fuzzynormal

All this going on and on about color --as if content creators could never make a good video without someone's skin tone looking like a Vermeer painting right off of the sensor. C'mon, someone's skin tone should probably be the least of your worries with modern gear. All of it is more than good enough. Sorry, I really shouldn't gripe and be an old fart about this. It's just that you're making interview videos for freaking YouTube. If you have half a clue what you're doing... Sony is fine. Panasonic is fine. Canon is Fine. Nikon is fine. I mean, look what you're getting for less than 1K. It's practically magic these days and it only costs a handful of beans. Use it, make fun stuff, and be happy. (Jeez, I'm seriously getting curmudgeonly about things these days. Don't get old kids, it makes you cranky!) So anyway...I'd buy a G7... and why would you need a speed booster for talking head studio stuff?

Look at my avatar. It doesn't get much smaller than that. GM1 with a set of a110 pentax prime lenses.

Maybe if you have any sort of stabilization turned on inside the Sony cam, turn it off?

Yeah, you set to 60 and then adjust the shutterspeed using the thumb dial that's next to the joystick. As for skin tone: https://www.dropbox.com/s/e0g8hfy6bl8tf99/DSCF8449.MOV?dl=0

They may be referencing the musicians in the studio footage? Not sure. As it is, the stuff we shot at the horse race track is 60p. So, if anyone is using that footage to analyze, keep in mind that it's a high frame rate and will certainly look like video in that regard.

How is the camera mount point in relation to the center of gravity on the three different cameras? Since you're flying other cams without the problem, it's not the total weight that's an issue. However, it may certainly be how the weight is balanced --or improperly balanced.

From what I can tell, no. The luminance space is definitely off a bit.

Yeah, something is certainly off with the blacks. I'm hopeful that a little digging with settings and/or a firmware update will bring things more in line with "normal." https://www.dropbox.com/s/co1kumkhdfgjrnt/TEST.mov?dl=0

We wanted a new photo camera, first and foremost. We've shot stills with Fuji cameras in the past and liked it a lot. The fact that it can handle video is just a bonus. Today we played around with a bunch of cameras. 5DII, Olympus EM5II, and Panasonic GX7. Personally, I like shooting with the EM5II the most, but the 5DII and GX7 have better IQ.

Yes, it's auto ISO. I told the shooter to underexpose a touch (set the exposure compensation to -1/2) and just roll on stuff; wanted to see what the camera would deliver in that environment. We didn't want to do anything fancy as of yet. Just shoot images pretty much as the camera delivers coming out of the box. Yes, the blacks are deep, but they seem to pull up pretty good during grading. Download a clip and give it a go. Andrew Reid has mentioned a process here that helps pull out the darker details. "However there are some tricks you need to know in the grade with this camera… Firstly, straight off the card the files have a bit of a scratchy low-fi look to them, with hugely crushed blacks and dynamic range appears limited at first glance. The files really seem to clip the blacks like nothing else when played back on my Mac direct from the card. Turns out it’s some kind of bug. Remapping to 16-255 in Premiere’s Fast Color Corrector tool brings amazing amounts of detail out in the blacks. Then applying Film Convert’s Kodak emulation under the Arri Alexa DCIP3 profile gives you an absolutely stunning image in terms of colour and a film-like grain. It cleans up incredibly well and the Fuji’s colour & white balance is spot on to begin with so it doesn’t need hours of tinkering with LUTs." I'd lean towards getting a speed booster and a f1.2 for low light scenes rather than push beyond 800iso. The grain isn't horrible, but it is prominent. As it is, I think it's a good low-light shooter. We could have stolen a bit more light and decreased the ISO if we were shooting 24p instead of 60p. I haven't experienced much with color profiles, but "ASTIA/soft" may be a good bet.

XPRO2, high ISO's: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wvddndv1y1nkhzn/AABMu380redCknSoktKDuoosa?dl=0

That's a mighty fine deconstruction of a Greengrass fight scene. You might wanna reconsider that sound design tho'. It takes the viewer out of the action rather than bringing them into it. As for the shot particulars: if there's anyway to tell what did what, I certainly can't.

It does, but I'm making a simple video for a guy's personal project --and it'll be web delivery. 864x486. The down-res minimizes the grain. Since the first bit of the shoot was in the morning darkness, much of it was over 1000 iso. It's kind of rough footage, as the shooter is getting used to the camera and lens, but we took it along to see what it could do with video. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wvddndv1y1nkhzn/AABMu380redCknSoktKDuoosa?dl=0 Straight from the card. Standard color profile. 60p, to be conformed to 24p. the Fuji f1.4 35mm. Most stuff under exposed a half stop.

