kye

1 hour ago, webrunner5 said:

Yeah but i am afraid, and I really hope I am wrong, but Canon just seems to be as of late, as well no matter what we throw out there the Fans will gobble it up hook line and sinker. I think they think they Can't loose. But I think it is make or break time for both Canon and Nikon on this jump to Mirrorless. And it looks like Nikon may be taking it a hell of a lot more serious than Canon. No they are not going to put Canon out of business LoL, but they may just get some people to jump from Canon to Nikon, I think a lot really hate Sony enough to never go their way, but they might go to Nikon. But now No company can afford to loose customers to the Enemy as they say, not in this day and age.

You may well be right, all this talk of the industry is all speculation after all.

I think that the move to mirrorless will be looked back on as why a whole bunch of companies went from good standing to being put out of business.  Kind of like how we talk about Kodak basically inventing digital photography and then screwing it up by abandoning it.

56 minutes ago, Tone1k said:

Why are we comparing a good story to a bad one when talking about AF? It really doesn't make sense. Compare apples to apples.

It doesn't make sense TO YOU.  That doesn't mean it doesn't make sense.  When we hear about string theory or calculus or Byzantine poetry we might not understand it but that doesn't mean that no-one understands it.

59 minutes ago, Tone1k said:

Come on, if you have two cameras recording with no operators (because you are holding the boom), then there is no one to track the talent which means they would be standing or sitting still in an interview situation negating the need for AF. If they ARE moving around, then sure you could just lock off a wide shot but that would negate the need for a second camera to shoot a single because there would be no operator to track them...unless you want two wide shots for some reason???

This is beginning to sound like you've never shot an interview before...  The answer why you don't have one camera is jump cuts.  If you shoot with multiple cameras this gets around the issue.

As an example, here's an interview (one of many) shot by a professional film-maker who is on-screen interviewing, this example is not that bad and she could have used MF with a smaller aperture but if you want a close-up with a bit more production value then not only would AF be required, and from Canon or Sony it would be 99% reliable too.

1 hour ago, Tone1k said:

Im reading between the lines here. The OP comes from photography where it is possible to rely on your AF and they say they want to take focusing out of the film making equation so by that, I can only assume they mean pretty much all the time.

Like @jonpais says, you're assuming.

I think the misunderstanding is that you're used to shooting things that are either in controlled situations, or if they aren't controlled (like ENG isn't) then there's a dedicated camera operator.  AF starts to make sense when things aren't controlled AND there isn't a dedicated camera operator.

Also, AF is also cheaper.  MF requires manual lenses with nice fly-by-wire focus or mechanical focus, it requires a camera with a screen that is bright, large, and has good enough focus assist features.  A face-detect DPAF camera costs a few hundred dollars, and you can film yourself and not have your feet nailed to the ground.

It can also be turned off too.  That's definitely a thing.  Just in case you weren't aware.

11 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

I am not too sure if Canon is even IN the camera business anymore for what little is leaked out anymore. I don't even see a lot of talk about Patents anymore from them?

Letting Nikon steal all this thunder early is not my idea of a good thing for Canon. I would at least pull a Blackmagic thing and announce something 9 months ahead. If the 5d mk IV, 6D mk II and the M50 is the best they can do, well...

I read something somewhere saying that being memorable is about setting an expectation and then violating it.  I guess it's the essence of those "I did something - YOU WONT GUESS WHAT HAPPENED" clickbait titles.

If Canon is going to release a corker then the best prelude would be the luke-warm expectations that everyone has.  If we all get excited about the Nikon mirrorless it will be hard for them to shock us, but a C150 in DSLR size with 6K downsampling would break the internet

24 minutes ago, Tone1k said:

Good grief.....I hope you're being sarcastic?? Why does the AF or lack thereof change the quality of the story?

Nothing says low quality more than AF hunt.

Id rather watch a good story shot on Betacam with no AF hunt than a good story shot in 8K , 16stops DR with DSLR type AF hunt.

