pablogrollan

Well, the recent Sony a6000 sounds close to what you are looking for, except that you won't get in-body estabilisation. Yes to APS-C, small form factor, good low light performance, AVCHD -though a good implementation of the codec-, 24p-25p-30p-50p-60p, relatively free of moire and aliasing and with decent rolling shutter. Frankly, in-body estabilisation is yet an oddity in the video world. The Panasonic GX7 has it for stills, though it can't be enabled in video mode and the sensor is m4/3. I don't know any other mirrorless/small dslr with such feature apart from the Olympus OM-D line. Besides, in-body stabilization always results in a somewhat degraded image quality. Why not go for some pocket interchangeable lens camera (BMPC, Panasonic GM1, RX100M3, or even a5000 or a6000) and then add something like this:

I believe your view on a DP's job is oversimplified. Yes, they do care -a lot- about DOF and bokeh, because those are also composition tools. To think they just worry about camera placement and framing is like saying an actor only has to memorize some text. When you shoot a closeup, sometimes you want the character blended in the environment, but many times you want to isolate the face with very shallow DOF to center the attention on his/her expresion. And the bokeh orbs that you see in the background are often lights or elements placed on purpose to serve as defocused background, and have nothing to do with the real background or what you see in the wide shot. For wide shots such as establishing shots (descriptive) deep focus is usually desirable, since you want to show a general impression of the setting and not focus the attention on a specific point. The problem comes when some unseasoned or untrained filmmaker decides to shoot every establishing shot with an 18mm @ T1.5, just to "show off" shallow DOF. The same could be applied to many closeups: you do not always need the background that blurred. DOF is not an aesthetic element that looks "cool", but a narrative element to tell a story. And composition is probably the last thing a DP worries about. Composition is relatively easy. Its rules are common knowledge. Camera placement and lens choice pretty much define it. It has already been agreed in preproduction and any decent camera operator would be able to frame properly. DPs are more concerned with lighting. If you are looking for that cinematic look, you need proper lighting and lenses, and the extra stop of light provided by the Speedbooster becomes irrelevant (though may come in handy in docu).

I'd like to see how the GH4 at max ISO holds against this... Maybe under ideal conditions and low ISOs, GH4's noise is more grainy, less blocky, etc. (I have no reason not to trust your judgement) but the truth is that many recent cameras -even GM1, Sony A600, etc.- are relatively noise free at 800 ISO. It is at high ISOs where noise starts to become a problem, and I believe that problem happens way sooner on the GH4. The same could be said of GH4 vs. BMPC 4K noise. It is much more "filmic" and organic on the BMPC... up to 400 ISO. After that, who cares, the BMPC footage becomes unusable while the GH4 still has headroom...

Isn't it kind of contradictory to say the A7S is better in low light but that the noise is better in the GH4? From what I've seen, the GH4 gets quite noisy at 1600 ISO, making it the highest usable ISO, while the A7S hardly shows any noise at 6400 ISO... Are you comparing the "quality" of the noise at 1600 on the GH4 vs. the A7S at 51000 ISO? Kind of unfair, don't you think?

I'd say GH4, the DOF is really deep and the girl looks a little oversharpened...

It does look like 60i uploaded to Youtube as 1080p. Look at the extreme aliasing (not even a 7D is that bad). More than aliasing is the result of showing fields rather than frames. I guess Youtube automatically tries to deinterlace the footage...

I agree with you that the term cadence is somewhat confusing: In fact, I would I'd dare say that most of the "cadence" problems do not exist. They are simply a question of footage not properly shot or encoded. Many, many videos on the web use fast shutter speeds in sunlight to compensate the lack of an ND filter, causing an akward cadence. Some others use a very slow shutter speed in low light to compensate the lack of proper lighting, causing an akward cadence. Some in camera codecs record "fake" progressive framerates that are actually interlaced or the footage is interlaced-deinterlaced in the NLE to fit a certain standard, causing an akward cadence. Some other times, 23.976 footage is edited and encoded as 24p, which is not exactly the same. And finally, some other times it's the players fault (though I don't own an Apple TV) or the encoded stream, or any of the absurd TV "image enhacements" of any recent TV set. Under normal circumstances, any professional camera recording true progressive footage at a proper 180º shutter angle should yield that cinematic motion. And I can include DSLRs and midrange cameras, too. You don't see those "cadence" problems when you go to the movies, even though you see movies recorded (not filmed) with a mix of Alexas, Reds, C300s, C500s and even 5Ds. Because the footage is properly shot, conformed and handled throughout the whole workflow.

Only a few shoots look really soft to me... or should I say out of focus. Rest of the softness and aliasing maybe due to the video being 720p and played back full screen or the use of NDs since it was shot at 3200 ISO. Still, the video does need grading...

New "test footage" shot in a hot and dry environment...

I imagine the 7DMkII will have low light capabilities similar to the C100-C300 or better, and probably a much needed enhancement of dynamic range (7D and 5DMkIII don't even get to 12 stops), better scaling (no line skipping) but I doubt it will have 4K video. That would make the 1DC totally obsolete, and to a certain extent the C300 (although it still would have better ergonomics, better codec, XLR inputs and built in NDs). Probably it would be a good chance to implement h.265 with the current bitrate in their video -which theoretically would result in double the current quality-, maybe along some C-log mode that would make it one of the best DSLRs to shoot 1080p, maybe with both mic and headphone jacks...

