Panasonics new Cinema Camera? - Announcement today

[Jimmy]

Just what I have read from numerous sources, backed by what I saw in the industry myself.

[AaronChicago]

1 hour ago, Jimmy said:

Just what I have read from numerous sources, backed by what I saw in the industry myself.

Was it a flop sales wise? It still has excellent reviews on major retailer sites. Never used it myself.

[Jimmy]

Yea, that is what I have heard.... Early figures were quite good, then Sony's FS100 and F3, even the GH2, took away some of it's market.

I'm not clamining to have facts and figures, just what I have heard. Follow the logic that if it had been a success, surely they would have made an AF200 by now?

[Jimmy]

 

[Viet Bach Bui]

For all the hype around this camera's color science, I'm not blown away by any of the footages so far...

[Jimmy]

Did you listen to the commentary?

[Viet Bach Bui]

Yes, but I don't get what you're trying to say.

[Jimmy]

I'm trying to say that the above shot is purposfluly made difficult in terms of colour and skintone, yet still shines.

You are not blown away by the colour science here? Skintones look perfect to me.

 

[TheRenaissanceMan]

3 hours ago, Bùi Bách Việt said:

For all the hype around this camera's color science, I'm not blown away by any of the footages so far...

http://www.dvinfo.net/article/acquisition/panasonicp2hd/a-critical-look-at-varicams-latest-demo-reel.html

Art Adams, one of the leading experts in camera color, on the Vatican 35 demo reel. His only problems with it were revealed by the director to be a problem with their syrupy grade-- there's a more conservative grade of some of the footage floating around out there that avoids those problems. Also, try watching Netflix's Master of None. That show looks so effortlessly good.

On 2/11/2016 at 5:33 AM, Ebrahim Saadawi said:

He especially emphasized on the 5000 ISO mode and how there's no alteration in DR (I said big deal the C300 sensor also keeps full DR up to 10.000)

Incorrect. The C300 does indeed use analog gain to produce higher ISOs, but it does affect DR. You ever see those DR charts from DXO where the line slopes down as ISO goes up? Canon's Cinema cameras work the same way. I'm sure it's a flatter graph due to the large pixels, but Varicam does something completely unique. It has the exact same DR at 5000 as it does at 800, including the noise floor (which is lower than the F55 and Dragon). This is huge, and cinematographers are raving (with good reason) about it.

 

On 2/11/2016 at 10:03 AM, theSUBVERSIVE said:

 I know they wouldn't use the same dual ISO sensor on "budget" camera but at least all the colour science and thought would be on it - since Sony lacks a bit of attention to details.

The LT has the same dual ISO feature as the 35, actually.

On 2/11/2016 at 5:33 AM, Ebrahim Saadawi said:

What I don't like at first glance: Raw being only to External Recorders (you'll need a Q7 or Shogun or something on top). This might take out some of its use in cinema/film who are just comfortable with the word RAW. Not having an LCD in-body? Alexa/Red dont but F5 does, just for controls even. P2 media is expensive. Does it record to something else as well? 

The forums are full of people complaining that unlike the F55, the Varicam doesn't apply any compression to its RAW files. That alone will disqualify it for many productions that can't deal with tyre headache of uncompressed 4K 60p.

The control panel on the side can actually be removed and used as a monitor. 

There's SDI out, but otherwise we're stuck with P2 Express. Same problem with RED though, and people seem to have accepted it there.

[TheRenaissanceMan]

23 hours ago, Xavier Plágaro Mussard said:

We talked about everything except maybe the most important!!! A Panasonic with a Canon EF mount!!!

Canon EF has become the de facto low- end mount for the industry. I wouldn't read more into it than that.

[Fritz Pierre]

3 hours ago, Bùi Bách Việt said:

For all the hype around this camera's color science, I'm not blown away by any of the footages so far...

Perhaps you can submit a clip of something that does blow you away so we have some frame of reference of the standards you find acceptable...

[theSUBVERSIVE]

17 minutes ago, TheRenaissanceMan said:

The LT has the same dual ISO feature as the 35, actually.

But I was actually talking about a possible Panasonic competitor for the Sony FS5/FS7, not the actual VariCam LT, that's why I said "budget" camera, a sub-$10k camera.

