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Showing content with the highest reputation on 06/19/2015 in all areas

  1. Sfernald

    NX1 short film Yvonne

    You guys just don't get it... This film is a disturbing social commentary on the American family and the human condition... The mom "entering the fridge" is really symbolic for her addiction to crystal meth (ice). Notice how the family has to function more and more without her as her addiction gets worse? I didn't watch the ending (who could make it that far), but I like to think something really shocking (like GoT shocking) happened at the end, like maybe her pimp and drug dealer ends up executing her family one by one.
    4 points
  2. There is no denying that this looks like an impressive camera, but I'm going nowhere near the pre-order button until I've actually tried it on a professional shoot. I do that with all new cameras, throw them into the deep end straight away and start shooting a paid project. The 4k, 5-axis, Slog2 etc means nothing until it's been put through it's paces.
    3 points
  3. There's no free lunch in optics. Light, fast, cheap. Pick two. Personally, even though the range is quite short, I think it's useful to have a zoom that can double as a variable prime. Many of the big cinema lens manufacturers (Zeiss, Cooke, Panavision, etc) bend over backwards to provide as many focal lengths as possible in this 24mm-35mm range. There's a reason why Cooke S4s come in 25mm, 27mm, 32mm and 35mm focal lengths. If you're very particular about your frame, a couple of millimeters makes a big difference.
    2 points
  4. The A7RII isnt even out yet, and for some reason this makes the GH4 (which is now over a year old and a third of the price) insignificant? Do brand new camera releases suddenly mean the previous awesome camera (GH4) isn't awesome enough to film with? I haven't bought a GH4, A7S, NX1, FZ100, LX100, G7.. (or any other 4k mirrorless). Still using my GH3 as the small camera. It does fine, still makes money. Doesnt have V Log or 4k and is just as good as when I bought it 2 and a half years ago. All on cheapo FD lenses. Firmware is a simple equation. Either crippled for product segmentation or promising the world (whilst delivering poorly in other key areas such as battery life!). Let's just buy ALL the cameras and we can have all the firmware we want! I do agree firmware is very important though. Poor firmware affects my creativity. The slow, sluggy speed of the FS7 menus means I have less time to work on the shot. The Monitor LUT dissapears. WHY!? The 1DC (official cinema DSLR champion) doesn't have peaking. And this camera launched for $634,000,345 as a Cinema EOS whatever thingy. "Modern" firmware is the way forward. Samsung has ideas and Blackmagic really seem to be onto a really simple, inutitive, elegant system. Sexy.
    2 points
  5. I'm still quite happy with the images coming out of the GH4 with or without V-log. The metabones XL adapter just added that much more capability to the camera if I should decide to slap on some bigger glass. I might actually be more impressed with Panny if they release a V-log update a few months before the GH5 is announced, that would buck the trend of holding back advanced features for a next-gen product. I can honestly say that I don't feel limited by technology for the first time in a long time. The new Sony tech is very good from the standpoint of hybrid imaging, but not earthshaking for a lot of filmmakers. 4K/60P would be more useful for me than any of the features announced in the A7R II and I doubt they'll be delivering that in a future firmware update.
    2 points
  6. Same here, and I don't know where he got 5% from. Where I live it's 14%. Off topic, It's funny how some say "Europe", "Africa" or "America" like it was just a country
    2 points
  7. ​I don't. I prefer paying 5% less and having the 30 minute recording limit I'll never reach anyway. Of course I understand there are plenty of people who'd pay the extra for not having the limit, but I don't think I'm the only one who doesn't have a problem with 30 minutes max.
    2 points
  8. Based on just a few hours of shooting XAVC-S on the A6000, the new codec does improve the levels of detail in the image a lot. I'm on the road at the moment and I don't have access to a 1080p monitor right now, so I don't want to draw any conclusions just yet. I am seeing a touch of moire here and there, in detailed brick-work etc, no worse than any down-sampling cam (but I need to look at it in 1080p). It looks like it's only in the luma channel, so at least it's not colourful rainbows. Sony's AVCHD lagged quite far behind Panasonic and Nikon's 1080p image (I have a G6 and I used to have a D5200). XAVC-S seems to close the gap, but I need to shoot more before coming to conclusions.
