kye

I don't know about "affordable" but this might be helpful?

Shooting 4K and downscaling in post is a pretty good way of getting high quality 1080p, and it may record in a higher bitrate too.

I have done image quality comparisons of different resolutions given the same file size, and you're normally better off with the higher resolution, so even if the camera shoots the same bitrate for 1080 and 4K, you'd still be better with the 4K file.

1 hour ago, Shirozina said:

Why are you transcoding? You will loose image quality for a start and Resolve has various methods like Proxies, Optimised media and render cache to enable you to work with easier codecs in the timeline and then render the final result from the original source footage so you don't loose quality.

Great question..   I assumed @User was just using Resolve to generate media for use in some other software, but maybe that's not true?

23 minutes ago, Abbas Ali said:

Thanks again for your valuable insights @kye - I've went ahead and ordered the GX85- newegg had it with the 12-32 lens for around $400 which is not a LOT of money in case it doesn't work out and I could probably sell it for a little less.

I have fairly steady hands and with a back that goes around the neck, I'm hoping I could capture just using my hands. I've also ordered the Yelangu L4 that @BTM_Pix has posted. If it has steady wheels, I should be able to get some good rotating and slide shots. All of the gear should (hopefully) arrive in two weeks!

Cool!  Let us know how you go when you've had a chance to test it all

1 hour ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

You can always just use a $20 adapter. 

True, but only for longer focal lengths.  

If you're looking for a lens in the 100mm+ equivalent range then 50mm f1.8 lenses are great and cheap, and longer and slightly slower lenses are (almost literally) a dime a dozen.
If you're looking for lenses in the range of, say, 50-100mm equivalent then you can get things like 28mm or 35mm FF lenses, but they're either cheap and slow or expensive and fast.
If you're looking for lenses around 35mm equivalent then there are lots of 18mm APSC lenses around but you have the same cheap and slow or expensive and fast problem.
And if you're looking for lenses under 35mm equivalent then you're basically screwed with a 2X crop on adapted lenses as 8mm or 14mm lenses are more expensive, and if you want 8mm and non-fisheye then it's time to sell a kidney!

On 12/31/2018 at 12:11 AM, Ehetyz said:

Pairing the Pocket 4K with some good vintage glass is pretty blissful. There's been a lot of talk about how it looks more digital and modern than the previous BMD cameras - and yeah sure, I guess it's not as organic and grainy as the 2,5K. But throw on some c-mount glass or a speedbooster and old Pentax stuff and the camera sings. Haven't used it with this kind of setup on a production yet, (it's playing second fiddle to the Ursa Mini and been on a gimbal on about half a dozen shoots now) but I'm just having a lot of fun taking it on a walk and just taking some throwaway nature shots. It's something I used to do back when I used the 5DMK2 regularly, and I'm happy it has revitalized that habit again.

This was taken with the speedbooster and a Pentax 35/2.3 M42 lens on a cool winter afternoon. One of my favourites due to the very distinctive, oil painting-kinda way it renders out of focus areas and the transition between them and in-focus areas.

Nice looking image.  I'm doing the same thing with my GH5 and adapting lenses - using the GH5 10-bit mode to get the colour depth (not quite like RAW, but better than 8-bit) and the lenses to render the scene in a non-clinical way.  I've got a couple of Helios lenses, and I have both SB and non-SB adapters for it.

One thing to note is that modern lenses can be used as "semi-vintage" lenses too, if you use them wide-open or completely stopped-down, as this will normally soften the image significantly and is one of the things that people like about some vintage lenses.  You can also 'cheat' a bit with them and use a bokeh modifier on the front of the lens to change the shape of the bokeh from the normal shape to something a bit more interesting.  I suspect that if you have a 3D rather than 2D bokeh modifier then you can get different shaped bokeh in different parts of the frame, the way vintage lenses do, but I'll have to test this.  It depends on what you're interested in.

10 hours ago, Django said:

Finally when the Vari ND adapter will become available.. well that could just be a game changer.

I agree, and have said so previously.  It's already available (the Sony FS5, FS7ii, etc) but will be great when it trickles down the product lines into our hands.

