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Zach Snyder is a one-note director, so the original grade is appropriate in that regard.

I'm also a fan of step-printed slomo (repeated frames). Wong Kar Wai used to use it a lot. a couple of people on this thread have said that BMPCC moire is worse when recording in raw rather than prores, is this true?

What I find frustrating about thunderbolt is that there don't seem to be any enclosures that you can just plug an ssd into (whereas USB 3 enclosures are ten a penny). I get that thunderbolt licensing fees are expensive, so a thunderbolt enclosure would come at a premium, but it's weird that there just don't seem to be any, even several years after it became a standard port on macs.

Yeah but you couldn't place them either side of an effect like a LUT because they were in a separate colour pane set apart from the effects pane. So if you wanted to do a pre/post adjustment you needed an adjustment layer. ​ I'm certainly not suggesting Color Finale is comparable to Resolve! Perhaps not, especially if you already own LUT Utility, plugins for gamma adjustments etc. And the color board does everything color wheels do, it's just a different arrangement. But if you need to use LUTs, and don't have LUT utility already, or you want an interface that gathers a useful set of tools together, this could be one to go for. As a LUT Utility owner, I'm on the fence with Color Finale (perhaps if their upgrade pricing was a little more generous....) In terms of new functionality for me (in terms of plugins I already own etc) the curves are a useful addition. And yes, it is disappointing that the colour board still isn't keyframable in 10.2. (though the master "opacity" slider for Color Finale is).

I use the Tetrachrome a lot. The Ektar probably the least (comes out looking very green in my experience). The "Color Implosion" LUT makes the old LUT Utility plugin crash on FCPX (contacted support, still not fixed). But it work with the new Color Finale plugin. So I only just got to see what that one looks like. This is with using the standard Rec709 LUTs on H264 files (from the Panny G6, Sony A6000 etc). Makes me wish I had some 10-bit or 12-bit colour footage to grade.... it might be time to start looking for a BMPCC on eBay again...

Yes, in FCPX 10.2 you can now have multiple colour boards, and place them either side of effects slots. Color Finale is still very nice though for curves, wheels, LUT organisation and so on.

me too.

Seems like I spoke too soon.... Just downloading FCPX 10.2 now, and I see that the built-in colour corrector is now classed as an effect, so it seems you can now sandwich it between other effects slots. It's not clear yet whether you can have multiple instances of the colour-board though (ie for the kind of pre-LUT/ post-LUT correction I was describing above). If my internet connection ever gets through the 2gb download, I'll report back.

I've been playing with the 7-day trial of Color Finale. First impressions are very good. First of all the interface is very nice. Putting all the colour controls in their own floating window works well. If you have the window open for one shot but shut for another, it will disappear and reappear depending on whether you have selected a clip that you have color finale open for (does that make sense?). If you have color finale open for a bunch of different clips it will switch to represent the settings of whichever clip is currently selected (ie it behaves as you'd expect it would). It plays nice with fullscreen mode too. The only slight disappointment with the windowing is that although you can drag the window to a secondary display, if you start selecting different clips the window snaps back to your primary display. I don't think this is a huge issue, as most of us have large primary displays, and probably want to colour correct on the primary display anyway. (I don't have any 4K/ retina displays, so can't comment on how well it scales). Performance is nice and snappy (even on my bottom-of-the-range Macbook Air). There is a split second delay when flicking between clips for the newly-selected clip's settings to appear in the window. This windowed approach is what all plugins for FCPX should use for their interface IMO, rather than overlays on the main video display. The best thing about Color Finale though is that it gathers all your most commonly used colour tools (LUT, curves, wheels, lift/gain/gamma) in a single window, and lets you add multiple instances of a given tool, change the order they are all applied in, adjust the opacity for each one, flick them on and off, rename them etc. For instance, I've got a primary curves correction, then a LUT, then a secondary curves correction on top of that. This is a big improvement on my FCPX LUT workflow up til now, because by default FCPX only gives you very limited control over what order effects are applied in: it only lets you change the order of effects within the "effects" section of the inspector pane (ie it doesn't let you sandwich, say, a colour-board correction between two effects slots, or two colour-board corrections either side of an effect or a LUT; if you wanted to do something like that you'd need to use an RT adjustment layer, or nest a clip inside a compound clip). Color FInale is not as powerful as a full-blown nodes system like Resolve of course, but I could see it becoming my one and only colour tool within FCPX. It's nice to have traditional colour wheels back too. What else is good... the new LUT manager lets you put LUTs in custom folders (so no more scrolling through endless lists of LUTs). Here's a link to NoFilmSchool's voucher: http://nofilmschool.com/2015/04/color-finale-fcpx-discount I'm not affiliated with anyone at Color Grading Central

Oh, and NoFilmSchool has a coupon for it, lasts for the duration of NAB. I have no connection with Color Grading Central btw, just in case my post above came across as a bit of a rave. (is it possible to move this thread to the main forum?)

