Camera owning plans 2021

[barefoot_dp]

I updated my camera last year so I'm good for a couple of years now.

2021 purchases will be mostly lighting - LED lights are starting to get really competitive and I'll likely get some of the new Nanlite's.

[Chxfgb]

22 hours ago, kye said:

That's 80Mbps, which is nothing.  At 80Mbps the extra detail in 8K footage from 4K or even 2K would probably be more than half just noise and compression artefacts.  Potatojet did some good videos comparing 8K smartphone video with normal resolution video and the 8K image out of these things would still look like complete sh*t even if it was downscaled to 2K.  Watch the YT at 1080 or 720p and you can still tell the difference.

TLDR; don't bother.  It's like a 65MP jpeg image compressed to 24Kb, lots of pixels but they're all crap.

Thank you, sounds pretty useless except for home users. Assuming 8k is 4 times the size of 4k and 100Mbps is my bare minimum for H.265 4K recording, does that mean I need to wait for a camera that can do at least 400Mbps in 8K using H.265?

I will be waiting for a Fuji that can do in-camera recording and 200Mbps seemed to be what was needed for gradeable HDR quality using H.265. Obviously the more the merrier but some vloggers said they thought that the 400Mbps setting wasn't essential in the XT3. 

I think at 400Mbps I would be trying to bake the image into the camera to avoid losing anything when grading. Which is fine for what I film. Maybe 800Mbps would be needed if we want to be able to properly edit the footage without it breaking down, or isn't it that simple? I assume AV1 will be used for 8K instead of H.265, so maybe 600Mbps would be a sweet shot for decent HDR footage for 8K TVs?

[Chxfgb]

18 hours ago, 1Ale82 said:

...But I am waiting to see the video specs of the coming Fuji GFX 100s. I am positive that for stills it will be a monster of a camera. If the video specs are interesting and if the price in Europe will be in the S1H range more or less, I may consider to stretch my budget and do a switch.

Yeah, I am almont scared that they will offer Medium Format at too tempting a price to refuse (but it will really test my credit card). 😁 Good to hear they are bringing the size down.👍

[Chxfgb]

18 hours ago, 1Ale82 said:

...But I am waiting to see the video specs of the coming Fuji GFX 100s. I am positive that for stills it will be a monster of a camera. If the video specs are interesting and if the price in Europe will be in the S1H range more or less, I may consider to stretch my budget and do a switch.

Yeah, I am almont scared that they will offer Medium Format at too tempting a price to refuse (but it will really test my credit card). 😁 Good to hear they are bringing the size down.👍

[Chxfgb]

18 hours ago, 1Ale82 said:

...But I am waiting to see the video specs of the coming Fuji GFX 100s. I am positive that for stills it will be a monster of a camera. If the video specs are interesting and if the price in Europe will be in the S1H range more or less, I may consider to stretch my budget and do a switch.

Yeah, I am almont scared that they will offer Medium Format at too tempting a price to refuse (but it will really test my credit card). Good to hear they are bringing the size down.

[Chxfgb]

18 hours ago, 1Ale82 said:

...But I am waiting to see the video specs of the coming Fuji GFX 100s. I am positive that for stills it will be a monster of a camera. If the video specs are interesting and if the price in Europe will be in the S1H range more or less, I may consider to stretch my budget and do a switch.

Yeah, I am almont scared that they will offer Medium Format at too tempting a price to refuse (but it will really test my credit card). Good to hear they are bringing the size down.

[Chxfgb]

18 hours ago, 1Ale82 said:

...But I am waiting to see the video specs of the coming Fuji GFX 100s. I am positive that for stills it will be a monster of a camera. If the video specs are interesting and if the price in Europe will be in the S1H range more or less, I may consider to stretch my budget and do a switch.

Yeah, I am almont scared that they will offer Medium Format at too tempting a price to refuse (but it will really test my credit card). Good to hear they are bringing the size down.

[Chxfgb]

18 hours ago, 1Ale82 said:

...

There was no post confirmation message, hence multiple replies. No delete option.

[IronFilm]

6 hours ago, Chxfgb said:

There was no post confirmation message, hence multiple replies. No delete option.