AF is good for some uses, but if you are buying a camera based on AF performance and think you'll just be able to run n gun with AF for every shot, you are mistaken.

I'm not being sarcastic, but you're not understanding my point either.

If you have the skill to MF and make the film you want then that's great - focus is an artistic tool (as you rightly point out) and having exact control over focus will benefit your end product, no doubt.

However, if you're operating in a situation where you aren't able to pay attention to everything and you have to sacrifice something, then relying on autofocus is a good thing to 'delegate'.  If you're interviewing someone who moves around a lot and have two cameras, using AF and concentrating on better questioning will bring you a better film.  It seems like AF hunting is a real turn-off for you, and I get that - everyone has their preferences and that's totally fine, I'm not a fan of it either.

Your statement "Id rather watch a good story shot on Betacam with no AF hunt than a good story shot in 8K , 16stops DR with DSLR type AF hunt." isn't my argument and isn't the comparison I'm making.  In your comparison both are good stories.  If we re-frame the comparison to what I'm saying then we get this..  I'd rather a great story captured clumsily rather than a boring story captured with outstanding cinematography.  

Maybe it's a difference of shooting situation?  Maybe you're used to shooting films that are well planned, shot under predictable and controlled conditions, where there are enough hands to cover all the necessary jobs.  If so, MF would be totally fine.  If you're a single-operator, with multiple cameras, interviewing someone while trying to hold a boom mic, then adding MF to that will mean something else is compromised.  People can't be an expert in everything simultaneously and sometimes something has to give.  AF hunting can be very distracting, but it's rare that you can't get around it in the edit room.  It's impossible to get around a dull story, bad sound or pointing the camera at the wrong thing, you simply can't edit your way out of those things.

It's a question of priorities, and focus is important, but it's not the most important.

12 hours ago, Tone1k said:

For film making, don't rely on AF. It will never be as smart as your brain for choosing what needs to be in focus in your frame unless it's a super simple scene. 

A slight AF hunt during a shot will make the shot unusable unless you can edit around it, especially when it's jerky like you get with most dslr lenses. 

Learn to focus manually. 

Assuming that during filming:

• you're not too busy operating other equipment to operate the camera
• if you are operating the camera then you have control of focusing (eg, gimbals often prevent MF)
• if you could do MF that you're not too busy doing anything else with the camera
• you can see the image well enough to actually see focus (screen bright enough, focus assists are good enough, etc)

and also assuming that the time spent learning to MF (which is a skill that isn't easy to pick up) isn't better spent doing something else.

Remember, the object of all of this is a high quality finished output, not mad MF skills.  It's better to tell a good story and use AF than to use MF and tell a shitty one.

8 hours ago, Trek of Joy said:

Thanks for the links! I used Ripple Training's free FCPx 10.4's overview of the color tools for the how and the book previously referenced for the why. Everything revolves around the RGB parade, the vectorscope, and the Luma waveform and I've been practicing/skillbuilding in almost all my free time. I'm getting a little better everyday and something that was previously a chore is now a process I'm really enjoying.

Nice

I tend to think of grading in three 'levels':

• Level 1 is knowing what a tool does on a technical level (eg, curves, LGG, contrast/pivot, keying/windows, etc)
• Level 2 is knowing how to use it to get the effect you want (eg, how to make the shadows brighter, how to desaturate the reds, how to change the colour of a t-shirt)
• Level 3 is being able to look at an image and understand what adjustments you need to do to it to make it look great

I'm pretty good with the first two, and am now working on the third.  It's taken a while to get to the point where I can work on the third because you really need to play with things to learn what looks good and you can't play until you are good with at least one tool.  That's why I recommend getting good with the LGG wheels - they're the best 'bang for your buck' tool.

11 hours ago, Kubrickian said:

White men are allowed to be eccentric 

I thought it was that rich people were called "eccentric" but for the same behaviour not-rich people were "crazy"

On the topic of changing lenses, changing lenses inside a bag can be useful.  