I'm having a quick play with the 7-day trial just now. First impressions are very good. First of all the interface is very nice. Putting all the colour controls in their own floating window works well. If you have the window open for one shot but shut for another, it will disappear and reappear depending on whether you have selected a clip that you have color finale open for (does that make sense?). If you have color finale open for a bunch of different clips it will switch to represent the settings of whichever clip is currently selected (ie it behaves as you'd expect it would). It plays nice with fullscreen mode too. The only slight disappointment with the windowing is that although you can drag the window to a secondary display, if you start selecting different clips the window snaps back to your primary display. I don't think this is a huge issue, as most of us have large primary displays, and probably want to colour correct on the primary display anyway. (I don't have any 4K/ retina displays, so can't comment on how well it scales) The best thing about it though is that it gathers all your most commonly used colour tools in a single window, and lets you add multiple instances of a given tool, change the order they are all applied in, adjust the opacity for each one, flick them on and off, rename them etc. For instance, I've got a primary curves correction, then a LUT, then a secondary curves correction on top of that. This is a big improvement on my FCPX LUT workflow up til now, because by default FCPX only gives you very limited control over what order effects are applied in: it only lets you change the order of effects within the "effects" section of the inspector pane (ie it doesn't let you sandwich, say, a color-board correction between two effects slots, if you wanted to do something like that you'd need to use an RT adjustment layer, or nest a clip inside a compound clip). Color FInale is not as powerful as a full-blown nodes system like Resolve of course, but I could see it becoming my one and only colour tool within FCPX. It's nice to have traditional colour wheels back too. What else is good... the new LUT manager lets you put LUTs in custom folders (so no more scrolling through endless lists of LUTs).

Gateway to the Ganges is shot on A7S. And Matrox, you are exaggerating.

The Sony A6000 and a5100 have very nice AF for video (I have the A6000). You need a system lens of course. You can set how long the camera holds the subject for, how quickly it changes focus, and you can assign custom buttons to lock focus with. It's the only hybrid system I'd consider using AF in video. The video image itself is pretty nice for close ups or shallow depth-of-field, but can be disappointing with detailed wide angle landscapes, where you start to see aliasing. I would say it's an issue with the way the sensor is sampled rather than a codec problem (though the codec could be better on the A6000, and is better on the A5100).

The A6000 is very nice with any kind of close-up or medium shot, but it is disappointing for detailed wide-angle landscapes. The AF is also incredible, and is the first AF I've used that I would consider using for video, though I need to experiment with it more. Have you looked at this A6000 channel on Vimeo? https://vimeo.com/channels/853632

I just wish there were more decent APS-C cameras. Or rather, there's lots of decent ones (I've been enjoying the A6000 for a couple of months now), but nothing outstanding for mirrorless video. The best "APS-C" cameras are in fact full-frame cameras in crop mode, or m43 cameras with a speed booster. Come on Sony, give us an A7000S. With internal 4K. And 5 axis IBIS. The Samsung NX1 is definitely intriguing though

I watched a lot of things on planes this year. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was great, and also enjoyed Edge of Tomorrow more than I thought I would (in Japan they stuck to the original, and way better title, All You Need is Kill). I missed A Most Wanted Man, I really wanted to see that. I enjoyed just how imperfect and photographic Interstellar looked when most films of that ilk are super sharp CG. There was some serious blurriness at the edge of the image (in IMAX anyway), even in the ensemble, medium-long dialogue shots, so that Casey Affleck is delivering a line, and his head is a blurry blob. Take that, corner-to-corner sharpness junkies!

According to DSLR News Shooter, the IBIS might only work with Sony glass, though it's not clear what their source for that is: http://www.newsshooter.com/2014/11/20/sony-launch-a7-ii-worlds-first-full-frame-camera-with-5-axis-image-stabilisation-system/ Although when the E-M5 came out, I think initially the IBIS was system lenses only, wasn't it? They added support for 3rd party lenses, with the focal length selector, in a later firmware update, I think.

