If I could only have ONE CAMERA

[eatstoomuchjam]

35 minutes ago, kye said:

The sticking point is that people don't want "filmic" looking images anymore.

Everyone uses and abuses the word "cinematic" and it no longer has anything to do with what is being projected in cinemas, but rather it has come to mean overly sharp images with very shallow DoF and a heavy grade in FilmConvert or Dehancer where the mood of the grade has no connection to the story of the video (if there even is a story at all).

I'd say the same about the term "filmic."  It's usually used by people who clearly never shot on film and seem to think that all film looked the same.  But Portra (negative film, low contrast) and Velvia (positive film, high contrast) don't even remotely look alike.  In fact, I'd be willing to bet that half of those people would see images shot on Velvia and damn them as being insufficiently filmic.  😉

Similarly, FP4, HP5, Delta 400, and T-Max 3200 all look very distinct from each other - including that the first two are traditional black and white films and the others are modern t-grain films.  Even within the same black and white film stock, choice of developer is extremely relevant.

Anyway.  People use "cinematic" and "filmic" in camera discussions like people used "old-timey" in O Brother Where Art Thou.  They just mean it's something they like, but for some reason, won't just say that.  

[kye]

2 hours ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

I'd say the same about the term "filmic."  It's usually used by people who clearly never shot on film and seem to think that all film looked the same.  But Portra (negative film, low contrast) and Velvia (positive film, high contrast) don't even remotely look alike.  In fact, I'd be willing to bet that half of those people would see images shot on Velvia and damn them as being insufficiently filmic.  😉

Similarly, FP4, HP5, Delta 400, and T-Max 3200 all look very distinct from each other - including that the first two are traditional black and white films and the others are modern t-grain films.  Even within the same black and white film stock, choice of developer is extremely relevant.

Anyway.  People use "cinematic" and "filmic" in camera discussions like people used "old-timey" in O Brother Where Art Thou.  They just mean it's something they like, but for some reason, won't just say that.  

People don't want to know that they're basically full of BS.  

That's why people don't go looking for new information unless it's to reinforce their existing views, will argue their position regardless of how ridiculous it makes them look, and why they get so emotional when challenged.

[PannySVHS]

12 hours ago, KnightsFan said:

My magic lantern work was on amazon prime. It has also been shown in local theaters, and films that I shot on magic lantern won awards both in the US and abroad. None of it was high profile or anything like that, but I think my workflow was fine.

I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. You can like what you like. However, I would not consider my opinion to be uninformed.

Awesome! Are you allowed to share one or the other? @mercer pointed out Pete Ohs. The cool thing is that one of his movies is available on youtube. A big channel has it up for watching. It's even free of charge.

I still havent gotten my Canons ready for ML but I imagine them to be great fun. Is battery life much better on the 5D2/3 ML than on an og Bmpcc? Yesterday I lost some beautiful shots when reached the end of each of my batteries. That definately bugs me, being on 30% and camera stopping the recording. Sometimes it recorded flawessly when being much lower like 10%. The battery status was jumping back and forth as well, even from around ten to 70% when I put it back into the camera.

[mercer]

1 hour ago, PannySVHS said:

Awesome! Are you allowed to share one or the other? @mercer pointed out Pete Ohs. The cool thing is that one of his movies is available on youtube. A big channel has it up for watching. It's even free of charge.

I still havent gotten my Canons ready for ML but I imagine them to be great fun. Is battery life much better on the 5D2/3 ML than on an og Bmpcc? Yesterday I lost some beautiful shots when reached the end of each of my batteries. That definately bugs me, being on 30% and camera stopping the recording. Sometimes it recorded flawessly when being much lower like 10%. The battery status was jumping back and forth as well, even from around ten to 70% when I put it back into the camera.

Yeah you can get over an hour on the 5D3 with one battery. 

[BTM_Pix]

2 hours ago, PannySVHS said:

Yesterday I lost some beautiful shots when reached the end of each of my batteries. That definately bugs me, being on 30% and camera stopping the recording. Sometimes it recorded flawessly when being much lower like 10%. The battery status was jumping back and forth as well, even from around ten to 70% when I put it back into the camera.

I understand that they based the algorithm for the battery gauge on the Pocket based on this.

 

Do you have one of ye olde worlde NPF adapters like this one ?

It will power the camera all day obviously and with much the lower profile F550 batteries you'll still get plenty of run time without it being too unwieldy. There is actually an argument that adding the weight on to the camera using one of these is beneficial anyway when it comes to it not wafting about.

