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We're all talking about aesthetics. We're talking about aesthetics when we talk about the "look", but we're talking about it when we talk about specifications too. A debate rages about what is "enough" resolution, "enough" sharpness, "nicer" bokeh... what is "cinematic"... what is "visible"... what is "practical". This thread is a reality check against the warped concepts that stills photographers and their camera-club specifications-obsessions have given us. Because, for the most part, better objective measurements are mostly worse subjectively. It's our imperfections that creates our humanity, and it's analog imperfection that creates emotional images. Baseline First, let's establish a baseline. Here are some test images from ARRI that are designed to showcase the technology, not a creative aesthetic. Note the super-clean image, lack of almost all lens-distortions (except wide angle distortion on the wide lens, which is actually super-wide at 12mm). If you were there, this might be what it actually looked like. Those were grabs from a 4K YouTube upload, but lots of trailers aren't uploaded in 4K, so here is a still from 1080p Youtube video that ARRI uploaded in 2010. Now, without further ado.... The Aesthetic - The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina These are obviously very distorted, and I chose frames that were especially so. This should instantly disavow you of the idea that somehow Netflix demands "pristine" images - these are filthy as hell, but this is appropriate to the subject matter, which is about witchcraft, the occult, demons, and literally, hell. Whenever I hear someone say "oh I can't believe how terrible that lens is - look at the edge softness" I just laugh. The person may as well be saying "not only don't I have a clue about film-making, but my eyes also don't work either.. please ignore everything else I say from now on". The Aesthetic - Sex Education A show with a deliberately vintage vibe, the look is suitably vintage, with some pretty wicked CA. One thing that's interesting is the last shot, which was either a drone with a vintage lens on it, or it was doctored in post, because it has pretty severe CA - look at the bottom right of the frame above the Netflix logo. Also note how nothing looks sharp - the first image should have had something in-focus, but softness of this level is deliberate because once again, the last shot is a deep-focus shot with a stopped-down aperture and should be super-sharp but isn't. The Aesthetic - No Time To Die Some shots are softer than others, but note the amazing barrel distortion and edge softness on the middle two shots. In case you missed it, here's the star of this $400M movie in a pivotal scene from the movie: Are there lenses that could have made this shot more "accurate"? Sure - just scroll up to the ARRI shots which look pristine (and they're ZOOMS!). This was deliberate and is consistent with the emotion and narrative. The Aesthetic. The Aesthetic - The Witcher Sharp when it wants to be, oversharp too - see the second image, but with anamorphic bokeh for the look. Ironically, a fantasy story of witchcraft and monsters, using cleaner more modern looking glass. The complete opposite approach of Sabrina. Note on the second-last image the vertical anamorphic bokeh, and then look at the last image and note the "swirl" in the bokeh. I doubt this was accidental. The Aesthetic - You Sharp and clean when it wants to be, and other times, really not. Appropriate for the subject matter. The Aesthetic - Squid Game Clean, sharp but not too sharp, neutral colour palette, but note the vertical lines on the edges of the frame aren't straight? Subtle, and perhaps not deliberate, but picture it in your mind if they didn't flare out.. it makes a difference, deliberate or not. The Aesthetic - Bridgerton Clean, spherical, basically distortion free, but sharp? No. Go look at that Witcher closeup again for some contrast. The Aesthetic - The Crown Clean and relatively distortion free, but lots of diffusion, haze, and low-contrast when required. The Crown is a masterpiece of the visuals matching the emotional narrative of the story, which is made extra difficult as the story is set in reality, and the emotional tone is so muted that had lesser people been involved in making it any subtleties may well have simply been bland rather than subtle but deep. The Aesthetic - Mindhunter Perhaps the most interesting example here. After looking at the previous images the above might seem completely unremarkable, except that this look was created in post. and I mean, completely in post: More here: https://filmmakermagazine.com/103768-dp-erik-messerschmidt-on-shooting-netflixs-mindhunter-with-a-custom-red-xenograph/#.YftoaC8RrOQ and here: https://thefincheranalyst.com/tag/red-xenomorph/ (there's a great video outlining the lens emulations in post in this one). That's enough for now. Hopefully now you can appreciate that "perfectly clean" optically is actually only perfect for "perfectly clean" moments in your videos. Sure, if you're out there doing corporate day in and day out then it might seem like "clean" is the right way, or if you're in advertising or travel where neutral reigns, but when it comes to emotion, it's about choosing the best imperfections to suit the desired aesthetic.

Hiding all the clutter would go a long way to making stuff like Resolve more usable, it's fine for professionals who actually need and use 1000 features but when you just want to get a quick turnaround done on a piece of video news journalism or a YouTube edit, it's total overkill central and as for newcomers it's totally baffling for them, and creates a sense of dread. FCP's magnetic timeline is the sort of thing you need to learn and read the manual for, it never felt intuitive compared to Premiere. It doesn't work well for soundtracks, sends stuff out of sync, maybe I was using it wrong but I never figured it out myself and gave up on it (like a good proportion of the pro market did). The situation today is we have a few iPad apps that are vaguely decent and a few Mac NLEs that look like Windows XP apps with too much clutter. But if people have constructive design ideas for an alternative solution I'm all ears 🙂 The EOSHD NLE is already under way and basic prototype exists.

Sounds interesting. I would say that FCP's magnetic timeline is what makes it so fast (once you learn it.) Also that you can hide all the clutter and make it look simple. But I don't want to discourage you on this project. Give it a try. For suggestions, I don't have many but I suppose being able to run on old hardware and old OS version. There are plenty old Mac Pro towers out there from 2010 still working away. Mostly places that do videotape digitizing in standard definition and people running old telecines where the software won't run on new computers. Good luck.

is the '3d lut editor' this one https://3dlutcreator.com Costs 99 quid? Seems very pricey when Resolve can be used as a lut creator for free. Still, a sledgehammer to crack a nut. And then you have iMovie which is a toy hammer to crack a nut! I'm thinking of something else... Maybe an NLE and LUT Creator all in one for $39 which does away with all the bloatware and speeds up your workflow for 99% of edits. I have used Luma Fusion, a touch screen tablet / phone app - I don't know about you but I hate NLEs on a phone, you just don't have enough screen real-estate.

Indeed, though "Ursa Cine LF" would be a totally fine name. There's just no need to say "12K" on there. For the other? "Ursa Cine 65" since the 65mm sensor is going to be a whole lot more exciting to most people than telling them it has a 17k sensor that they will mostly use in 8K or 4K mode. Just about the only competition on the market, the rental-only Alexa 65, is a 6.5k camera. That is, of course, unless you're selling something to be used for projecting on The Sphere in Vegas. Then I guess there's a single camera that's competing - like literally just one body, as far as I know - that 18K thing with the 75x75mm or so sensor. I've been a bit tempted a few times now to try to rig up something with a medium format ground glass or a 4x5 GG, similar to an old DOF adapter for camcorders. I remember Gale had the Forbes70 which worked that way and there have been some 8x10 projects to do the same, like the FZero from Salazar and the one that Media Division put together. I should probably just go through my pile of project cameras to see if I have a pretty clean GG around and just do it...

At least Red choose some catchy names V-Raptor,Red Raven,Dragon,Helium,Gemini,Monstro,Komodo,Gemini,Red Epic

I really wish BMD would stop putting the maximum resolution in the product name! I make these jokes too about my own UC 12K ("finally, something for you to play on your 12K TV!), but in reality, it's just a really nice 8K/4K camera which has a bonus 12K mode for... mostly VFX shots. 😅