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I have been shooting with the Panasonic GX7 for the last 11 months . Having used a variety of mirrorless and DSLR cameras in this price range, I can say I've found the usability and video quality of this one to be superior in most respects. The colours and tonality felt like they popped, but there was always something about them that I felt was strange. This didn't bother me really until about two months ago when I tested the camera against the Nikon d5300 and when I started looking at a lot of Blackmagic footage soon afterwards. What I've found is that the colours on the GX7 (and other Panasonic cameras) lack a certain harmony. It's as if each is vying for our attention. I believe this is what contributes to the "video" look that people keep going on about. Colours don't desaturate evenly when you dial the picture profiles flat. The main issue being that colourful objects in the midtones stay colourful whilst everything else goes comparatively grey. This applies particularly to greens, reds and oranges. The green of trees and plants don't quite have a natural hue to them in relation to other coloured objects in the scene. I still struggle to quantify why. The best I can do is to say they look somewhat neon. Reds often dip into orange territory. It's subtle but it's there and can be distracting to trained eyes. Yellow is probably the worst offender here. It becomes very prominent when you add LUTs. I would not say these things are reasons not to get a Panasonic camera. They are just characteristics of the camera and don't necessarily equate to it being better or worse than others. You just need to understand and take the differences into account when shooting and grading. Every camera has its strengths and weaknesses. So having observed the differences, I took to Adobe SpeedGrade again to see what I could do. I called the resultant LUT, the "Balancer". Click the image below to enlarge it. Please note that the Sigma lens used on the d5300 is naturally less contrasty than the Olympus lens used on the GX7, which may account for why the girl's face is a more washed out there. As you can see, the changes might look rather subtle at first, but it makes a huge difference when applying other LUTs afterwards. The changes I made pretty much "fix" all the issues mentioned above. Skin tone connoisseurs might especially love this LUT as it pushes oranges more towards red territory and reduces the contrast there too. The download includes two LUTs. One is marked as "Less Red" meaning that it doesn't push skin tones into the red as much. Download Here More examples can be seen on the original blog post here: http://sebcastilho.com/journal/2014/10/19/a-study-on-panasonic-colours-and-a-lut-to-balance-them/

I have been frustrated by the fact that there is not really any good way of working with s-log2/s-gamut with Adobe software. So far I have not been able to find any way of working with default PP7 other than look luts, like Impulz. The problem is that I don't always want to use a look lut and I have found that the luts from Impulz don't seem to work that well with footage from the A7s anyway. The colors always seem off no matter what I had tried and grading without luts was even more problematic. So I have worked out a way to convert s-log2/s-gamut to Rec709 without any look luts. So far the results have been good but I have not had any time to shoot with our A7s myself so I have been using stills generously uploaded by Roman Legion on vimeo. So here it goes, it is two effects that must be done in this order. First I have attached a lut to correct the s-log2 gamma curve to rec709. This is based off a formula I found from sony for its s-log2 curve. Took some tweaking but mainly just had to deal with using video levels instead of full range. It is a 1D lut so it only affects luma. Apply this lut using a lumetri/apply color lut effect. This is a matrix transformation from s-gamut to sRGB we will use it to fix the colors next. S-Gamut to sRGB 1.87785101 -0.79411894 -0.08373153 -0.1768095 1.35097992 -0.17417008 -0.02620544 -0.14844233 1.17464781 Now apply a channel mixer effect and enter the follows values. The channel mixer effect appears to only allow integer values from -200 to 200 but it seems to still work fine. So you can enter them like this in the following format, what out for the const fields and leave them at 0. Red-Red Red-Green Red-Blue Green-Red Green-Green Green-Blue Blue-Red Blue-Green Blue-Blue 188 -79 -8 -18 135 -17 -3 -15 117 That is it, so far this looks really promising but would like to hear how it works out for the rest of you. I am adding some corrected still from Roman Legion as well. These images are ungraded I only converted to Rec709 and adjusted exposure as they were under exposed a little. slog2-to-Rec709-dhessel.zip

I shot the following test footage of an artist friend building a custom wooden picture frame. Filmed on the Sony A7s, bolex moller anamorphot 1.5x with Helios 44-2 58mm f2 taking lens. This was a good exercise in practicing how to find focus quickly and accurately. I certainly didn't nail every shot, but I'm pleased with the results so far. Any suggestions or constructive criticism are welcomed.

There is ALWAYS a better, cheaper camera coming soon. Every person who buys a camera is "that guy."

Andy (Lee) if one had a choice between the Tokina 28-70 2.6-2.8 and the Nikkor 28-70 which one would you choose? Keeping in mind the Nikkor is thrice the price. Is the Nikkor worth the premium over the Tokina?