Being able to set shutter angle and aperture (which are creative controls) and then control exposure with ND and ISO (which are exposure controls and not creative controls) will be a huge step forward.  Also, setting auto-ND and auto-ISO will allow those of us who shoot in faster run-n-gun situations to keep away from very short shutter speeds.

This is the kind of feature that will be significant enough for people to change systems.

8 hours ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

I am not sure if a speedbooster is a must have. 

It's not.  There are many native m43 lenses available.

However, I think that adapting lenses with a SB is a valid and popular choice for economic reasons:

• FF lenses are often cheaper than their native counterparts (when you remember to convert the aperture!), and APSC/FF offers fast zooms that aren't available natively either
• People often already own lenses, so there's a convenience factor
• There is also the question about how much value your investment in lenses will retain over time, as at the moment it seems like everyone is going FF and it remains to be seen if this is a fad or if m43 will die, or if it will survive but get left behind as a lesser format

Of course, adapting a $100 nifty-fifty by buying a $650 speed booster is a false-economy so you'd have to have quite a few cheaper FF lenses to recover the cost of the speed booster.

There is also the option to adapt vintage lenses to get a desirable aesthetic to potentially offset the "lack of soul" that some people perceive in todays nearly-perfect lenses.  This is art, after all.

On 12/31/2018 at 12:13 PM, Abbas Ali said:

Thanks for your valuable feedback. I agree with you on gimbals- I have a DJI Osmo Mobile and recently got the Osmo Pocket and while they're great for stabilizing in fast moving scenarios or when the object you're shooting is far, they don't handle nearby, objects with slow hand movements that well- I can easily see the wobble/wave in the video. That's the reason I'm not much interested in a gimbal as it's not for the type of work I want it for,

The reason I would like to get something more portable is because I tend to travel once a month for such events and ideally, would love to just have my camera with me and maybe an extendable monopod that doesn't take much space or will weigh me down. But then, won't the monopod restrict me from getting a good shot panning around the product or closing in on it, or a reveal shot, etc.?

4K would be nice to have but a higher frame rate at 1080p is a requirement. Someone where I live is selling a G85 with 14-42 lens and a Zhiyun Gimbal Stabilizer for $800 in total. On the other hand, I can get the GX85 with a 12-32 lens for about half that much. Is the G85 that much better?

Let's be clear about our terminology.  

When we talk about panning, tilting, or rolling shots, we are talking about shots where the camera stays in the same place but rotates.  Eg, a panning shot is where the camera starts by looking left, and then rotates to point to the right.  These shots are best accomplished with a tripod where the camera will be held still and the fluid head will provide a smooth rotation.  

When we talk about dolly shots or crane shots, we are talking about the camera physically moving, and it may or may not be rotating at the same time.  These shots have that great parallax effect where the foreground moves faster than the background and you can do reveals and create nice depth.  These are created by sliders, camera cranes, and dollys.

If you want to up your production value, then the typical setup is a tripod and a slider.  The tripod gives you flexibility to position the camera and get the right angles, and then by attaching the slider to the top of the tripod you can get movement that will be steady without it bouncing around or whatever.  If you mount the slider left-right then you get sideways sliding shots, if you mount it forwards-backwards you can get push-in or pull-out shots, and if you mount it so it's got some up-down travel then you can get some crane-style shots.  
Some sliders have a wheel to control the movement, some have a flywheel, and some are motorised, and these are all mechanisms to try and smooth the speed of travel.  What this setup will not give you is stabilised rotation.  If you mount a fluid-head between the slider and the camera then you can move the camera on the slider and also pan/tilt the camera at the same time, but this requires skill and a steady hand.

Monopods can offer panning and tilting shots, and can also do push-ins or pull-outs if you have a fluid-head and a steady hand.

Also worth mentioning is table-top devices that give you either a sliding action, or a combination of sliding and panning, so you can go around a product.  These are covered in the video previously posted by @BTM_Pix which I've quoted below.

Your next step is to be clear about what you want: is it to move the camera? is it to rotate the camera?  if you want a combination of those moves, then which combinations do you want?  Only then can you think about what options are available and what you should get.  

