kye

I don't own Vlog. My plan is to give this conversion away when I'm done, so giving something away that requires the purchase of V-Log seems silly. I'm also pretty sure that if I film in VLog then CST to BMD film the results will still require significant work, in which case what is the point? If it doesn't require significant work then why aren't people just doing that in post, instead of moaning about how the GH5 looks too modern and the colour isn't great, if all it took was to buy a LUT and slap on a CST to get the colour of the 'baby Alexa'. I see it like this... the Micro has great colour, great image thickness, great resolution / sharpness, great mojo, but isn't great in battery life, sound, form factor, and file size. the GH5 is great with battery life, sound, form factor, file size, but lacks the classic image. Think how foolish it would be if people have been complaining the whole time that the classic look has gone, when it was a LUT and CST away. I doubt it. Stage one is colour matching, stage two is resolution and image thickness, stage three is mojo. By the time we get to stage three, we'll be doing blind comparisons of side-by-side 50p footage that's fully graded, and I'll be mixing up lenses between the two in order to eliminate what effects the glass is putting into the comparison. I'm no-where near done

I've posted this idea previously, but for those that don't know, this is about trying to make a GH5 look like a BlackMagic Micro Cinema Camera. I have a few goals with this project: Learn more about colour grading Learn what makes the Micro have the reputation it has for image quality (and Mojo!) Learn what I can do to make my GH5 footage better The project was born out of the backlash of the P4K and the "it's too sharp" "it looks too modern" "they don't make them like they used to" and at that time I asked if anyone could shoot some P4K and BMMCC / BMPCC footage that I could play with, but it didn't work out. I began thinking about that, and I realised that one of the foundations of my film-making philosophy is to capture the best image I can but to try and shift as much work to post as I can, where there's time to optimise and really get the best out of the footage. Anything you learn in post can be retrospectively applied to all your previously shot footage, which for me as the family historian, has significant value. This project then became partly about proving my own hypothesis, that if you get a good enough image then you can do whatever you like with it. So, I bought a BMMCC, a cheap colour chart, a halogen flood light, an IR & UV cut filter, and here we are. Attempt #1 was shooting random footage and after I realised I forgot the IR/UV filter that was a bust. Attempt #2 was with a colour chart I printed off the internet, and gave me an interesting feel for what the footage was doing, with the various colour shifts that were exposure dependent and other squirly things going on. I learned some interesting things from that, especially that the Micro did a lot of the things that film-emulations do, like rotate hues into the warm/cool axis and saturate that axis a lot more than the other axes. Attempt #3 was with the same internet colour chart but starting again knowing more about the footage, and I learned a bit more about the nasties going on. Which brings us to attempt #4. This attempt was with the real colour checker, my face for some office-worker skin tones, and a different approach. BMMCC frame (graded with a WB, Colour Space Transform, and no other alterations): GH5 frame (attempt #4) : GH5 frame (graded via Colour Space Transform from Rec.2100 to Rec.709): One thing to talk about is that the GH5 was shot in normal 4K 10-bit HLG mode, but the HLG mode doesn't actually correspond to Rec.2100 or Rec.2020, and there isn't a clear specification that I could find that it actually aligns to, so there's kind of no standard way to convert it to Rec.709 that I know of. Certainly the above isn't the nicest colour grade, but it's for reference. The approach is based around a workflow that goes: Colour Space Transform from Rec.2100 to BlackMagic Design Film Gen 1 Simple curve to get the greyscale roughed in Main colour node, with a Hue vs Hue curve, Hue vs Sat curve, Hue vs Lum curve Fine-tune colour node with Hue vs Hue and Hue vs Lum Hue vs Hue and Hue vs Sat selectively applied to more saturated colours Lum vs Sat to desaturate blacks and whites Saturation boost on skintones Minor Gaussian Blur to match sharpness levels This isn't the only frame I am matching across - I took exposures 2 stops above the ones shown above, and another 2 stops below, and was matching those too. The +2 image matches pretty well too, but I have more work to do on the -2, although unless you are seeing them side-by-side then it's probably difficult to tell. The plan is to match: Colour Resolution Mojo / Motion Cadence / Coffee-making-ability I also shot the above frames in the 1080 10-bit ALL-I 200Mbps mode but haven't really looked at them yet. I'll also likely include the 5K h265 mode too. More to come.

I wonder if this would be mitigated by some sort of nano-coatings on the rear side of the filter? Is anyone familiar with other types of filters other than Black Pro Mist? For example I've heard about White Pro Mist, but of course there are many others. They might have less back reflections too... If we could find a filter that turns modern glass into vintage then that would be spectacular for a lot of people I think.