However, the good thing about these plates and the way I use(d) mine when out and about was to have it in my coat/bag and attach it to the camera when moving place to place to top up the charge of the internal battery.

Time has moved on though and if I was looking for something a bit more modern to deal with the problem then this small charging case looks pretty interesting.

It is to be used with a USB power pack (of which there are a gazillion of various sizes and capacities obviously) and can be used in the jacket/bag in the same way as the battery plate except of course you are background charging batteries to be put in the camera rather than re-charging the one that is currently in it. 

I think its a decent price for what you get as it includes two batteries and it also doubles as a dual slot USB card reader.

It won't stop the randomness of the insta-drain "feature" of the BMPCC so to be totally sure of avoiding that then you'll need the continuous power offered by the NPF adapter.

 

[PannySVHS]

Insta drain, that's a good word!:) Thanks for the cool suggestions. @BTM_Pix The charging station looks really cool. NPF route looks spiffy and avoiding the insta drain is a great thing! Still got some NPF batteries laying around. FS700 is collecting dust. Hmm, maybe it is time for some 8bit 420 glory as well.:)

[eatstoomuchjam]

Can't you do 4k raw from fs700 with Ninja and/or Video Assist?  I thought it did 4k raw up to like 120p, though I don't remember if that was continuous or only for a few seconds.

[PannySVHS]

Yes you can. @eatstoomuchjam I have the Shogun Flame which would allow for 4k60 raw cinema dng or prores. 4k 120 on the FS700 would be bursts only but would not be possible with the Shogun. I have only used it once for prores 2k which had a good share of aliasing. Internal has less of that but nasty aliasing in the highlights. 4K prores is about 3 times more in size than HD irrc. Video assist does hd 8bit 422 only with the FS700 afaik.

The setup with an external recorder is totally cumbersome for me to do cinema verité with it. Time to sell the Shogun... for peanuts now:(

[eatstoomuchjam]

4K is 4x the size of 2K so it makes sense that 4K ProRes would be 3x (or more) the size of 2K ProRes.  🙂

[kye]

5 hours ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

4K is 4x the size of 2K so it makes sense that 4K ProRes would be 3x (or more) the size of 2K ProRes.  🙂

Prores is a constant bitrate per pixel, so 4K is 4x the bitrate of 2K.

This is a good reference:

https://blog.frame.io/2017/02/13/compare-50-intermediate-codecs/

[zlfan]

people are funny that they can define "cinematic" or "filmic" by trend. r1mx's olpf was tuned to mimic the film which was the standard in Hollywood at the time, and now reviving again. so r1mx is much more suitable for cinema projects than the latest breed. for the resolution, r1mx 4.5k 24p ar 2.4 is enough for commercial theaters. if you want to challenge the r1mx's filmic character, you are challenging a whole generation of experienced dps, including David Fischer. 

[zlfan]

it is funny that people claim that they are abreast of the curve, yet they don't even have extensive first hand experience on the latest ml firmware, mlv app, and the whole workflow. a lot of issues complained here have been solved during the past 10 years. now 5d3ml 14 bit 5.7k anamorphic 1x3 and 3.5k 1x1 crop modes are very robust. if you use 14 bit, you don't see pink color or banding even after heavy cc. 

I just sigh and walk away when I see people arguing about something about ml that they don't even have hands on experience and don't even update themselves with the latest tricks. if you point out, they will show their "knowledge" and look "down" at you. 

lol. 

[zlfan]

if you talk to some experienced dps like David Fischer, if he has to choose two cameras, either c70 or r1mx, will he choose c70? I have to shake my head, when people blah blah showing their ignorance and try to shut up real knowledgeable people, even by attacking them personally. yeh, you don't agree with us 24pers, you are from Egypt, you are a shoddy md, or double mds?! if you are in our camp, you are a good guy, worthy padding on the shoulder. politics is every where, even on camera forums. lol.  

[zlfan]

31 minutes ago, zlfan said:

people are funny that they can define "cinematic" or "filmic" by trend. r1mx's olpf was tuned to mimic the film which was the standard in Hollywood at the time, and now reviving again. so r1mx is much more suitable for cinema projects than the latest breed. for the resolution, r1mx 4.5k 24p ar 2.4 is enough for commercial theaters. if you want to challenge the r1mx's filmic character, you are challenging a whole generation of experienced dps, including David Fischer. 

if someone say the latest prosumer video cameras are better than r1mx, epic-x mysteries-x, 5d3ml, f3, I really doubt his judgement, no matter what kind of achievements he has. you can say the latest prosumer cameras are sharper, more dp, more convenient, but are they really better in the whole image quality? I seriously doubt so. 

for the latest top cinema cameras like Alexa35, that is another story. but prosumer cams? hybrids? 