These things are typical of film-making in the sense that: they add production value, you get the quality level you pay for, and the more flexible the setup the bigger and heavier it is and the longer it takes to setup and pack-down.

On 12/31/2018 at 7:22 PM, BTM_Pix said:

If it is purely for product shots then I think you might want to consider a couple of cheap and cheerful non-camera items that might get you where you need to be irrespective of the particular camera that you shoot with.

First up if you were looking for 360 views of the product would be a simple motorised turntable such as this one. There are numerous ones like this on Amazon for under £30.

If you wanted to go for something to keep the product still but move the camera around it then you might want to consider the GripGear MovieMaker 2 set.

It is a combination of motorised multi-speed slider and lifter, panning head and skate dolly with remote control that can support up to 750g cameras and is usually available for just over £100.

The versatility it offers is great and as long as you aren't expecting to put heavy loads on it then it performs really well and is certainly a lot of bang for the buck.

This is a video of it against the five times more expensive Edelkrone unit and whilst it is obviously not as sophisticated it doesn't disgrace itself in terms of performance.

If you wanted just the motorised skater dolly part of the GripGear then for around £50 you might consider the newer versions of the Yelangu/Andoer L4. 

The original version was quite a neat little product but the new version has the advantage of remote control and adjustable speed.

As with the GripGear dolly you adjust the axles to control the arc that it travels on around the product but you can also straighten them to do a straight line and can also mount it on a regular slider.

 

As I say, with those options, the question of which camera to choose becomes less of an issue as they will enable you to get product shots with nice production values even from a smartphone.

If I was looking for a camera to go with these purely for product photography then I think I might be inclined to go for something like a Panasonic LX100 as it is the right sort of size/weight to best utilise them, has a great built in lens and whilst it lacks IBIS, its stabilisation will be more than adequate as it is mounted on the slider/dolly. It can also do 60fps in 1080 which will be useful when shooting longer shots of smaller objects etc

It can also of course be remote controlled (including the zoom) from the Panasonic app which will be a boon for setup.

Now that the mark II of the LX100 is out, the original version is popping up used at around £300 so with something like that and the GripGear set you are getting a lot of capability for £400.

1 hour ago, Nikkor said:

I only sort of like the nikkor 50 1.2 at night. I wish I had the money to buy the noct 58 1.2

Wow - cool image.  

People over-use shallow DoF and then everyone gets critical of anyone who uses shallow DoF, but when used in an artistically relevant way it is a valuable technique, as this image shows.  Both the fog and the shallow DoF really contribute to the beauty and kind of suffocating feel this has.

Cool you found it.  I have lots of those moments!

Also, if you don't want to edit the clips but just want to convert all of them to Prores, then the Media Management tool under the File menu (when the Media page is selected) is a great tool.  It can also export the things only on the timeline too, either the whole clips that appear on the timeline, or the same but also trimming the clips on the timeline and optionally adding extra frames to the start/end of each clip for flexibility in editing later on.

DaVinci Resolve has heaps of functionality for converting between different colour profiles / gammas and is free, but you'll have to work out what the names of the colour / gamma spaces that you used are, not just the model numbers of the cameras.  

Alternatively, there is a LUT calculator that might have the profiles you're interested in: https://cameramanben.github.io/LUTCalc/LUTCalc/index.html

Of course, the best approach is to not use a LUT at all, and use some kind of proper transformation that doesn't do a destructive transformation.  You don't mention what software you're using, and that might help.

4 hours ago, IronFilm said:

A better question to ask would be "is there going to be a GH8??"

And can we afford the disk space and memory card requirements of the All-I codec??

2 hours ago, Thpriest said:

I have got used to High focus peaking with the view finder although if it's a very long shoot I sometimes have to switch eyes! 

I think I'm moving in that direction too.  Maybe I should change my preset configuration to High focus peaking and see how I like it

Good article Andrew.  I would like to see you also do an article that is your current top cameras, regardless of release date.  I'm sure you'd provide some interesting commentary and some inclusions from previous years that are still holding their own against the newest releases.  It would be of real value to those who are in the market too.

14 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

They sell zoom lenses you know. ?