    2 points
  9. Opinion piece, by Andrew Reid In only a few months, 57 new features have been added to the Samsung NX1. Meanwhile Panasonic have been more keen than many to evolve their products, adding a 4K Photo mode to the GH4 and 24p for 4:3 shooting, a nod to anamorphic filmmakers. But it isn't enough. No anamorphic de-squeeze for instance and now the time it has taken for V-LOG to reach us has been too long. Firmware is a new battleground and manufacturers must play the game better. Read the full article
    1 point
  10. Hey all. I posted a couple of weeks ago asking for advice on crowd funding, and crowd sourcing. I got some great advice, especially from Zak Forsman. I've launched a Kickstarter and my goal is to create a short film based entirely off of a soundtrack. The said soundtrack is from Johnny Jewel (Chromatics) and can be heard here: https://soundcloud.com/johnnyjewel/symmetry-themes-for-an I've contacted Johnny and received permission to use the score in a non-profit sense. It's very 80's influenced and the movies I'm rewatching for inspiration are Escape From New York, Terminator, Collateral, Nightcrawler, and a few more. It's going to be led my a strong female character and take place on the streets of Chicago, at night. If you guys could help me out even with a few dollars I'd be forever grateful! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/172703888/symmetry-short-film
    1 point
  11. 18-35 f2 would have been the next top lens for photojournalysts.
    1 point
  12. http://magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=6215.0 According to this table 5d2 can do 1856x1004 (in no-cropped mode) continously due to CF write speed limitation (75MB/s). Difference between this and 1080p shouldnt be very noticeble. 5d3 can write 100 MB/s on CF card so can do 1080p.
    1 point
  13. While I agree that V-log on the GH4 should be released Asap, since it is already late I kind of disagree on releasing lots of firmware updates. I feel that Samsung should have done more to make the H.265 format more editing software compatible. That is doing its bit for greater sync. The biggest complaint of users was inability to use the codec either completely, or fast enough, and that workflow was seriously hindered. Right now the GH Series only lacks in-body stabilisation and higher ISO. The higher ISO is partially dealt with by faster lenses, that with the new metabones adaptor go all the way up to f.0.8. That's 2/3rd of a stop more light that an f2.8 lens. While I am sure the next in the GH series may consider in-body stabilization, new pistol gimbals have mostly dealth with that too. One can add these, considering the Enormous Price difference betwern Panasonic and its Sony competitors. About the Varicam, well it records in 3 different formats, simultaneously, and has some very interesting in-camera grading options apart from a host of other great features. The good thing about Panasonic from GH2 onwards, is that they seriously listen to user feedback. Only if they would hurry up with the V-log now.
    1 point
  14. At least they're not taking the video game route and releasing junk firmware to meet a deadline.
    1 point
  15. kgv5

    Magic lantern raw sample?

    One of the best recent tools is MLVFS - magic lantern video file system - it is on mac and on pc. Working with raw is just a pleasure now. For small projects one can work directly from CF card. Open CF card folder, select all mlv files, right click > quick mount (its quickly creates "virtual" filders instead of mlv files with all the cndg and wav files inside, 128gb takes 20-30 seconds). Open resolve, find the right folder and thats it - you have your clips ready. You can edit, render, color correct, you have sound, easy The same way you can import to premiere CC, edit natively or expoty xml for resolve. Current 2015 workflow doesnt require any transcoding at all. For fast preview on set i use mlrawviewer - little, useful app which works nice even on weak laptop - it directly plays mlv files with sound (you can even add luts, set WB, exposure etc). It is also possible to set in/out points and render prores 444 directly. There is some new similar app under developing (Thanks AWPStar) which will have almost full control on settings and many codecs to choose from. Magic Lantern raw now in 2015 is really fully usable, very stable great addon. Fast CF cards and HDDs are getting cheaper so it is not an issue anymore. The only things 5d3 is missing now is 4k and higher frame rates than 30fps (maximum frame rate with raw is 67 fps - but with reduced resolution). Every other features like peaking, zebras, great battery life (with raw recording batteries lasts longer than with h264 - no encoding processors are used) 3x cropped 1080p recording and many more are there and are fully functional. It will be very hard to someone to justify replacing full frame 14 bit raw 1080p camera for a 4k camera with highly compressed 8 bit codec. I would love the possibility of shooting in 4k but 4k raw is now in complettely different price range (media, power solutions, computer hardware etc). When you get used to raw workflow, especially now when it is really fast and easy - it would be very hard to step back.
