kye

Historically we will plateau when IQ becomes close to the limits of our perception, HOWEVER we are nowhere near these limits yet.

Think 4k is enough because movie theatres were fine in 2K?  What about VR capture - if your field of view is 120 degrees (just to pick a nice number) then that means you need 6k to spread  2K over your entire vision, but that's not what we're talking about here - we're talking about the angle of view of a TV - which is something more like 45degrees, which means you need 8 * 2K horizontal, just to properly render sitting in a room watching a 2K TV.  What about VR simulation of a 4K TV?  Forgetaboutit!!

But why just talk about resolution - let's talk about pixel depth..  what is the DR of the human eye?  When they get "retina DR" devices, what will the bit depth of that video signal look like across that amount of dynamic range?  I'm thinking that 10-bit isn't going to cut it at that point.

And we're only talking 2D here....  what happens when we want 3D environments to be simulated from AI processed video feeds?  Just mount a grid of cameras in the ceiling perhaps 12 inches apart and feed all those to an AI that creates a 3D VR environment and UH OH!  The AI doesn't have enough information to go by and so the virtual attendees of the latest Hollywood whatever event can't see the expressions on the stars faces (or tell the difference between Elijah Wood and Daniel Radcliffe!) so we need to up the resolution.  Now deaf people can't lip read, up it again.

Now the FBI gets interested and decides that the tech is now ready for AI facial microexpression monitoring at all airports and other critical locations - more resolution needed!

To many of you this will sound like science fiction, but you will be proven wrong.  if you want evidence of this - pick up your smartphone and start talking to your virtual assistant, and then cast your mind back 35 years when many people still had Black and White Television.

This is an array of audio microphones with computer processing...  8 years ago.

https://www.wired.com/2010/10/super-microphone-picks-out-single-voice-in-a-crowded-stadium/

@webrunner5 - thanks!  I just chalk it up to having a good memory and reading / watching too many tutorials..  We are all standing on the shoulders of giants.  Everything from Montage Theory to the psychology of colour to the basics of composition from the early days of photography - we're swimming in images that have absorbed many many decades of talent and hard work.

Kraig Adams (who did the above videos) is a bit of a wolf in sheeps clothing in film-making terms.  IIRC he started  filming weddings straight out of school, got crazy good at it, then created the Wedding Film School YT channel (which is excellent BTW), before pursuing vlogging and other videos and phasing out wedding filming altogether.  He's also a minimalist so is a deep thinker in terms of what he needs for the final film and then how to get it with the minimum of equipment.  

I watch YT film-makers / vloggers a lot, but they're all operating at close to this level, which I know is the exception rather than the rule.  Several of my favourites have things like C300s in their home studios for their talking-to-camera pieces, or at the least use A7SII (as Kraig does - including the above) or equivalent performance cameras, so they're at the top end of the platform.

As someone who is also on the 'downhill' side of 40, they all look young to me too!  
If you're interested in more outrageously talented Yuotubers I can happily recommend people like: Brandon Li, Leftcoast, Peter McKinnon, and for people that are all about content and not film-making talk: Primitive Technology (videos of him making stuff in the bush without tools - he does not speak), and Andrew Huang (behind-the-scenes of making electronic music but I think his videos are better than the music).

52 minutes ago, Matthew Hartman said:

@kye

This guy does a lot of videos on best practices for handheld gimbals. You may find it useful. 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8sibhG707qg5AlVlj5P3mw

Subscribed.  Looks like lots of good content there.  Thanks!

In case anyone hasn't seen it - Philip Bloom playing with the Terra 4K.

Very nice looking footage IMHO.

On 16/03/2018 at 11:32 PM, heart0less said:

Gimbals are not for me; since they are an electronic devices, they're more prone to fail than a simple rig / tripod / monopod. Neither am I a huge fan of the results they give - it lacks the authenticity, immersiveness, naturality.