My travel setup is a camera insert at the bottom of a nondescript backpack.  The insert has a padded lid, so there's essentially a little flat surface and room within the top half of the bag where you can you can change lenses.  If the area is touristy (and likely to have thieves around) I wear the backpack on my chest, so changing lenses inside the bag is really easy and convenient.  The bag is open a little for your arms to go in the sides and to see in the top, but it protects from dust relatively well and no-one can see what you're doing so it's not entirely obvious that you have multiple lenses in there either.

7 hours ago, Danyyyel said:

From my own analysis, image resolution for photo and video should never be compared. Yours eyes can analyse a photo for hours if you want, while video is just superposition that moves perpetually. That's why true 2k looks so good in cinema image that are much bigger than any photograph, the first thing as it is moving so fast you cannot scan it (eyes brain) and secondly it is like those smartphone that stack image just move half or quarter pixel and a 12 mp image becomes a 36 etc. Another test is when you look a a freeze frame of a video it looks so much less detailed that when it moves.

Your argument is a good one - 1080p stills are never sharp even if the footage looks like it was - I've played that game before!

I'm not sure that photo and video resolution should never be compared in a general way, but I agree that they shouldn't be compared in a like-for-like sense.

11 hours ago, Trek of Joy said:

Searched Juan out after reading this, good stuff. Anyone else you'd recommend?

I'm working my way through the book "The Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction" by Steve Hullfish in tandem with YT videos on FCPx 10.4's new color tools, because my grading skills definitely need some improvement. I'd recommend the book, its a great foundation builder with a lot of insight from industry heavyweights. The only drawback is the software has all been updated from 5 years ago when it was published, so you spend a bit of time figuring out what corresponds to what he's using. He also does a lot in an older version of Resolve, which I don't use. The nice thing is the book doesn't really do a lot with LUT's, which like you said, a lot of YT tutorials go overboard with their use. Its starts with the basics for every shot beginning with shadows, highlights then midtones and builds from there.

One interesting takeaway, Stefan Sonnenfeld - colorist for 300, Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean, Fast and Furious, CSI NY and so on - routinely does 70-75 shots in an hour. I'm much quicker with photos in Lightroom, that's a pace that would be tough to match. Though he's working with much better source material than I am.

Cheers

Chris

Avery Peck is also worth checking out (https://www.youtube.com/user/theavenogfilm/videos), Ripple Training gives some good free content (https://www.youtube.com/user/rippleguy/videos) and also the articles at PremiumBeat are really good (like this one: https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/create-illness-davinci-resolve/).  I suspect the real reason that excellent colourists aren't all over YT is that they're busy doing actual work and producing free content doesn't pay their mortgages.  Of course, if you're willing to pay for courses then I think it's a different story.  

If you want to work hard and learn fast I'd recommend a few things:

• Practice matching clips from different cameras using only the Lift Gamma Gain and Offset wheels (for log footage you need to convert to REC709 first).  Once you've got a basic handle on how to use them and what they do, pull in clips from as many sources as you can into a project, put on some music, and grade them to visually match as fast as you can.
  I know what you mean about pros working really fast, I've noticed they pretty much use these controls and only use others if there's some specific quirk in the footage.  Getting good at this helps train your eye to see contrast and colour tints.
• Find a bunch of before and after grading videos, pull them into your software and have a go at replicating the grade.  I'd suggest using scopes to help you see what is going on (waveform and vectorscope are tremendously useful).  Videos like this are great if you put in the work, but useless if you don't:

Basically, the best way to learn will be to work at it.  Set yourself challenges and dive into them.  Watching a video is easy, replicating it is painful but is how you'll learn.  Real learning is about changing what's in your brain and that's not easy and doesn't happen if you're passively involved, which is why people watching cooking shows on TV don't end up as brilliant cooks!

2 hours ago, Robert Collins said:

Range increased 1km to 8km.

Wow.  That's not an incremental improvement!!