    1 point
  16. Samsung's speed of firmware updates is quite remarkable and how much they listen to feedback - because, well, the NX1 is their first attempt to crack into the mirrorless world. I also think Panasonic is a little behind the times. They led the whole indie filmmaking scene with the DVX100 and then the HVX200, and from there, it was downhill. They released the AF100 which has horrible noisy shadows and a weird magneta color shift and a micro 4/3rd sensor when Canon released the Canon 5d mark II that soon changed everything. Now they have the Varicam 35mm camera which is probably about six years late to the party and then the DVX200 which without a removable lens seems pretty weird - and it's just - well kind of sad I guess. I would have never guessed back in 2003 when I started that Panasonic would soon lose out to Canon. It's nice to see Sony doing better with their A7S and soon the A7R II if it catches on. Sony needs to bounce back - and maybe they are doing just that. And Samsung has been innovating a lot - so it's nice to see the NX1's capabilities and soon what's next up their sleeve. I'm excited for the A7S mark II.
    1 point
  17. We can't think about everything. Americans got enough on our plate (that's literal, not metaphorical). For instance, our Olympians are changing their gender 40 years after they were in the spotlight, so you shouldn't expect us to concentrate on lesser issues.
    1 point
  18. This is probably for historical reasons and is related to interlaced video. With interlaced, each of the two fields is subsampled separately (because the fields represent different time moments and subsampling them the same way as with progressive images would introduce chroma artifacts related to motion). Now, because each field is subsampled separately, if you use one of the subsampling methods with only half the vertical resolution, for example 4:2:0 or 4:4:0, this would result in gaps of two lines with no chroma samples. Here is how a column of 4 neighbor pixels looks like in this case: Field 1 Top row (chroma sample) Field 2 Top row (chroma sample) Field 1 Bottom row (no chroma sample) Field 2 Bottom row (no chroma sample) But if you use full vertical sampling, as in 4:2:2, there is no such issue. You only get 1 sample gaps horizontally, and no gaps vertically when applying 4:2:2 to interlaced video.
    1 point
  19. CC has had that since 2014 and I use it from time to time. But even if they improve on it there is still to much missing in the tool box. After Effects or Resolve is still the way to go imo. And I'm kinda done waiting for Premiere to learn how to grade. Specially now when Resolve has learned how to edit. If everything works in R12 like announced I will finish up my current project and then switch completely. This is why I love CC, you can bail out and comeback whenever without loosing money. Subscription ftw :)
    1 point
  20. Mattias Burling

    Lenses

    Perfect Match
    1 point
  21. Im a total vintage lens hoarder and therefore see the appeal of Sony in front of Canikon. I've had the A7 and really enjoyed it with cheap glass. But honestly, in that respect Panasonic kills the A7x. Anybody want to prove me wrong, show me the FF equivalent of thousands of nice small, compact, well built ,fast, and cheap primes streching all the way from 8mm Kowa to Fujinon 5mp 25mm. For me even m4/3 is to big. S16 is where it's at :)
    1 point
  22. ​Well, as a liveview shooter (the D5300 was my first non-mirrorless), hybrid shooting on the D5300 isn't the greatest experience there is, so I need to either give in and start appreciating the OVF or perhaps give up on stills altogether. Then there's the thing that I have a bunch of vintage and third party lenses and the most I can get of them now is from a 16MP M43 sensor... so it would be actually kinda nice to have those 24MP albeit full manual operation, since the only native lens for the Sony would then be the kitlens that comes with it. Atleast it would still have some mirrorless features mirrored cameras just don't offer. So XAVC-S coming to the A6000 might just seal the deal; was just wondering about the overheating issues. Will have to keep a lookout, maybe I can spot a nice deal. Thanks for the input.
    1 point
  23. ​If you're a hybrid shooter, keep in mind that the Sony still uses lossy 11+7 bit compression for its stills and has no mic jack for video.
    1 point
  24. Should you switch from 4/3 to Sony? Hard to say. It's certainly tempting looking at the specs. I was was once a full frame user but switched to gh2 years ago. It's video features and small size really appealed but I did struggle for a while. I missed my full frame look and low light. But I stuck with the format. I've invested in all the fastest native lenses like the 42.5 f1.2, 50mm f1.4, 75mm f1.8 etc and it's really opened my eyes to the potential of m43 sensors. Now im using these lenses on gh4 which sensor-wise is a huge improvement over the gh2. I now don't see the need for full frame at all. I have all the shallow Dof I need and low light preformance is great, all without a speed booster which must be amazing (not being able to use a speedboosters is my only regret by choosing native lenses). Anyway, my point is I think with technology advances, m43 sensors in time will be able to produce very clean images at high iso which really leaves no reason to go back to full frame for me. I'd say stick with m43 and the lenses you have invested in.
    1 point
  25. You mean the $3000 canon 11-24mm f4? Has there been a lens on s35 that has the equivalent 11mmmm fov on full frame? You can get an olympus 7-14mm f2.8 for $1500.