7 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

Yeah but a electronic Gimbal gives new life to old cameras that never had IBIS in them. If used right and not in excess I think they can look damn good with practice. Most people overuse them, I did also when I first got mine. The better ones are pretty damn good. The biggest failure with them is forgetting to charge the batteries in them LoL!

6 hours ago, Matthew Hartman said:

You have to practice, practice, practice with these gimbals just as you would a glidecam. They're deceiving when you watch them in action but have yet to use one yourself.

I've stated this several times already in the past but it's worth repeating, they're not a magic bullet out of the box, nor are they the most natural thing to hold. It takes time and practice to get the results and performance you want after some muscle memory has set in, and they have to be balanced correctly, just like a glidecam. I think if you look at it as just one tool in a bigger toolbox the expectation becomes realistic. 

(In reply to all of the above)

I had an "ah-ha" moment in film-making from one of my favourite YouTubers - Kraig Adams when he released these two videos:

I'm not saying that he's a genius or anything, but I can say that he knows a ton more about film-making than I do, and his style of shooting is similar to mine so I find useful information in videos like these.

The "ah-ha" moment was that he basically shoots in two separate 'styles'..  The first is 'vlog / real-life / run-and-gun / content-over-style'.  This is shot with the gorillapod, in real-time (ie, not slow-motion), with location sound, and is shown in 16:9 aspect ratio.  The second style is 'cinematic' and is basically used to show beautiful things in a beautiful way.  This appears to be shot with the gimbal (or a drone, although he's moving away from drone footage), sometimes in slow motion depending on how fast things are moving in the scene, music only, and is shown in something like 2.35:1.

The reason that I 'clicked' with these two was that in the above video he makes the two really obvious be deliberately contrasting the two styles, and talks about them in the making-of.  

@heart0less You probably already know this but I think it's about working out what look you're trying to achieve, looking at the conditions you're shooting in, and then working out what equipment / techniques / etc are required to bridge that gap.  I can assure you that a gimbal will not produce smooth-with-no-soul results if you were riding a horse at full-speed!  

I've settled on having two rigs.  The first is the XC10 and GoPro on the GorillaPod which with the IS in the XC10 and the crazy-wide-angle of the GoPro will give lifelike and natural movement without fast/tiny hand-shake.  The second is my iPhone8 on a gimbal which between the lens IS and gimbal will allow me to do smooth panning shots of a beautiful scene, have walking shots that aren't distractingly shaky, and even have a faux drone shot or two (if you hold the gimbal up above your head they really look like a drone!).  

The gimbal can also be automated for panning during time lapses, or create hyper lapses which are basically super-smooth time lapses with the camera moving, and both of these are almost in the special-effects category, but will be fun to play around with.  From an artistic perspective my films are about my family and photography/videography is a big part of my life so having a little bit of it in the video isn't inappropriate.

@Matthew Hartman Homework assignment received - I will practice with my gimbal the moment I get home!

23 minutes ago, BTM_Pix said:

Thats a really neat setup.

I have to say though, if I attempted to take something like that on holiday, I'm pretty certain I'd get this sort of reaction from the other half !

 

Thanks.  I've also trimmed up the cold-shoe mount between the xc10 and the GoPro to make it a bit shorter too since I took that pic.

I have a *very* accepting partner, and in a sense it's the price for me being happy I have toys to play with and for getting nice home videos

4 hours ago, kidzrevil said:

@kye I can’t share the in’s and out’s of it because it is for a service I offer my clients. I can say however it involves a very tedious process of employing the right combination of upscaling,noise reduction,sharpening & grain. If done right you can increase the perceived detail of the image and the bitrate when streaming online

No worries whatsoever..  after all, clients are paying for skill and experience - not just equipment hire 

I'm gradually 'making friends' with ML RAW on my 700D, and this is probably a stupid question, but I can't work out how to select some of the resolutions people talk about.

