Lenses

[Skip77]

33 minutes ago, kye said:

Considering it's not your video I will not analyse too deeply or be too critical, but this is what I see:

• There is quite a bit of variation between shots, some are really good and some aren't as good
• Overall the colours are pretty good
• It wasn't shot with an ND (the fan shows no motion blur) so that gives it a slightly video look, but this is a minor point
• I think what lets down some of the shots in this film are lighting and composition - this is where the top end of cinematography really shines and in this video some shots are very nice and others have odd framing, distracting backgrounds, unflattering lighting angles, etc.

Having said all that (much of which is nit-picking) it needs to be acknowledged that this video was obviously shot on the street, the models were shared amongst many photographers, there appeared to be no artificial lighting and I didn't see any lighting modifiers in there, and it's likely that the time available wasn't huge.  In those circumstances it's a completely different challenge, and comparing a high-end cinematographers showreel to something shot run-n-gun in probably only an hour or two doesn't make sense.

If you're interested in good examples of cinematography then I'd encourage you to stop looking at YouTubers and start looking at the pros.  Make a list of the most gorgeous movies, TV shows, and advertisements you've ever seen, research who shot them, who graded them, and then go find their showreels and use those as a reference point for great images.  

Here's a good one:

Then read as much BTS stuff as you can find.  Using IMDB and shotonwhat.com will unearth huge amounts of information about how these images were created.

Also, there is no substitute for hard work.  Find a shot you like, take a whole day and try and replicate it.  Work out what lighting was used, what lens, what angles, then pull it into post and try and replicate the grade.  

Find the sites that sell very expensive LUTs (not youtubers - people that actually work in the industry on movies/tv/advertising) and find their before/after images.  These are useful because they often have a colour chart in them, so if you have a colour chart of your own then you can try and replicate that look and be able to apply some science to it.

It's great to connect with other people, and this site has many skilled people that will answer questions etc, but there's no substitute for hard work.  If reading about things or talking to people on the internet made us great at film-making we'd all be multi-award-winning geniuses!

[Edit: also, videos comparing high-end lenses, like the ones that BTM_Pix posted just recently are great too, because they will be well lit and perfectly exposed/WB etc, and probably aren't graded either, so can serve as a great reference point]

That's for the input. My callout for input on that video was feedback on the Z6 camera and lens that he used. Nothing else and I pointed that out. I don't want anyone to critique that guys work or choice of subject matter. It's obvious he shot run and gun in natural light. 

I want the Z6 to produce great image quality because I have one and believe in it but I am also looking for feedback other then "it sucks ass" when someone gives feedback on footage. I thought shadow detail and color mattered and highlight rolloff and a ton of other things that people can point out when reviewing footage.

I have worked on high production content.  I can get those shots in those vimeo video you posted. I'm a creative director / director and artist.

My comments on learning were about cameras and lenses.  I want to learn about these cameras and lenses and which ones can do what.  Can the Z6 and S1 give you the look that the Vimeo video does?  That's what I want to know.  Other then that renting the gear and crew is no issue. You need to vision first. You need to creative and creative eye to pull that content off.  

You post has some great information it.

I love the shot at 2:07 mark.  How much higher is the main subject over the signers in the background?

[kye]

4 hours ago, Skip77 said:

That's for the input. My callout for input on that video was feedback on the Z6 camera and lens that he used. Nothing else and I pointed that out. I don't want anyone to critique that guys work or choice of subject matter. It's obvious he shot run and gun in natural light. 

I want the Z6 to produce great image quality because I have one and believe in it but I am also looking for feedback other then "it sucks ass" when someone gives feedback on footage. I thought shadow detail and color mattered and highlight rolloff and a ton of other things that people can point out when reviewing footage.

The Z6 has a lot of fans on here - many believe that it has the best colours (or close to) of any of the modern bunch of cameras.

My impression is that shadow detail and colour are partly matters of taste and the project (think about how green the skin tones in The Matrix were!) but obviously an ARRI does better than the first iPhone so there are some objective measures.  In terms of highlight rolloff I think this is purely taste.  If you capture a scene without clipping, with minimal noise, and in 10-bit (or more) then you should be able to create whatever highlight rolloff you like.  The work that @Sage has done with the GHAlex LUTs is a good example of how closely you can emulate an Alexa with a GH5, and the highlight rolloff is a significant component of that look.

5 hours ago, Skip77 said:

I have worked on high production content.  I can get those shots in those vimeo video you posted. I'm a creative director / director and artist.

My comments on learning were about cameras and lenses.  I want to learn about these cameras and lenses and which ones can do what.  Can the Z6 and S1 give you the look that the Vimeo video does?  That's what I want to know.  Other then that renting the gear and crew is no issue. You need to vision first. You need to creative and creative eye to pull that content off.

I would suggest that many cameras can get the shots in the video I posted - or at least 99% of the way there.

