jgharding

Hopefully the companies will either go open source or the court battle will happen at some point and prove it's ok to code for a piece of hardware you bought and share the results.   Oh for a world without IP! Imagine, the human race working together ;)

  Sometimes you'll have different types of camera, in this case something like the Sekonic 758, for example, allows you to store multiple dynamic range profiles for different cameras to ensure consistency.   The consensus seems to be that lighting before cameras arrive can be more easily achieved using a good light meter.   Also, in a situation where on-set monitoring is not of the highest quality, one might benefit from the second opinion of a light meter so as to be sure of no nasty surprises in post..   Though good WYSIWYG monitoring and the decent (if not always film-like) latitude of modern digital inspires us with a lot of confidence that things can be rescued in post, total consistency can be achieved by checking the light in reality, so to speak.   Thinking about it, metering is not so useful (in the rawest sense) with Red, Alexa or F65 as the latitude is enormous, and preview monitors using a higher contrast profile can be used to show a rough final result.   However, when recording to a lower dynamic range 4:2:0 8 bit profile, it's arguable that many would benefit from using such metering on set, it's often the case that protecting the highlights from digital clipping will crush the blacks, and It's probably easier to have a meter tell you the range of a scene and how much fill light is appropriate, than it is to guess with the WYSIWYG.

I do expect people to say no, but i'm interested in why so,   So why is it you would you say a professional would need one but most would not?

That's the debate I'm interested in! :)

Simply put, I'm interested in the lighting and exposure practices of those using digital video cameras, specifically the use of seperate dedicated light metering.   If you could take a moment to answer my poll I'd be very grateful, I'm interested to see how those of differing age, generation, experience and practice work with metering, or if indeed they do at all.   I know some who swear by it, some who would never use it and some who change depending on shot and situation, so I'm interested to see the spread of opinion with the user base here on EOSHD   Many thanks,   JG

I remember we were chatting a long while back about these, I remember at the time there was some kind of patent -- maybe Eastman Kodak -- that meant no-one could make them, so I'm glad this has been worked around. Maybe the Isco/Schnieder patent can too...   Although many find it hard to believe  all the research I've done shows there's no significant downsides to this technology. It's actually used INSIDE some premium M4/3 lenses at the moment, with established  F2.8 designs incorporating an optical reducer in order to give a nice field of view for the crop sensor and bump up the F-stop.   I'dve though the only downside will be that with some lenses the corners will remain the same, while only the centre will be sharper. Not much of a downside.   It's a bit like scaling down footage shot on a soft camera, suddenly it's much sharper than before...

Essentially, these large companies are currently the only ones in a position to mass-produce and sell reliable 4K cameras, and they won't do it cheaply until the hand is forced. Even Red, remember the timing of the Red One price drop, alongside the release of a certain new cinema camera?   As with RAW and the like, it's only when the competition is serious that the big boys will bother to compete. It took Sony an age to move into large-sensor video, in comparison. They spend a long time working out how to milk each new phase of development for every penny it's worth.   Reliability is very important. I've stuck with an ageing 550D (now worth what, 250 quid?) for ages because it has never, ever failed me in any way, while my two good friends with GH2s have a had all kinds of workaround, tweaks, corrupt files and so on to deal with. I know that isn't everyone's experience, but their experience meant that I stuck with lower resolution rather than deal with buggering about.   That's why people will buy Canons like the C500 (footage looks a bit ugly to me so far) and 1DC, because they know how it works already, and that it will work. Personally I have my limits when it comes to piss taking, and won't buy purposely crippled high-end products like the current Canon batch of 420 8-bit cameras. I may as well stick with 550D, or get a 600D and use the new All-I 100mbps patch from Magic Lantern Daily builds along with the Mosaic anti-aliasing filter.   If BMD had been able to pump out a ton of their cameras on time straight off, for example, I think we'd be seeing a RAW Sony or Canon sooner, but since they aren't yet competition due to the as-of-yet dire delivery speed, we shall have to wait for a response from bigger and far more risk-averse  manufacturers.   Good thing is that with BMD, Digital Bolex, Ikonoskop etc we are seeing more companies create such niche products. hopefully one of such products will appear at a hilariously low price and be simple, functional and reliable, then we can watch the big players do an RIM (Blackberry) and suffer for their stubbornness...

It just makes sense for it to go away I think.   The only 3D that actually "works" is parralax barrier screens on single-user devices, like the 3DS for example, and even that I found kinda pointless and a bit headachey.   In cinemas you have to use glasses-based solutions because of the varied audience positions, the only way to fix the strobing is to use double rates, making everything except 3D CG animation look like a cheap old TV series.   Glasses makes everything really dark, and then you forget the 3D is there anyway, until you're straining to see things. Then your (or at least my) eyes feel funny because the convergence point and focal plane don't match up.   It was such a cynical attempt to make everyone buy new TVs etc, I'm glad no-one cared.