When I go into RAW video (MLV) --> Resolution I can only choose from 640, 960, 1280, 1600, etc.  People talk a lot about 1344 and other modes but I can't find them.  Changing the aspect ratio only changes the vertical resolution, not horizontal.  I know that if I choose 1920 or above it selects 1728, but what about modes like 1344?

I've tried the nightly build, I've tried the 10/12 bit RAW Video experimental build 700D115 (released Jan 31 2018), I've tried the crop_rec module/build (magiclantern-crop_rec_4k.2018Mar10.700D115) and looked in the 3x3 crop mode and the 720/60fps canon mode but no joy there either.

I've looked on the ML forums and YT videos but can't find any complete instructions.  I'm probably just missing a step somewhere... any help would be greatly appreciated!

@kidzrevil great look! What is your post workflow?

3 hours ago, ntblowz said:

This is what I shot usually for my own stuff, a simple cage with handle is all I need

What kind of projects / shots do you normally take with this setup?  I'm curious to learn more about how other people shoot and what works for them.

I know that film-making is similar to travelling in that when you start out you take far too much because you don't know what you'll need and you take it 'just in case' and I know I'm definitely in this phase!

4 hours ago, heart0less said:

Gorillapod seems like a nice option, but wouldn't it be a bit slippery / wobbly? There is nothing that sets it properly in place, nothing to prevent it from moving on my chest / shoulder. 

Each 'bubble' on the legs have a rubber ring around them and they're surprisingly grippy.  Combined with the fact you can bend it however you'd like it can do an ok job.

The most significant issue is that as everything is flexible and there's no way to lock things down (there is no tighten adjustment) if you put enough force on something then it will move.  I don't think you'll run into this problem if you get a large enough one (this is why I went with the largest model) but you can't expect it to be completely rigid either.

3 hours ago, Dude_ger said:

Rent one and check for yourself.

If you like the feeling of your rented rig, don't buy a compromise- no gorilla pod and no rig with one handle or anything that costs less than 200 $ (new), you will get pissed of because of screws getting loose and things like that.

Great advice.  Rigs are personal and depend on what you're shooting and how you are approaching it.  

@jonpais what a great rig - reminds me of the contraption I've built for my next family holiday...

It has the XC10 and Rode VMP+ pointing forwards and the GoPro and Rode VideoMicro pointing backwards so that I can get shots of myself included in the video.  Including the GoPro also means that I can do things like time lapses (eg, if we stop to eat by a nice view) without having a separate rig.  I'm also taking my phone with the a phone gimbal for those wide panning shots that I can never get smooth handheld.

Time will tell if this rig is genius, ridiculous, or both!

@heart0less view this as a sign of what NOT to do!

In addition to the above advice, another option I have opted to go with is a Job Gorillapod (I bought the largest one, I think it's called the 5K?).

It's a small tripod with bendy legs, and is a jack-of-all-trades-but-master-of-none.  If you're familiar with Casey Neistat it's what he uses on his hand-held rigs.

It can be used:

• as a very short tripod (~30cm tall)
• if you bend the legs so they're together it works as a handle
• if you have a bullhead you can adjust it so the legs go straight out behind the camera horizontally and it's a crude shoulder rig
• if you have the legs coming back at you then you can have them make two points of contact with your chest, with your hands making three
• if you put one leg towards your chest you can shape the other two out to the sides in a W shape and they become two handles - one on each side of the camera
• a variation on the above is that the leg coming back goes over your shoulder making it a shoulder rig with handles
• it's grippy so it can be wrapped around trees, poles, etc
• etc etc etc

It won't do any of those things as well as dedicated rigs, but it's probably the most flexible rig you can get.

You said you didn't want to go overboard - this will give you some extra stability but will also ensure you aren't going too far!

My other suggestion might be a monopod.  Super stable if you're stationary, and if you're walking then it makes a decent counterbalance a bit like a glidecam.

2 hours ago, Mattias Burling said:

Many volgers however use the punch in to make jump cuts when they are blabbing to long or get side tracked. And for that HD is fine imo.