Even more annoying, the auto merge feature (when you posted twice, close together in time) has now been crippled/removed. 
As if the auto merge feature still existed then you wouldn't have ended up with this problem of multiple individual posts!

[filmmakereu]

On 1/17/2021 at 7:03 AM, Avenger 2.0 said:

Said to myself I wasn't going to buy any new gear in 2021, but couldn't resist on a cheap original Canon C100 yesterday 😀
 

How much?

[Video Hummus]

On 1/16/2021 at 11:55 PM, kye said:

the more that I find that the limitation of the camera is me, and so when people criticise, they're just criticising their own limitations and trying to buy their way out.

Totally agree!

I'm already set for 2021 and beyond. I traded in my GH5S for an R5. The crop mode in the R5 is a hidden sleeper feature for those that care. Feels like a S35 GH5 w/ amazing AF without anamorphic and a few other bells and whistles. Oversampled 4.8K (in DCI) or 5.1K (in UHD) 4K up-to 60p. I'm more than happy with it. I have had zero issues with overheating after the latest firmware update and with taking the time to turn the camera off when I didn't immediately need it (reposition, brainstorming, etc...). The countdown timer is annoying and anxiety-inducing but I've just learned to ignore it.

My M1 MBP arrived today as well. It cuts and edits footage from R5 wonderfully with no transcoding or proxies and with FULL playback quality in the viewer, even with Rec.709 LUT applied.

I don't think I would have gotten an R5 if it wasn't for the new M1 Macs to be honest and I would still recommend a C70 to anyone that just doesn't want to fuss with the overheating potential.

Wishing everybody a more productive and healthy 2021!

[KC Kelly]

I'm okay with my current cameras (EVA1, GH5, GH4.)  Unless one of them has a failure, I'll probably not buy a new camera in 2021.  But, BGH1, S5, GH6, EVA2, or possibly Red Komodo would interest me.  At least I can afford them.

My main purchase in 2021 will be a Tokina 25-75m T2.9 when it comes out.

[Avenger 2.0]

2 hours ago, filmmakereu said:

How much?

500 euro, mint condition, new batteries, low hour count, original packaging.

[scotchtape]

Am I the only one here who got the A7SIII?

If the A7IV is any good I'll get one of those too.

Trying to finally leave the M43 shackles.

 

[Video Hummus]

4 hours ago, scotchtape said:

Am I the only one here who got the A7SIII?

@Oliver Daniel has one.

4 hours ago, scotchtape said:

If the A7IV is any good I'll get one of those too.

This will probably be another important benchmark camera that sets the bar for quality for price. It will be interesting to see where Sony places it with the new market realities.

I feel like Sony has a lot of compression going on in their product line with a A7IV <--> A7SIII <--> FX6. I feel like they will cripple the A7IV in the 4K HFR department and heaven forbid the 10-bit codec department.

I would be more excited for a A7RV and wether they push the megapixels up and up or start including 10-bit oversampled video options. Personally, I would prefer better video recording out of a new A7R but they probably feel the pressure from medium format on the high end and would want to compete there with their high resolution FF cameras.

[kye]

18 hours ago, Chxfgb said:

Thank you, sounds pretty useless except for home users. Assuming 8k is 4 times the size of 4k and 100Mbps is my bare minimum for H.265 4K recording, does that mean I need to wait for a camera that can do at least 400Mbps in 8K using H.265?

I will be waiting for a Fuji that can do in-camera recording and 200Mbps seemed to be what was needed for gradeable HDR quality using H.265. Obviously the more the merrier but some vloggers said they thought that the 400Mbps setting wasn't essential in the XT3. 

I think at 400Mbps I would be trying to bake the image into the camera to avoid losing anything when grading. Which is fine for what I film. Maybe 800Mbps would be needed if we want to be able to properly edit the footage without it breaking down, or isn't it that simple? I assume AV1 will be used for 8K instead of H.265, so maybe 600Mbps would be a sweet shot for decent HDR footage for 8K TVs?

There's two ways to look at bitrate.

The first is constant bitrate per pixel, which is how Prores works, for example, so that 4X the pixels should be 4X the bitrate in order to maintain the same quality of each pixel.

