maxotics

Here's my crack at it. There's a little man in your camera. He sees everything through the sensor, God like vision However, he is only given 255 paints for each color, red green and blue. Each color ranges from very dark to very light. He uses this combination of 255 x 255 x 255 reds, greens, and blues, to create a full color image for you. The problem for our little camera-man is that he often sees colors, say a blue, that sit between two of his blue paints. Might be a 243.5, a little brighter than 243 and a little darker than 244. Indeed, he believes he really needs 1,000 paints per color to render a good image. But, and this is the first KEY thing, HE ONLY HAS 255 PAINTS TO WORK WITH IN EACH COLOR. You go to the beach with your camera and you take an image of your wife. The man in your camera says, it's a shame I don't have more lighter colors because there's a fantastic twinkle in your wife's eyes and nice colors in those clouds. I have all these dark colors and I don't need any of them. So what if you found a way to take his palette of 255 colors, throw out half of the dark colors and give him double the amount of light colors? So you have, say 1,3,5,7 at the low end and then, 225, 225.5, 226, 226.6 at the high end? What if you did that, but spread it out evenly (Curved them); that is, gave him only a few paints for dark colors but more and more colors as you got lighter--KEEPING IN MIND YOU HAVE A MAXIMUM of 255? You DO NOT END UP WITH MORE RECORDED DYNAMIC RANGE. Rather, you have REDUCED dynamic range where you AESTHETICALLY don't care about it, and INCREASED dynamic range where you do. But it is a judgment call. The total dynamic range is still 255 colors. I got into a lot of trouble with these logs on the GH4 because I don't have enough experience to know when it's better to shift the recorded dynamic range. I'd rather have RAW because you can apply curves AFTER the fact. If you shoot S-LOG in an evenly lit scene you'll end up with muddy darks because you didn't give them the same paints as you gave the lights. Hope this helps!

Ricardo, if you work primarily in video and you want the best 4K camera then I follow your logic with the NX1. However, I couldn't agree with TheRenaissanceMan more. There's a whole lot more that goes into a final product than the image recorded in a camera body. Consider this, a RAW based camera (BM or Canon with ML for example), records 14bit values at every pixel. That means when you debayer each pixel you end up with 42bits of FULL color information. In consumer video cameras, like the NX1, the camera takes each 12 bits from each pixel and combines them IN CAMERA with other pixels to create a 24bit FULL color value. Those values are then further compressed into a video stream. It doesn't matter if everyone has 4K video monitors in 2 years, say, 1080 video from a RAW camera will often be superior because most good video is shot for EMOTION, not resolution. And filmic EMOTIONAL range needs dynamic range, NOT sharpness IMHO. If you look at Oliver's reel you'll see simply amazing stuff, most of it shot with a GH3 (similar to the g6), which I believe will STAND THE TEST of time. If you want a super-sharp, high contrast look, then sounds like the NX1 camera is the one for you. If you want to shoot a wedding scene of a couple alone in a church, say and you want a little hair light, you'll wish you had a G6 and a small good quality LED light on a stand. No matter how good a camera is, if you can't light it the camera can't see it! What I loved about Mattias's video comparison is that, really, ALL the cameras were good!