I know, but with your history with ENG cameras, you'd recommend this lens as a lightweight run'n'gun option!!

1 hour ago, Dustin said:

I just wanted to report, after shooting around the holidays with my A6500 in 4k 24fps and 1080 120fps, I wanted to test Davinci Resolve's Optimize Media render times. I must say I am IMPRESSED. I was able to make ProRes LT proxies and now my timeline is buttery smooth. The real kicker is the speed at which it was able to do this for me. In the past I had tried to use premiere to do this, but my computer would wind up crashing after 40 minutes. I was able to get around 80 4k clips and 40 120fps clips (various time lengths) optimized in around 45 minutes. I've been going crazy researching for a new laptop but my gosh perhaps, I can hold off and keep saving in the meantime with this awesome feature. Another tick in the pro's column for Davinci Resolve and another ding in the "Going Back to Premiere". (So far I really don't see myself going back..considering I'm on the free version and it's doing just fine...)

Nice to hear you're having a good experience!

In case you're not aware of it, the second level of caching to keep that performance even if you've got a million effects applied is to render the relevant parts of the timeline.  To do this, go to Playback -> Render Cache -> set to User.  Then on the timeline, right-click on the relevant clips and select Render Cache Colour Output and it will render those clips with the grading you've applied to that clip, like the Render Timeline in days of old.

You can also set the Render Cache to Smart and it tries to work out which bits of the timeline to render for you, sometimes it gets it right and other times it doesn't, but it can be useful.  There's also the Playback -> Proxy Mode settings, which I'm not that clear on, but I think they reduce the resolution of the preview window, requiring less work to play things in the preview window.

Also of note is that Resolve has two playback modes, toggled by the Show All Video Frames option in the context menu on the viewer window (on the top-right corner of the viewer there is a button with three dots which opens the menu).  If that option is enabled it will show all frames and if it can't keep up then the sound will cut in and out, and if that option is disabled and it can't keep up then it will play the timeline at normal speed with continuous audio but with a jerky video component.  If Resolve can keep up then that option doesn't make any difference.

Performance in Resolve is managed by many different methods and settings.  This flowchart is old but might still be useful for some.

@mercer @HockeyFan12 Interesting question about if a 50mm is needed on top of a 35mm.  I'd say that in the context of a controlled shoot, it's probably not.

I recently switched to a new setup of GH5, 8mm, 17.5mm and 58mm, which combined with the ETC crop mode give equivalent focal lengths of 16mm/22.4mm, 35mm/49mm, and 116mm/162.4mm.  

In practice the difference between the 35mm and 49mm is a lot less than I thought it would be before I started using it.  It's handy for my work, but I certainly wouldn't add an additional lens to my kit with the additional cost, weight, and extra work to colour correct it!  I've found that the jump from 49mm to 116mm is a big jump and often you want something a little shorter.  These two observations lead me to think that something around the 80mm mark would be the perfect next size up from 35mm.  By the time you "zoom in" with your 35mm by just getting closer, and can "zoom out" by swapping to the ~80mm and moving further back, I'd say that you wouldn't find much gap between those two focal lengths.

The gap between my 16mm and 35mm feels about right, and is a ~2x change.  A ~2x change from 35mm is also about 80mm so that checks out as well.

The idea of having one lens is pretty cool, and not changing lenses that much simplifies the shooting process quite a bit I've found.  You'll also be able to train your eye to 'see' in one focal length and really get into that headspace which might suit your creative process.

In addition to the excellent comments from @KnightsFan above, proxies have cons for colour grading and VFX.

The pros warn against doing colour correction and grading on proxies because they're not an exact colour match to the original footage.  Also, if you're doing any tracking then you'll want to do that on the original footage so that you get the best movement accuracy possible.  If you're tracking a grading window with a large soft edge then it might not be that important, but the harder the edge on a grading window or the stronger the adjustment the more chance it will be visible to the viewer.  For VFX, tracking accuracy is an absolute must, as if your compositing doesn't track perfectly with the scene then it can be quite obvious - human perception is a lot better than you'd think.  This is why for VFX work and green screening it's best to shoot RAW as it eliminates the pixel-level errors of compression.

