Andrew Reid

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.

[img]http://www.eoshd.com/comments/uploads/inline/1/500f28edc4474_CONTINEO_BMC_11.jpg[/img] Form factor fixed :)

Considering what they are offering the world, I think I can wait patiently and not sit there moaning like some people I've seen start doing recently. What are you, a child!?

All that for $399? Wow. What is the follow focus like, working well with the FD?

[quote name='marcuswolschon' timestamp='1343153513' post='14431'] Is 180° still 1/48s if you are not filming with 24p? [/quote] Nope. That is why they use angles as the standard, because they speak a common language across different video standards.

Unlikely engineering related, the timing is probably not a coincidence in terms of publicity reasons though. I really do hope it is not finished and they will tidy it up. I don't mind paying more for a higher end Kipon if they do a good job. Would be a shame to waste these Japanese custom electronics on a poor build. Good luck to them! 1 eager customer waiting here.

[img]http://www.eoshd.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/blackmagic-cinema-camera-on-show.jpg[/img] For DSLR users thinking of moving up to the Blackmagic Cinema Camera here's a guide to the biggest differences between a DSLR and an actual cinema camera.

Kipon's quality is below Metabones in my experience and they need to hide the wiring looms for final product, but if appropriately stocked and priced it could be a very useful adapter for GH2 owners until Metabones builds a better one :)

Hey Dan is there a better way of getting some clips to me? The KineRaw server really crawls in Berlin!! I'm getting 4.3kb per second on a line capable of 900kb and the download times out so it is basically impossible for me to grab the footage and write a blog about it. I can set up up with FTP access to my server if you can upload them to here. Cheers!

Tony really does have a bunch if Iscoramas and very good ones at that. Have a look.

[quote name='jonjak2' timestamp='1343119715' post='14400']We'll see if digital mimics all the imperfections of film in the future. Honestly, i'm not convinced, the cameras haven't been going in that direction so far, but lets see.[/quote] You can mimic the imperfections of film in post. The problem is not that the cameras are too clinical, it is that the Hollywood people are taking all the imperfections out of their images, giving us stuff which is too glossy, to commercial, too clean. This will get even worse after The Hobbit and 4K 48p. I remain to be convinced by the artistic merit of that as well. We shall see...

Great article. Very educational. Didn't even realise Phantom did 1,300fps in 2.35:1 2K mode, the highest I have seen from it has been 600fps. Agree with him that getting noticed and putting money into a production is more important than blowing it all on a $20k or even $100k camera. What is great about DSLRs is that you can invest more in the things that actually matter (and your lens family of course :) )

£850 for the pancake kit in the UK. That is more than I paid for my GH2 nearly 2 years ago, nearly as much as a high end mirrorless and nearly three times the price of an entry level NEX camera. The basic kit with the usual el cheapo 18-55mm is £769 and that doesn't include the EF adapter. There is no body only deal. US pricing is less in dollars(!), but the major retailers are not stocking it according to Canon, only more specialist stores and places like B&H.

[img]http://www.eoshd.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/canon-eos-m.jpg[/img] The Canon T4i in a smaller box Where do they get this kind of innovation from? Combine the controls of a compact with the guts of a T4i, to make a camera that is too dumbed down for enthusiasts and too expensive for casual snappers or your mum.