Andrew Reid

I have a request Jon, can you stop leading people down these rabbit-hole style URLs with just one or two words underlined. It's going to get the forum flagged by Google's spider as poor SEO or spam. It's frustrating for us as well, because we click the link out of curiosity and then find it completely irrelevant. So if you're going to link to other sites, explain what it is you're linking to and paste the URL in separately so we can see what site we'll be lead out to. Thank you.

There the letter of the law and then there's the reality of it. There's a lot of user contributions and mood pieces on YouTube using high profile songs by high profile artists and they are allowed to stay up there, they are not DMCA'ed by the label, reason being the record industry is making money through YouTube streaming and a large proportion of that money is coming from third party 'unauthorised' use of the music, not an official band channel or record label presence. So they have no interest in taking it down. If you are using a Pink Floyd track for a wedding video you shot and got paid for, that's a different matter. That is cheating the artist out of a licensing fee and their permission. I am using Epidemic Sound (prefer it to The Music Bed) for music on my EOSHD videos at the moment but something important is MISSING. I miss the early days on Vimeo where DSLR shooters would regularly upload a camera test with something like a haunting Pink Floyd track and not one of those mood-pieces made money. It was purely artistic expression and fair use, appropriation of an art form. Now with Vimeo and content ID those are flagged instantly and removed. Not so on YouTube where they stay up and earn money for the music industry. I think artists should have fair use on the things they do for art. They are not trying to profit or steal. The videos made no money yet support ad revenue for the copyright holder, it's a win-win. It's officially agreed between YouTube and the copyright holders. The video is just personal expression. Obviously you can try this with a licensed track from a library, sure. It's not the same. The mood and quality of the library music JUST DOES NOT compete with the world's best bands and artists, especially the lyrics. I'd regret to see that side of artistic expression closed off to cinematographers and their personal projects. To take someone's lyrics and add cinematic moments and movement, is very special to me. Literally poetry in motion. When it comes to the pro world of video - of course you should PAY and seek the right permissions and right license.

Nice review Dave. And yes the colour science has a cinematic mojo. A7 III with EOSHD Pro Color is cinematic as well but different. And I'd rather have Canon LOG than S-LOG 2. So I have to agree that the colour is a big reason to shoot with the EOS R, just as it was on the Canon 1D C. In fact, the moment you stop thinking about it as a full frame camera and simply as a APS-C 4K Canon with a picture to rival the C200, is the moment it 'clicks' and you think - ah, maybe it's not so bad after all. The real killer is that rolling shutter. It's BAAAD. So you will want to use a wide lens for vlogging, to avoid that - and you'll want to be careful handheld with anything longer than a 35mm. It will restrict a few shots, may ruin you at any moment so be careful. However I have enjoyed cameras before with a lot of rolling shutter - Samsung NX1 and A6500 to name but two - and it really does depend on your shooting style whether it's a real problem or not. The flippy screen and EVF are done well on this camera. The EOS R is quite like a GH5S in some ways (aside from that dreadful RS) bundled with a free 5D Mark IV for stills. I wouldn't use the 1080p - it's too soft and dated - but I would use this camera for stills and 4K when I need that flippy screen and Dual Pixel AF. It goes very nicely with the Sigma 18-35mm in 1.6x crop mode (Canon APS-C). In fact when you hit record the 4K crop is hardly noticeable compared to that APS-C mode. A bit like the Fujifilm X-H1. The other cameras are certainly more bang for your buck though. X-H1 has IBIS. A7 III has full frame 4K. So Canon gave us a poor deal, but not without also giving us one of the best 4K codecs and colour on the market. EOS R... Not all bad.

Finally we learn some things. I liked his Japan footage especially the original BMPCC stuff. I find the comments interesting about the cleaner, sharper look of the new camera and missing the grain texture of the original. Maybe cameras should start to have a 'low-fi' mode or a more analogue mode which tunes down the modern look. It would save a lot of work in post. Digital Bolex still one of my favourite looks in that respect, it's even less clean and digital looking than the original BMPCC. So the 4K/60P in RAW only goes to 10 seconds to the best CFast 2.0 and Samsung T5, so looks like we'll have to wait for BMRAW to get longer record times in that. The data rates are just too big for the current media in DNG.

This is a bit like arguing over Mini DV tape has the best quality. Mitch doesn't say what picture style settings he's using, so that video doesn't exactly help inform the World's Most Boring Debate, but if the 5D4 really is more detailed (as opposed to just more digitally sharpened) in the video above of bricks, then what little you are gaining is offset by the moire and aliasing - it seems to have more than the 5D3.

