jgharding

RX100 was my favorite of the year. Though I used the FS700 more, the RX100 is just awesome for its feature balance. OM-D E-M5 (wins worst name of the year easily) has the best stabilisation. Canon protect their lens IS by not including sensor based IS, which stings. I would love to see a BMD-style camera with OM-D EM-5 style 5-axis sensor stabilisation.   For me the point of DSLR was small size combined with high quality. Great stabilisation helps so much with video in small form factors...

This filter has arrived now, though I've not had a chance to test yet due to excessive partying in Prague. Should be able to this week though!

It still comes through in the way it renders. It's very subtle. Try and find a comparison between a Leica lens and something else online. You'll usually be able to pick the Leica because it "feels" more "3D". Bizarre.    Sometimes people use matched sets, sometimes they mix and match, it depends what you want to do. You certainly cut many different lenses and cameras together though, it's not colour rendition that varies so wildly, but bokeh, sense of depth, micro-contrast etc...

Agreeing with Film Man I reckon. my lens love order goes Leica, then Zeiss, then bizarre simple old bits from Russia etc. Canon is my last resort, I just don't really like how they look, it's kinda dead... though that dirt cheap plastic 50mm actually looks nice, even though it's horrible to use!

Yes it's a huge issue with CMOS sensors, truly the best way to get rid of it is on set, not in post, by using rigging. IS does create slightly jumpy shots sometimes, but that's better than camera-on-a-jelly style wobble.   Did you try switching it on and judging for yourself if you like the picture better? Last shoot I was on at the Tennis Masters in London the IS stayed on with the Canon 28-300 all the time. Switching it off was much, much worse... it's certainly better than nothing. best make your own mind up... pinch of salt and all that.

Your plug-ins and software are fine, but it's best to minimise this rolling shutter or "jello" effect at source, rather than rely on fixing it in software.    For this kind of shot you can use a tripod, then introduce a little camera shake in software afterwards for handheld feel. Or, if you want a less "jello" but till a real hand-held feel, use some kind of handheld rig for stability.   Plug-ins like Mercalli and Warp Stabilizer can only deal with a certain degree of shake effectively, the rolling shutter can be destructive, so if it's possible to eliminate it at the point of shooting, without software, that's the best idea.   Also, turn your IS on! ;) It's much nicer than plug-in based stabilisation on the whole.

I watched it on Sunday in 24fps 3D (no 2D choice at the local independent  As usual I forgot about 3D after the first half hour, I just had to keep taking the glasses off to rest my eyes as the picture was so dark with them on I had to strain to see sometimes. So I still don't like stereoscopic cinema with glasses, though a parrallax-barrier screen for home may work.   As for the film, it felt really quick, had some real jaw-dropping effects moments and was basically the movie equivalent of a roller coaster. Once I realised this i just enjoyed it for the beauty of the set pieces and sheer energy of it all, I found it pretty fun and entertaining and actually wanted more!   It's no work of art, and the characters are pretty dead, but it was great fun and pretty epic. I take it for what it is, rather than a recreation of the experience of reading Tolkein.   I'm very glad I didn't watch at 48fps. I've had enough experience with smooth motion tellys to know i hate it for narrative pieces, and all the hard work that went into creating this epic world (the costumes were particularly wonderful) would probably be wiped out by 48fps...

Hahah I have that mug in front of me now! Best birthday gift ever ;)

HAHAHAHA   [img]http://d24w6bsrhbeh9d.cloudfront.net/photo/6050494_700b.jpg[/img]

Boardwalk Empire is a great example of CG all over the place that you just don't spot. I had no clue half of the stuff in that was composited: how it's supposed to be!

Here's a vid I made using FS700 with lots of low light. Post is long and hard if you wanna make it work...   [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuMjew8TbnE"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuMjew8TbnE[/url]

The TV in my shared flat has this. I hate it so, so much! I'm always switching it off, and I come back and it's on again!   The frame interpolation prediction isn't fast enough (or the buffer isn't long enough) so it's really inconsistent. Some scenes are half smooth, then go back to shuddering when things get complex.    It really worked with Avatar, but that was it. Probably because it looked like a computer game anyway. Everything else starts to look cheap and weird. Much more realistic yes, but thus more like watching a 'making of' a film than an actual film!