Sure. Hopefully by Wednesday I can put them.

Inazuma have you shot with a RAW-based camera, like Magic Lantern RAW on Canon, or BM? If not, I don't expect your vacation from GAS to last much longer. The only reason I sold my BMPCC is that I shoot mostly stills. Video (filmmaking) is my first love which I can't really scratch because I just don't have the time. I get obsessed. I'm an independent data/software expert so I can't let my hobbies turn into obsessions that put my family out in the street. Photography is time-consuming enough. I'm one of those old guys who could never afford 16mm film (The RAW of my day, vs 8mm "h.264") when young, like other old guys who couldn't afford an electric guitar and now have 50 of them. Anyway, as you know, no one knows lenses and video looks like Andy. Low dynamic range (images) video, however, cannot be achieved with lenses or tricks. It's all relative to your needs and expectations of course. Ultimately, the dynamic range between any two pixels is defined by the measurement of the light hitting those pixels, so two bits bit of data, each having between 0 and 24 million values say, will have more dynamic range than two bits between 0 and 1 million values. Here are two stills that represent the differences between the Panasonic h.264 camera and RAW-based images http://maxotics.com/?p=146 Or to put it simply Low Data = HIgh Contrast HIgh Data = Low Contrast Of course, we've beat this subject to death on EOSHD. And I continue :) If you have PERFECT lighting you can get good dynamic range with your camera (like the golden hour). That is, the lighting has to be perfect BEFORE the camera compressed the image. If not, you won't have the data to get it back. Again, if you're just looking for soft looks, Andy will get you there. If you're really trying to get low contrast images, you've probably maxed out what the Panasonic camera can do. AGAIN, not saying they aren't great cameras. I have a GM1. Just saying IF one wants a certain look only RAW can deliver at this time. Again,I'm just passionate about this point because I spent a lot of time trying to match dynamic range between cameras. And I'd be remiss if I didn't repeat NOTHING ABOUT A RAW WORKFLOW IS TRIVIAL IN TIME AND MONEY. You have to really want to sacrifice a lot for the look. If you're shooting events and just want a few effects, then you have the perfect setup. For the kind/amount of video I shoot, the GM1 kills it.

Thank you! I'm glad you liked it

Brillliant work! I for one have always agreed, no matter what you do to the GH4 in camera settings and in post, something was always wrong with the colour chemistry making it always look like 'video'. It might look that you've cracked it, although I'm seeing a bit more noise in the shadows with your LUT. I'll give these a go soon. Thanks for your hard work! Adrian

Yes, mixture of real in camera/CG and composited real flares would have been used in a lot of the scenes to 'bed' the CG turtles into the scene and help blend the digital makeup on meagan fox's face. Perhaps I'm getting old, but these blockbuster films just look like Xbox game trailers to me - totally soulless turtle power.

glad to be of help ! yes you can put adapters on the ef speedbooster - Im using m42, nikon , pentax . c/y and olympus on mine . once the speedbooster is on just treat your camera as a canon mount My speedboosters are on all the time now - I rarely shoot without them.......... wider , faster ,sharper....

Hello Josh, Just download the link at the end of this article. http://vashivisuals.com/every-filmmaking-aspect-ratio-for-free/ You have all sorts of aspect ratio guides to help you.

caught my attention, like a real movie, nice one.

But you can do all of this in the FCPX import window! :) You can preview clips - and even select which portions of clips you want to import - before importing. Open the FCPX import window and choose the little grey camcorder icon under "devices" in the top left hand corner (this symbol only appears with AVCHD footage - MP4 footage is under the normal SD card icon, separately). Then all of your AVCHD clips should appear in the import window for you to preview. Let me know if you have problems with this. AVCHD is basically a ridiculous format that will hopefully become extinct soon. The folder structure is unnecessarily complex and difficult to work with. But FCPX does make it easy ...

Hi I am new on here and would like to ask some advice on camera settings for flying my GH3 and GH4. Obviousley I cannot adjust the settings once the camera is airborne. We have been caught out a coulpe of time shooting in manual when there has been a sudden light change. Is auto really a no no. Below is an image of the day in question when we had to chase the Steam train along the viaduct.. you ever tried telling a steam train to reset? ;-)

The interview with Mr Neve is for Sound On Sound, we've been collecting interviews for them recently, do keep an eye on the site next year ;) Rupert Neve designs kit is great too, check it out!

Seriously, I'm quite near to Rome (1,5 hours), if you pass here I will be happy to help you! :) http://www.wwf.it/oasi/toscana/laguna_di_orbetello/

Also, I owned the 70D for a few months. I shot it heavily alongside my 5d3 and even my Panasonic LX7. The video IQ from the 70d was worse even than the little $300 Amazon special LX7. It's that bad.