Anything worth doing will always upset some smaller-minded people.  No-one is perfect but he's going in the right direction.

Totally agree with @Anaconda_ - assuming you can get things in focus then go with the better codec.

Of course, you should make sure that whatever camera you get fulfils all your needs in terms of lenses, battery life, IBIS, and everything else.  Codec is great but there's more to a camera than just that.  You should also be aware of how good the A7III images are - @jonpais has shared some lovely ones here.

6 minutes ago, jonpais said:

More wholesome a7 III goodness.

Full size screen grabs. ISO 400, around f/3.2. No color correction in post. Shadows pulled down slightly.

I've shot with the GH5, the X-T2 and the a7 III and the Sony is by far my favorite mirrorless camera to date.

1, 2, 3, 4

You're making it hard to wait for the other camera announcements!!

Just think, if this is a hybrid then how good will the pocket 2 look at 4K RAW!!

3 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

Well I can't argue with your logic. And yeah getting it in camera IS the way to go. But most cameras that can really look pretty damn good output wise are not Point N Shoots, and most are going to have a Log or a damn harsh Slog 2, 3 Log in them and that is why you justified the purchase of it.

And your right the more I seem to do the worse it gets. So for the average stuff I do, and it is pretty average trust me, gulp, I would kill to just mow, blow, and go as they say in the grass cutting business.

So I am not against trying what he is trying. But I don't use FCP so I will have to think even harder LoL. It all is damn confusing for someone my age that really never did much editing with video. And this stuff is coming out faster than I can even wrap my head around, let alone master doing it.

liftgammagain people are well, sort of, ehh, picky! Everything is sort of no no no.

LOL, yeah, I'm with you.

I think I find myself in a few situations, 1) taking things that are well shot and making them lovely, 2) taking things that weren't well shot and trying to make them look passable, and 3) trying to work out how to not make the same mistakes next time I shoot so I don't have as difficult a time in post!!

I've spent a lot of time in grading trying to learn how to fix things, for example turning this GoPro and iPhone footage at a club from this:

to this...

which doesn't look like it's day turning to night, or that some of it is shot in LOG, or that some of it was from another planet with a green sun, etc ???

I think I'm better at turning problems into usable footage than I am in taking nice to brilliant, but I sure know how to dive deep into the Resolve panels for things like "why does the shadow pixellation have strange purple and orange bands and how do I get rid of them?"

I guess it depends on what your objectives are, learning how to get by is ok if that's all you want, but if you want to go further then it's probably better to start with the pros

1 hour ago, Robert Collins said:

Sensible guy gets overexcited and dissolves into cliches....

home run
game changer
24 bit
hit it out of the park 
revolutionary
WOW factor
 

This can happen to all of us if you cherry-pick the words you don't like out of a 12 minute video of us talking about basically anything?

Ted from Art of Photography weighs in..  More discussion of what is required instead of predictions, but also has some discussion about the other players and overall industry.

51 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

Well I don't know crap about HDR either. But it seemed like a hell of a lot easier way to get a decent grade in a hell of a lot less time and struggle. Not everyone on here is some Wiz kid at editing or grading. And shooting in Slog, especially on cameras that you Have to shoot @ 1600 , 3200 ISO, and having to use ND filters, hell who wants that if you can avoid it.

Sure I may not use that old Kodak film stock LuT either, but I learned something I didn't know about. Any knowledge is better than nothing. I think I are smater now I saw theis veedeoo.

 

I picked up a few things too, but I tried your line of reasoning at liftgammagain and got slammed for it.  The problem with watching people who don't know how to grade is that for every piece of information you pick up that will help you in the future, you're risking picking up other information that will hurt you, either in bad practices or in a lack of understanding of what is going on, and you won't be able to tell which is which.  
As an example, think about how many YT colour grading videos talk about how to use LUTs, and then think about how many of them tell you that LUTs clip the data, and then think about how many talk about HOW luts work and WHEN not to use them.

