kye

Now we've heard the Fujifilm GFX 100MP 4K Medium Format camera announcement, it leads me to wonder what the medium format look really is?

Obviously the sensor size means that shallow depth of field is easier to get, and larger sensors gather more light (although MF sensors don't seem to be low light beasts), but what else is part of the look?

This sure looks nice though...

@noone I agree that there are too many systems to survive. It's an interesting time, as it is an industry in disruption and also, depending on how you look at it and over what time scales, in consolidation.

In the long term I think we will have three form factors, large modular cinema cameras with mind boggling specs, smartphones with many lenses and AI driven computational image processing, and the middle offering that will be the successful synergy of video and stills.

As smartphones eat the bottom end of the market it's the middle offering that we're moist concerned about here, and we've got a number of iterations before this space settles down.

4 hours ago, BopBill said:

I am sure many would be intrested to know something about the audio quality recorded with camera's internal mics. I have understood it should be quite good for internal mics. Does it capture camera's fan noise, or how about the noice floor, is there much hiss in sound?

I haven't heard any sound recorded with this camera yet.

How directional it is would be useful to know too

16 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

An announcement of an announcement then.

I'll stick with my XH1 and XT2 while the dust settles on all this.

Yeah. Until the cameras get into the hands of reviewer's who can pick them apart, understand the various combinations of features that work well and those that are locked out, understand who there for, and then compare them, only then will I sink a solid four figures into a new system.

11 minutes ago, jonpais said:

The 70/30% photo/video part concerns me too. I imagined L Junior would be a GH5 on steroids - a mean video machine.

Will we ever see FF mirrorless with internal ND filters? Will other mfrs ever have sensible menu interfaces like BMD or Hasselblad? 

The more that I thought about this announcement and what I wanted the more that the line between mirrorless, cinema and ILC camcorders blurred in my brain.

If we're talking about the relationship between consumer and cinema cameras then why should the consumer ones not overlap on video features, and what is the best form factor anyway?

3 minutes ago, Anaconda_ said:

Or wait for 8.5K in 2021

Or wait for 8k IBIS in 2022

Or wait for 8k 120p in 2023

Or wait for 8k 120p IBIS in 2024

At some point, you just need to buy a camera and be happy with it ?

At some point you need to understand what features you actually use and then when the camera that has those is released then that's what to buy. For some people that was 10 years ago and for others it's not yet. 

The problem is that some don't start with their requirements, and that's how you get lost in the confusion of camera tech.

@A_Urquhart good info, thanks.

As this is a camera that is really likely to shine brightest with raw and careful grading, perhaps just sharing your impressions of it is easiest and quickest.

Or alternatively just take a bunch of random shots and upload some DNGs or TIFFs for others to dl and play with?

No PDAF though

3 hours ago, kaylee said:

thats the answer to your question: a very small room that is supposed to feel small and claustrophobic, but having a wider angle for an establishing shot wouldve been nice. mind you this is a real location – if there was no fourth wall it wouldnt be a problem ?

I get that sometimes. I also get it when you're trying to get something really big in frame too. Yesterday I was at some Greek ruins and checked the framing and had to walk back, three times(!) before it fit into the wide end of the XC10 24-240mm zoom.

I'd suggest that it's any time you're working in a location where you struggle for space is a potential wide angle lens situation.

5 hours ago, kaylee said:

one thing i learned making my short is that i wouldve like a MUCH wider angle than 24mm on full frame

i did NOT anticipate that lol

What kind of shots did you want the wide angle for?

I sometimes miss a wide angle, and I'm curious to know when others do too

2 minutes ago, BTM_Pix said:

You mean convertible as in the mount swap service Sigma currently offer or an adapter?

Novoflex do an EF to L mount adapter already but its quite expensice so I'm hoping the first thing that comes out of this relationship is Sigma releasing is an L version of their MC-11 adapter.

 

I'm hoping the mount swap service could do it.

