Andrew Reid

[url="http://vimeopro.com/johnbrawleytests/blackmagic-cinema-camera/video/46460980"][img]http://www.eoshd.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/bmd-pool2-660x371.jpg[/img][/url] [url="http://vimeopro.com/johnbrawleytests/blackmagic-cinema-camera/video/46460980"]Watch it here[/url] Please note the compression and noise is from Vimeo not the camera [url="http://johnbrawley.wordpress.com/2012/07/27/pool-shark"]John Brawley[/url] has some new Blackmagic footage for us. Unfortunately Vimeo streams 1080p at something like 7Mbit and John has no download option on this clip, so watching Blackmagic footage when it is so heavily compressed rather defeats the object of such a lovely 12bit raw camera. Nevertheless dynamic range and resolution are looking pretty good.

[quote name='gene_can_sing' timestamp='1343349741' post='14573'] Hey Andrew, Does this fix make the AVC clip identical to what you would get out of 5DtoRGB in terms of how it displays on screen as well as dynamic range? Thanks for the tip. [/quote] [img]http://www.eoshd.com/comments/uploads/inline/1/5011e83e72db7_premiere.jpg[/img] 5DToRGB ProRes on the left, native (fixed) AVCHD on the right. There is a very slight difference in saturation, nothing else.

[quote name='TC' timestamp='1343350121' post='14574'] That looks like a Leica 50mm f0.95 attached to your FS100. Are you made of money? [/quote] It isn't a Leica. It is an SLR Magic!

Discussion continues here... http://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/1002-mac-avchd-gamma-issues-the-fix/

[img]http://www.eoshd.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/fs100-slrmagic-hyperprime.jpg[/img] As I recently discovered Macs really seem to hurt your AVCHD footage from the FS100, GH2 and NEX cameras. Especially the Sony FS100. It is no wonder these cameras often get a bad reputation for limited dynamic range, crushed shadows and blown highlights - when you are only seeing the middle part of the full 8bit range of luma. This Rec.709 portion of a 601 space (16-235 instead of the full 0-255 the FS100 shoots in) is incorrectly remapped to 0-255 by Quicktime. Therefore apps that use Quicktime at their core like Premiere, trip up. This makes a huge difference to the image. When fixed, you recover over 10% of your dynamic range, highlight and shadow detail, along with a much smoother roll off to whites and blacks.

Alexander is right. Although I'd still term it 'clipping'. I'd love to know more on this topic. Why does Premiere cut the last 16 levels off? In the luma channel or RGB? And why does bringing the white levels down fix it? Is it a bug or just misinterpreting the footage? And why hasn't Sony issued an explanation for it? And why does it happen on both Windows and a Mac? So many questions :) Remember his isn't just in Premiere, it is in Quicktime and VLC too.

[quote name='bwhitz' timestamp='1343331469' post='14549'] +1 Even if film is soft in certain scenarios... it's always very [i]detailed[/i]. The 5D's have no detail whatsoever... they're just mushy and muddy. There just isn't any detail in there. The GH2 in 720p with a variable ND filter and a 30mm 1.4 lense wide open in the day time is a pretty "soft" image. Yet there is still a TON more detail than my 5D or 7D. And noticeably less artifacting as well. I used to be a BIG canon DSLR fan myself, but after working with hacked GH2, Red, and a bit of Alexa footage... you'll start to see the big difference between "soft and detailed" and "muddy and sharp". You can make almost anything "sharp" in post... but you can't fake detail. [/quote] Well put, agree soft and organic but detailed is cinematic. The beauty of the GH2 is that although it is sharp out of the box and very HD, it resolves so much detail that even if you are using a soft lens to make it less clinical, you still end up with enough fine texture and an image that still pops off the screen. Sure you can soften the 7D but it makes the muddiness worse. Sure you can sharpen the 5D but it makes the aliasing worse. Sure you can sharpen any camera digitally but you risk halos and a very electronic looking image with a high contrast look. With the GH2 you just need to soften it or use a lens with character like an anamorphic or Nokton F0.95. That is far easier and more enjoyable than trying to reconstruct detail that isn't even resolved in the first place, or overcome some awful flaw like aliasing.