I'm working up to this. I find that the GH5 viewfinder has served me well with good visibility in bright sunlight, but I've moved to using the flip-out screen as I can't see nearly as much and have to develop other ways to got framing right. I hope to progress to being able to use a camera without any video at all one day, and that's why I bought the Micro - at some point I just know that I'll have to take the plunge and leave the house without any monitor for it at all and then I'll be forced to compose, exposure and focus blind. It might take me some time to really build my skills that way, but it's worth it in the end I think.

Obviously it depends on your situation, but personally the thing that gripes me is when people don't use a slider at all and they end up with these shaky hand-held shots that just look awful. I see them on YT all the time. There's no excuse, because you can easily make a slider out of a flat surface and a tea-towel. Just put the camera on one end of the tea-towel on one end of the flat surface, then holding the camera in one hand and the other end of the tea-towel, you just pull the camera along, sliding it on the flat surface. If you haven't got a slider and want something then it's free to try and the results can be great. Try putting one finger on top of the camera and pushing down to control the friction and stabilise the camera a little more. You can even use a small table-top tripod or other kind of mount between the camera and tea-towel which will give you some height and adjustable angle.

Depth from de-focus is the future, it's just not ready yet. I've said it before, but there's a few different elements to AF - one is focusing and another is working out what to focus on, de-focus is image analysis which will do both when it's finished, but PDAF only does the first one. Having a system that flawlessly focuses on the wrong thing is of no use at all, and when Panasonic get this thing right (which will take a long time) everyone else will still be talking about how their cameras can focus on the retina perfectly, meanwhile professional cinematographers will still be using focus pullers because focusing on the retina of the wrong person in a shot is of no value whatsoever. There's very little difference between analysing an image with AI to work out what to focus on (which is what they're doing now) and doing image analysis that includes looking at who is moving their lips and who isn't to choose who to focus on, which is actually something of value. You obviously didn't read my post, so I'll quote it again for you....

The Sigma is a glorious lens, that's for sure. They also come in Cine packaging: and come in EF, PL, and others.. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1391229-REG/sigma_wfq968_18_35mm_t2_50_100mm.html So, the photographer versions really are a great deal when you take this package into conversion. It might be a small factor, but I doubt that it's the main cause. There are enough people doing deep servicing and even re-housing lenses, and they are stripping lenses apart and individually cleaning every element and every component, and if that made lenses look more modern then it would be something that was spoken about on the various forum etc. Can you imagine the outrage if someone spent several years making a vintage set of lenses from the first batch, only to have them cleaned and lose the character that motivated them in the first place? It would be palpable! There would be dozens of threads in all caps as the person turns themselves inside out My take is that if you're looking at the Sigma v Leica video and thinking there isn't much difference then just get the Sigma, a Tiffen Black Pro Mist at a small strength, strap it to your camera and turn the internet off and just go shoot

That's a fascinating comment. The photog blogs have been full of "Guess which newspaper just fired all its photographers" articles for years, so it's interesting to hear that there is some in-sourcing going on again. For a while there it seemed like the only permanent staff who operated a camera were going to be reporters using their iPhones to shoot the front cover of the NY times. I know that the move in the industry has been from stills to stills/video and with the rise of decent 4K you can just shoot video and take a still from the video, but there didn't seem to be the new video jobs being created.

Plus it's great for low light - with f0.95 lenses we get exposure around T1.0 but DoF at FF equivalent of F2 which is much easier to maintain focus. I'm not attached to MFT but that one is a pretty significant aspect to get past.

Well, if it costs 2 kidneys then you'll only live 2-3 weeks after buying one, but on the up-side they'll be cheap second-hand!

If I shot FF and didn't mind having a reversed MF direction, I'd just get a full set of the Takumars. They have this character that is rarely seen elsewhere, plus the build quality is absolutely excellent. One method that is very interesting is to convert the image to B&W in the last node and do the processing before that, as that means that you can use the colour information to enhance the look of the image by adjusting the brightness of each colour with a Hue vs Lum curve. Basically you just raise and lower each hue to get the nicest contrast. For example, if you had a shot of a model in front of a green hedge where the sun was on both the hedge and the model then a straight B&W conversion would have the model and hedge as roughly the same brightness. But if you lower the luminance of the greens then you can keep the exposure on the model but darken the hedge without having to make masks or do anything manually. If there were blue flowers on the hedge then you could brighten those up so now the model is in front of a dark hedge with bright flowers, etc. The technique can really take B&W images to the next level.

Maybe they'll have another offering on the R5 level and wow everyone.. C900 with RAW 8K, 10-bit 6K60, 5K75, 4K120, all internal. Of course, it would be a squillian dollars, but you know, whatever

Well, after reviewing the evidence, apparently I was! LOL. I second @kaylees suggestion of a vlog... I think the recipe for a good vlog is 1) being interesting and 2) having hijinks. I haven't met either of you, but I'm willing to say you've likely got both!