This is one of the reasons that I find the Juan Melara grading videos such a revelation - almost every sentence in his videos contains information that would take you hours or days of watching YT videos to find in those "buy my LUT" colour grading videos, but on top of that he presents the information in such a way that it builds an understanding of how to link techniques together in simple but powerful ways.

The way I see it is that colour grading is the same as shooting - it takes 10% equipment and 90% skill to get a great result.  I've also noticed that the more skilled the colourist, the more that the grade is about using the basic tools well but knowing exactly what to do with them.

After spending dozens of hours watching YT colour grading videos, buying multiple paid colour grading courses, site subscriptions, and hundreds of hours of fiddling in Resolve over a dozen or more camera tests and a dozen more real projects trying to match multiple cameras, I learned that if you shoot it right, the less I do in post the better it looks.  
I think I am at the point now where my adjustments do more good than harm, and much of that is training my eye, but I think I might have gotten there a lot faster without watching all those YT videos of people who blindly apply LUTs and twiddle the knobs until their "how to make your footage CINEMATIC" video is ready for upload.

24 minutes ago, mercer said:

Yeah @BTM_Pix listen to Kye and don’t eff this up.

LOL!!

23 minutes ago, fuzzynormal said:

If it's a digital zoom, then what's the point?  All drone footage can be manipulated to do this in post.

I might be wrong about it being digital, you'd have to watch the video in detail to confirm.

In terms of advantages of doing things in-camera vs in-post, if you have a limited bitrate for the output file there's a non-trivial difference between the camera scaling the RAW data and then compressing it with the full bitrate of the codec vs taking the already compressed file out of the drone into post and then cropping in to that image and effectively discarding some of that limited bitrate.

The disadvantage of doing things in-camera is that you're stuck with them in post, whereas doing it in post allows you to exactly match the zoom with the crop.  Ideally you'd shoot RAW and then it wouldn't matter, but that's not the price-point we're talking with these drones!

2 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

I find this video is pretty interesting about the difference of Sony HLG and SLog3.

 

Sorry but that video is awful - I had to stop watching before the finish.

I believe that he likes HLG better than SLOG, and he may well be right about it, but the fact he uses film-emulation LUTs and then jumps around all the time between controls that weren't set to default settings is very strange.  Plus his comment about "SLOG gives you purple shadows and you can't do anything about that" indicates that either he doesn't understand the basics of using the Lift wheel or the Curves panel, or the fact that the tint is likely coming from the film emulation LUTs, but either way, no-one should be taking grading and colour advice from someone who can't add green in the shadows!!

I am intrigued to learn more about the HLG profile though, because it seems like it might be how to get high DR but avoid the low bit-depth in colour information issue (which is the downside of 8-bit log profiles).

Tony Northrup mentioned the dolly-zoom effect on the new Parrot drone, which does a zoom (digitally I think?).

5 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

It's not going to be a Pocket camera once it's rigged up with a battery. I do wish Blackmagic could work on their power economy issues.

However such great codecs and raw have a cost.

I'd rather have 40 minutes of battery and some spares, rather than no option at all for ProRes and raw on a new, exciting camera to compete with the establishment.

Totally agree.  The current (small) batteries give flexibility to those who want a smaller setup - carrying batteries in a pocket or bag is much nicer than the weight being on the camera if you're carrying the camera around.  If you want the extra battery capacity and don't care about size then external power options are available.

For all of the talk of it not being a 'pocket camera', which essentially comes down to how large your pockets are(!) no-one would argue that size differences don't matter, otherwise we'd all be making travel films with old-second-hand cinema cameras!!

5 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

Is anyone interested in a small device to do in field backups of CFast cards to SSDs so you can have a couple of cheap 64gig cards (such as the Integral branded £46 ones) and cycle between them?

So you'd shoot on one, pop it into the device which will automatically back it up while you shoot on the other one and then repeat and then just pull the SSD out to start editing with when you get back to base.