Kai has the sharpness turned up on the 5D III compared to the IV. It doesn't have more aliasing. FUCK. Do I have to do a 1080p comparison in 2018? KILL ME NOW

Yes was he comparing DPAF to DPAF..... Or DPAF to 6D Mark II OVF AF sensor? 6D II has both.

I'll moderate the forum, the way I see fit. Thanks.

Do you work for Blackmagic? And isn't it my job to moderate the forum?

Some threads are starting to read like somebody's personal SMS app. It's ridiculous. Let's calm down, think before we post, if we haven't got anything new to add apart from 20 pages of chitchat!?! No? Let's not post! I am fine with some chat but not EVERY PAGE. Deal?

Ok thanks, so that's one answer. Now let's dive further into the details. I am not talking about commercial work on YouTube without a license for the sound track. We are talking here about artistic experimentation and non-commercial use on YouTube. If YouTube is paying the royalties, per stream, from their ad revenue, how much extra on top of that is a record producer liable to take? Are they getting 100% of their fair share, 50% or 10%? What are the figures? Let's say "JOHN" uploads a camera test with a Radiohead sound track and Content ID demonetises it and every time it streams, Radiohead's label gets a share of the YouTube ad revenue. That process is entirely legal, isn't it? Where is the illegal part? I am not saying it is definitely the right thing to do and 100% safe. But I am asking the question. I want to know FOR SURE what's what. And there is such a thing in copyright law as the fair use clause as well. These include - commentary, search engines, criticism, parody, news reporting, research, and scholarship. So if you use a portion of a film clip to comment on the cinematography, or you review a film and show a scene from it, that qualifies as fair use. I'd like for us to understand copyright better, and to get a film grasp on what we CAN and can't do. It's important new YouTubers know what's what.

You guys having a private conversation or something?

Was that video a comparison of Dual Pixel AF in live-view on both... or a comparison between Dual Pixel AF on the EOS R and through the viewfinder on the 6D II?

In terms of colour, you ARE going to be able to make a GH5 look like a Canon if you shoot raw on both, as the image processing would be identical, with identical tools at your disposal in Resolve for both cameras. Raw is a direct tap on the sensor and does not involve the usual in-camera colour processing. What matters most with raw is the raw performance of the sensor output, not the image processor or in-camera colour science. Sensors do vary in their colour capture but that is not the same as colour processing. Colour capture on the Kodak CCD sensor in the Digital Bolex for example looks very analogue, very pleasing. But the same sensor is in the GH5S and BMCP4K so if both shoot raw, I'd expect both to look identical in raw given the same spec of raw codec. It is not goodnight in the slightest The codec is just one aspect of the image. Put yourself in the position of the audience. You do not sit there and only notice one aspect of the image. You also notice the sensor size, the lens, the low light performance, the dynamic range, the frame rate, the motion cadence, colour, grain and more. Sure the codec will make it's mark on all of the above (apart from sensor size and optics). But honestly, there's a reason most Alexa shoots are ProRes, not raw. Because the image quality gain is minor (in terms of the end result)

Nice idea, but would have been more useful if he'd filmed off the HDMI feed to show the AF working, rather than film himself holding the cameras and putting up a rating out of 10.

I do go with stock music. But I would like to have this question answered anyway. Surely it is not copyright infringement if YouTube is paying royalties to the musician under a legal agreement between them and the record labels?

The 1080/60p is really detailed. I noticed that in my test. Upscaling it to 4K works very well.

The colour science is at least 80% done in post when you shoot LOG... and 99% when you shoot RAW! The colour science is in Resolve and can be applied to any camera with a capable enough codec! What we need to know are things like - - Dynamic range in LOG and RAW - Noise in shadows - High ISO performance - 8bit vs 10bit And the job of the grading is to get the colour to match perfectly between the two cameras being tested. I still have no idea how the GH5S and Pocket 4K really compare in dynamic range, noise and bit depth.

Nice Berlin model that is for sure They look pretty similar to me and the BMD LUT comparison saw the GH5S come out ahead due to the better exposed skintones, but then that is more a comment on the LUT than the camera. I like the slightly higher black point in the Pocket 4K close-up shot of the eyes... But again that is just grading. I'm still waiting to see a demonstration of the actual image quality advantages of the Pocket 4K's RAW codec rather than just pretty pictures, so I'll be sure to check out Slashcam's next article. Should be quite revealing.