In a practical sense, and if you're not doing huge budget work or VFX stuff, you can use lower resolution proxies to edit and do rough colour work, switching to the source media for final grading and if you're tracking any windows.  For my own projects, I will render out the final project and watch it through for any tweaks I want to do, then tweak and re-export.  This works if you have time to do so, but it depends on your schedule and level of attention to detail that your budget covers

Yeah, if you were starting from scratch and building a system that didn't need to be portable then a laptop in general isn't a good choice from a value for money perspective.

My points are more around the "what computer do I need?" questions, which people think of in terms of Can/Cannot instead of Can up to a point and Cannot after that point Depending on what you are doing.

Here's a video showing Resolve getting smooth playback of 4K h264 footage on a 2013 laptop...

and here's the Blackmagic Fusion 3D promotional video where the guy renders a 3D animated title sequence where the iMac (and potentially their external GPU which is sitting conspicuously on the desk) looks like it's getting barely 1fps with all the modules he's loaded up...

I don't know about how seriously other people use their editing software but I always have parts of my project where it plays smoothly without proxies and parts where no consumer setup could play smoothly, so the wrong answer is always "more" and the solution is always to works within your systems limitations.

2 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

I think for Resolve users a Laptop might be the last thing you want. Most are pretty far behind on the GPU side that is anyway affordable. That is mostly the problem with most Apple computers, even the iMacs, weak GPU's.  And it seems only the gaming ones on the PC side have great GPU's in them. And I am not too sure even they would be a good choice when you figure how long some of the render times can be in video. You know they would throttle down because of heat issues. I think a PC desktop is the only good, cheap way to go to be honest.

I use Resolve on my MBP laptop and I don't think it's a bad combination actually.  But I stand by my original statement about there never being enough hardware performance and so you just need to learn to work around it.

I understand that @Snowbro has a machine that can edit 10-bit h265, but what about after adding transitions, colour grading, titles and effects, and image processing?  The OP has specified that they're shooting RAW and using a proxy, so it's not like there's a magical Yes/No barrier to performance.  If you have to render proxies anyway, then just render proxies that are OK for your system.  Having a MBP laptop isn't really a problem - I render 720p Prores proxies and it plays 60p like butter, even with some effects applied, and this is in Resolve  
It might be far more powerful than that, but I only render proxies at 720 because it's enough quality to edit with and takes less disk space.  Then when I disable the proxies and colour grade the original footage it's fine too because if I want to play it in real-time I can set it to cache the timeline, but for normal colour grading tasks like colour you don't really need to do that.  In fact, if it plays back at 10fps or whatever it's actually easier to see grading issues because the footage isn't playing as fast!
The only time when hardware performance really matters is if you have to be able to play the original footage in real-time with the processing applied because you're doing it in front of the director and producer who are paying by the hour for you and your grading suite, which I doubt is the case with the OP who started this by asking about spinning hard-disks.

Of course, Resolve can swap between the RAW and proxy files with a single button press, and you can edit, mix, add VFX, and grade your project, and then pop back to the RAW tab and adjust the de-bayering settings on a clip and see the results instantly, so maybe this is a Resolve thing and with the others their limitations force you to buy much more expensive hardware?

25 minutes ago, User said:

Hi Mercer, thanks for jumping in... I see neither of have anything better to be doing on New Years
Your suggestion works, I guess I just wondering how to get away from plugins in general... because after transporting a large doc film from CC2014 to CC2019 I see that the FilmConvert settings that were placed on the clips in CC2014, have somehow changed in CC2019.

I had said that PPro's noise isn't grain, but I'm fooling around with noise now and wonder if I'm wrong about that.

It might be worthwhile doing a side-by-side comparison of the noise and the film grain, and trying to emulate it with effects.  I have no idea how PP works, but perhaps adding a semi-transparent blur to the grain (or some other simple effect) might get it close enough to do the trick when applied to real footage?

@mercer nice shots, and cool location!