This video, for the band Aloosh, is currently unlisted, but I thought I'd come and give you guys a sneak preview as this is my favorite online hangout ;)   All shot in Snowdonia using FS700, there's a lot of tasty treats getting made and broken in sloooooooow motion here....   [url="http://youtu.be/cuMjew8TbnE"]http://youtu.be/cuMjew8TbnE[/url]   You can watch part one here if you've not seen it already:   [url="http://youtu.be/PNGquFXmLOU"]http://youtu.be/PNGquFXmLOU[/url]   The band's album can be heard at www.aloosh.co.uk if you're interested...   JG

When i watched it in Hackney Picturehouse it seemed so crisp, but not in a clinical way. I thought it was 4K acquisition because it was so sharp. It really does look absolutely amazing. It's somehow sharp AND soft. I can't really describe it. It's really wonderfully put together.   I still couldn't give it perfect marks as a film as a few things bugged me, but all the camerawork and the performances are exemplary.

Grain, anamorphic bokeh, 24/25p, handheld camerawork. All these things actually help me to become involved in the film as a STORY. It's storytelling for God's sake!   I don't read an adventure story to a child like I'd read a news article to my colleague. The latter requires formality and stark realism to present it with proper purpose, the former needs to be told a sense of wonder and otherworldliness in order to achieve the goal: magic!   All these "unrealistic" artifacts that are part of film tradition serve the same purpose as dry ice lighting and music on a magician's stage: they take us out of the ordinary and into a place where we can almost believe the impossible may well be possible...   People appear to be forgetting thousands of years of storytelling culture because of a slightly upgraded silicon chip.

The low light sections were just incredible too: shots by a single lighter, shots with almost nothing but black, the tiniest bit of subtle detail of an actor in the dark.. plsu the lead performance and the young girl were amazing.   Really pure and wonderful cinematography!

Brilliant! Thanks so much Andy, that's a great article!   After thinking Skyfall looked rather crusty I'm glad to see my favorite cinematographic work of the year was an Alexa piece.

My guess was Epic, but I'm always interested to see if it's possible to tell the difference. It's a great film, definitely check it out. Exceptional cinematogrpahy.   Anyone recognise the camera here?   [url="http://www.dfi.dk/Service/English/News-and-publications/News/May-2012/Staying-true-to-the-story.aspx"]http://www.dfi.dk/Service/English/News-and-publications/News/May-2012/Staying-true-to-the-story.aspx[/url]

I prefer this look to Alexa I think, on the small evidence I've seen so far. Skyfall did look a bit TV (especially highlights) for my tastes, I reckon Red is actually nicer footage, though likely harder to use. Alexa is just so easy and quick though...

I tried it once on super-35 sensor totally handheld with no IS and couldn't get to be stable enough, it just looked too jibbery. Maybe with global/CCD you may get away with it though, or perhaps amazingly steady hands.

Just be really subtle with it. If you look at real film transfers it's not a lot, just on the edge of perception to take the rigid digital edge off, it works really well. 

A lot of people forget going to After Effects, preferring to grade in Premiere etc, but there are many benefits, such as working in a 32-bit RGB space removing the need for transcoding, and the ability to apply various advanced post techniques. It's not friendly, but it's powerful.

I used this position shake trick for most of my promos, just came to the conclusion on my lonesome, but it's good to share :) Subtler int he first one:   [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNGquFXmLOU"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNGquFXmLOU[/url]   More extreme here:   [url="https://vimeo.com/48174944"]https://vimeo.com/48174944[/url]   I did it in After Effects using a wiggle expression on position. Set a frequency either at frame rate or below, and use no more than a pixel or so. It works great!

Yes i agree with comments about FS700 blacks, hard to denoise: very low-frequency blue-channel noise is very destructive. Certainly not as nice a codec implementation as Canons SLRs even, though the 4:2:2 is nice to have.

I've yet to see anything match 65 for colour reproduction. Of course film does so much of the look itself while this crazy flat 16-stop raw will need hella treatment to get there. Interesting, but this is so hypey I didn't lose my shit, I just thought "here we go again". I'm glad the phrase "game changer" wasn't used.