Has anyone figured this out yet... Now we have Content ID and record labels automatically get streaming revenue from YouTube when a song is used, are video-artists basically allowed to use any music track they like over videos for non-commercial use on YouTube? (Yes I am aware the video is demonetised) Just want to be clear that the musician / label is getting paid for streaming, therefore it's legal usage?

Looks great, even compressed for Vimeo. And I bet it was a stress free shoot as well. Tiny camera with a pancake lens and a boat ride, created some really lovely stuff here. I wish more people would drop their C300 rigs and 'go auteur'

I can guarantee the moment we get the miracle that is full frame 4K/60p, we will want medium format 4K/120p

I'd say RAW or LOG has as much mojo as you're prepared to give it in post, unless the sensor is an absolute dog and the quality just isn't there. I'm not too concerned about the image quality with the Pocket 4K. It's the other aspects around it that concern me... reliability, battery life, ergonomics, autofocus, availability, so on... In fact the biggest concern has nothing to do with Blackmagic. They're a great company. The concern is the competition. X-T3, A7 III, EOS R, Z6, Z7, X-H1, Panasonic S1, GH5S, GH5, list is almost endless. I think to myself, how often am I going to pick up the Pocket 4K which is basically a box with a sensor and RAW, over something that does it ALL and high resolution stills as well. There is a stills mode on the Pocket 4K and the resolution is a big step up from the 2K on the original, but it's no Z7 or S1R!! It's a one trick pony. RAW / codec. The rest, I could have designed better myself.

If we assume the most probably outcome, it's that the Z7 4K looks like the D850 and the Z6 4K looks like the A7 III. The Z7 4K in full frame mode is excellent, same as my D850. A tiny bit of aliasing on very high contrast diagonal edges, but that is to be expected going 46MP down to 4K. There are no real issues, honestly, same as D850 which I loved. It's detailed, it's cinematic, it's got a ton of dynamic range and a nice codec, with great colour science. Rolling shutter is well controlled. Switch to APS-C mode and it is supersampled from 5K, just like the D850 and the A7R III. In full frame it is slightly superior to the A7R III, slightly smoother looking and less aliasing. Now the Z6 we are told by Nikon is full pixel readout in full frame (like A7 III) but the APS-C mode has to be upscaled from something like 3K, again same as A7 III. So the Z7 is going to have the better APS-C 4K, and the Z6 will have a MARGINALLY better full frame 4K image assuming it does indeed ape the A7 III's full pixel readout (6K to 4K). Until the Z6 actually arrives, we won't know for sure, and there may be issues we're not yet aware of or Nikon might decide to take features out, or reduce their potency. On paper, the specs look fine, but the devil might be in the detail. If it works out as expected, the Z6 is going to be a big fat bargain, and preferable to the A7 III taken as a body in isolation... Once you start talking lenses, adapters, etc. Then it gets more complicated.

Alexa vs S-LOG! Well of course! Let's try and stick to options in the same price range. I suppose it depends on how much colour grading you need to do. Isolating skin tones, VFX work, that kind of thing - well, RAW is going to be a nice advantage for you there. Needs must! No absolutely not against it, not sure what gave you this idea, but the number of full frame cameras has increased dramatically, so unless a smaller sensor camera can have other advantages not found on a full frame camera, I can see a point where 'generally' people will choose the larger sensor, and crop if they need the look of a smaller one (i.e. deep DOF). Also it is hard to get sharp corners at infinity focus on a focal reducer. For a lot of stuff, this doesn't matter - but for the rare occasion where you want a corner to corner sharp landscape shot at infinity focus, you're probably going to want a native prime lens. No it's not a waste for you, by the sounds of it. I'm not an expert on your workflow or projects though, so that's just an assumption. For me, I know I can get very nice results from an A7R III or any 8bit camera, and that 10bit or RAW is only a significant upgrade if it's going to be made use of. There really does need to be more 10bit vs 8bit video comparisons out there under a range of shooting situations and grades. I have compared RAW to 8bit H.264 before on EOSHD and for some shots, when pushed, the difference was obvious to the advantage of RAW, but the 8bit H.264 I was comparing it to was pretty basic 1080p back on the 5D Mark III. Then I did a comparison between Magic Lantern 14bit RAW and the A7S S-LOG 2, where the A7S came out on an even keel in terms of the end result with a normal grade, in Resolve, on a wide range of shots in natural light. No VFX work though. No treatment of skin tones differently to the rest of the image, so what worked for me might not work for you. I'm going to make some more up-to-date comparisons, and would have done already if I could get hold of a Pocket 4K but it's still a complete mystery to me.