Yes.  I looked for such a thing and found the WD ones that backup SD cards, as well as some with USB ports, but I could never get a straight answer if a CFast card reader would work so never bought one.  Plus it annoyed me that I had to buy it integrated to a HDD - modular is better.

Even if you have a laptop, if you're out in the dust then you'd probably leave the laptop in the hotel safe and take this kind of device out into the field for user throughout the day.

I've looked for this in the context of my family and travel videos, but my dad (who used to be in IT and is now retired) also asked me about such a device for downloading the footage from the SD card in his dashcam for his 4WD trips, so I think there's a market both inside and out of the film industry.

4 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

USB interface so can take a regular CF/SD/MicroSD reader as well.

CFast and SSD is USB3 interface so it will be fast enough to dump the card before you fill the next one.

Power will be USB so capacity is variable.

I already have this done for SD backups but it will need porting to different hardware to support the extra grunt needed for fast transfer of CFast 

This sounds excellent - having something with flexible connections would be great.  If you can make it so it connects almost any type of storage to any type of HDD and can be powered by anything (USB is my preference, but I would also imagine that Sony MPF(?) batteries or the DC power sockets from those huge external batteries might also be useful for some) then that would really hit the nail on the head.

Make it work in rain, dust, the heat / cold, and other tough conditions, and have a screen/LEDs that are easily visible in bright light and you'd have a winner.

"It's the device that copies your data from the cards you have to the storage you have with the power you have in the conditions you're in" would be all the sales pitch I'd need to buy one.

4 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

If you mean visually checking as in viewing it on the device itself rather than a data integrity check against the source media then no.

The scope of it is basically as a (much) cheaper alternative to something like the WD Wireless Pro without the fixed capacity and with a fast enough interface to copy the CFast cards as the WD device only supports USB2 for non SD card sources.

It can support wireless access as a drive (I have a use for it in this way with non-RAW video files to use it with LumaFusion editor on the iPad n the field) so it could be used as a source for your RAW viewer of choice on a laptop but if you've got a laptop with you to do that then you don't need this anyway and might as well use the laptop.

Usually an option for verifying the data after the copy should suffice (from a technical standpoint at least).  It would take more battery life for sure, but would be a level of protection good enough for most.  I'm assuming that if you're making sure that you're detecting read errors, write errors, and verifying the data then it would be trustworthy.

This would be a pretty good user experience for me:

• You connect it to power and the POWER led lights up
• You connect a card and the CARD light turns on green (or red if there's an error)
• You connect a drive and the DRIVE light turns on green (or red if there's an error)
• You press the copy button and the COPYING light turns on and starts blinking
• (Maybe the COPYING light turns a different colour if it detects an error?? eg, orange blinking)
• It finishes the copy and unmounts the drives and then the COPY COMPLETE light goes green for "no errors" or "copy verified ok", or amber for "errors detected but copy completed", or red for "copy failed"

If it had this level of communication I'd be fine with it.  You'd probably need to build in some kind of recovery mode if a copy is interrupted and you reset it and try again.

This is absolutely a device I would buy if it does what you have described and doesn't have any silly design flaws.

5 hours ago, Mokara said:

It will be faster than that. Even for stills MILCs have some pretty significant advantages over DSLRs. DMF comes to mind for example. Precise tracking is another. Or any sort of critical manual focusing if you want to use the viewfinder. The main argument for DSLRs has basically been that you get a more responsive viewfinder, which in some cases you need but mostly you don't. Refresh rates on the latest MILC viewfinders is very fast, so the only real advantage of the DSLR is not really there any more. When you reach the point where DSLRs have no advantages, why would anyone in their right mind buy one?

I think that 5 years from now, no new DSLRs will be coming to the market at all. Everything will be MILCs.

Totally agree.  

5 years is also long enough for most of the late-adopters to see that others have gone before them and been fine, and that when they make the switch there are people they know who can help with questions etc.

I don't for a minute think that ARRI feels threatened by Sony, but if they did, and if they wanted to talk about how their cameras might be better, this would certainly do the trick!!