mercer

Yeah, it's definitely expensive to do it the "right" way. First... are you thinking of unloading your Mark iii to get a D16? What kind of budget are you looking at for your film... is it self financed, or do you have help? Personally, I would be very cautious with location scouting and preproduction to make sure you don't have logos, and such, ever filmed. If your story requires specific logos or street signs then make them a physical, filmable entity rather than something you "fix" in post... unless you are planning to do some green screen work and are either very proficient in After Effects or are paying someone who is. Finally, regarding noise, do people clean up the noise on the D16 or with ML Raw? I know Aaron uses the Ursa, so I assume by his comment he is cleaning up the Ursa footage, but I believe he shoots commercial projects from inception to delivery, so it would make sense for him to have a clean, final product... for an indie narrative, I would think you would want to allow some of the D16's organic noise to show through and then build your grain as a second textural element.

Good points. I will try that. This wasn't shown to fix, even though I'm sure it could use some work... I did each in about 3 minutes. It was just a way to show different types of stylized grades as opposed to the more natural style that most people on the board (myself included) prefer.

I know most people enjoy more natural grades, but I thought it could be fun to see some stylized grades from different cameras. Here are two versions of a shot I did with the RX10ii in Cine2. The first version I did with FilmConvert... And this one I used Mojo ii. There's a little too much magenta in the sky, but I am having some problems with what I am seeing on my monitor in FCPX, compared to the exported version on my phone...

I found the exact opposite with the a6500 and the a6300... it was night and day. I've found the a6500 to be as good as the GX85's IBIS... other than quick movements... but the Panasonic doesn't do them that great either... just less RS. Of course I've only used non-stabilized, vintage manual glass with both, so it may not be a fair comparison.

Yeah, I hear you about the lack of zebras and focus peaking with the Nikon cameras. If the D5500 had peaking and metering with ai-s lenses, I would probable just use that camera... the image and color is so nice. IMO, Nikon colors blow away Panasonics, but that is subjective and I have seen some amazing work in this forum from that camera!

The G85 is a great camera, but so is the Nikon. Some of my favorite work I've done has been with the D5500. So unless you need 4K or 5-axis IBIS, I would just keep the Nikon. But to answer your question, your Nikon lenses will work nicely with a focal reducer. You don't need the Metabones, but I would suggest at least springing for the Lens Turbo II. Good luck.

Pretty cool. Nice imagery and composition and subject... I want to see more. What camera was this shot with?

Isn't the BMCC referred to as a Mini Alexa? They are so cheap on the used market right now, it may be worth looking into one of those instead of trying to get the GH4 to look like an Alexa.

Thanks Parker, that's good to know. I've seen a few videos with it that have blown me away. I recently picked up an RX10ii and I am having a blast shooting in Shutter Priority mode with sLog2. It feels like point and shoot cinema. But I've had a few tests with Raw video over the past year, or so, with a BMMCC, a 50D, and a Pocket, and there is just nothing like the image. So when I saw how cheap the 70D is now, I became intrigued. With an OIS zoom or prime and its DPAF I thought this camera could be a point and shoot 14 bit Raw cinema camera. Very interesting. Do you know, or remember, what resolutions were continuous... in 16:9 or 2:35? I saw a video on Vimeo where the filmmaker recorded at one of the lower continuous resolutions and then downscaled it to 720p and it looked stunning. Anyway, thanks for your help!

I watched Ti West's thriller, The Sacrament yesterday and I thought to myself how nice it looked. I looked it up and learned that all of his previous movies have been shot on film, but since this is a first person narrative, they knew they had to shoot digitally. Of course they wanted to go with the Alexa... like everybody does... but that was going to be too heavy for the aesthetic they needed... so they went Canon C300.

@Walter Schulz hi and thank you for the detailed response. I have lurked over at the ML forum on occasion for the past couple years, specifically when I tested ML Raw with my eos-m and more recently with my 50D. I am interested in testing ML Raw with the 70D but I have a few questions and honestly I do not have the time to scour the ML forums for the answers and it seems like that is frowned upon over there... so I was wondering if you have a minute or two... could you answer a few questions regarding ML Raw on the 70D? 1. I understand that the Touch DPAF works well with ML Raw... does it eat battery life in conjunction with ML? 2. How do OIS lenses work with ML Raw on the 70D? 3. Is it possible to shoot in Shutter Priority mode with ML Raw on the 70D? 4. In your opinion, will any combination of the above make camera freezes more possible, or even likely? I love ML Raw and it is amazing the work you guys are doing over there. With the 5D mkii coming down in price on the used market, I am contemplating picking one up instead of the 70D, as I assume that build is more stable, but the option of using DPAF in conjunction with ML Raw does sound pretty tempting.

I wish Panasonic would release a -$1200 version of the GH5 without the 4K and only the high bitrate All-I 1080p. Or maybe an LX200 with just barebones 4K + the high bitrate all-i 1080p.

Does anyone convert their footage to prores anymore? Because I just convert the high frame rate to 24p in EditReady as I convert the footage to prores... is that not a good way to do it?