I would not go with the NX1 because it's too early to tell how committed Samsung is to cameras and as Oliver says, the public isn't clamoring for 4K. Face it, if a client wants 4K they probably won't hired a "man and his dog" production company. My wife gets mad at me when I order the HD version of movies on Amazon demand for $1 extra. She says she can't tell the difference. Further, RAW based 1080 cameras like the BMPCC crush all 4K 8-bit cameras in color nuance and dynamic range. Here's a video (I took quick and dirty) with some mixed cameras and you can see what the difference is. I overexposed the a7 footage a bit, which means I'm stuck with it. The BMPCC not only has better colors against the a7 (even if perfectly exposed) but it has, to me, a film look. I would not get the 5D3 because, as hell of a camera it is, and it is, it is built as a through-the-lens camera which makes video more cumbersome than the A7, where you have an EVF and can see zebras, focus peaking, etc. Indeed, if you're going to shoot with the glass you have I believe an EVF camera is a must. A bad thing for me, good thing for you, is that Sony's model updates and driving the prices down on their earlier cameras. You should consider an a7 too because you may get one for a song. However, the large pixel count of the a7 means it is susceptible to moire so you want to accept that trade-off. If you like a really crisp image, then the panasonic m43rds, like FuzzyNormal says, deliver the goods. For me, the a7 is the perfect utility camera, great stills and video, takes any lens. Also, I can't keep someone focused on a full-frame at wide apertures. For video, I agree with Fuzzy that you're going to end up shooting not lower than 5.8 anyway. The sony autofocus on the A6000, does work reasonably well at 1.8 (effective 2.8 say) however. Again, as Oliver implied, business isn't about getting the camera/equipment you want, it's about getting the camera the client wants (indirectly). As for an investment for 3 years... I live one shot at a time Photos of event https://www.flickr.com/photos/maxotics/sets/72157654514582616 I used an A7 with 55/1.8, a6000 with 10-18, Canon 50D with Nikon 50mm

I have an a7, a6000, bmpcc, gm1, a variety of lenses, and I can never predict which camera will be best. In other words, Ricardo, even if you had all the equipment you wanted you'd still have to make impossible decisions about what to take with you/us. EVERY camera has strengths and weaknesses. And, you REALLY need good lenses too. I'm feeling here that there's a bit of a "if you have to ask the price you can't afford it", so I agree with FuzzyNormal that for the best camera with a strength in video I'd go with the GX7. I can barely tell the difference between its 1080p image from 4K scaled down. With an inexpensive adapter you can mount all kinds of lenses on it. The only downside it is doesn't look "professional". But if you put a cheap cage around it, and a shotgun, you could probably get that look! I'd get that, and then if you get well-paid work then think about getting something ONCE you have at least $4,000 budgeted. The GX7 will ALWAYS be useful. Another great camera is the Sony A6000.

​I'm with you. I'm just pointing out that for professional MOVIE filming only, which the C100 is aimed at, the "better" hybrid specifications are misleading.

If I wanted a camera that shot sharp 1080p using binned 4K internal images, had XLR inputs, could run for a while on a big battery, took professional glass, and output probably the best 28mbs image I could grade using any software...what camera would that be? It would be the Canon C100. I have a BMPCC and a Sony A7 and A6000 and I've looked at C100 stuff from my friend's camera--it's beautiful. The real problem people have, who complain that Canon isn't keeping up, isn't that the Canon C100 is a bad camera, it's that these consumer cameras, for all their 4K, RAW, in-camera stabilization, etc., STILL CANNOT deliver a no-fuss beautiful image.

A lot depends on the lens and whether you shoot crop mode or not. Also, it's difficult to see what RAW is all about until you do some comparisons of the same thing yourself. For example, here is one of the first RAW sequences I filmed with a 50D (A while ago). I knew what H.264 would have looked like. I did some comparisons. RAW has a rich film look. A lot depends on what you want to do. You're lucky! MLRawViewer now makes it easy to work with ML RAW. You can view, make basic adjustments, and export to high quality MOV or Cineform. It's so good I bought a 50D again though I have a BMPCC.

​It depends on whether you define color depth more as color accuracy OR more as dynamic range (levels of brightness). Because each pixel is NOT full-color when it is imaged (it's Red Green or Blue) it must borrow color information from pixels around it. That means, in 1080p, you really only have 25% red information, 25% blue and 25% green. When you down-scale 4K, you get 100% of each color value, more or less. So the color accuracy is greatly improved (which is partly why you see less color moire issues in 4K downscaled). As an aside, this is why the Canon C100 is no slouch in a camera. It is creating 1080p from 4K internally. Bottom line, to get really good 1080p, you need to start with 4K somewhere. However, averaging two 8-bit values does NOT give you a 10-bit value, in dynamic range. 4K is not a RAW equivalent and never will be. When you try to adjust your exposure in that 8-bit footage it won't go far. The 10-bit BMPCC footage will, because you essentially have 2-bits of brightness information to work with. You have more latitude to change the "color" (because you have 2 more bits of color information to work with) and not depend on the camera's internal decision making.