    1 point
  26. This reminds me of when everybody was falling over themselves for the Sony A7r when it came out! But then along came the A7s.... I'll just wait :-D History will repeat itself.
    1 point
  27. Running around any national park, remote farmland, or large city for a day and getting beauty shots would have been far more watchable than this. Anyway, the camera looked good.
    1 point
  28. Most short films made by manufacturers to launch their new cameras are very bad. The Canon ones were terrible, the Nikon ones were lame, and the Sony demos are usually just razor-sharp pictures of leaves and temples. I did glean from the behind-the-scenes footage that the director is some dude who works for Samsung. Possibly in a marketing capacity. I.e. not a filmmaker. No properly trained and experienced filmmaker who make a short that lame. My god, there's even a shot of the milk getting tossed into the trashcan! Ow my eyes! I wish that manufacturers would at least be imaginative in who they choose to direct these things. Find some up-and-comer, someone who might have recently had a short in Sundance or some other major festival. Trust me, most of these people are broke as fuck. They'd totally do it. Find someone with a distinctive imagination, toss 'em a camera and some money, and release a decent short. Just don't hire someone from the marketing department to direct your product launch video.
    1 point
  29. I'm sure this crew said they wanted IMAX and couldn't afford it. Had to settle on Super 16mm. Amateurs.
    1 point
  30. For modifiers I use this small kit on 80% of shoots: http://www.adorama.com/djfkpb.html
    1 point
  31. Most LEDs and small lights have absolutely no throw, and can only be used as fill lights, in smaller spaces (cars, tiny rooms, etc etc). The problem with more affordable lights is that their color temperature is unique to them. hahaha Try these: http://www.amazon.com/Aputure-Amaran-AL-528S-Video-Light/dp/B00LC0OVEI#Ask or these: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1081927-REG/switronix_tl_bt220r_bolt_220r_dimmable_led.html or these: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1123056-REG/rotolight_rl_neo_rotolight_neo_on_camera_led.html Check them at a store close to you, and then decide which ones to pick up. try not to pick up too many different lights, cause then your colour temperatures will look different every few feet. Also, please post your own experiences with the lights. Good luck
    1 point
  32. I have been using the Blackmagic Pocket for a while. For me the major advantage is the Dynamic Range / Latitude of this tiny camera. Its so easy to use and to expose for your shot. Walking trough a corridor from dark to very light situation is when you see the greatness of shooting in a format like the prores or Raw. When you look at the screen and expose for dark part of the corridor and when you go to the extreme light and the zebras are not even appearing on the screen, its great. I have shot side by side whit canon cameras using the BMDcolor profile or the Cinestyle and we always have to change the exposure not to lose the highlights. And the Blackmagic on the same situation always shines. Even with a log profile on a 8bit camera when you have a blowing highlight with a very well exposed shot, you lose a lot of information on that highlight not for recovery but for a more filmic highlight. That new sony camera is a impressive camera. Full Frame with sensor stablization and 4k slog-2 internally, its huge. But you will have to sell all your lenses and camera and pay 3200 dollars for the camera and a lot more for new glasses. If you need versatility you will have to buy 3 or more good lenses. If money is not your problem, then its really worth it. full frame is great when you kwon how to get the best with it. But if you want to keep your lenses my choice from personal experience is the Pocket. Its really a great camera. In some blockbusters they are using Blackmagic cameras to pair with the alexas. Look at that: Thats how they shoot Mad Max running trough a corridor on the beggining of the movie. They dont chose a 5D, that is more lighter camera and full frame. They chose the blackmagic for the great colors and gradability of the footages. Its really a good match for the alexas in skintones, etc. They only use the 5Ds as a crash cams because its has a really rigid body and can preserve the Card and files very well, from a explosion or a car crash... And the Pocket has the same image quality as the Cinema camera but at 1080p. The cons of the Pocket: High ISOs like the sony A7s ( When i look at a 51200 iso footage from a A7s the hightlights are so terrible not filmic, and unrealistic that i dont know if it really worth it. But i have never grade a footage from that camera so....) And you have a nokton 0.95 thats really great. I shoot With the Blackmagic pocket in a very low light streets with a rokinon 16mm f2 and for me it really look very well. Battery times The baterry is really a problem, but yoou can use a externa batery or even buy a lots of then. I buy on ebay 10 EN-EL20 batteries for 8 dollars each and they are good enough for a day of shooting. For long time shooting go for an external battery File sizes Even the prores proxy is much better than a 8bit compressed file, it is 10 bit. If your shot has a lot of movement like foliage you can switch for the prores LT And if you shoot raw, sometimes i do that: Convert the raw whit camera raw with a similar look to the prores BMD log and render it as a prores for small file sizes and gaining the much greater latitude, colors and grain form the raw file. With 3200 dollars from the A7r II you cam buy a Pocket camera with lots of cards and battery an even buy the new 10.5mm 0.95 voitglander and have a great low light wide lens. 4k is good but a 1080p camera with good colors dynamic range and latitude worth it, really worth it. Thats my opinion, choose wisely before you sell your lenses, and sorry for my not so good english.