Many great looking videos have been shot with very modest equipment when put in the hands of someone with the requisite skill, and given the right lighting, production design, etc.  Anyone can pick up an S1, Z6, or Alexa for that matter, and record awful looking footage.  The difference between what the best and worst GH5 footage looks like is night and day, and the difference between what the S1, Z6 can do in comparison to an Alexa is much smaller than the aforementioned gap.

5 hours ago, Skip77 said:

You post has some great information it.

I love the shot at 2:07 mark.  How much higher is the main subject over the signers in the background?

Thanks!  I suspect they're all walking on flat ground and the subject in the foreground is a little taller and the camera height combined with the wide angle lens is what makes the height difference more apparent.

[Mattias Burling]

A shadow is always the color opposite of the light on the color wheel. Late in the day when the sunlight is orange the shadow is blue. That's not a grade, it's real life determined by the laws of physics. 

 

[Skip77]

2 hours ago, Mattias Burling said:

A shadow is always the color opposite of the light on the color wheel. Late in the day when the sunlight is orange the shadow is blue. That's not a grade, it's real life determined by the laws of physics. 

 

This is true.  But in natural light we don't control the shadows. 

Also what's wrong with his test is that cameras don't reproduce what we see.  Go see how much light it takes to make that black paper turn white in real life.  It's easy to do with a camera and off course it will blow out the light and turn the black paper white. 

Things also change with skin tone and shadows.  I will watch again but I'm not sure he talks about reflective light that also affects shadow color.  Color in the shadows has to be looked at from real life and from a master painter eye.  Camera optics don't tell the truth.  This is why we chase gear so much. 

[Mattias Burling]

It was merely a comment on the way to common notion that a colored shadow isn't "real" or is in fact "wrong". When in fact, a grey or black shadow is more incorrect than a colored one. Orange/teal isn't an unnatural grade made up by computers, its how the world actually looks in certain hours of the day.

[Skip77]

6 hours ago, Mattias Burling said:

It was merely a comment on the way to common notion that a colored shadow isn't "real" or is in fact "wrong". When in fact, a grey or black shadow is more incorrect than a colored one. Orange/teal isn't an unnatural grade made up by computers, its how the world actually looks in certain hours of the day.

I'm glad you posted the video. 

Orange/Teal is not what we see everyday but it does fill in the gaps with how cameras record color.  The reason Canon color is so loved is because it knows what to do and I would say borrows from orange and teal.  LUTS and color science is a mixture of color working together, a color palette that cameras work from. This is why cameras are not equal when it comes to color. 

[Mattias Burling]

2 hours ago, Skip77 said:

Orange/Teal is not what we see everyday but it does fill in the gaps with how cameras record color.

I see it every single evening and morning, all year, but more pronounced in the winter.

[leslie]

i was out and about today,  found out there was a road up to the radio tower thats on the eastern side of town from talk at the local mens shed. They have actually put in a lookout up near the top as well this may be my new favorite spot. Had the p4k with me so here's a still from it. The tokina at the 28mm end of things

 

[PolarStarArts]

On 8/5/2019 at 11:58 AM, mercer said:

I don’t even mind the 1” sensor and I’d be happy with 4K compressed codec and Canon 2K RawLite.

I always thought that the XC10 had potential as a sort of cine/documentary camera, but Canon had the opposite idea and marketed it to photojournalists and videographers who need to deliver short clips of content to the web.

I considered getting a used XC10, but before I did, I downloaded a copy of Canon's XF Utility and then downloaded native .MXF samples from the web. Couldn't figure out how to make the XF Utility to work to import the footage, so I had to transcode the .MXF so I could determine whether my computer was powerful enough to handle the higher bit rates.

Needless to say, I was not impressed. If the XC10 is aimed at photojournalists/web videographers, then footage should be a lot easier to ingest into your editing programme. And so I didn't buy an XC10.

[kye]

1 hour ago, PolarStarArts said:

I always thought that the XC10 had potential as a sort of cine/documentary camera, but Canon had the opposite idea and marketed it to photojournalists and videographers who need to deliver short clips of content to the web.

I considered getting a used XC10, but before I did, I downloaded a copy of Canon's XF Utility and then downloaded native .MXF samples from the web. Couldn't figure out how to make the XF Utility to work to import the footage, so I had to transcode the .MXF so I could determine whether my computer was powerful enough to handle the higher bit rates.

Needless to say, I was not impressed. If the XC10 is aimed at photojournalists/web videographers, then footage should be a lot easier to ingest into your editing programme. And so I didn't buy an XC10.

Resolve doesn't have any issues with the files from my XC10.  The 4K 305Mbps files need a good computer to play though.

[Mattias Burling]

1 hour ago, PolarStarArts said:

I always thought that the XC10 had potential as a sort of cine/documentary camera, but Canon had the opposite idea and marketed it to photojournalists and videographers who need to deliver short clips of content to the web.

I considered getting a used XC10, but before I did, I downloaded a copy of Canon's XF Utility and then downloaded native .MXF samples from the web. Couldn't figure out how to make the XF Utility to work to import the footage, so I had to transcode the .MXF so I could determine whether my computer was powerful enough to handle the higher bit rates.