The second is constant bitrate for the overall image.  When they released 4K TVs they weren't twice as wide and twice as tall as 1080p TVs.  On top of this, my experiments have revealed that a lower resolution looks worse than a higher resolution at an identical bitrate, so there's an argument to be made that keeping the same bitrate is actually not required.

Another factor is that image quality goes up with improvements in codec, so h264 isn't as good as h265 (by a factor of about 2), and h266 is about 2 times as efficient as h265.

Yet another factor is that displays are getting larger over time, and video quality expectations are also increasing over time.

I take all of this and go somewhere in the middle, where I expect a higher bitrate for a higher resolution, but I don't expect to maintain the same bitrate per pixel.  I also try to be pragmatic and don't get fussed as long as the bitrate is 'enough'.  Obviously that differs between applications and situations, so that's up to everyone to determine for themselves.

[Jay60p]

19 hours ago, kye said:

There's two ways to look at bitrate.

The first is constant bitrate per pixel, which is how Prores works, for example, so that 4X the pixels should be 4X the bitrate in order to maintain the same quality of each pixel.

The second is constant bitrate for the overall image.  When they released 4K TVs they weren't twice as wide and twice as tall as 1080p TVs.  On top of this, my experiments have revealed that a lower resolution looks worse than a higher resolution at an identical bitrate, so there's an argument to be made that keeping the same bitrate is actually not required.

Another factor is that image quality goes up with improvements in codec, so h264 isn't as good as h265 (by a factor of about 2), and h266 is about 2 times as efficient as h265.

Yet another factor is that displays are getting larger over time, and video quality expectations are also increasing over time.

I take all of this and go somewhere in the middle, where I expect a higher bitrate for a higher resolution, but I don't expect to maintain the same bitrate per pixel.  I also try to be pragmatic and don't get fussed as long as the bitrate is 'enough'.  Obviously that differs between applications and situations, so that's up to everyone to determine for themselves.

I agree. I would add that "constant quality" (variable bitrate) works best for me.

Here’s what has surprised me over the past two years with mirrorless video:

I shoot 4K 60p in-camera at 200Mbps H265 10bit.  When I re-compress this to H265 10bit In Handbrake (at many times slower than real time) at the RF 19 setting with “constant quality”, I get near identical image quality at only 10Mbps to 60Mbps depending on the subject matter.

The scenes at higher bit rates (50-60Mbps) are outdoor shots with a lot of complicated textures from trees, grass, etc. But indoors shots with solid color walls and less busy backgrounds can come out as low as 10-20Mbps.

I compared test files like this:
Open the test movies in Quicktime player windows.
In one of them go to the menu “Window / merge all windows”. 

This puts them all in one window with tabs along the top for each video.  
Find the same frame In all the movies, and set all at the same magnification.
Do an instant back & forth comparison by clicking on the tabs.
Comparisons at high magnification shows a tiny bit of softening in the Handbrake image compared
to the original, not visible at normal magnification, at a fraction of the of the original camera bitrate.

It seems to me that the speed of compression processing affects the IQ as much as the bitrate.
In other words, letting Handbrake run a compression slowly at 5 frames a second (resulting in a 20Mbps variable bitrate “constant quality” file) can give the same IQ as the original camera file did in real time at 60 frames per second (at 200Mbps “constant bitrate”.)

More time/frame makes sense when you look at what happens in the algorithm settings Handbrake uses for compression as you change the slider under encoder options from fast to slow.

For example, h264 10bit, slider at “medium” shows the following settings:

x264 Unparse: level=4.0:vbv-bufsize=75000:vbv-maxrate=60000

compared to slider at “very slow”:

x264 Unparse: level=4.0:ref=5:bframes=8:b-adapt=2:direct=auto:analyse=all:me=umh:merange=24:subme=10:trellis=2:vbv-bufsize=75000:vbv-maxrate=60000:rc-lookahead=60

Going from 200Mbps to 20 or 30Mbps for comparable IQ was a surprise.
This is probably common knowledge for Handbrake users, but I haven’t seen it discussed (or I missed it).

Happily this means I can archive an excellent master at a fraction of the original 200Mbps.
And fit everything on a flash drive for the TV’s USB slot.