No personal experience with CZ's but in my research I came across more than one person saying that the 35-70 was the best lens ever made, bar none, so it's got a bit of a reputation. I think the slower aperture might eliminate it for some people, but IIRC it's pretty good wide open so realistically that's better than a 2.8 that doesn't sharpen up until it's stopped down a couple of stops. Show us some footage already!!

OH NOES!!!

In order to use Large Format lenses? When will it end?!?!?!

Not sure if this answers your question, but it has a punch-in feature that can be assigned to one of the buttons.

Great looking images, especially this one, which at first I thought might have been selectively blurred in post because it had that painterly / impressionistic rendering of the out-of-focus areas: Also, a question - you mention you don't like focus peaking, are you using the AF or are you focusing manually without peaking? I'm curious as the peaking on my GH5 leaves a bit to be desired and I've contemplated just turning it off and doing it by eye..

Great looking images. Nice work, and really cool to have that resource. What kind of projects are you shooting with it?

I'm not sure how much you know about vintage glass, so forgive me if I'm telling you things you already know... One thing I find useful is this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flange_focal_distance which lists flange distances, and everything with a greater flange distance than the mount you're using (EF in your case) should be easy to convert. For me, the interesting ones might be: M42, Pentax K, M39 (if you're interested in much earlier vintage glass), Contax C/Y, Nikon F (lots of great Nikon glass around).. Also worth a look: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?92044-Contax-Zeiss-Survival-Guide http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?152436-Russian-Soviet-USSR-Lens-Survival-Guide http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?139153-Mamiya-Medium-Format-Lens-Survival-Guide https://www.pebbleplace.com/databases/contax_database.html https://www.pentaxforums.com/lensreviews/Pentax-Takumar-M42-Screwmount-Lenses-i3.html Lots of great info out there if you're willing to put in some time on google..

Another one on "poor man's process" from Mark Bone: He goes into more detail than the previous one, so if you're filming driving scenes then this is pretty good. This whole thing should work fine if you're going to throw the background out of focus even a little bit, because you can blur the background projection and as long as you're blurring the pixel size on the projection then it will look fine.

Are you going to go fully manual lenses? That would be a pretty sweet setup with some nice vintage glass, and there's a ton of M42 or PK lenses that are great and relatively affordable

I'm an amateur, so I make $0 before tax, and my P&L shows huge net losses every year... Having said that, I've watched a bunch of YT videos from people who are actually professional film-makers (weddings, music videos, corporates, etc) and I've found there are a few common threads: You get paid almost nothing at the start You will get paid for work one or two 'levels' below what you're actually delivering How much you get paid is limited by your ability to sell, and your confidence in yourself The sky is the limit, just like in professional stills photography where you have weekend warriors who don't cover equipment or fuel costs and you also have famous photogs who are rolling in it If you work hard and do the right things to grow fast, then you can make a comfortable living (ie, more than an average office job) in only a few years It's worth watching a bunch of YT videos on it and there's surprising amounts of info out there. People won't tell you how much, but they do discuss how much jobs earn and likely costs, or some talk about how their income breaks down in percentage terms, etc. Good luck! and get ready to work your ass off.

I see two mindsets when it comes to overall consumerism, people who concentrate on what they have and people who concentrate on what is for sale. The people who concentrate on what they have follow this logic: Use what you have to do what you want to do On some kind of regular basis evaluate how well you did (at the end of each project, maybe annually, etc) Identify what are the most significant shortcomings are in your work, then work out how to address them If any of those shortcomings are from equipment, then have a look at what is available and if something will help you then buy it The people who follow what is available do this: See a new camera is available Read many reviews, trying to sift through the vast discussion about their positive features to find the little 'gotchas' that indicate the limitations of the equipment Watch endless sample footage, fantasising that they are somehow a different style of film-maker living in a different part of the world Try and compare multiple products that are all designed for different applications against their poorly understood requirements Buy something, maybe multiple things Spend ages working out how to make them work Discover all the hidden limitations that weren't in any review because the reviewers were all trying to be first to beat the YT algorithm Maybe film something Then, 2 weeks later another camera is released and back to the beginning with you! Out of all of my many flaws, one thing I can claim is that I started with a $97 point and shoot camera on my first overseas trip, and every upgrade since then has been based on me using the equipment I had in the real world, looking at the results, and then upgrading only when the weaknesses I wanted to address required equipment, as opposed to education or practice. I love equipment and technology, but I'm far more interested in getting the most out of what I have rather than buying new stuff because it looks shinier than what I already have.