Jump to content

All Activity

This stream auto-updates

  1. Past hour
  2. I just learnt very early in my career, unless I did not do that, it left me open to all kinds of issues. I make it very plain before each and every client books that other than a handful of things that are more or less a given, I do not and will not shoot to shot lists as they both stifle creativity and are open to interpretation and potential recrimination. Nor will I edit or produce a result to any other specification than my portfolio would suggest. Despite it being in the contract, I will still get someone every now and again who will send me a detailed shot list of 50 other individuals work on 50 other days, that may or may not even be the same season never mind time of day, captured at 50 different venues...and then have to politely remind them I cannot do that...and they will STILL complain after the fact I have not done what they paid me to do. Well actually, I have done EXACTLY what you paid me to do, but fortunately these freaks are maybe 1/100 clients and all you can do ultimately is politely and professionally move them on. Having said that, if I feel I can accommodate or work something in, I will at least try, but we are never going to get close to that 50 'Must Have' list...and you still won't win, but at least you can occupy the moral high ground and state you bent over backwards even though you did not need to. It's just part of running a business and anyone who has been doing so for 25 years, will have experienced issues from time to time and as long as they are not the norm, then you are doing just fine. I can count on just 2 hands from 850+ jobs/clients over 25 years those who have had a hissy fit and hand on heart, can say with 100% conviction, it was them not me! But I do work in a very specific niche where I can operate in this manner and I am the type of person who is comfortable saying no with a smile.
  3. Today
  4. kye