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

24 minutes ago, TheRenaissanceMan said:

http://www.dvinfo.net/article/acquisition/panasonicp2hd/a-critical-look-at-varicams-latest-demo-reel.html

 

Incorrect. The C300 does indeed use analog gain to produce higher ISOs, but it does affect DR. You ever see those DR charts from DXO where the line slopes down as ISO goes up? Canon's Cinema cameras work the same way. I'm sure it's a flatter graph due to the large pixels, but Varicam does something completely unique. It has the exact same DR at 5000 as it does at 800, including the noise floor (which is lower than the F55 and Dragon). This is huge, and cinematographers are raving (with good reason) about it.

It's not the same as their stills sensors, a fact. DR is fixed to X number of stops from 800 to 20.000 ISO.



The increased noise however results in that the stops below middle grey - while are the same number - are not as usable in the final grade and DR does effectively decrease with higher ISOs. So it's great on the Canon CX00 sensors how much data they reserve at high ISO but even more great on the VARICAM as the total amount of stops AND noise amount stay fixed using 800 and 5000 ISO values it seems. A very unique technology and makes this camera a great lowlight performer for cinema, way beyond Alexa/Red. Vs C300II? we'll need testing to see how they fair at high ISOs.

I am a little concerned by how they testers say ''almost'' no noise difference and ''essentially'' good, not hard identical in 800 vs 5000. Cameras have very high low-light performance now. 

[fuzzynormal]

1 hour ago, Jimmy said:

Skintones look perfect to me.

I'm sure the camera produces excellent skin tone, but I've found that most cameras produce attractive skin tone under natural "magic hour" light.  And that's what we're looking at there in that shot.  A girl illuminated by the morning sun.

[Viet Bach Bui]

12 hours ago, Jimmy said:

I'm trying to say that the above shot is purposfluly made difficult in terms of colour and skintone, yet still shines.

You are not blown away by the colour science here? Skintones look perfect to me.

 

I agree that the skintone in the shot above looks fantastic. However it was not the part that was made difficult with the heavy magenta cast. This one is lit by sunlight and the scene is very simple for grading.

And guys, let's judge this camera by its own footages, not its 3-times more expensive sibling, even if they share some of the hardware.

As for footages that blow me away, well I don't have time to search for them again now, but I have seen clips from C100/C300/5D3 Raw/BMCC and more recently the BM Mini 4.6k that look just as good (see screenshots in this topic over at bmcuser http://www.bmcuser.com/showthread.php?15520-Brief-thoughts-and-a-bit-of-footage-from-the-URSA-Mini-4-6K/page213)

It's not that the footages from the LT don't look good, they do, it's just that some people claimed it makes the Alexa look like video and trashes the F55 so naturally I expect to see something spectacular.

[IronFilm]

11 hours ago, TheRenaissanceMan said:

The LT has the same dual ISO feature as the 35, actually.

The forums are full of people complaining that unlike the F55, the Varicam doesn't apply any compression to its RAW files. That alone will disqualify it for many productions that can't deal with tyre headache of uncompressed 4K 60p.

The control panel on the side can actually be removed and used as a monitor. 

There's SDI out, but otherwise we're stuck with P2 Express. Same problem with RED though, and people seem to have accepted it there.

I could imagine in two years or whenever from now, when a 2ndhand Varicam LT has fallen to an acceptable price that  I could consider maybe purchasing a Varicam LT myself but P2 cards are still insanely expensive, to then use only one P2 card for a lightweight internal back up codec, and recording the bulk of the files instead to an Odyessy 10bit ProRes HQ. A bit like I do now with my F3 and SxS cards with the Samurai Blade!

11 hours ago, TheRenaissanceMan said:

Canon EF has become the de facto low- end mount for the industry. I wouldn't read more into it than that.

If only Nikon had pushed a little harder with their D90 and their next few cameras then Nikon could've kept its lead and now Nikon F would be the defacto standard instead.

[Xavier Plagaro Mussard]

14 hours ago, TheRenaissanceMan said:

Canon EF has become the de facto low- end mount for the industry. I wouldn't read more into it than that.

I dream of a world of standards! Adapters are nice, but no adapters is and will always be better!!! Panasonic making a camera with Canon EF mount seem easy to us, but I don't think it was.

[sudopera]

Some new footage... yummy