My partner is starting her own business and part of her duties is public speaking, so I'm learning a bit about editing those videos.  When you're going to smaller events they only film them with one camera (if they film them at all) so if you want to edit the speech down for length or to take out awkward moments then I've found punching in to be very useful.

As much as I think people look down on YT and vloggers I have learned a lot about low budget film-making from watching how the best of them handle difficult situations.  Partly because their publishing schedule is too fast to allow endless re-takes of things, and partly because they often talk about filming, or walk past mirrors, etc so you get to see a bit of behind-the-scenes as well.
I particularly benefit from the fact that they have little to no planning, shoot under uncontrolled conditions and then have to make the best of it in the edit room, as that's also what my run-and-gun shooting is like with family holidays etc.  

1 hour ago, IronFilm said:

Many vloggers use a LOT of punch ins, so higher resolution is very handy for that. 

59 minutes ago, Mattias Burling said:

True, depending on how much one wants to peep, you can punch in on HD for youtube and no one would ever know.
I know plenty that have done it for years including myself (I believe in 99% of all my videos), no complaints so far.

It depends on why you are punching in.  In a true example of story > IQ I see many vloggers digital zoom in to 5x or 10x if there's something funny going on (especially of faces that people make in the background when they say something noteworthy).  If they only do it for maybe a quarter of a second then the blurry and noisy quality is almost a filter that says "I punched in to this funny thing'.

Part of my choice of the XC10 was that between the higher bitrate 4K and the lens IS the lens IS takes care of blur during the exposures of each frame and then I can punch-in or stabilise in post to smooth or eliminate macro-sized movement, meaning I don't have all the downsides of owning a gimbal.  Obviously it's not quite the same, but it's a lot better than you'd think, especially if you're only rendering to 1080.

12 hours ago, Don Kotlos said:

If you don't care about 4K while blogging then the M50 looks a very decent camera (I never understood the need to see a babbling face in 4K  )

In 4K other than the crop and lack of dual focus, there is massive rolling shutter that would make it useless for blogging anyways. Good thing is that you still have the 4K option for deep DoF static shots/interviews etc... 

I agree with the above, but would add that 4K can be nice for talking head stuff for people whose channels are higher quality and more like they're the presenter of a show rather than someone recording inane verbal diarrhoea to amuse themselves while in-transit to somewhere unimportant (which - let's be honest - is most vlogs).  This camera could easily do the presenter style videos because those people shoot under controlled conditions (essentially in a studio set) and so manual focus and a chair with a backrest would work well in these instances.  RS doesn't matter as much if the camera is on a tripod and it's just a person talking.

If they had to make compromises (it's Canon, so we'll let the ML team determine if they were necessary) then they're not so bad for vlogging I think.

9 hours ago, Matthew Hartman said:

54 pages on this freaking camera. (Or any) Why is this particular camera so controversial here? I feel bad for the people that actually bought and like this camera, I'm sure they came to this thread to enjoy talking about it with others that like it too.

THIS.

I was that guy - I did my research, bought the XC10 and then read the 50+ page XC10 thread on this board to try and learn how to get the most out of it.  The purchase was one of the top 10 most expensive things I've bought in my life and the result of much research and conversations with my significant other to get financial approval, and by the end of the thread I thought that I'd f*cked it up, both for buying the wrong camera and also not realising it was only worth about a third of new price on the second-hand market.

Now I know that not only had most of the critical people in that thread never even seen the camera in real life, but that many criticisms were factually incorrect (ie, they hadn't even read the spec sheet), they don't actually know much about film-making, and are just aggressive ass-hats.  

But I didn't know that at the time.

In terms of what that means for this forum - I registered to every other film-making forum before joining this one.  I read all threads on this board with the assumption that every second person can't read, can't make films, and is unpleasant.  I don't have that mindset on any of the other forums I'm on - it may not be related but they're all industry forums where almost every single person is courteous, respectful, and tries not to talk out of their a**es.