    1 point
  33. There was a little discussion on lights a little while ago, maybe it's of any use to you: http://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/8033-led-lighting-fresnels-redheads-etc/ . From the recent NAB 2015 one of the highlights seems to have been the Wescott Flex: http://www.fjwestcott.com/led-lighting/flex . Can't really give you any recommendations as all I got myself is some low-end stuff: Aputure AL-H160, AL-198 & AL-198C LED video lights with 2 stands (König KN-LS10) & 1 ministand (PhotoSEL ST121) and one eBay ringlight softbox.
    1 point
  34. It's incredible that someone on Samsung financed and approved that shortfilm!!!
    1 point
  35. ​I'm on a selection committee for a film fest. Honestly, we see a lot more creativity from people working with a lot less. Point is, this film is lame. I'll agree with ya. Anyway, a good aspiring film maker will recognize that it's not the camera failing here. Of course, many aspiring film makers don't always know what the hell they're doing, so they could be swayed negatively with lousy films. I mean, "Reverie" wasn't exactly great narrative, but at least it used light in a good interesting way. Yvonne's cinematography is sterile and ... well, just bad. Samsung should've pulled the plug on this film and left it alone. --And putting it on YouTube with an open comment section? Whooo-weee....good luck with that.
    1 point
  36. Just did the update, too. 50Mbit like the A7s! Very nice. Will do a A6000 vs A7s comparison later this week.
    1 point
  37. I would've liked for Canon to have ripped out the mirror and OVF on the 760D and to have gone with an EVF and 4K. Same for Nikon with their D5500 (as a hybrid shooter I find the D5300 especially frustrating on this front, liveview shooting experience is terrible, my first OVF camera and it felt like a huge step back (image is trully great though)). Not something EOS M or Nikon V, but more like Panasonic's GH4 and Samsung's NX1. Nice ergonomic sizeable body with a bunch of controls and buttons. Decent if not good batterylife. Vari-angle display is a must I'd say! The 550D/T2i, 7D and 5DmkII really started something. But since then... boy o boy. They sure milked that 18MP sensor, didn't they? And I mean... from the 650D to the 700D they've added a dial to not only turn clockwise but also counter clockwise, filter effect preview in liveview and a different rubber coating. That's all they did and a 'new' model was born. Atleast the Nikons have gotten 1080/60p and atleast the 1080p actually looks great there. Now, finally there's a new sensor... but has anything else really changed? There's HDR video on the 760D! Yay! Oh, wait, it's 720p restricted. What else? Well, not much really. Pretty much the same functionality as before. Why would anyone want to start off their path with Canon anymore? I'm afraid Aaron's right. People just don't know any better and video enthusiasts like us only form a relatively small target audience. That's why I'm glad Panasonic, Sony, Samsung and Blackmagic aren't forgetting about us/are glad that they have a stake in the availlability of 4K material. I would be interested if they could recreate the success of the T2i and 5DmkII. One entry level and one more professional level camera that would hold a 2015/2016 standard. But then again, even if they did, given their trackrecord... would you really put your money on Canon still? Yes, their C-line is quite something, but let's not forget, so is the price... And with a lot of people shooting hybrid, have to keep it low budget or just want a small solution or just need stuff like slowmo... you're better served elsewhere.
    1 point
  38. It's funny, because I have posted on the most read french forum about the A7 R II saying that it looks awesome and that Canon 5DIII is outdated and I have been bashed like crazy, people saying 5DIII is not outdated at all and their arguments : auto focus, optical viewfinder, ergonomics, build quality, battery life, pro features (double card,...) and that if you look pro images on 500px.com they look same if not better than A7R image (given the poor 5D dynamic range). So some people here, before saying Canon are dead should be aware of the average opinion of the people. You (us) here represent a minority. Consumers prefer Canon cause they think it's the best brand, Pros prefer Canon because they think it's more reliable (built quality, batteries, ... ..) Pro summers doing film and wanting a normal camera body... We represent 1% of the market if not less. That's why Canon does not care. Still I hope they put 4K in 5D4, and better DR. Even though, as videographers we should stay with Sony, they make cameras for us, Canon does not intend to.
    1 point
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