Sorry Amaze is an algorithm for RAW bayer sensor data. It won't work with H.264 4K. I was just using it as an example of other types of calculations where a bunch of pixels are "looked" at to come up with a representative pixel. In Amaze's case it is looking at Red, Green and Blue pixels and trying to figure out the best 3-color pixel.

Hi Ebrahim. Agree with wither mercer, but just to have fun, I'll argue you're not over-thinking it enough Is an image a collection of perfect data points? If each pixel recorded the color and saturation perfectly do you end up with a perfect image? I'll argue that the answer is 'no' because no matter how well a pixel records data there is space between each pixel that does NOT record data. A digital image is really black canvas populated with color dots that never touch each other. What this means is that if you image a field of tall grass there will be parts of the small grass blades that, when their light makes its way through the optics, fall on dead space on the sensor. This is true, AFAIK, with every sensor made and it doesn't matter how high the resolution 1K or 4K. Obviously, the higher the resolution, the less noticeable this problem. If a blade of grass "breaks apart" so to speak, between the pixels of your 4K image, downscaling cannot create "data" information that isn't there. Just like when your image processing system (camera or post) must deal with it (aliasing) with the original image, the downscaler must deal with it when combining the larger set of pixels into a smaller. The chief difference between all these algorithms, AFAIK, is how many pixels around the hypothetical center pixel the software looks at to determine the best value (though much of it is subjective, some will like one algo, others, another). Take the blade of grass. If the algo only look at the pixels above, it would never see the disconnect between the pixel to the left. An algo that looks at 16 pixels, say, to calculate 1 pixel, can often do it better than 4 pixels because it can "see" more of the image and make a good decision about what to create. The more pixels the algo looks at, the better, in my experience. Though, like Mercer says, this isn't a problem that yields significant improvement in most footage. So my answer to your question is that running your footage through the most sophisticated algorithm before you edit in your NLE should deliver the best results. Most likely, the NLE will be sluggish if running it real time (which is why you would process it before). For example, Amaze is a great debayering algorithm, but I doubt most PCs can use it rendering RAW in real time. Hope this makes sense!

Lens flare in these adapters is the biggest problem, especially as you go wide. I'd look for that first. There are some DIY solutions to dealing with it out there.

The pace Andrew kept up the past two years has always amazed me. I've been expecting him to break down for a long time. Whether he got sick, exploded or quietly walked away doesn't matter. What's important is he has stepped back and taken some time for himself. There is no end to camera testing. There is no end to forum conversations. There are no end of people looking to get something from you. When I first came upon this site I bought the Canon 50D RAW video manual. Andrew seemed to be a young film-maker who discovered how one could shoot film quality stuff on a consumer camera. He was a film-maker first, blog-host second. Then he started to get access to expensive, professional cameras (not the focus of this site). Then he got into a "thing" with Canon. Next came 4K cameras which, though they have their place, distracted him from gimbals, lighting, lenses, audio, and other parts of film-making. I hope he is returning to film-making and can find some balance between it, and what he has time to share. I think he's done enough camera tests for one life-time. I believe the success of this site, which is considerable, came at a personal cost to him.