Really? The FZ1000's sensor is made by Sony. It is supposed to be the same sensor in the RX10, which Sony could "update" at any moment (Photokina?). In fact, 4K and a slightly lower price tag are the main differences between these cameras: In return, you lose the constant aperture Zeiss zoom and the clickless aperture ring. Of every FZ1000 sold by Panny, Sony will get a share, and later they will probably release a marginally better RX10 II for a few hundred dollars more and that too will sell OK. Business-wise, I believe they are doing fine since right now they are the ones developing the most advanced sensors for their cameras, the Hasselblads, the Alexas, the Nikons and the Pannys. The only real competitor in this arena is Canon, but we all know it's been a while since they released an innovative sensor...

I doubt it's 4K coming out of the micro HDMI. Considering there is no Shogun yet, he would have needed and HDMI-SDI converter to connect and Oddissey... and he doesn't mention any of that in the article. I believe the huge amount detail comes from the internal downscaling from the full 4K pixel readout to 1080p, similar to what you do with the GH4 in Premiere.

Newsshoter just released some low light footage, and it looks really nice...

Or you could just edit in the footage's native format and export the final edit to 25p...

I agree with both Ebrahim and jgharding on using the FS700. Considering you have no budget, the BM has a bunch of caveats associated (storage needs, battery, extra work in post, reliability). I personally would prefer to know I'm not going to run into unforeseen events and end up needing to rent the camera again for an additional day of shooting. An yes, the FS700 is more of a "proper" video camera while the BM, as a cinema camera, requires the usual rigging of a DSLR or more.

That last test from WorldofDSLR is iffy -with all due respect-. Similar image quality was to be expected after downscaling and youtube compression but... identical DOF? If they used a speedbooster on the GH4 and APS-C crop mode on the A7S, similar framing would yield similar DOF but, not so identical. Seems to me both images are form GH4 internal 4K. Not even Den Lennie got a Shogun yet and he is the "evangelist" for the A7S, which by the way I doubt can shoot such deep and clinical focus at any aperture... It shouldn't considering it's FF and the pixels are way bigger than the GH4's.

I can't talk about Resolve performance, but having a system running an i7-4770K and another with one of the "old" i7, I do not see any noticeable difference in Premiere. Premiere is not so CPU intensive, and a GPU like Aaron's GTX760 would do the job just fine.

So you get a very usable 25,600 ISO in video and even 51,200 if necessary... I don't see a problem with that. We all knew that 400,000 ISO was just a "wow factor" spec. Most modern cameras are really noisy at 6,400 ISO so yes, it is a big improvement that has practical use, even if it's not even close to what sony marketing claims. The same applies to DR, you will not have 15 stops in video mode but 12-13 usable stops would still be great...

Read that, and though he claims to be able to count 14 stops -only 11 usable-, I look at the picture and count no more than 11. Just like the A7S might be impressive but I doubt it will have 14 stops in video. If it had 13 stops without the hassle of RAW, I'd be more than satisfied. This tests shows the FS700 to have 11.5 stops, which would put it in the same league and market segment as the C100.

"I’d speculate the sensor is likely made by Panasonic." According to Sonyalpharumors it has the same Sony made sensor from the RX100M3 and the RX10, which was already 4K capable (though not enabled). I suppose this means we may see the "RX20" or "RX10 M2" in the coming months offering pretty much the same but in XAVC-S and with built-in ND filters for 300-400$ more.

+1. IMHO Michael Bay's -and others like him- merit does not lie in his craft, but in bloated budgets, the hard work of an oversized crew and many hours in the editing room. In the end, fast cuts, extreme closeups, shaky cam and explosions fail to deliver the message because they become the message. That works in commercials, where you sell happines and values no matter what product or brand, but cinema should aim higher. The opposite happens with The Dark Knight. I believe Nolan is out of his element and comfort zone shooting action, but what makes those movies shine is everything but the action.

In the new business model for the music industry there are a few actors that don't make sense anymore, like retail stores and record labels, or at least as we have known them until now. Before: out of the 12-15$ of the price of a CD, roughly half went to the retailer -who paid for logistics and some advertising-, and out of the remaining 6-7$, the artists got 1$. The record label had to pay for the recording & mixing and expenses related with distribution agreements, etc. Now: The retailer is online (iTunes, Spotify) and has little logistics to speak of (servers), studios are cheaper and many artists can afford to build a mini-studio with profesional quality, mixing is done in a computer (no more super expensive boards required) so, whats the added value of a record label? very little. Even Radiohead crossed that bridge and released an album on their website proving their label that they were actually expendable. I believe this is the trend, since producing an album is a lot cheaper now than it was 25 years ago. They share a narrow-minded attitude, but they are not the same. Even low budget movies cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and involve the work of dozens of people. You still need someone to pay -or gather the investment- for that in advance and manage the production, even if it's just a small indie production company. But how many people do you need to produce a record? and how much money? that makes a big difference...

I personally have no problems with Nikon mount lenses. It's pretty much the only mount that hasn't changed, which gives you the opportunity to choose lenses released from 1959 up to today. Ten years from now it might be more difficult to get affordable old manual lenses from discontinued mounts like Contax, Canon FD, etc. But, if you plan to use autofocus you just might as well wait a little to see if Metabones releases a EOS to M4/3 speedbooster with electronics...