1 hour ago, kidzrevil said:

Agreed. I really want to learn about the camera but its hard finding the info I need digging through this thread. Especially with all the anti fuji hate an occasional aggression by some of our respected members

That's why I had a look here today.  I literally thought "I'll have a look in that thread - let's see if there's any chance that there's usable info there - I'll read the last page and if not then I won't bother reading any further".

2 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

I'd also suggest considering the later. Appreciating another's opinion, if not their actual taste in a film, is a way to get turned onto cinema you might never otherwise see.

True..  I rarely watch movies these days actually, mostly watching TV shows (mostly ones where there is no episode-only plot lines - so they're more like a movie delivered in chunks) and youtube videos / documentaries.

I do understand there's an art to introducing characters, pummelling the crap out of them and then wrapping it all up, and having it fit into 75-120 minutes, but mostly that constraint doesn't seem to have any intrinsic value to me and if there's enough story in the story (so to speak) then making a TV show out of it and having 6 hours (UK) or 10-17 hours (US) to tell the story makes it a better experience because there's more time to develop characters and story etc.  Obviously though, if there isn't enough story in the story then longer is much worse than shorter (eg, Sherlock vs Elementary where the UK told the story in 6 hours and the US version had the same 6 hours of story but also about 12 hours of filler).

10 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

In defense of critics:  Real ones don't really exist much anymore, so let's not throw the whole profession under the bus because the internet content machine has diluted the craft. 

A good critic is always going to be subjective, of course, but they do offer legitimate wisdom and insight regardless of their personal preferences.  For instance, I loved reading Roger Ebert's criticisms about film, but thought his taste about certain filmmaking was way too generous.

I'm definitely not an expert, but I've followed a few critics for long enough to understand their tastes, and eventually I understood them well enough to reduce their recommendations down to a 1:1 relationship - ie, if X critic likes it then I will too.  I did this with both Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton (very famous critics here in Australia) as well as the reviewers from Future Music magazine (magazine about technology-based music creation).

I guess maybe there's a difference between getting recommendations from a critic and getting enjoyment and learning from what they say about a film.  I am pretty much only interested in the former because I don't make narrative pieces.

If you're able to add an external screen instead of the flippable LCD then there are very cheap options available - 

We've all been playing this game for a long time..  well, with the exception of the LCD problem for those of us who don't film ourselves.

It was above my (low) expectations.  I only watched it because everyone else in the family had, by some minor miracle, agreed to watch the same movie at the same time on the same day!

My beef with it was that it was very likely a predictable formula-follower, and my cinematic tastes have been broadened by excellent western and foreign films such that the formula has all the appeal of McDonalds - you eat it because it's convenient and maybe it wasn't as bad as you thought it would be but then you're disappointed anyway.  It was a formula-follower, but had some interesting fight scenes, gave me a laugh, and provided a family moment.

My kids (14 and 12) have short attention spans and like talking during films, and considering their tastes are very western, it's quite commonplace for them to accurately predict (out loud) the whole plot in first few scenes of a movie.  I think they like the formula because it's predictable and I suspect they'll grow out of it at some point, but it's a little stale for me at this point.

In terms of what critics think, it's just a matter of taste and perspective - their verdicts are based on taste but their perspective is that they somehow know something we don't..

Installed crop_rec but that didn't help me either, I looked in the 3x3 crop mode and used the 720/60fps canon mode but no joy there either.

any help would be greatly appreciated!

This is probably a stupid question, but I can't work out how to select some of the resolutions people talk about.

When I go into RAW video (MLV) --> Resolution I can only choose from 640, 960, 1280, 1600, etc.  People talk a lot about 1344 and other modes but I can't find them.  Changing the aspect ratio only changes the vertical resolution, not horizontal.  I saw instructions in the EOS-M thread to enable crop_rec module, but that's not in the build I have.