​The scene facing an avenue. Whenever I shoot such a scene, the shadow side of the trees loses most detail with any 8-bit consumer camera I have used. Indeed, I think trees are one of the best indicators of dynamic range. Short-light photography is meant to have contrast, so when you shoot such a scene most 8-bit consumer footage looks naturally good. It's the same with the same camera and dog. I can get such RAW footage to match the other higher contrast, richer colors, but not the other way around. Although the scene of the dog with camera C looks a bit over-exposed and flat, it looks like perfect footage to me that will have a lot of latitude in what you want to do with it. My experience is that no consumer 8-bit camera can match consumer RAW (Blackmagic) in delivering film-quality skin tones or high-detail dynamic range (not to be confused with sharpness). Professional 8-bit cameras, that have the processing power and settings to basically do what Davinci Resolve does IN CAMERA, are a different story.

I have never been able to get the kind of DR shown with camera C, so I will say that camera C is a Blackmagic. If it isn't camera C I will be so, so interested in what it is! I could get the GH4 to get a flat image like that, but not without hurting skin tones.

Stabilization is a fascinating and complex subject, to say the least. I learned a lot configuring a Nebula and trying to fix a friend's broken gimbal. The same PID principles work for in-camera sensor stabilization and explain why the Olympus EM5.2 is not good, in my experience, with any kind of panning shot. The best analogy I've found is driving and stopping a car. When you see a red light and have to stop your brain sends a command to you foot to press the peddle. Once you do that, your senses send a signal if you're stopping to fast, or too slow, so you make an adjustment in your foot pressure. It's a complex feedback loop, adjustments happening every fraction of a secion. You're always risking stopping to short at the end (jarring), or stopping to quickly and then having to step on gas. The EM5.2, seems to favor risking stopping too fast over stopping to slow. In photography, you want stopping too fast because the goal is complete camera stillness when you take a shot. In video, your goal is to track the subject. So, as FuzzyNormal says, if the camera is more or less pointed in one direction, the stabilization works very well because it's stabilizing the 5 axis. When it pans, however, it doesn't know what axis to TRACK, instead of fixing itself in the original vector. So it tries to fix them all and, ONLY when you have moved far enough in one axis, does it say, Okay, I need to stop at a point ahead so basically steps on the gas to get to the new position. So you get that weird effect, or I did. Again, complex subject. BTW, I also believe the Sony A7II has the same exact issue, which Andrew noticed.

I know a shoot, and I swear I'm not making this stuff up, where the drone battery died while they were trying to get it configured. So they had a PA hold the drone and fly it around, like a boy with a model airplane in his hands, and recorded the video that way! (actually, looked pretty good!) To protect the innocent I'm not going to send you the link

I have the Oly 12mm and 17mm primes. They work on my GM1, BMPCC (and worked on the GH4 when I had one). They are FANTASTIC lenses and make a huge difference, IMHO. I experimented a lot with other lenses on focal reducers, etc. There is nothing like a prime designed for a specific sensor size. What I like the most about the Olympus lens design is you can physically push/pull a ring to go between auto focus and manual focus. AND they have the distance markings on them. Yes, they don't have IS, but you can get that through a stabilizer. BTW, I also tried the Olympus EM5.2 (I write about it here: http://maxotics.com/?p=443) In a nutshell, I find stabilization using a gimbal a 1,000 times better than the in-camera IS. On the EM5.2, when I panned, the image stuttered. I just remembered my blog entry didn't have my video footage. Frank wrote A600, it should be A6000

​Why do Nikon sensors have close to 12 stops of dynamic range and MFT's about 9? http://home.comcast.net/~NikonD70/Charts/PDR.htm Why does Kirk Tuck LOVE and champion MFT cameras, but still own and use a D800? http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2015/03/past-due-reviews-second-in-series-nikon.html Yes, some cell phones can shoot 4K, but it isn't very good 4K next to a GH4 say. And a GH4 is a nice, but not next to a Sony FS7. If you're a professional videographer you MUST have XLR inputs and a camera that won't shut down in the heat, etc. You're probably on a tripod all the time, so size is not a big concern. If you're an enthusiast you don't care about the XLR, you want small size, but you also want the camera to do as much as possible. If you ever shoot with a Nikon Full-Frame you would want it ALL the time for photography. I see two types of enthusiasts. One that shoot best photo camera/sub-par video (Canon/Nikon) and those who shoot best video (Panny) and sub-par photos. Or people like me with 5 cameras and a need for professional help

Doubtful, power requirements too high / too much heat generated. Panasonic can do 4K because they use smaller chips and a different sensor technology optimized for video, not photography.

