Administrators Andrew Reid Posted January 13, 2012 Author Administrators Share Posted January 13, 2012 [quote author=Sara link=topic=157.msg1225#msg1225 date=1326399842] Resolution aside - its the jello wobble effect that I can't stand seeing in DSLR movies. Lots students I know are getting sick of the Canon 5D jello effect as well and are dumping their gear in favor of renting more expensive Alexa / Red / SI-2k equipment. Im saving for a Ikonoskop personally. [/quote] It just depends how much you move the camera. I stay away from too many whip pans and sideways sweeps. I think it is a shame if students are renting such expensive gear, because part of learning and being creative is to overcome the limitations of a camera, not throw money at the problem until it disappears. If I were a student now, I'd feel pretty spoilt with all that DSLRs have to offer and I wish I had them in my university days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Andrew Reid Posted January 13, 2012 Author Administrators Share Posted January 13, 2012 [quote author=arknox link=topic=157.msg1227#msg1227 date=1326400419] If only we could judge which camera was best simply by how sharp it is. How about dynamic range, light sensitivity, colour rendition etc. Hacked high bit rate helps to capture available detail and make grading easier but it can only take the GH2 so far. The D4 may well be softer than the GH2, but in terms of image quality, sharpness and price may well be the only cards the GH2 can play against it. That WHY footage looked great in my opinion. [/quote] I really think WHY could have been shot on any DSLR and looked about the same. Saw nothing special. Yes as others and myself have mentioned it is a compressed web video, but that doesn't account for just how soft the resolution is on the 1080p YouTube stream even on locked down shots. Something is quite disturbing there. I'm holding final judgement of course - going to wait for this to come out in the wash so to speak! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sara Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 [quote author=Andrew Reid - EOSHD link=topic=157.msg1235#msg1235 date=1326424721] [quote author=Sara link=topic=157.msg1225#msg1225 date=1326399842] Resolution aside - its the jello wobble effect that I can't stand seeing in DSLR movies. Lots students I know are getting sick of the Canon 5D jello effect as well and are dumping their gear in favor of renting more expensive Alexa / Red / SI-2k equipment. Im saving for a Ikonoskop personally. [/quote] It just depends how much you move the camera. I stay away from too many whip pans and sideways sweeps. I think it is a shame if students are renting such expensive gear, because part of learning and being creative is to overcome the limitations of a camera, not throw money at the problem until it disappears. If I were a student now, I'd feel pretty spoilt with all that DSLRs have to offer and I wish I had them in my university days. [/quote] True. But you have talent - tons of it - and you learn your gear. My fellow film school students don't and they are always in a hurry. I can't get any classmates to sit through Andrei Tarkovsky's STALKER movie, or Oldboy by Chan-wook Park - both are brilliant imo. I think renting or buying and quick selling isn't that expensive if you only shoot once or twice a quarter for big projects. It is so tough to find a camera that "does it all well" that renting "the best tool for the job" is viable in the US (renting is cheap). Cheers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh D Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 Hi Andrew, Love your blog but as Samuel points out above, your conclusions about downsampling completely misconstrue what Dave Etchells from Nikon was saying. You really ought to change your article as the central point - "Frankly this is bloody ridiculous" - is in err: Dave Etchells tells us nothing about whether line skipping takes place. He only describes the basics of 4:2:2 chroma-sampling (exactly as it is in the Canon C300) - this is nothing specific to the D4: (Dave Etchells, IR) - 8-bit is correct, 4:2:2 is a standard digital video format. The numbers refer to the sub-sampling of the various channels (Luminance, and two chroma channels). 4:2:2 subsamples the chroma channels 2:1 along each line vs the luminance channel. The subsampling is only along each horizontal video line; there's no sub-sampling between video lines. I wish my GH2 could output 4:2:2!! As it is we have half the chroma information. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marq77 Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 [quote author=moebius22 link=topic=157.msg1185#msg1185 date=1326234249] Shame. Strong competition is good for the consumer. [/quote] Shame? Can the 1DX record uncompressed? We all know both Flagship are geared for next years Olympics...