mercer

Raw on the eos-m works in apsc as well. It just excited me to use it with old c-mount lenses. Thanks Max, I have been reading a lot of your posts over at the ml forum. Yeah, I figured the chroma smoothing was the culprit and now that you explain the process of how it works, it makes perfect sense. I do have a Mac, using FCPX. So, with your experience, what is the best workflow from capture to edit? I have been researching it, but I found there are so many different schools of thought and updates, it honestly gets confusing keeping it all straight. Is mlvmystic an okay program to convert the mlv files to dngs and then pink dot remover and then mlvrawviewer to convert to prores?

I can't tell you how happy I am that Bror posted about ML Raw on the eos-m because I have recently started using it but I figured nobody would be interested in discussing something so out dated. The reason I started using it was because I recently learned I could use my vintage c-mount lenses with it in crop mode. Which is great. I was getting ready to sell them off when I realized it. Anyway, I am getting some mixed results, and I am wondering if it is due to my workflow? I am recording in .mlv and then using mlmystic to ingest and convert the clips to's .dng. I click on the chroma smoothing option, at 2x2 to remove the pink dots then open those files in mlrawviewer where I fix the wb and convert to prores444. Is the chroma smoothing softening the image, or is that how the pink dot remover program works? I also stopped recording sound because it seemed to cause the dreaded threads failed to start issue. Now I read that it is okay to have in camera sharpening up a notch when shooting raw, but if the camera doesn't acknowledge the picture profile, then how do you use in camera sharpening? Now I have seen other people's footage online, Max and a kid named Ryan Moorman, and they both were getting amazing, sharp results with raw, and I am just not sure what I am doing wrong? Are the c-mounts the problem... Can they not resolve properly for the raw footage. I also am only using the 64gb Transcend card that writes at 60MB, could that be the issue? Bror, I saw that focal reducer and was wondering the same thing. With just the 3x crop on, the camera is insanely better than the original canon specs, so I was wondering what the image would look like with the Nikon focal reducer shot in 3x crop... Would it bring it back to apsc sized without the aliasing? Here's a jpeg grab from a raw clip I took last week using a 12.5 to 75mm Cosmicar c-mount zoom. I really love the look and the colors.

Do you think this would work with an eos-m using magic lantern 3x crop?

As you know, h.265 is highly compressed, I'm not sure the codec will hold up too well to native editing... Or at least grading and correcting. Transcoding to prores, or similar, is pretty painless.

Jonesy, OT question, but how is your feature you shot on the Canon doing? Any festival luck?

I guess you key frame the masks?

Yeah, there is an insane amount of work going on there. To be honest, I'd be happy with his second or third layer. At that point there's a nice, calm, muted color to the shot and the skin tones look good. Then when he dives deeper, the skin tones get mucked up, but the rest of the shot gets more dramatic. Then, wait for it... he fixes the skin tones near the end... Very nice. I feel inadequate now... Thanks for that.

I think it looks good, but at times I wasn't sure what I was watching. What's the story behind this event? Also, cut away from the person who walks in front of your camera. But honestly the quality of video is excellent and I like your color balance. The DIS looks great!!!

I definitely think the heart of this post is the truth. Story is king, it always will be, but... Some stories can only be told due to the technology or equipment... A sweeping epic without the ability to record wide panoramics and your story isn't given the justice it deserves. In micro budget filmmaking, the story is predicated upon the location and production elements you have access to and you build the story around them. You can't exercise your craft, if you don't own the proper tools for the job, luckily in this age, you can get a suitable camera and some lenses for less than 500 bucks... So ignore everything I just wrote...

Ebrahim, do you know what the dynamic range of the D5500 would be if using the Ninja 2?

That makes sense, do you know if cleaning and relubricating focus rings are difficult? On my 35mm zeiss, the focus is a little rough... Specifically in one spot it hangs up. I know you said you never worked on these lenses, but I'd imagine cleaning focus helicoids are similar, no matter the make of lens?

There is something special about the colors coming out of this camera... That I have seen. I have an eos-m, which I still love, an a5100, which I thought was amazing when I bought it, but like you said about the a6000, there is just something not right about it, and an nx500, which I have a love/hate relationship with. The 4K is amazing, but the colors are strange. It will probably be my black and white camera, which looks awesome. I am selling off a lot of lenses and equipment and I would like to get either a BMPCC or a D5500, with a Ninja... Obviously for different reasons. I am leaning towards the latter because of the flexibility of its hybrid options and I have a good set of manual, non ai primes that I paid next to nothing for. Of course I have some cool, vintage c-mount lenses that would go great with the BMPCC as well... Too many options. Anyway... Thanks for your help!

