who really cares about that ;) 600Hz as a standard for TV would solve it all and finally render any content playable on any system. Except 23.976 though. Hmm. That's a pretty fast refresh rate though.
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On Test - The Final Slr Magic Anamorphot 50 X 1.33
jgharding replied to Andrew Reid's topic in Cameras
I much preferred that natural flare version above to the vivid blue. It is pretty distracting in many situation to have royal blue lines across your image, but a natural, context sensitive flare can do wonders. Still, it'll work for hip-hop and blade runner style vids! But I think it may turn away a fair few people... a natural coloured flare can settle in any genre, even realistic narrative. -
Sample Video - Comparing The Sony Rx10, A7R And Fs100
jgharding replied to Andrew Reid's topic in Cameras
Camcorder killer requires more than 30-minutes recording time, as many tasks I'd use camcorder for need this (presentations and so on). If RX10 can do this, that's ace! EDIT: 29 minutes maximum per clip. Since I've read nothing of clip spanning, I have to say that it can't do all that a camcorder can. Bastard import rules. -
It seems it's quite hard to coherently grade this camera across a feature. Shot to shot Upstream Colour was all over the place, even in the same location. But for that film it work, it added to the confusion.... for standard narrative maybe not so much TBH it's hard enough with raw, when there are so many factors and lighting is predominantly practical.
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To add an extra point, this is not exclusive to religious films. Even films sponsored by products will often use just a hashtag or a URL at the end. The term usually used is "soft sell". When someone realises they're being "sold to" they oftentimes close up, become less open to the message as they see the motivation behind it. This is the common mistake of those "commissioning" viral videos: they want a kooky cat video with their brand at the end, but of course, the brand at the end removes the attractive innocence of the piece.
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Yeah No Cars Go is one of my favorite songs too.... I like The Suburbs album best tough
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Just price, other than it's probably improved somehow, like that little control wheel