[zlfan]

I can color grade GoPro 12 footage to surreal colors, and impress many viewers. but still it is no r1mx, f3, 5d3ml. experienced viewers can tell the differences. 

[zlfan]

r1mx kind of olpf integrated on prosumer cams will be big features. how many prosumer or hybrid cams have good enough olpf? how many do they have something like olpf?

[eatstoomuchjam]

3 hours ago, zlfan said:

r1mx's olpf was tuned to mimic the film which was the standard in Hollywood at the time, and now reviving again

Please see previous comments about how "film" doesn't look like "film."  You seem to be parroting marketing claims that are completely nonsensical.  Even if an OLPF could be designed to match the sharpness or softness of a given type of film, which is a strange concept, 5203 and 5294 are only so similar - and the chunky grainy look of Tri-X is even less similar, not to mention black and white.

[kye]

1 hour ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

Please see previous comments about how "film" doesn't look like "film."  You seem to be parroting marketing claims that are completely nonsensical.  Even if an OLPF could be designed to match the sharpness or softness of a given type of film, which is a strange concept, 5203 and 5294 are only so similar - and the chunky grainy look of Tri-X is even less similar, not to mention black and white.

It's an interesting notion.

Actually, diffusion filters are probably quite a good match to the general characteristics of film.

Film has an MTF curve that has a downward slope - ie, as the details get finer the contrast drops.  This is unlike digital sensors that maintain contrast until they approach the pixel size and where either aliasing of the OLPF kicks in.

Diffusion filters reduce local contrast by spreading the light around, and spreading more light a small amount than they spread it a larger distance, which would emulate the downward slope of film.  Vintage lenses have a similar effect.

I'd imagine this explains the preferences for vintage lenses, diffusion filters, and softening in post that higher-end productions favour.

[eatstoomuchjam]

This is the problem.  While you're not wrong that in general, the MTF curve for film has a downward slope near the highest end, for some film stocks, for some it is a curve which increases until a certain point and then drops off and the shape of the curve and slope of the descent varies.  Kodak Gold only dropped off to around 70 where Velvia drops all the way to 30.  On the other hand, for Tri-X, it's nearly flat until the higher levels where it drops down to like 20.

https://www.normankoren.com/Tutorials/MTF1A.html
https://imaging.kodakalaris.com/sites/default/files/files/resources/f4017_TriX.pdf

This is where I am going.  Film doesn't match the MTF of film, depending on which film you choose.  It is a true statement that the MTF curve of all films (that I know of) drops off on the right, the amount of drop-off varies wildly.

[kye]

1 hour ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

This is the problem.  While you're not wrong that in general, the MTF curve for film has a downward slope near the highest end, for some film stocks, for some it is a curve which increases until a certain point and then drops off and the shape of the curve and slope of the descent varies.  Kodak Gold only dropped off to around 70 where Velvia drops all the way to 30.  On the other hand, for Tri-X, it's nearly flat until the higher levels where it drops down to like 20.

https://www.normankoren.com/Tutorials/MTF1A.html
https://imaging.kodakalaris.com/sites/default/files/files/resources/f4017_TriX.pdf

This is where I am going.  Film doesn't match the MTF of film, depending on which film you choose.  It is a true statement that the MTF curve of all films (that I know of) drops off on the right, the amount of drop-off varies wildly.

Yes, I was absolutely talking in the general sense.

Accurate emulation of a particular stock is definitely a niche that exists, but I suspect it's a pretty narrow niche and one that is narrowing.  I don't recall ever hearing anyone talk about accurately emulating the resolution / sharpness or the grain from one particular stock combination, these seem to be much more generic and adjusted to taste.

With the new Film Look Creator tool paired with the new Colour Slicer in Resolve 19 (which is still in beta) I suspect that a lot of people who would previously have used specific LUTs or a 'proper' emulation plugin like Dehancer or FilmConvert will switch to the more generic but adjustable approach of the new features.

We may never know, as I've heard from a few colourists in passing that the majority of projects have a print film emulation LUT somewhere in the pipeline, but that very few colourists will admit this, likely because clients are likely to focus on it and devalue the other 27 things the colourist did.  Like how people think that nice photos are made by nice cameras and the photographer doesn't matter much.