Thanks, yeah that is how I fixed the aperture on the older model, just fixing the lever in place. I think I had to take out a part that was used for the auto/manual functioning of the lens. The newer all black models are an entirely different design, instead of a spring, it uses a switch. The older models were actually a more complicated design. The zebra model is an in between version, hopefully it's the easier one. I am a mechanically inclined person, but I always get a little nervous opening up a lens. Anyway... Thanks again.

This is probably a dumb question, but I am pretty ignorant when it comes to external recorders... If I were to use a D5500 with the Ninja, can you still utilize the flat profile of the D5500, or is every camera setting bypassed by the Ninja? Also, how is the audio recording in the Ninja, is it usable at all?

I was going to suggest he speak with you, but I didn't want to volunteer you for something. Quick question though, I recently declicked a zeiss Jena 50mm, the newer black version and it was pretty straightforward. After that success, I attempted to declick an older version that had a spring system. I was able to fix the aperture but not declick it. I recently picked up the zebra 20mm f4 for a steal, but the aperture doesn't work. I don't want to take the mount off and have the spring pop, if there is one, do you know?

No conspiracy, just common union tactics.

I'm sorry but, to me, that seemed extremely staged. One guy looked like he was reading from cue cards. The fact remains that workers have the right to unionize, I just feel the timing of the expose' and the union organization is a little too convenient. I hope it works out for all parties. But to be honest, there is not enough evidence yet that will keep me from shopping there.

Taking the easy route to what?

This is union muckraking, and I'm sorry, but anyone who doesn't see through this is stupid. This is the 21st Century US, not 40's Nazi Germany or behind the Iron Curtain. If the job is less than safe, then quit. They're not being forced to work there. Why weren't they reported to OSHA for their allegedly poor safety practices?I'm sorry but the timing of this expose' and the timing of the unionization of the BH workers are just too close to be called coincidental. And this nonsense that they aren't allowed to go to the bathroom... If you work a job that won't let you poop when you have to poop and you comply to their no pooping on the job policy... Then... You probably deserve to work that job. EDIT: I apologize "stupid" is a strong word, I should have said misinformed or naive.

I was one or two of those 43 views on the eos-m video. Great stuff. I just recently uploaded ML onto my eos-m and have been having a blast with it... Even though it infuriates me almost every 5 and a half minutes.

I have been using 3.0 CBR and it doesn't stay constant, or I am just trusting their figures too much. Either way it does look better. I have been using a 64gb Transcend and it's only stopped recording, maybe 5 times out of the 50 or 60 clips I took with it. I also have been using the 3x crop and I will say, it definitely cures the canon of the dreaded moire and aliasing. With the eos-m, I think TL is unsupported and the two merged together. I'll have to check out Visioncolor. Do you need the eos utility software to load it onto the camera? Btw, what's the encoder?

@Liam do you up the bitrate in magic lantern? If so, do you find it fluctuates a lot? I was shooting a few shots the other day and the bitrate would bounce between 35 and 65 and there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason. Same question to @ZachGoodwin I know you are well versed in ML.

Dang, as I'm sure you know, in screenwriting, a page equals a minute of screen time. So, if you have 5 pages for 24 minutes, with another 10 pages of script, you'd have a short, 72 minute feature. And yes, it's a thankless, lonely process. With the short I have up in the screening room, I think I bored my girlfriend to death making her rewatch the most minute of changes. And screenplays are even worse, you spend hundreds of hours working on a script and when it's done, you send it off to some contests, or ask some friends or family to read it and then maybe in a few months you'll hear from the contest, or maybe a friend will say... "I liked it," or "I haven't gotten to it yet." At times it seems like an arbitrary exercise of masochism.

Yeah that looks great too. It has an isolated feel to the color tone, or at least that's the mood I got from it. I love the BMPCC... If only I could get my stupid NX500 to look like that. Btw, I forgot to mention before... I really liked the shot of your lead running in the snow, the contrast of her black running gear with the white snow is great. I assume that's a piece of a longer opening? And yeah that Sigma is a nice lens!!! But what I liked about the trailer, is it felt like I could be watching a trailer for a feature, and it seems, from what I saw, you have all the ingredients to expand it. Great location, good actors, good equipment (I'm a big fan of practical lighting as well) and an isolated, contained thriller plot. Looking forward to seeing the finished short!

It looks great. Suspenseful. From what I saw, the acting looks pretty good. I agree that maybe it could be a little longer, but all in all good job. I actually like the color the way it is. What camera did you shoot this on?