    Lenses

    100% Of course, completely irrational biases still exist. One of the major ones is that people seem to only want lenses so sharp they need to wear gloves to even pick them up, or lenses so distorted that it's like most peoples memories of Woodstock. There is a secret third option. These lenses have a subtle hint of the vintage vibe, but aren't completely out of control divas that need to be babied all the time. They're also cheap, freely available, have modern features like AF and OIS, and are fast and easy to use. To discover this secret, here's the thread where I talk about them, and reveal what they are and how to get them.
  5. No worries! In terms of the lens, not a clue, but it really shouldn't matter.
  6. In a sense it's much better than people give it credit for. In terms of bit depth, what matters is how close (or not) the bits are to each other in terms of what hues / luma they describe. We all know that 8-bit LOG is worse than 10-bit LOG. In general, the below are roughly equivalent: - 8-bit 709 == 10-bit LOG == 12-bit Linear - 10-bit 709 == 12-bit LOG == 14-bit Linear and the killer... - 6-bit 709 == 8-bit LOG == 10-bit Linear The challenge with 8-bit 709 is that the 709 from consumer cameras is essentially a creative picture profile, and so when you try to grade it there will be all sorts of tints or knees and elbows in the gamma etc. If you try and convert from 709 back to some sort of LOG space for grading it makes the image much more flexible, as I outlined in my 8-bit REC709 is more flexible in post than you think thread, which showed that with some care you can turn this: into this: However, this is a "naked" transform without any look applied, so once you add in a transform with some flavour (like the 2383 LUT) then you can get an even more consistent output, turning this: into this: @Framed_By_Dan the above thread is worth checking out as it has a lot more detail, but the crux of it is to make sure you're using the right colour spaces etc, which FilmConvert should be capable of doing I would imagine.. Adding a film look will help obscure any shot-to-shot differences, and would probably give a decent set of tools for making small changes that are normally needed between shots when working with footage not shot on a closed soundstage. I think the reason people are so dismissive on 8-bit 709 is because when it was out, the colour grading tools people had access to were primitive and the colour grading knowledge was minimal, however when 10-bit LOG came in everyone needed to convert and people with specialist knowledge built LUTs that looked really good, and then after that the tools got a lot better and people started learning how to grade. I think had those tools and knowledge been around when 8-bit was the norm then people would have gotten a lot more out of it. The examples above show absolutely unforgivable exposure and WB errors and the results are good enough to be amateur-level. Had these been the variations that someone even semi-competent would have in their footage, the results are likely to be basically flawless. Indeed you should!!! 😆😆😆 Seriously, everyone has their own standards and looks for different things, so me saying it's good enough won't carry any weight for you using it on your projects (and it shouldn't) because we shoot differently. The sensor is 4592px wide, which with its 10% crop in UHD, means the normal mode is reading 4174px across (which seems an odd number actually). If we assume the 2x is half that width (and not half the full sensor) then that gives us 2087px wide for the 2x crop. I always shoot 4K so I get the 100Mbps bitrate, but edit on a 1080p timeline, so any artefacts will probably be obscured in post for me. Depending on what you're shooting, how sharp your lenses are, and your timeline resolution you may get quite different results I'd imagine. I've got a few S16 c-mount lenses and some have wider image circles than others, with my Risespray 35mm F1.6 c-mount even covering the full MFT sensor on my GH7! Definitely worth testing and they can add some great character to the image without taking up a lot of space and making the rig really big (unlike using adapters and vintage S35 or FF glass). Also, definitely recommend using FilmConvert for this, as not only is it likely to be a more accurate film emulation (it's film emulation, whereas the Film Look Creator is just that, a Look Creator that creates Film LOOKS), but also it should have settings for input and output colour spaces, so if you set these correctly then you should be able to adjust exposure and WB in a pretty neutral way. I've been using the Standard colour profile, with Contrast / Sharpness / NR all turned down to -5, and Saturation left at zero. If you're using different profiles then I suggest shooting some test shots in both Standard and your normal profile, then pulling them into FilmConvert and playing around and seeing which you prefer. All the profiles on the GX85 do quite significant things to the colour, rotating hues, lightening and darkening different hues, changing the saturation of different hues, etc, so there is no neutral profile and it's just a matter of taste. If you get some good results I'd be keen to see them so please feel free to share them!
  7. Yesterday
  8. Following this! I have the GX9 and have often wondered about trying come C Mount S16 lenses on it. After all, some should cover the 2.2/2.3x crop in 4K. I'm not going to go as deep as the OP here but if I can get a decent look with FilmConvert I'd be happy.