I didn't see this thread the first time around, but I sympathise with @Thpriest about focussing on the GH5.  I'm new to the GH5 world, but I was disappointed with the focus peaking modes as the Low mode wrongly highlights blurred contrasty things like edges in the BG, and the High mode doesn't highlight anything in lower contrast parts of the image (like someones face, which is exactly what you want it to be useful for!).

I've also worked out that the focus peaking doesn't operate on the full-resolution image - only on the resolution of the preview (screen or viewfinder) so if there's fine detail there that is lost in the downscaling then it doesn't get detected.

The system I've taken to using is a combination of a few things.  I like the viewfinder over the screen, partly because it's more visible in bright conditions, and partly because your face helps to stabilise when you're shooting hand-held like I do.  In terms of focussing, I set my aperture to be quite large so the DoF is shallower, and I have the digital zoom set to a button so I enable that to 4X and then set my focus like that.  Then I disable that function, adjust my aperture to the desired setting, and then take the shot.

In my case I actually tend to do things in a slightly different order sometimes if I have to shoot fast to capture a fleeting moment, like if one of my kids is about to do something cool, or there's a bird and it's about to take off, or whatever.  That approach is to hit record, then adjust focus as best as I can, then open the aperture, fine-tune focus, then adjust the aperture again.  Once you're recording you can't use the digital zoom, so you have to focus without it.  I work with fully manual lenses (the Voigtlander 17.5mm 0.95 is my main lens) and have auto-SS and auto-ISO so when I'm adjusting aperture it's only a temporary dimming or brightening of the shot before the camera adjusts.  I'm probably still adjusting things by the time that the moment happens (so much of candid photography is about seeing what is about to happen) but sometimes you manage to nail the shot and it's good.  It sounds like a lot but it can be pretty quick if you practice a lot.

This is an example from a recent trip - my kids don't pose for me at all but they do take a lot of selfies so I find that shooting them shooting themselves is both a good moment and also a representation of our trip, so catching the 2s shot is pretty difficult, but still achievable.

In terms of using the screen when you shoot from the hip, I'd use the same technique as above, with the focus-peaking just a little less helpful.

I shoot hand-held with my GH5 and it does a great job but it's not perfect.

It's important to realise that having steady hands is more important than the IBIS or OIS.  There are many videos giving techniques for how to get steady hand-held shots - three points of contact, use the camera strap, control your breathing, if you're walking then learning how to do the ninja walk, etc etc etc.

The better way to get a steady camera is to use some kind of rig.  A shoulder-rig, a monopod, a slider or a tripod.  I am perhaps the most ardent hand-held shooter on this forum because I shoot in situations where I have no control over what is going on, it situations where tripods are banned, professional shooting is banned, and I have to carry a camera all day and so I can't physically carry a gimbal as it's too heavy.  All that said, if you're shooting product shots then I can't imagine how you couldn't just use a tripod or a slider.  Maybe I'm missing something.

If it's a matter of budget then there are DIY sliders and things that you can make literally for free, and give 100% results.

It's also worth saying that gimbals don't give completely stabilised recording.  They don't stop the camera from moving up/down/left/right/forwards/backwards, so if you've got a shot with any foreground/background separation then the best gimbal in the world will still have shaky camera movement visible.  Just look at people walking with a gimbal and watch the camera bob up and down as they walk...

1 hour ago, Dan Wake said:

which max resolution can a mechanic hdd handle in raw using proxy without using raid? thx

If you're using proxies then most modern HDDs should be fine - just buy the drive with the fastest sequential read speeds, the biggest cache, and the biggest overall capacity.  RAW footage is huge and the size required really adds up.

One thing to understand about video is that there is no amount of CPU speed, GPU speed, SSD speed, HDD speed, or storage capacity that will always be 'enough'.  I remember in the late 90s editing video required you to render your SD timeline to watch it back real-time and computers are now thousands of times faster than they were then, but now we have 4K, RAW, plugins and effects, colour grading, and 3D compositing and titling workflows which use up all that extra performance, and although people are still struggling to get smooth 4K editing with single cam, let alone the people working with multicam editing, and we're soon to have 8K which will have 4x the data rates and will completely crunch everything available.  

Buy what you can afford and work within it - there will never be enough processing power or storage speed.