Needless to say, I was not impressed. If the XC10 is aimed at photojournalists/web videographers, then footage should be a lot easier to ingest into your editing programme. And so I didn't buy an XC10.

Never transcoded or used any Canon software. I just imported and edited. And since it's low compression my old computer had no issues playing it smoothly.

[Avenger 2.0]

Just got the Tokina 28-70mm f2.6-2.8 AT-X Pro. ?

What would be a great and cheap wide angle lens with filter thread to use with it?

[mercer]

10 minutes ago, Avenger 2.0 said:

Just got the Tokina 28-70mm f2.6-2.8 AT-X Pro. ?

What would be a great and cheap wide angle lens with filter thread to use with it?

RMC Tokina 17mm f/3.5?

[JordanWright]

1 hour ago, Avenger 2.0 said:

Just got the Tokina 28-70mm f2.6-2.8 AT-X Pro. ?

What would be a great and cheap wide angle lens with filter thread to use with it?

enjoy it, my favourite lens by far! using the P4K & XL I can usually get away with 28mm on the wide end. 

[leslie]

2 hours ago, JordanWright said:

enjoy it, my favourite lens by far! using the P4K & XL I can usually get away with 28mm on the wide end. 

maybe us owners should start a thread here on the forum for it  ? At least then members wouldn't have to go far to get info or an opinion on it

[thephoenix]

10 hours ago, mercer said:

RMC Tokina 17mm f/3.5?

that'a a nice lens. shot for the first time with it a couple of weeks ago and loved it.

[kye]

Ok, I need advice about MF 135mm lenses.  

I've done a bunch of tests and own quite a few (link to that thread below) but basically I'm after the nicest 135mm lens I can afford, that isn't too heavy, and that has the MF dial the right way (the Canon direction, not the Nikon/Pentax direction).  The tests I did revealed that the Minolta 135mm f2.8 was the one I preferred out of the ones I had.

So, here are my questions:

• Is the Minolta 135mm/2.8 up there in IQ?  or are there much better specimens around?  After playing with my Canon FD 70-210 f4 or the Konica Hexanon 40/1.8 I'm particularly interested in how good an FD or Konica 135mm lens would be
• Is my Minolta 135mm lens representative of the quality, or is it likely been beaten up too much?  It's seriously worn, has paint chips missing, the dials are really loose, so I think it's had a hard life and maybe optically it's not so good anymore?

Now I've worked out what focal lengths I really use I'm trying to optimise which lenses I actually have, and the 135mm is probably the last one I haven't really explored.  My current Minolta is 370g so I wouldn't want it to be too much heavier than that, and I'm not really a fan of 'bubble bokeh' either.

[leslie]

18 hours ago, kye said:

Ok, I need advice about MF 135mm lenses.  

I've done a bunch of tests and own quite a few (link to that thread below) but basically I'm after the nicest 135mm lens I can afford, that isn't too heavy, and that has the MF dial the right way (the Canon direction, not the Nikon/Pentax direction).  The tests I did revealed that the Minolta 135mm f2.8 was the one I preferred out of the ones I had.

So, here are my questions:

• Is the Minolta 135mm/2.8 up there in IQ?  or are there much better specimens around?  After playing with my Canon FD 70-210 f4 or the Konica Hexanon 40/1.8 I'm particularly interested in how good an FD or Konica 135mm lens would be
• Is my Minolta 135mm lens representative of the quality, or is it likely been beaten up too much?  It's seriously worn, has paint chips missing, the dials are really loose, so I think it's had a hard life and maybe optically it's not so good anymore?

Now I've worked out what focal lengths I really use I'm trying to optimise which lenses I actually have, and the 135mm is probably the last one I haven't really explored.  My current Minolta is 370g so I wouldn't want it to be too much heavier than that, and I'm not really a fan of 'bubble bokeh' either.

here is a thread over at https://***URL removed***/forums/thread/4189446#forum-post-59934159 about the konicas you might like to peruse it

 

i did have a very good website on the konicas however the desktop has died and i cant remember the webpage name.  i bought the 50mm 1.7 years ago after a little research more research would have revealed, because of the flange distance i couldn't mount it to the 60d and get infinity focus without an adapter that had a glass element in it. Back then there were a lot of questions about the quality of optics in adapters. so thats about as far as i went i could probably get something to fit the p4k however i haven't worked for three weeks  so i'm a bit constrained at the moment.

the hexanon lenses have a short flange distance if not the shortest i think. Which might potentially give you grief further down the track if you were to change systems perhaps.

this might be the sight i was thinking of but it seems to be changed or updated from what i remember.http://www.konicafiles.com/

[BTM_Pix]

Oh, hello.

Looks like its about ready to start shipping.

$449 for a full frame 75mm f1.25

[kye]

1 hour ago, BTM_Pix said:

Oh, hello.

Looks like its about ready to start shipping.

$449 for a full frame 75mm f1.25

Have we seen test images and overall IQ?