  9. The GX85 with the 14mm is such a nice and pretty combo. Best bang for the buck for wide angle rangefinder style photography. I still got my GM5 but I'm thinking about selling it as its cuteness factor wears off quickly and the GX is just so much better in every regard. I would have loved a Leica branded version with rock solid build and perfect button feedback and layout. I think this little Lumix is still well build and to me it is a classic indeed. It's my favourite small camera in regards of small form factor, great image and bang for the buck. If it had Pannys great 10bit codec and HLG I would have called it a digital S16 camera. I do call it a personal cinema verité camera nontheless. Anyway, awesome thread and interested to see your findings, kye! I've been using my two GX85 cameras for photography over the last couple of months, with a 14, 28 and 50, even a 75mm in use. Different 50s btw, C-mounts from Schneider and Zeiss. That Zeiss is astonishing, the Xenon painterly with its uneven focal plane and it other attributes. Would love to put em to usage for video. I guess this thread is a good starter for some GX85 motion picture love!:) @kye I have not experimented with the 2x digital crop. Is it without artefacts? That would make it a usuable 2/3" camera, though with one bayer sensor instead of three sensor blocks of course. Kind of like an LX10, which in 4K has about 2/3" sensor size. Could the 2x digital crop be downsampled from a 2.3K image? I could test it myself, couldn't I? Shouldn't I?:) @Clark Nikolai I would love to see a picture of your shoulder mounted D16. Awesome! Do you use it for personal occasions or for projects and what kind of projects? Cheers and thanks for this fun thread!
  10. It seems like Panny is asking if we want a Lumix L2000- an L10 with a mount, full HDMI, IBIS and a headphone jack, for 1199 and a Lumix L1000, an L2000 with GH5 sensor, for 899. I'd say two times Yes, please! Keep em coming! I would go for the L1000. The names are too cool, so I am looking forward to my L1000. Heck, why not, the L2000 will be it for me.
  11. Oh, this deserves admiration. I've learned to try and do this too. The gigs I now accept for clients grant me autonomy. I've failed with a few clients in the twilight of my career because I wanted to protect my autonomy, but I chalk it up to not being creativity aligned, and try to not let it bother me. Well, before I found (developed) my own voice I certainly worried about that stuff -- I had to worry about the $tuff. Good on you for building something that expresses your creativity so well that people want to pay you for it.
  12. Take a look this time ; ) Coupled to a7S III Can’t wait for their Z-mount version to arrive too and join the ZR fun ;- )
  13. Last week
  14. I count myself very lucky in that regard in that I don't work to client briefs or input. At least, not beyond the most basic of levels. Ditto end result where there is zero input. It means I am only ever looking at how I am doing something or how I would do something. But a lot do not have that luxury I know!
  15. The funny thing with vintage lenses is half the magic comes from the flaws people used to complain about. Lower contrast, weird flares, cat-eye bokeh, imperfect corners… now everyone is hunting for exactly that look again.
  16. Anecdotally, yes, from reddit threads and even Photography Life who have separate pages for the two models and both contain MTF charts that seem to be different (it's not the same image) but the curves appear identical. https://photographylife.com/lenses/panasonic-lumix-g-14mm-f2-5-asph https://photographylife.com/lenses/panasonic-lumix-g-14mm-f2-5-ii-asph The announcements from Panasonic also use the same description - V1 - from Panasonic announcement: V2 from DPReview (I couldn't find the announcement of V2 on Panasonics website? Why do you ask? Your review at the time was quite favourable.
  17. As a naive shooter myself, my challenge is that I know what I want in general (the vision) but not specifically what will accomplish that vision, like which compositions I need to capture so that when I edit them together it creates a seamless sequence that gives the desired vision. In your case it seems like you know how to think about coverage and how to edit things together to achieve a range of different visions that a client might want, but perhaps you don't have a clear idea of what vision you want to achieve? Opposite problems!
  18. So true. Our training and experience give us an eye for composition and framing. Last winter when I was in Mexico, as a tourist, I started shooting with my iPhone. I thought it was boring so I used an app that replicates grainy, dirty Super8 and shot with that. I realized that I also needed shoot like another person. I needed naïveté in my shooting, so I chose "1960s dad with his Super8 camera". So, I did things like shoot the waves in the ocean with a slow pan to the shore, signs, cars going by, etc. It was refreshing not to have to be so perfect all the time. (Now unfortunately I have to edit it and the footage is not exciting me, but that's a different story.)
  19. I oscillate between a number of concepts.. Embracing the idea of looking like a tourist. This has the advantage of being true, but it also gives you a certain license to accidentally commit the odd faux pas (I try not to do these intentionally), which often goes with the territory of shooting in public which some/many people think is un-ethical / immoral / illegal etc, so to a certain extent the entire activity is already unacceptable. Appear more like a local. This means you won't stand out as much, and will get afforded less social lee-way along with the higher expectations. It means you have to do an incredible amount of work to pull it off, including clothing, bags, body language, walking speed, etc etc. Even if you can actually pull this off, you'll still appear like a local shooting in public, which may or may not be socially accepted. Become invisible. While requiring the most work to not only look like a local, but also look like a local who isn't shooting when you actually are, this has the worst penalty for failure, as if someone does realise you're shooting then this is when the sneaky / creepy associations take full effect and you will be treated to the highest level of public hostility. There are also a number of practical limitations to these. When I was in China my wife and I were often the only white people. Our first trip was for two weeks and during the entire trip we saw less than 20 white people, and if you exclude the Unesco World Heritage site we visited, and the street markets, I think we saw 3. Kids would openly stare at us - some like we were the first white people they'd ever seen in real life