One less set of contacts and electronics and all that is a good thing.  If so, it would basically mean that the new system would "launch" with the entire Sigma FF lens line up, and for many people they wouldn't have to re-buy anything to have native lenses.

It would kill the paltry lens catalogue from CaNikon!

8 hours ago, Lucas A said:

Australia huh? Favouritism! With Blackmagic and Rode, you fellows have two companies really challenging the Japanese and Americans for that quality/ cost co-efficient and in my view winning hands down. Both Rode and BlackMagic are offering quality products that rival the very best in the world, whilst costing 1/10 the price. Disruptive!

There's a well-known thing here called "the Australia tax" where the same products cost 20-80% more than the exact same products do elsewhere in the world.

It's due to many manufacturers having exclusive suppliers with dedicated regions, so you can only buy through one business and they control the price.

I am also interested in hifi and it's a common occurrence for someone to take their family on a week holiday to Singapore or Japan and buy a piece of hifi equipment and have it shipped directly back to Australia. Depending on how expensive the item is, the difference in price can be so large it covers the cost of the family holiday, a week of lost wages, the shipping of heavy and fragile goods, and the person still comes out ahead.

Does anyone know if the existing Sigma FF lens line up would be convertible to the new mount?

I don't understand the technical details of lens mounts..

1 hour ago, kaylee said:

UH OH~!

i forgot that the youtube app doesnt go above 1080p on a phone (right?), so ppl on mobile will not see the 4k version, theyll see the 1080p version that looks TERRIBLE

OH NOES!!! ?

I've had the frustration of discovering this as well. I thought about it and I don't think there's much that can be done.

I was going to do a follow-up test to see if a high quality 1080p upload would look better at 1080p than a 4K upload at 1080p, but was so frustrated with it I didn't bother.

Facebook video is worse, with the video starting by default at 240p or something. I discovered why too, the channels with huge subscriber counts get high bitrates at the start of the video! Hooray for capitalism!

3 hours ago, KnightsFan said:

The truth is, everyone should test their camera extensively and find out what exposure works best, regardless of what the numbers say.

Absolutely. I did this for my XC10 in C-Log and luckily there were no significant differences a stop either way of where it exposes skin tones in auto (how I shoot) so I just don't worry about it.

Unfortunately I sympathise with the OP wanting to know about cameras they don't already own.

Unfortunately this level of performance testing doesn't often overlap with non-cinema cameras so the comparison probably isn't on vimeo somewhere

+1 for adding grain and uploading in 4K.

Don't forget you can do an export of one or two shots, upload as a private video, watch and see how it looks, then adjust and do it again until you've worked out what looks best.

It depends on the camera.

High end cinematographers always test the optimal level of exposure when they are about to film with a new camera. The answer of where each camera looks nicest with skin tones and DR is always different from camera to camera. For some it is underexposing, and others it is overexposing.

However this is with cinema cameras and you are talking about prosumer mirrorless.

The real question is perhaps "How do I get good results on a budget 8-bit camera shooting log?"

The 405 has been tested by the EBU folks, and the two profiles have 9.7 and 10.7 stops of DR. The XC10 tested at just over 11, so if DR is why you'd want C-log then you might still be satisfied.

The full report is here.

https://tech.ebu.ch/files/live/sites/tech/files/shared/tech/tech3335_s27.pdf

Edit: just realised you were talking about the XF400. Doh!

19 minutes ago, mercer said:

Thanks Kye, this is a very logical approach with great points.

But if you’ve read my last couple comments you may understand my point about using a camcorder for CERTAIN projects.

As a hobbyist/diy/no budget/one man band filmmaker that has A LOT of movie ideas but only limited time and budget per project, I am looking for ways to be more productive with more creative freedom. For me, a camcorder could be the perfect tool for certain projects. For those projects, it wouldn’t be a B-Cam, it would be THEE-Cam.

As far as shallow depth of field goes, yeah when the XC10 was my only camera, I definitely missed lenses and shallow DOF, but anyone who has ever shot with a camcorder knows ways around that through composition and focal length... and it’s not like a 1” sensor is an iPhone.