Good article in the Guardian about CES about lack of 3D products at CES.   Now it's all 4K!   I can finally say goodbye to headaches.   http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jan/11/ces-2013-journal-the-death-of-3d?CMP=twt_fd

70mm always looks lovely. Having a digital 70mm option (aside form phantom 65) would be amazing!

  MaXINE! Please make a thread talking about how and what you did here TO MAKE A MIRRORLESS 5d and what sucesses and issues you had! This hacked up 5D is far more indie interesting than the "let's take the piss" 1DC...

Just go for things that work with at least APS-C (Super 35) sized sensors. That way you aren't stuck to using mini sensors if you choose to change to a different camera. I love Contax Zeiss,  but when I bought mine they weren't quite so foolishly expensive as they are now.   Olympus OM are severely under-rated. I'd go for some of them.

I use the Sony RX100 for this kind of 1080/60p thing, it's very sharp, easy to use and works well. Doesn't like low light though. The GH3 will produce higher quality video in terms of bitrate, but has more aliasing and moire problems and is more expensive. Decisions...

It is a bit of a trend to leave out advanced video specs isn't it? As if today's "prosumer" understands everything about stills -- from dynamic range to codec noise -- but understands nothing of in-depth video specs, and will be impressed by FULL HD printed on the front...   Not only is this untrue, but it's harming sales, I feel. Even those I know whom I never expected to be interested in advanced video specs, quiz me these days about low-light performance and manual mode.   Everyone has a story to tell. And very few people like to be patronised...

Really? Does the FZ200 do 120fps at 720p? I thought it was just VGA, rendering it a bit useless...

For Adobe users this banding has never been a problem, only since using this forum did I realise it wasn't common knowledge!   Edit 8-bit natively in Prmeiere.   Send to After Effects and set project to 32-bit. Each frame is treated as uncompressed RGB with plenty of colour levels. Note the lack of banding when pushing colours.   Add film grain. Noise tricks the output codec into using more data, and breaks up those nasty flat digital stripes that can appear in the final output. Removing sensor noise can leave a stripey result too, so always put some movement back in.   Easy as that. Always do your finishing in a finishing programme, in 32-bit and 8-bit source footage is pretty good. We could do with more bits, but it's pretty good when you know how to make the most of it.

Yes the FZ200 only does high speed at VGA resolution of 640*480. There's usually one component in the mix of current cameras designed to prevent hacking for high-speed shooting, such as buffer, AD speed, heat dissipation etc etc, as manufacturers are well aware of the hackers' abilities.   So yes they could make it for very little cost, but it's only competition that will force the hand. One company need to make the plunge and others will follow. Unfortunately, BMD had a good start in their niche (ultra-high image quality), but fell at the hurdle of actually building the things and getting them to people who've paid for them, and so it goes on.   There's no incentive for big player to compete with someone who can't actually deliver the product to users' hands reliably.   Sony don't mind giving even their relatively recent products a good kicking (F3 for example) and are also manufacturers of great sensors for Nikon and many others, so I'd have thought they'll be one of the first to do high speed cheaply and well.

Hello all, I'm looking to gather together information about which external monitors allow anamorphic preview modes and in what capacity. Thereare bits and bobs all over but it'd be nice to get lots of experience in one thread. If you have a moment, and experience with a monitor that allows anamorphic preview, please post some experiences here! It'd be nice to know which ones support properly and which require workaround. --------------------- EDIT: Summary of thread so far: It can be hard to focus with de-squeeze enabled, as a smaller area of the monitor is used to display footage SmallHD monitors have an anamorphic mode. Some of them only have a 1.5x viewing mode but through custom parameters, you can stretch the signal to monitor in 2x (or even a 1.5x crop of a 2x signal): http://www.eoshd.com...smallhd-monitor If using the Small HD DP4 a magnifier is useful. zacuto's evf also has some nice options for de-squeeze, though you may want a loupe for magnification. The budget Chinese monitor available from http://www.personal-...onitors-amazing appears to have custom modes, though it's hard to find more information online.

My computer struggles with Sony's AVCHD 50p 28mbps stuff at 1080p. God knows what'd happen at 4K! Leave my wallet alone, Sony! I don't want a big new TV and monitor and computer and camera and stack of hard disks and better eyesight...   In all seriousness, I watched a 4K film at NAB in Vegas about 2 or three years ago (that place wipes your memory) and the detail was really distracting on a 50-inch or so telly. I was focusing on the gravel in the road rather than the actors! It's so hyper-real it's absurd...

8 doesn't look great for desktops, but I'd rather that than try and use 7 on a tablet ;)

If it's VBR very dark scenes where you've used high ISO will also crank up the rate. Encoding all the dancing ISO noise takes a lot of data. The higher the bitrate, the more distinct each noise grain and the easier it is to denoise

Yes you sure lucked out with that! I've been using with 550D initial tests. Looking great so far...

I've not yet found one and ordered directly. I think it's a bit too niche to get full scale distribution...

And it returns in HD   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daIDNBt7vLo

If they could make an APS-C compact with 1080p I-frame video with freat dynamic range, constant f2.8 lens and awesome OM-D EM-5 style stabilisation I'd be super happy