Nice deal on the Bolex. I am not sure about the prime myself as I've not used that lens yet. You could try it with the c-mount lenses it was designed for, and I'd say the older and more simple the lens with the less multi-coating as possible will work best, forget the modern Canon and Zeiss stuff.

It doesn't fix the gamma or clipping issue. Neither in QT or Premiere CS5.5 / CS6. However I had a breakthrough with Premiere and the clipping issue which I'll share tomorrow on the blog. I agree, need to avoid 5DToRGB if possible. Cheers Andrew

The 65mm epics weren't screened in 3D 48fps!

Very interesting. When the GH2 came out, a number of people complained about the high level of detail, claiming it was too sharp and less cinematic than the softer GH1. Equally I am sure when people watch The Hobbit for the first time they will be shocked at how un-cinematic it looks and how sharp and smooth and digital the image will be at 4K 48fps. Certainly that soft muddy 5D footage look is not the same as the film emulsion process and organic softness. The GH2 strikes me as a good chance to experiment with softening the image in post. Right now everyone is trying to get the sharpest image possible. It would be great to see some tests with different noise overlays and experimental softening techniques. Just don't try it with the 5D Mark III!!!! :D One of the things I love about anamorphic is that it softens detail, but doesn't decrease it.

[quote name='lafilm' timestamp='1343019784' post='14337'] [color=#0066cc]3rd test: Even more so. 1DX is bext full frame DSLR.[/color] [u][color=#0066cc][media]http://vimeo.com/46186716[/media][/color][/u] [/quote] Lovely shots by James but I really did have to squint to see the difference. Considering the 1D X is nearly double the price of the already rather pricey 5D Mark III, for that 1% difference in video quality you really have to be one of those people to whom $6500 is 'tiny'

Their site as in Sony's? That would be news :) Do you have a link? The last I heard was the rumour was incorrect but I may be wrong. I was told Photokina time for the full frame beast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTUQi8HBlg4&feature=player_embedded This film is the biggest folly in the history of cinema. And here is why... Cinema is not meant to be real, is meant to be an illusion of reality. An illusion of reality is more effective than actual reality. So to go and film all those fake beards and costumes and Hobbit holes and sound stages in glorious 4K 3D will give the feel of a live stage show, not a film. I'd go so far as to say that The Hobbit is not filmmaking any more. It is theatre with a camera crew. Nothing is implied, nothing is hidden, it is all on show. The made up world is laid bare for all too see - those cameras will capture the actual world in which the set is constructed, and the costumes made, and the makeup glistening in the artificial glare of a theatrical set of lights. What Peter Jackson is doing, is theatre and you will be watching a stage version. Just look at the set and costume design in the video above and tell me the illusion is going to stick when you film it in glorious 4K. It just won't. Especially not with that crazy fill lighting they have in every shot. I feel distraught. Perhaps I should have a sit down and a cup of tea.

[quote name='Shian Storm' timestamp='1343231245' post='14491'] I graded this, and I can assure you photoshop was not used. This was graded using ColorGHear Toolkit for After Effects. The skin smoothing effect is a feature in ColorGHear called GHrain Killer which can be used to reduce noise and/or smooth out skin detail depending on how you adjust the settings. In this case, because they were stills, I chose not to do any power windows or masks that would normally require a lot of tracking - just to kinda keep the grade honest and simple. As a result you can actually see the GHrain Killer reducing some of the detail on her jacket as well. Normally I would have tracked her face, and only applied the GK to her skin. [/quote] The grade was great. I preferred it to John's actually. The skin, the muted tones and a very classic movie look...

The only time rolling shutter has ever been a problem for me was on fast moving subway train going past the camera on the platform. If you are whipping the camera around handheld to such an extent as to evoke noticeable rolling shutter issues then just switch to a smaller chip camcorder for those shots, then back to the BMD or DSLR for the main stuff. A film with constant whip pans is not nice. It isn't really my cup of tea. I prefer locked down stuff or gentle, subtle handheld work.

I've tried adjusting contrast and gamma of luma, changing luma curve, changing highlight luma, adjusting the master RGB curve, changing all sorts of stuff and still cannot get the full range in Premiere from the native AVCHD. It definitely is an issue and it looks like 5DToRGB is a must-do step. I just wish there was a definitive fix. Maybe Mountain Lion update which I am downloading now will fix it? By the way... Problem doesn't go away in CS6 either!