Yes, I read your previous replies to others and understood where you are coming from. I was going to reply but saw you might be replying so I waited

Yeah, if it's for different projects then that's awesome and you should totally do it. In which case I'd suggest that you compromise on features pretty heavily in favour of ease of use and convenience and reliabily. Also consider the whole process from shooting to editing to grading and delivery. 

If you're like me and have lots of footage on drives waiting for editing then the bottleneck isn't the shooting and so you should focus on streamlining the edit instead. Even consider a camera with a hybrid profile that has decent DR but wouldn't need grading. Anything to get the ideas finished and shared, while still being of acceptable quality for your tastes and preferences.

If there's a large gap between your 5d and this camera then that might be a good thing because choosing which setup to shoot it on will help you to understand how much a project means to you, which is a great thing to know before you start shooting and have already made art-department type of decisions.

@HockeyFan12

I was hoping that the manufacturers would just build it in and we'd never have to even know it was there!

You're right about my math being wrong, oops(!), but we'd still get a benefit.  Every aesthetic impression we get of footage has one or more technical aspects that are responsible for them, and the colours of ML RAW vs other codecs is at least partially due to bit depth.  My idea was to just get a bit more bit depth, essentially for free.  Even if it was applied to 10-bit cameras, you'd still get a little bit more than 10-bits.

Someone in the GoPro thread posted a link to a blog post about the GoPro Protune codec and it was fascinating, and includes much of what you are saying.  The profile doesn't distribute the bits evenly between the DR and it mentions that there's less information in the bottom one or two stops and so it uses less on those but gives more to the upper two as that's typically more useful.

ETTR is a complex approach.  On the one hand it gives the most bits to play with, but on the other it means that the image is subtly different between scenes.  I'm not sure if you've seen those articles where a cinematographer gets to know a new camera and tests it by under and overexposing by various amounts and then matches the levels in post?  The results are typically that you'll discover the limits of where underexposing gives too much noise, overexposing makes the image start to look awful, and what is the best spot for skin tones.  I've heard many cinematographers talk about how for a given camera you have to over or underexpose a certain amount.

In terms of your approach I would suggest that if it's working then that's great, it's definitely the way to get a consistent image, and it will definitely be nicer in post.

The adventures of your friend are too tedious for me as well.  I have a technical education, and I am at home reading specifications and data processing techniques, but in the end I work out how to set my equipment for the best results and then I go out and put the effort into what I point my camera at.  I think I'm actually far less technically inclined on set than you are - I don't white balance or even control my own exposure or focus most of the time.  Everything the camera can automate (to a level where it's acceptable and not a detriment to the end product) I automate, and when I am operating the camera for recording my home and travel videos is spent thinking about angle, composition, camera movement, depth of field, anticipating what is going to happen next so I can be ready for it, and not have filming get in the way of the holiday experience for me or others.  This is an art-form after all

@mercer yes, I remember your fondness for the XC10

Reading your other comments, and talking in the context of getting the job done, I think there's a few approaches you could take, depending on how you shoot.

1) just use the 5D for everything. You already own it, no work in post matching cameras, and it's only one setup to carry around with one type of battery, media, etc.

2) get additional cameras. If you go this route then if at all possible I'd suggest matching brands so the colour science (which I remember is a priority for you) matches easily in post. You may even consider another ML camera as extra time on set may pay off in editing (or may not!). If you use multiple cameras on set it may even be worthwhile matching lenses and battery types in order to cut down on what you're carrying around.

It sounds to me like buying a camcorder may be tempting simply because a DSLR and ML is fiddly and annoying, which I totally understand.

I challenge you to think about the film you are making and ask yourself how many shots in the final edit will be able to be captured with a camcorder. Most films these days have relatively shallow DoF on almost all shots except wide and establishing shots, and although a camcorder would be great for those, will it really be more efficient to have an entire second setup instead of the camera you are already using for most other shots?

13 hours ago, wolf33d said:

What model have you ? I had the exact same view for all my gopros except the 6. Very pleased when I watch the footage. Very usable and as always as you say you use it when no other tool will do. 