To get back on topic, I usually go at least five years between cameras, which means I might still have
three more to go with the X-T3. I have oversampled 4K60 DCI 10bit, Fuji fixed the auto ISO stepping, I got the lenses and accessories I need so I’m fixed indefinitely.

Now if Sony 4K projectors would come down in price…

[DFason]

On 1/18/2021 at 12:30 PM, scotchtape said:

Am I the only one here who got the A7SIII?

If the A7IV is any good I'll get one of those too.

Trying to finally leave the M43 shackles.

 

I picked one up. I'll be using the Siii and BMMCC together. My first big job is in a few weeks in Belize. Time to really test the Sony in the real world. 

This year I'll be investing in better audio equipment and lighting. 

[kye]

3 hours ago, Jay60p said:

I agree. I would add that "constant quality" (variable bitrate) works best for me.

Here’s what has surprised me over the past two years with mirrorless video:

I shoot 4K 60p in-camera at 200Mbps H265 10bit.  When I re-compress this to H265 10bit In Handbrake (at many times slower than real time) at the RF 19 setting with “constant quality”, I get near identical image quality at only 10Mbps to 60Mbps depending on the subject matter.

The scenes at higher bit rates (50-60Mbps) are outdoor shots with a lot of complicated textures from trees, grass, etc. But indoors shots with solid color walls and less busy backgrounds can come out as low as 10-20Mbps.

I compared test files like this:
Open the test movies in Quicktime player windows.
In one of them go to the menu “Window / merge all windows”. 

This puts them all in one window with tabs along the top for each video.  
Find the same frame In all the movies, and set all at the same magnification.
Do an instant back & forth comparison by clicking on the tabs.
Comparisons at high magnification shows a tiny bit of softening in the Handbrake image compared
to the original, not visible at normal magnification, at a fraction of the of the original camera bitrate.

It seems to me that the speed of compression processing affects the IQ as much as the bitrate.
In other words, letting Handbrake run a compression slowly at 5 frames a second (resulting in a 20Mbps variable bitrate “constant quality” file) can give the same IQ as the original camera file did in real time at 60 frames per second (at 200Mbps “constant bitrate”.)

More time/frame makes sense when you look at what happens in the algorithm settings Handbrake uses for compression as you change the slider under encoder options from fast to slow.

For example, h264 10bit, slider at “medium” shows the following settings:

x264 Unparse: level=4.0:vbv-bufsize=75000:vbv-maxrate=60000

compared to slider at “very slow”:

x264 Unparse: level=4.0:ref=5:bframes=8:b-adapt=2:direct=auto:analyse=all:me=umh:merange=24:subme=10:trellis=2:vbv-bufsize=75000:vbv-maxrate=60000:rc-lookahead=60

Going from 200Mbps to 20 or 30Mbps for comparable IQ was a surprise.
This is probably common knowledge for Handbrake users, but I haven’t seen it discussed (or I missed it).

Happily this means I can archive an excellent master at a fraction of the original 200Mbps.
And fit everything on a flash drive for the TV’s USB slot.

To get back on topic, I usually go at least five years between cameras, which means I might still have
three more to go with the X-T3. I have oversampled 4K60 DCI 10bit, Fuji fixed the auto ISO stepping, I got the lenses and accessories I need so I’m fixed indefinitely.

Now if Sony 4K projectors would come down in price…

Compression done after-the-fact will always have the advantage because the whole file can be analysed and processing can be done in slower than real-time, whereas cameras can't see into the future and have to be able to compress in real-time.

When you're talking about the types of bitrates that we operate at, ie, >50Mbps for 4K, it's in the diminishing returns part of the quality vs bitrate curve, so large decreases in bitrate don't impact the quality nearly as much.

[kye]

16 hours ago, DFason said:

I picked one up. I'll be using the Siii and BMMCC together. My first big job is in a few weeks in Belize. Time to really test the Sony in the real world. 

This year I'll be investing in better audio equipment and lighting. 

Interesting combo - BMMCC and A7S3.

Will you be grading the Sony to match the Micro, or the Micro to match the Sony?

I'd be very curious to see some test shots if you get a chance to shoot something you're allowed to share!