Daniel asked me about the A6000 vs the G6 on the sticky A6000 thread, I thought I'd link to it here as people have been discussing these two cameras: >

I haven't had the A6000 for that long, so I still haven't made up my mind about it. I'm keeping both cameras for now. On the one hand, my pixel peeper eyes tell me that the G6 (in fact, I'd say all M43 cameras, including Olympus) have a more detailed image. I like the native lenses for M43 too (the Panny 20 1.7 in particular). But there's just something about APSC that I'm really drawn to. I'm not really sure I can pin it down to any one characteristic, such as dynamic range or depth of field (not a very helpful comment I know). The A6000 is certainly better in low light than the G6 (although as others have pointed out the GX7/ GM1 etc generation of Lumix cameras are much improved on this front). I've not had to use Neat Video noise reduction on my A6000 shots yet, whereas it was fairly routine on the G6. The A6000 image is not quite as detailed as a G6, but it's still very good. It isn't quite a mirrorless D5200/5300 but it's not too far off. I like how full frame lenses look on APSC, and I like being able to attach them without a speedbooster (and M-mount lenses of course can't be used with a focal reducer). Regarding moire, so far with the A6000, I've discarded one shot out of 180 because of moire. The shot in question had proper strobing zebras on the roof of a temple, but I could see the moire in the EVF as I was shooting it, so it wasn't exactly an unexpected shock (the situation is much better than the NEX 6). The G6 has really tiny amounts of moire here and there (according to Andrew even 1-to-1 4K on the GH4 has moire "traces"). It is something that you need to be more aware of on the A6000 but generally I don't consider it a problem. The Sonys are catching up with Panasonic in terms of handling and user interface too. It's nice to see the A6000 inheriting features from the A7 series (such as being able to do a focus punch-in whilst recording, something Andrew was praising in part 2 of his A7S review), and the zebras (although as Andrew said in the A7S review, the zebras can be unpredictable at times. I haven't worked out the relation between the zebras and the Sony's tendency to record into the superwhites). I would call the G6 the best "rebel cam" at the moment (ie inexpensive but very fully featured, mic port etc), particularly if you get a deal on it. Mine was 24000 yen ($240) second hand body only. (I'm definitely an advocate of "spend less on the body than on the lens". Spend less than on the focal reducer if you can!) The A6000 is, for my needs, a great compromise camera. I know that doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement, but sometimes you need a compromise! (ie almost D5300 quality, but with mirrorless convenience, very good video, but excellent stills too etc). I'm very happy with it so far. Best APSC mirrorless at the moment. Not at all a side-by-side comparison, but on this G6 video there's one or two similar-ish shots to the A6000 video above:

The SE35 1.8 is fast, nice rendering, plus if you're shooting photos as well as video it's nice to have OSS and AF. For me the jury is still out as to how useful the OSS and AF is for video. The OSS seems to produce an occasional warping effect which I don't see on Panasonic's stabilised lenses. If you're happy to go completely manual, you can't go wrong with some second hand Nikkor Ai-S lenses and an adaptor. I love my 24 2.8.

Thanks, yes it's the ImpulZ LUTs, using the "generic Rec 709" set.

My first few days with the A6000, my last few days in Tokyo: In some shots you can see a ripple effect. I don't think it's rolling shutter jello, I think it's the OSS on the SE35 1.8 (I say this because I haven't noticed this effect on similar shots with manual lenses). Anyone else had issues with Sony OSS? (I don't think I've seen this on stabilised Panasonic lenses)

Although the just announced Mac minis don't seem to be out in the wild yet, the geekbench developers have written an interesting article estimating it's likely performance: http://www.primatelabs.com/blog/2014/10/estimating-mac-mini-performance/ Although single-core performance is slightly improved over the 2012 model, as many predicted multi-core performance takes a massive hit owing to the lack of a quad-core configuration in the new lineup. There's no discussion of what difference Intel Iris (in the mid and top level 2014 model) will have over the 2012 model's Intel HD 4000 though. So which matters more to video editors, multi-core, or better graphics performance? (or, something else, like super fast storage, a thunderbolt RAID 0 or something?) Anyone have any thoughts on how say, the mid-tier 2014 Mac mini with Intel Iris would compare to a second-hand or refurbed quad-core model from 2012 (which would only have Intel HD 4000), for running FCPX? I'm talking about short, single-cam personal projects in FCPX (ie no deadlines, I can make a cup of tea while it renders), 1080p AVCHD and Prores 422, occasional processor-intensive effects like Neat Video NR or Optical Flow, I'm not needing or expecting anything screaming fast.

Thanks, that's really kind! I used ImpulZ from visioncolor though, rather than film convert. I guess I could enter anyway, and my fraud wouldn't be discovered unless I became a finalist.... ;)

Thanks, it's Rose from Amostra III: bubaproducer.com/atmostra/atmostra3.html