​Because they get tired of ignoring all the filmmakers who keep making wonderful stuff with the cameras they already wrote off?

I remember listening to a radio interview of Pete Townshend. He said if he was happy for even 10 minutes during a day it was a good day. I thought about that for a while. If one of the greatest rock musicians EVER found every day difficult what does that mean to me, or the rest of us? Most people look at a guy with a camera as somewhere between pervert and pedophile. Alcoholics have it WAY better than us I can sympathize that you know so much about cameras, Andrew, that you leave it "all on the court" every day. I can understand your frustration when people, like Canon, don't take your hard-earned knowledge and put it to use. I doubt most kids these days know much about The Who. Whenever you feel like "fixing" society Andrew you should watch "Sullivans Travels" If you haven't seen it PLEASE put in on your list. We're all artists here. We all have a pulse. We're all ready to get "into it." I can only say, for me, thing stuff brings out the worst in me. Reading your camera stuff brings out the best.

​Yes, the law requires nothing. Yes, it's a matter for the employer. But does it (harm) have nothing "to do with Clarkson having ... alcohol related emotional breakdown"? The only people who would find the BBC's actions completely wrong are those who have never employed others, or been employed in a larger organization for which everyone depend on to put a roof over their head, food in their mouth, send the kids to school (not to mention they want people to focus on THEIR work, not some guys' boorish behavior). It is a real risk that if they kept him on and he ran someone over while drunk most managers would lose their jobs and many people lose their jobs--not to mention the person he killed. It's hard to fix things behind closed doors when the other person is harming others in front of a world-wide audience. Maybe BBC management over-reacted, maybe they didn't. We'll never know. TV is a collaborative effort. It is never all about one person. Why should he risk everyone's happiness on one man's alcoholic problem which is getting worse, not better? My 2-cents is they tried as hard as they can to keep the show going. At some point, you have to draw a line. How to you reign in a guy who has all the money he wants. Can get laid by just showing up to the local bar. Has people who want to be around him everywhere? Can get invited to the best parties? What you want to recognize is this is NO victory for BBC management. This is a failure for all concerned.

Yes, thank you Ed David and Cantsin! I've been very curious about Vimeo and Cantsin, you've finally took away the mystery for me. It is indeed a thing I value about Vimeo, getting to post videos on websites without names, logos, etc. I use it for friends/clients. NOTHING like that available on YouTube. Works great! Well worth the $60 a year. That said, getting back to Ed David's post, can Vimeo be more than it is (as Cantsin has described it)? How expensive would it be to improve search? If it doesn't work it should be taken out. I'm all for FOCUS. Especially in business. It would be nice to either do what Ed David suggests, which I agree with, or take out the stuff they just don't care about, like Roku support.

I've been on Vimeo from close to the beginning. I pay the $60 a year. My gut feeling is they're not making enough money to keep up with current technology. I first noticed something wasn't right when Search often timed out, or didn't work altogether. Next, Vimeo stopped working on my Roku 2. I ended up getting a Roku 3, which it works for, but that's not real solution for the market. Someone with deep pockets will have to buy them. What I'm saying is I believe they'd love to do everything Ed David said, they just don't have the money. Also, their "pro" level of pricing makes little sense to me. I don't care how much they love video, they have to deliver a service people want to buy... like Canon

Here's a photo of the Nebula 4000's pitch motor compared to motors you typically find on DSLR stabilizers. The gimbal in the picture is one a friend had, which broke, he could never get it working again, so I'm trying to fix it. Not easy! This photo gives you an idea how little the motors are on small gimbals and why they work best with small cameras.