Bringing this topic back up again. Thanks for your contribution guys. Is there a conclusion you can give us? This would be helpful, and reduce need for people to read the whole 5 pages. It needs summarising. This thread went very into the details. What is the consensus on a fix? Is 5DtoRGB transcode the only solution? I'm using 5DToRGB but need to avoid having so much ProRes, the disk space it uses is insane.

I think you do have a point jonjak2. However it is very early in the digital format, whilst film had been around for decades before the classic westerns, or especially Blade Runner and Seven. You are comparing a mature medium to a very new one. I agree that technical progress should not get in the way of a superior 'feel' to the image, and I myself am not a big fan of this ultra clean and sparkly HD image. But I still think that digital is much closer to film than people think. A hazier look, an anamorphic lens, older style lighting, less gloss, a softer image, the way it is screened and processed, grading, people, the DP, the director, cinema culture of the time, it is all responsible for giving the fabled Film Look. Digital feature films in this decade do indeed mostly have a certain look which I don't find as appealing as the classics. It is cleaner, it is more 'live feeling' and more glitzy. I just think the digital format itself is probably well down the list of overall mitigating factors, and I'm very happy with the look of a GH2 or FS100 paired with an anamorphic lens in reproducing some of that classic golden age of cinema appeal. The modern blockbusters are all almost universally turned up to 11 with less subtlety than before and less haze. Too often they look staged, and live. Certainly the Hobbit will be this way. But also I agree partly with Jeff (Gibbs) who I interviewed a couple of months ago [url="http://www.eoshd.com/content/8001/a-chat-with-filmmaker-jeff-gibbs-michael-moores-producer-on-bowling-for-columbine-fahrenheit-911"]http://www.eoshd.com...-fahrenheit-911[/url] ... That a clean digital look may evolve into something even more immersive than dated 35mm film, and that not all projects suit having grain and a rougher hazier look instilled in them.

OCT 18 no. OCT 19 - some, but not many lenses will fit. Ceicio does an adapter, I have it and it is very good but those lenses protrude so far back into the mount that they nearly all end up hitting the back of the adapter before reaching infinity. Carl Zeiss lenses - yes sure, ZE, ZF, ZA or older CY and M42 all fine...

CS6 can edit AVCHD natively but I have never tried a raw workflow mixed with AVCHD in it before. The GH2s are the safer bet for the moment. BMD is still an unknown quantity as it isn't in the wild yet but it does look very promising. Andy I have heard rumours about the rolling shutter. At one point John Brawley said it was no worse than any other camera in the price bracket, I guess he means 5D Mark II. I wonder...

I'll be reviewing it next week, one is on it's way to me now. The video is very capable on it and the sensor is actually quite large.

Good question. I prefer the FD 35mm F2. Just prefer the look. It is a subjective thing really. The slightly longer focal length does make a difference on the GH2, and makes for a shallower DOF at F2, when you want it. The minimum focus distance on it is also very good. And I prefer to pair 35mm with my anamorphic lenses like Iscorama, on APS-C and GH2, because 28mm is slightly too wide and my Iscorama begins to vignette too much. You might find the 35mm has less distortion too. The 28mm is a wide angle on full frame, the 35mm slightly less wide and so less challenging optically to get the distortion down.

I agree more competition would be healthy, to have all the major DSLR manufacturers in one country is ridiculous. I'm really surprised America and Europe don't have more of a presence in this technology field, like they do in consumer electronics with Apple, etc. It is great that Blackmagic are an Australian company. Japanese business culture is very conservative, and sometimes despite the best efforts of those amazing camera engineers, it shows!

Have you seen this guy Pol on the FB comments - his version of cinematography 'basics' is so narrow. It is an important point actually. As long as people understand how a shutter speed should be used and the affect it has on the image, it doesn't matter whether you think in terms of DSLR / photography shutter speeds or cinema camera shutter angle. 1/48 and 180 degrees are the same thing! [url="https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=499503160067106&id=163597790355306"]https://www.facebook...163597790355306[/url] "I cinematographer has to know how to expose light, nothing else". That's poppycock. A cinematographer who is merely a bag of knowledge with a tool is a operator, not an artist.