[Hint] Press use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sara Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 If everyone is so crazy about 4:2:2 and color and uncompressed output - nobody should even consider the Nikon or Canon. Save up another 6k and buy the Ikonoskop A-Cam DII. Superior 12bit color, true raw, better form factor, Global Shutter - no jellow effect like what the Nikon D4 suffers from, CinemaDNG files for superior color grading and future proofing of files. (RED Skarlet "starts" at over 15k and the form factor isn't that great) [url=http://youtu.be/U_MHPWgp8Qc]http://youtu.be/U_MHPWgp8Qc[/url] If Nikon were confident in the video of the D4 we would have seen better samples at launch. Sure vimeo compression is reducing quality a bit, but when a $800 GH2 out resolves it - there is no excuse. Watch this Philip Bloom low light shootout. Even though the large sensor DSLRs show very little noise - they also show very little detail. Everything is mushy - whats the point? [url=http://vimeo.com/34637684]The Christmas Shootout: Part 2[/url] Nikon and Canon are aiming the D4 and 1DX at photojournalists, wildlife, and sports shooters. I hope to be proven wrong but I doubt either will "wow" people away from more dedicated video tools. Maybe we all just need panasonic to wow us with a GH3. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simco123 Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 What the FF dSLR video has that most other more expensive dedicated video cameras don't is a big sensor and dynamic range. I'm thinking of getting the Canon EOS Cinema dSLR with 4k video which should be out later this year. It will be less than the flagship 1DX. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sara Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 [quote author=Simco123 link=topic=157.msg1250#msg1250 date=1326480167] What the FF dSLR video has that most other more expensive dedicated video cameras don't is a big sensor and dynamic range. [/quote] Actually that is a huge myth. Dynamic range - usually awesome because of the FF sensor - is really only available when shooting stills. Remember that video uses a VERY small portion of the sensor. Not to mention that the lack of raw output when shooting video from all DSLRs reduces dynamic range even more. Proof: [url=http://vimeo.com/24334733]The Great Camera Shootout 2011: Episode 1 ~ "The Tipping Point"[/url] FF gets you "sometimes" lower noise and the ability to get shallow depth of field. Thats about it. Don't confuse shooting stills with shooting video. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simco123 Posted January 14, 2012 Share Posted January 14, 2012 Of course I already knew only a small down sampled version of the FF output are used for video. When I said the 5D2 has more dynamic range what I really meant was the point of video capture and that it don't clip highlights as much as say the GH2, not the actual DR latitude contained in the video which I'm aware of during editing. My comparison is not with the big guns Alexa, Red et all but certainly video cameras that are $2k-$3k but you are right about stills and video which I never made comment about. I have used the 2mp size stills captured on video from my 5D2 and it is crap so no confusing here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sara Posted January 14, 2012 Share Posted January 14, 2012 [quote author=Simco123 link=topic=157.msg1253#msg1253 date=1326504516] Of course I already knew only a small down sampled version of the FF output are used for video. When I said the 5D2 has more dynamic range what I really meant was the point of video capture and that it don't clip highlights as much as say the GH2, not the actual DR latitude contained in the video which I'm aware of during editing. My comparison is not with the big guns Alexa, Red et all but certainly video cameras that are $2k-$3k but you are right about stills and video which I never made comment about. I have used the 2mp size stills captured on video from my 5D2 and it is crap so no confusing here. [/quote] Understood. I see what you were getting at. :) I personally don't think the 5DMK2 is all that great for dynamic range - nor do any pros who shoot with it (listen to the audio in the zacuto shootout where they mention that they doubt it can even get 11 stops). Course I guess its a whole nother can of worms to discuss "usable dynamic range" - ie how much detail, how accurate the colors etc. Anyway back to the D4! Anymore info about it? Anyone? Anyone shoot with it a bit at CES? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hmcindie Posted January 14, 2012 Share Posted January 14, 2012 [quote author=Sara link=topic=157.msg1255#msg1255 date=1326513177] I personally don't think the 5DMK2 is all that great for dynamic range - nor do any pros who shoot with it (listen to the audio in the zacuto shootout where they mention that they doubt it can even get 11 stops). [/quote] That's because people are completely spoiled. Before the 5d mark II what cameras did people use in that price range and how good were they? The 5d destroyed them dynamic range wise. I always wondered why people were claiming that these cameras didn't have good dynamic range. They had WAY better DR than professional cameras in the 10k price range at that time. Now time is catching up but still the 5d does highlights better than an FS100. And now it's not "all that great"? Boy. I wonder what cameras we will have in the future, they'll probably do 4k with 18 stops of latitude for a grand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samuel H Posted January 14, 2012 Share Posted January 14, 2012 well, if you're talking about dynamic range on canon DSLRs... I've done quite a lot of research in that department, and the result of that is my Similaar suite of Flaat picture styles: [url=http://www.similaar.com/foto/flaat-picture-styles/120108.html]http://www.similaar.com/foto/flaat-picture-styles/120108.html[/url] the most extreme ones (flaat_3 and flaat_4) increase the DR recorded in the video footage (the DR that's captured by the sensor is obviously unchanged, but a smaller portion of the shadows is crushed to black before going through the H.264 codec and never coming back to life) I've measured about 2 extra stops of DR with Flaat_4 when compared with the standard Canon picture styles (e.g. "neutral with contrast=-4"), and over a stop more latitude than CineStyle or Marvels Cine (before you say I'm lying: look at those waveforms) there's a downside, though: all that extra DR comes from not clipping the shadows, and those lifted shadows will be noisy unless you're recording with an awful lot of light - at least they're not clipped, but these are by no means your workhorse picture styles the other two picture styles in the suite (flaat_1 and flaat_2) are the ones designed for day-to-day use: they deliver the same DR as technicolor cinestyle and marvels cine (which is to say, nearly the same as the standard canon picture styles), but should lead to easier-to-grade footage (as opposed to marvels cine and netral_4, which often lead me to clay-looking skin tones) and cleaner final images (less noise and smoother gradients than with cinestyle, by virtue of a more efficient use of the available color space) you can see a test video here: [url=http://vimeo.com/34943260]Flaat video tests[/url] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sara Posted January 14, 2012 Share Posted January 14, 2012 Fantastic tests Samuel H. Thanks for sharing - I am sure this will helps lots of people. wow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simco123 Posted January 15, 2012 Share Posted January 15, 2012 Still don't know how good the D4 video really is but Canon is reacting to it with firmware features update for the 1DX. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Andrew Reid Posted January 15, 2012 Author Administrators Share Posted January 15, 2012 Samuel - interesting. There's another disadvantage to CineStyle and other flat profiles however, and that is a compressed tonal range. HDR is bad for skin tones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samuel H Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 that's why Flaat_1 and Flaat_2 are there: they provide no more DR than Neutral with contrast=-4, but reassign the luminance response more smoothly (devoting less to the highlights and more to the skin tones) this is Flaat_1 (green) vs Neutral-4 (orange): [img]http://www.similaar.com/foto/flaat-picture-styles/others/compare_flaat1_neutral4.jpg[/img] and this is Flaat_2 (green) vs CineStyle (orange): [img]http://www.similaar.com/foto/flaat-picture-styles/others/compare_flaat2_technicolor4.jpg[/img] that slow slope line on CineStyle, as you said, leads to some issues - Flaat_1 and Flaat_2 should avoid them, because they're not flat in the sense that there's no contrast in the image, they're flat in the sense that contrast in the image is distributed evenly Flaat_3 and Flaat_4 deliver extended DR, but should not be considered a day-to-day tool, because that increased DR comes at a price - they're specialty tools, for those special times when you need them the workhorse option would be Flaat_2 also: * by being based on Portrait, Flaat delivers nicer skin tones (looking at the vectorscopes at the end of my page, it seems to do some sort of "skin squeeze" and "skin smooth", like what you'd find on Magic Bullet Mojo and Cosmo) * by not being overly desaturated, they should lead to smoother color transitions and nicer colors in the final image than other flat picture styles, specifically CineStyle * talking about final image: this smooth gamma response makes the footage really easy to grade: use a luma curve -or RGB curve and desaturaion- to redistribute contrast and get quickly to a reasonably good starting point Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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