Well, I can post a few shots from my upcoming gig, but it'll be basic work stuff, not test stuff. I don't do focus tracking, however. It doesn't seem like something a manual-focus-guy like me is going to mess around with. I don't trust it. We'll see if it overheats. Haven't tried to stress it yet. Shooting only 1080, it doesn't seem likely, but we'll find out.

Not that I know of yet. Yes, punch in focus would be great. However, I will attest that I'm able to pull focus using the EVF. Oddly, the peaking only works before you start rolling. Once you're in filming mode it shuts off. (needs firmware fix) But, again, grabbing focus is possible just by eyeballing the EVF image. If I get any worthwhile images from the track tomorrow morning I'll post the source files for pixel peeping.

The more I see of modern cams, the more I'm convinced that as long as one knows what they're doing, they can accomplish anything and make it look awesome. It's only going to get cheaper and better. Based on these sorts of examples, I'd only be hesitant to shoot with the JVC because of build quality rather than IQ...and only because I've been burned with some of their cheap camcorders in the past; might be different now. What one can do with $1K in gear is staggering to me. And if you can spend 10K, you should be in IQ heaven. Feels like we're all sort of on the other side of the pro-level IQ acquisition hump for consumers, the sort of reward that the 5DII promised those handful of years ago. Man, that was fast.

It was bought for my biz as a stills camera. However, it's definitely going to get used as a "B" video camera too. We may switch over completely to Fuji gear depending on what they offer in the next XT model. Since supposedly it will have 4K, that makes it tempting to unload other cameras/glass and invest in a single system. It seems so weird to stay, "Im considering Fuji as a video acquisition system," as Fuji has been worthless in video for so so long. Again, it kind of depends, for us, how they do with the XT. As far as I'm concerned, all these new cameras are more than adequate for the online/corporate stuff I do, and all these hybrids are great for that. And when I need pro stuff, I just rent.

Yes. And, as the client, they also tell me what visual style they want in those videos in order for me to get paid x amount of money. Which, in their case includes a lot of slow-mo. Delivering to the client what they want is usually standard operating procedure in a client/vendor relationship. Sorry if I'm misunderstanding what you're on about, but it seems contrarian to me. Regardless, I'm here to tell you that a client will indeed make requests for things like slow-mo, and that being the case, I use cameras that can provide it. As it happens, I have a shoot tomorrow in which I'll be at a race track for a client and I plan on shooting slow-mo for the piece. 60p conformed to 24p, but I would have certainly provided 120p slow-mo if the client could have paid a bit more in the budget. Also, it'll be the first time I use the Xpro2 on a paying gig (as the B-Cam). We'll see how it goes.

Well, FWIW, I have a sports client that loves manipulating time in the shots they acquire. They do a mini-doc for every episode of a SEC college football show. That's 20 short films a year. So there's that sort of work where it's great to have flexible tools, like a camera that does pretty good slow-mo.

No. I color grade my videos, but I don't pull or push too much so I haven't even bothered with the FLAT

Let's all hang out at my house in Borrego Springs and film some tests.

FWIW, I just go with standard ND's. Variable ND's are faster to use, but that particular convenience has never been important enough for me to accept the odd color cast and gradients it can create on certain shots. I'd say it really depends on how fast you need to be shooting or want to be shooting.

I've been using the em100/EM5II for real estate "profile" videos. Lots of talking heads and such. Short shoots that last an hour or so. I've done close to 40 of them so far. While that real estate stuff isn't on my vimeo page, this one below is very similar in style and used the same em100/EM5II set-up: I don't have the EM5II spec sheet in front of me. I don't know what Ω it prefers, but it plays nice enough with the Sennheiser. I'm not going to say it is wonderful audio. I've got gear that does better, but it's not horrible either --and it works well enough for me to use it without any stress that it's going to fail.

I've heard gripes about the lousy pre-amps in the EM5II, yet I'm clean audio with it and my Sennheiser em100. I dial down the input to a minimum and then adjust the input level accordingly on the wireless mic. It's not an impressive preamp, but I've found it useable.

Good luck with it. I appreciate JVC, but they typically just do things with their design and manufacturing that doesn't quite jibe with me when I'm using their cameras.