Andrew Reid

Nice rumour. Promoted to front page. Happy Easter :)

 

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Here's a rumour of the latest GoPro specs. Source is not known to me so take it with a pinch of salt until it goes official!

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The AX100 is of a species we thought extinct in the filmmaking world... the consumer camcorder. I had a brief hands on with the camera to find out how much of it is high resolution point and shoot and how much cinema camera.

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I have tested it.

 

Clean means no onscreen graphics or icons.

 

'Clean' in the sense of image quality means no moire, aliasing, false detail.

 

Uncompressed clean HDMI does not effect moire and aliasing.

 

On the A6000 the HDMI is free of onscreen icons so you can record from it. It is also uncompressed so you avoid the worse instances of break-up with the crappy internal AVCHD codec. However there's a lot of processing being done to the signal between sensor and HDMI output. I don't think it is 4:2:2 and the pixel binning process loses you quite a lot of the original sensor data making for a thin signal. End result is that although you can record it to a 10bit 4:2:2 file, it doesn't look like one. It looks only a little bit better than AVCHD!

 

Still lots of banding and blockiness especially in shadows.

The problems I encountered mostly had a lot to do with getting colour to look right and grading the weak codec.

 

Lots of banding in the shadows and a weird electronic look to colour.

 

I tried everything to get it to work, but just not for me.

 

You have to mega crush the blacks... loses you so much dynamic range... otherwise image looks odd.

 

When I went back to the 5D Mark III I knew why the D800 looked so 'off'.

 

When I then picked up a GX7 and started grading the 28Mbit/s 1080/50p MP4 codec in that I was really surprised. It holds up and I have got it to match / intercut really well with 5D Mark III raw footage.

 

I am not against small file sizes and compression or 8bit but it has to look 'right'.

 

GX7 will replace my Pocket Cinema Camera. That isn't getting any use since it still lacks too many features and Blackmagic have shown little interest in updating it.

Soon EVFs will be 14bit 4K OLEDs.

 

Then the flippy mirror will say bye byes.

I also found the D800's video output looks strange in terms of colour. Sorry but despite initial excitement, I don't rate it that highly...

 

Archaic as a stills camera.

 

Surpassed by 5D Mark III raw for video.

 

Like the Italian styling job though!

Much further along with my A6000 experience now since the introductory blog.

 

The codec has real issues. Lots of banding and mud. A very bad implementation of AVCHD I'm afraid. AVCHD can be good. On the FS100 it's fine! What a shame Sony do not pull a Panasonic and give us a proper codec on their stills cameras.

 

There is still some moire and aliasing too but then it's now more in-line with other cameras, and certainly not as bad as before. Better than the A7 for sure.

 

It's still a nice camera for the price but the D5300 will give you a better image.

I come from a digital world and the analogue way is just unnatural to me. When I look through the optical viewfinder I can't really judge accurate depth of field, accurate bokeh, accurate brightness, proper rendering of the lens especially wide open. Don't get me wrong, the viewfinder on the D800 is one of the best optical ones there is but it bares little relation to what the sensor gets. It's an out of place analogue part in a digital body, indeed a digital world. Time to move on.

I also would like to know if there is a speedbooster that works with AF on the GH4.

 

None of them do.

5dmarkIII with RAW is the best DSLR that shoots video at the moment. The image is gorgeous, the colors are great and lowlight is wonderful.

 

I also think it has a lot of dynamic range (always been a bit skeptical about the 11.7 stops that keeps floating around). You can get great results when applying a bit of neatvideo (works wonders with RAW). Processing time is quite intense but that's part of the experience.

 

The d800 was ok when I used it on a shoot but it had usability problems (couldn't take stills during filming and settings were different between still/movie modes etc.) H264 was maybe a bit sharper but 720p is useless on the d800 while slowmo on the 5d is still quite workable. 

 

p.s How come everyone is railing against the mirror? It doesn't hurt or even interfere in my shootings and it's great for photos. What's the big problem with mirrors? Unnecessary dead weight? Like what is that supposed to be?

 

I agree on the 5D3.

 

Today I took the D800 back to the shop. I just couldn't quite get excited about it enough to write that mini-guide.

 

It was interesting tuning the image in post and seeing how close I could get it to raw but in the end, it wasn't so much the video quality that turned me off it... I wanted it more as my stills camera actually... but realised the quality of my shots was actually suffering compared to when I am composing through an EVF or articulated LCD on a mirrorless camera.