and like we'd just stepped out of a TV. Old men would stop talking and the whole group would turn to stare at us as we passed by. Old women would look at us and then look away when we looked at them. This was in a city of 2+ million people, so wasn't some tiny town in the middle of nowhere. There were obviously other tourists from other cities and other parts of Asia. My wife recognised people with different accents from the other parts of the country (she watches a lot of Chinese dramas!) and I recognised accents from Singapore and other parts of SE Asia. But basically, as the only westerners in the area, and being over 6' tall, and carrying a large camera, good luck not appearing like a tourist there! I also think there's some authenticity with just appearing as what you actually are. I've heard from a number of westerners living in Japan that even though they've been living there for decades and speak completely functional Japanese, locals will still switch between Japanese and broken English when talking to them, and there isn't really anything they can do to make the local just talk to them in Japanese. So these people are literally locals, and yet because of their appearance still get treated like they can't even speak the language properly. I've also noticed a significant difference in the vibe when out shooting between different places. In some places the locals don't like you shooting in public (and they will let you know - subtly or otherwise!), in some places the people don't like it but won't say anything (e.g. Japan) and in some places the people will freely speak their minds but don't care (e.g. China). I've heard some parts of SE Asia are also indifferent to people shooting in the street. One thing I have learned though, is that body language and your instincts seem to be universal. I've had many experiences where it felt like something was off (despite logic not indicating this) and it turned out to be that way, and also in times when logic would have suggested things weren't right, but my instincts said things were ok and they turned out to be fine then as well. An example of that was that I was in Cambodia and walking around in the back-streets and alleyways at night, and my logic was saying "are you crazy???" but my instincts said things were fine, and I discovered that what looked like a warehouse district was actually family homes (you could see the ancestor shrines through the cracks in the huge industrial doors each home had) and the commotion around the next blind corner was actually young kids riding their bikes and playing. I still see the benefit of a small camera and not dressing like a caricature of your home culture, but authenticity begins with your appearance matching what you are, which the people around you may or may not like, but you won't get the negative reactions associated with misleading people and them finding you out. I seem to have 'composition brain' that turns on quite a lot as well. I find that when I am travelling it helps me to appreciate the aesthetics of my surroundings and makes me really look at where I am, rather than just drift along as the place washes over me and is immediately forgotten. It is definitely something I am very conscious of though, and I turn it on and make sure I do it properly, and when appropriate I turn it off and don't think about it at all. This means I can fully enjoy a location, or a meal, or an interaction / conversation with someone, and also fully enjoy shooting as well. I'm sure when I'm shooting I'm missing moments, and when I'm not shooting I'm missing compositions, but keeping them each 'pure' prevents me from trying to do both and accomplishing neither and just wasting that time.
  20. He's also harmful in that I've dealt with more than one director who said that we wouldn't be taking the time to light things on set and referenced him. "We're going to do this more like Malick - natural light only, no lighting." "Right, but have you seen most of his films? They don't look very good." "That's the aesthetic I'm going for." "Cool, well I'm out then. Wish you the best with your film." (Their shorts, when done, made you long for a Malick film)
  21. Is the 14mm F2.5 II the same optically as the original?
  22. Let's change the subject. Terrance Malick is the most overrated boring director ever, adored by hipsters, hated by real filmmakers.
  23. Ha, me, everywhere all the time. I cannot step out of my house without continually working out how to shoot in any given environment whether it’s public transport, a restaurant, a bus, an elevator… It’s something that is just hardwired into you! 😂
  24. Yeah, this was my job for a while in the middle of my career. It's a hell of a thing to learn. People, or tourist (especially tourists) going about their lives tend to look unattractive while also being ostentatious. A shooter, depending on what one needs to do, has to mitigate that or leverage that in various ways. Anyway I can't be a tourist anymore. When I visit places I'm always looking at situations with my videographer's bias and can't seem to be in the moment.
  25. Emanuel

    DJI Pocket 3?

    Here* is the announced 17 stops of dynamic range, what else? ; ) * https://thenewcamera.com/dji-pocket-4-pro-release-date-and-global-availability/ And the most solid candidate to discuss the sales with:
  26. Looks like they haven't learnt anything from "DEI Snow White" loosing $170 million.The Odyssey is shaping up to be another "go woke,go broke". Why the silly looking noses on the Dwarfs ?
  27. Right. Recently I did some transfers from films for someone. Most were from the 1950s but some were 1960s and '70s. It's noticeable how the film stock improved. When they switched to Super 8 it was very much better having the larger area used for the image but it was more than that. Even the Regular 8 from the 1960s was better than earlier stocks. The collection came with the original boxes that were returned in the mail from the lab and it's the same stock and ASA, but manufactured 10 years later. Hope you're having fun figuring this out. I love this kind of thing.
  1. Load more activity
×
×
  • Create New...