Again, I am a horrible colorist, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I have found input/utility/conversion LUTS to be horribly inconsistent. Unless the LUT creator knows your exact in camera settings, exposure, etc..., then it will be hard to get a proper baseline. However I do like Film Print Emulation export LUTS at the end of the coloring process to add a little bit of depth to the image. With all that being said, there are a couple basic utility LUTS that work fairly well and for slog I have found the LUTS made for Arri work the best. Also, it seems the camera profiles with FilmConvert work pretty damn good too. Sorry for the off topic.

Yeah but, when it's right it looks so cool. Daniel Peters' videos look great. I have a theory that there are 2 or 3 looks that Sony cameras excell at... unfortunately I am incapable of reproducing those looks... So I am learning to settle for crunchy contrast and nuclear waste green.

I'm a pretty good colorist, except for the red, green and blue channels... I suck at those.

Nice job with this. I recently started messing around with the basic color board in FCPX and I am really enjoying the ability to adjust Saturation separately in the highs, mids and lows. And then some simple curves or telecine wheels adjustment in Color Finale makes for a simple workflow... of course I've been shooting a lot in slog2 and slog3 lately, so that becomes a different beast and beyond my skill set.

Btw, loved what you did with the slit cheek effect. Very nicely done.

I grew up making movies with my friends but as we grew older, less and less movies are made, but I absolutely adore the process and hearing about it. Every short I've ever made and every film we've ever done, I tend to hate the process leading up to it, until I manage to nail a shot just as I envisioned it. I hear you about the RX10ii, I used it for my first rounds of tests today. I am pretty happy with it so far because it is a lot better than I expected it would be... of course I am shooting all daytime exteriors with it, am shooting in Shutter Priority mode, in manual focus but using the push af to set my initial focus... the project I'm in pre-production with is hinged upon the auto aspect of the camera and so far it seems like it will work nicely. Now I just have to figure out how to correct/grade SLog2... ugh. The BMCC hasn't really been on my radar, but I've loved what I've seen from it... especially the Raw shot short Lights Out. If I didn't already have a cage, speedbooster, external battery for the BMPCC, I would consider the BMCC instead. I, briefly, had the Micro last Spring and although every time I had to rig that Rubik's Cube up, a little part of me died inside, the image was lovely. The screen with the Pocket is a pain, but it is usable... barely. Between the RX10, A6500 and BMPCC, I'll have every camera I need for the slate of shorts I have planned for the next year. Btw, do you have any BTS footage of your film? I am really impressed with what you did and I'd love to hear more about the process.

The a6500 has Touch phase detection af, so no reason to doubt that the a7siii will have it.

Although the RS isn't good at all, on the 6500, the 5-axis IBIS really tames it if you are not doing fast pans and walking.

I can guarantee that most of the replies will favor the GH5, but honestly I think the right answer depends on how important cost, sensor size, low light and AF is to your work? With a $600 price difference the extra money saved with the a6500 can be used to put toward lenses. With the larger sensor, you will have a built in Super 35mm aesthetic and all the bonuses that entails. Between the sensor size and cleaner high ISOs, the a6500 will be better in low light. With the touch screen and PDAF, the a6500 will have better AF. With all that being said, the GH5 will probably offer a more stable production with less chance of overheating and better rolling shutter. If 4K 60p is important to you, the GH5 will offer that. If you're interested only in 1080p, the future firmware updates will give you lots of great high bitrate, high framerate, All-I options. But if 1080p is all you need, the overheating issues of the a6500 won't be an issue... of course I haven't had an issue with overheating in 4K with my a6500, but I never shoot a clip that is longer than 2-3 minutes at a time... being a wedding videographer, YMMV.

Really nice work. Neo noir is such a cool genre... actually all noir is... and it seems you managed to truthfully yet artistically stay within the confines of the genre. It seems like Blue Velvet may have been an inspiration for the film as well as some of your previous mentioned ones? The casting was very smart, a couple of your actors resembled Hollywood actors... one looked kinda like Michael Douglass and another looked kinda like Kevin Spacey... specifically in the car scene where he is framed in the middle of the back seat... kinda like Seven. If you don't mind me asking, what was your budget? Assuming it was on the lower end, my next couple questions are asked based on that presumption. I've been patiently awaiting a good price on a BMPCC and while scouring eBay, I've noticed a lot of lightly used BMCCs going for just a little more than a new Pocket... with it being called a Mini Alexa, I'm curious to know the pros and cons you experienced shooting with it on a feature? I just purchased an RX10 ii, so obviously I am really interested to know how it fared compared to the BMCC and 5d2 Raw, which shots, from the trailer, were shot with it, did you use SLog2 and did you tweak the profile settings or use them at default? I guess that's more than enough to ask of you. So, thanks for sharing your work and please keep us posted when the feature is finished. Also once again really nice job. You discussed some of the problems you had and I am sure many others on the site are full aware how near impossible it is to produce a narrative film on a small budget. Every task is a struggle to the point where it seems that the universe does not want us mere mortals to make a film. Sheer fortitude, obsession and a little bit of luck makes it happen... So congratulations on that miracle as well.

Did you make an optimal primes joke earlier and deleted it? ? Actually, in your earliest post on the topic, I thought you were specifically referring to the a6500, when you actually wrote just Sony... and I can only speak for the a6500. I've never used an Olympus but from what I've seen, the IBID does look excellent. I will admit, I was tempted by the E-M5 mkii after seeing John Brawley's video last summer.

On the Sony site it states it is more optimal with a native lens that has OSS... just as Dual IS works better with Panasonic.