 

The optical viewfinder just doesn't give you an accurate representation of the image. It looks lovely in and of itself. That's about it. Time and again I was misjudging manual focus and exposure because of it. Focus meter is horrifically inaccurate with manual glass and non Nikon CPU lenses.

 

The live-view implementation is absolutely horrid on the D800 compared to the 5D Mark III unfortunately. The exposure of the shot never seems to match up with what the live-view screen gives, and this was despite putting the lens data in when using a non-CPU Leica or Nikon lens on the camera. I had a bunch of Leica R lenses converted to Nikon (very easy to do, a DIY mount change) and with these the camera just doesn't want to meter properly, whereas the 5D Mark III had no issues.

 

When I went back using a GX7 I immediately felt I was taking better shots from being able to judge the image 'as the sensor sees it'.

 

Sometimes I yearn to get away from the electronic gizmo crap and go back to an old-school DSLR.

 

I have learnt that this is actually counterproductive and I've left the D800 even more of a big fan of 'electronic' shooting than before.

I guess the source of the trolling must be a certain gentleman who thinks he's better than Magic Lantern. No guesses for who that is.

 

Hahah!

Andrew great test, as always. How video AF works on GH4 with third party lenses? Is it possible to use speedboster and i.e. Sigma 18-35 (nikon mount) with video AF?

 

No, it's a passive mount adapter with no electronics. The AF in Nikon lenses is usually optimised for phase detect sensors and the GH4 uses contrast detect so even if it worked through a smart adapter, it probably would be a bit shit :)

In the D800's stills you have less noise in the very darkest shadows if you bring them up all the way in a raw file using Photoshop's ACR controls vs the same stills from the 5D Mark III.

 

However in video mode and at high ISOs the 5D Mark III is better in low light.

I don't think the production cost of a camera (or whatever device) is very relevant for the retraul price. Sony can (and will) price it whatever they want and whatever they think is 'best'. Maybe they haven't even determined the price yet... just feeling how the market reacts to it.. price it accordingly.

 

The marketing team have a large hand to play in setting the price, that's a big part of their job.

 

They will be getting feedback as we speak and some pros with money to burn will be telling them that the A7S is a Jesus Camera and should be priced $6000 :)

Who the fuck deleted my post yo?

 

I did! And mind the language too.

Working on the moderators today, will get it set up.

 

Cheers all!

The D800 has re-emerged!

We have the Mosaic Engineering VAF-D800 filter, compact $299 Atomos Ninja star ProRes recorder and now even a hack project based around the camera.

So I've picked up a D800 and plan to see what I get out of it.

Read the full article here

It's not really a matter of insisting. It has to do with the process of making the Silicon wafers and there are numerous other reasons for it, apparently. Some interesting answers here.

 

For example:

 

 

 

Another issue is the size of the wafer. They have been using 200mm for ages now I think. There is some switching going on to 300mm and 450mm is in development I think, but it probably will take a decade or more before it is standard, because all the machines have to be replaced and remade for the bigger wafers.

 

Btw... imagine the cost of that new 50MP Sony medium format sensor :) The price of the Pentax 645Z is incredible if you take that into consideration.

 

/Edit:

Interesting stuff on wafer sizes here.

57.8% of chip production (not only image sensors!) is already done on 300mm wafers. This will be 70% by 2017, but 200mm wafers are still being used for image sensors...

 

I love this stuff.

 

You're right the price of the Pentax is amazing and it would seem Sony are making huge strides forwards with their CMOS business. Usually very hard to break performance and price barriers both at the same time. Somehow they are managing to mass produce sensors that have unheard of until now spec for the price.

 

If Canon are playing catch up in 2 years time and image quality on their DSLRs lags significantly behind Sony, and Nikon are using Sony sensors, it could spell a serious problem for Canon, something not easy to fix overnight as Sony has been building up to this level of sophistication for years and have surely spent many millions of dollars in the process.

We could have a separate forum for selling lenses, but I'm not sure about it.

 

The for sale threads in the anamorphic forum keep it quite lively and bring about discussion of various unusual lenses. If we hid these away in a sub-section it might make the place a bit more dead.

 

What do you think?

Very interesting.

 

I wonder why they insist on making the wafers circular.

 

36% of the area wasted on the full frame sensor yield is pretty wasteful.

Did I miss anyone? Julian would you like to have moderator powers too?

 

Misbehaviour sticky - I'll leave this as defined by wider society :)

I would happily do that to some internet users.

If you pre-order now, expect this camera by March 2015, right before BM announces 3 more cameras...

 

It will probably ship with the two giant audio meters disabled or something :)