I'm using 700D with the 10/12 bit RAW Video experimental build 700D115 (released Jan 31 2018).

What am I missing?  I must admit that I find ML confusing as hell, even though I have a computer science degree!

hang on, are you guys using the crop_rec module?  that would make more sense...

Sigma 18-35mm 1.8 purchased!  Fast SD card purchased!

I'm planning to use ML, either in the 3x Quality mode, or in RAW.  I've got the 10 + 12bit experimental build installed and am converting to CinemaDNG with the excellent MLV App and then into Resolve Studio for editing, colour, and export.

I'm still trying to figure out sound - I had sound recording in the nightly build with 14-bit video but haven't seen it since.  I'll keep testing.  

I'll also have to work out grading the footage too.  The author of the MLV App took out the gamma conversion function due to technical issues, and I don't think it did colour conversion, so might not have been a drop-in format anyway.

Who can tell me the easiest way to grade ML RAW, once I've converted it to CinemaDNGs that is??
My preference would be to convert them into an industry standard log and then I can use the Colour Space Transform to convert it to Rec709 where I know what I am doing!

If I can't work out how to get nice colours then I might have to default to 3x Quality mode.

11 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Nothing else on the market can match its specs 

I've heard that.  What about that certain X-factor that some lenses have?  How does it look in an aesthetic / cinematic sense?

I've seen some nice videos shot with it, but you've lived with it so understand it...

I think I'm sold on the Sigma 18-35 for my Canon 700D.  

I fired up ML on the 700D and with the quality setting at 3x (the max) managed to write a file that averaged about 125Mbps where the 1x setting only managed 52Mbps, so higher quality encoding is at least possible.  So with that hurdle down I watched some videos shot with the Sigma and wow - it looked very nice at times, very very nice indeed.  I was surprised that the best moments were during the day rather than the bokeh lights at night style shots - the daytime shots looked bright and clean and had that nice mix of detail with the softness of out-of-focus areas.  It also responds wonderfully when pointed towards bright lights / the sun, with on-or-off-screen flares that are quite pleasing aesthetically.

I've never really had a wide-aperture lens before (except the 50mm 1.8 which is too long for main usage) so I am probably going to go overboard for a bit until I work out how much to use and when etc.

8 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

You're going to be waiting a very looooooooooooong time before Canon puts IBIS into a cheap camera!
 

The G80 is already very cheap, and the likes of a Panasonic 25mm f1.7 lens on sale is only US$99

Skip IBIS and you can get a secondhand Panasonic G7 for dirt dirt cheap! (skip 4K and you can get a G6 for a song!)

I won't be waiting for a cheap IBIS Canon camera - that's for sure..

G80 + 25mm is interesting, I'll research it a bit more.

6 minutes ago, Yurolov said:

Lens IS and digital IS should be enough for his purposes, although maybe not - only he can judge.

Lens IS is probably fine (I handhold the XC10 at 280mm equivalent and can sometimes get motionless shots, other times they sway a little but it's fine).

Considering that I'm looking at the wide end, maybe I don't need IS at all?

2 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

The Sigma 18-35mm f1.8 is a very affordable lens for what it is.  Of course there are YouTubers who can afford it. 

And you can use it on almost ANYTHING! (that isn't FF35)

I have my Sigma in NIkon F mount and I've used it on:

BMPCC, D5200, D90, G6, F3, GH1, etc... and those are just my cameras! Also taken it out and had it used on shoots on other cameras too such as a Panasonic EVA1 and many others. 

 

Good to hear, and yes, I know it's a bargain for what it is.  Does this lens have the magic the internet says it does?

If so, I might just grab one of these and take a risk that it's wide enough not to need IS, and that the Canon with ML tweaking can give me a bump in IQ.  If not it'll still be great for stills when my brain remembers I also like taking photographs and in a few years can be an option for XC20 / 1DC / 1DX, or just sell it.