I mean what else am I gonna use for a situation like this from yesterday, a GH5 strapped on my chest?

 

I have the Hero 3. Old but still going.

I use it for immersion in water, so any time there's swimming on a holiday such as snorkelling, or for parties where the wide angle lens is useful.

I shot these two videos on the Hero 3 and iPhone 8.

@webrunner5 I used to use the gopro as a camera when it started to rain, but the iPhone is now water proof, and I used to use it for wide angle photos but now the iPhone has panoramic mode so that's been taken over as well.

I'm contemplating replacing it with the Sony action camera with the OIS. As good as digital IS is, if a frame is blurred due to motion during the exposure then there's no recovering from that, and considering how poor the ISO is on these cameras they go to long shutter speeds in basically every situation except direct sunlight.

I don't think the only issue is 8-bit banding. I wonder how much of the talk about the picture of various cameras being "thick" or "thin" or "brittle" is attributed to this.

@Mattias Burling I agree that not all 10-bit implementations are equal and that's kind of my point, that we could get the benefits without needing a separate implementation.

@HockeyFan12 I was thinking that the scaling would be applied during decoding so once the file is read then all the different shots would be comparable, obviously grading would be awful if this didn't happen.

I agree that it's a complicated picture and absolutely depends on how good the implementation is within the camera, however, with all else being equal, more bits within the given DR is better than less bits.

Different looks is also a solution, but it means that you give yourself difficulties in post. I've got footage from multiple budget cameras and matching them is a PITA and you'd think that things like RCM and ACES would be the answer but the reality is that these things don't have support for every profile, normally just the log ones from the big manufacturers.

@Shirozina I agree, 8-bit can look fine, but using those bits more effectively would be better!

3 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

I think from what I have seen so far it may even top smartphone footage, especially for stabilization.

That is kind of their direct competition in a way.

I have a love/hate relationship with my gopro, compared to everything else is absolutely terrible, but when you need it no other tool will do.

We all know that 8-bit video capture formats don't generate the best results.

This is especially bad when combined with flat / log profiles, and especially especially bad when those profiles are calibrated to fit more DR than that camera can provide.

The traditional solution is to output more bits, but 8-bit values are kind of a default in computers so can cause a challenge to go beyond.

So, here's an idea.

Instead of just encoding the image in 8-bits but having no values below say 40% and none above say 90% (which is really just 7 bits) how about stretching the whole DR over the full 8-bit range and just including the values of the brightest and darkest pixels in that frame?

It would mean that all frames would have the full 8-bits applied, and scenes with less DR would get more subtle colour information.  Every stop less of DR would be equal to effectively an extra bit.

It would also mean that when a sensor is invented with more DR than that codec was designed for it will scale infinitely without hassle.

It would add a small processing overhead and raise the data rates on more compressed codecs, but codecs where all frames are key frames wouldn't be impacted.

If anyone knows any of the manufacturers, we'd all benefit if they could pass this along.. Thanks

1 hour ago, jonpais said:

(L3) Sigma is going ot make an EF to L-mount adapter and also release their current lenses as L-mount

That totally makes sense. I think this industry is in a period of rationalisation where the smaller players will die unless they form alliances strong enough to challenge the big players.

Sigma has a native mount but no real share of the camera body market, and they have been making lenses that seem to be (are?) designed to be adaptable.

If the announcement included Sigma saying that all of their FF lenses with convertible lens mounts could be converted to this new mount then they would definitely win the lens availability category against canikon!

I'm not sure what they will release but out of all the rumours this year I'm optimistic that they'll deliver a larger percentage of what is technically possible and what we want than the other manufacturers attempts.

I am using the 1" XC10 with Rode video mic pro plus and apart from the relatively deep DoF and slower AF it is a great setup and just gets out of the way.

If you can get the aesthetic you want from this kind of setup then go for it.

Here's a BTS from the other day of me doing a horizontal sliding shot in Pompeii with the aforementioned setup.