Axel

Yes, I have. These presets are just combinations of parameters every color correction software has built-in. And the 'look' is just applied as an effect, there is nothing genuine to it. When will we finally be freed from the urge to make such awful mock-ups?

You want a sophisticated look? Create it. Save combinations of filters you experimented with to your own, unprejudiced liking. Do it for a reason. Enhance the emotional impact of a scene. If you want it to taste special, never use spice blends!

http://vimeo.com/50865417

[color=#222222][font=Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif][size=4][background=rgb(255, 255, 255)][quote name='galenb' timestamp='1349202502' post='19327']P.S. I find it funny sometimes when people say that full frame cameras are more cinematic because of their larger sensors. I mean, it's true and all but actually a frame of film on a super 35 motion picture camera is actually closer in size to an APS-C sensors. So, with a FF camera you are actually getting a "Vistavision" frame.
[/quote][/background][/size][/font][/color]

While we type and read, a huge shift is underway. Digital cinema is growing up, and a change in perceiving the spirited images we call [i]film[/i] has already begun. Sunday I watched a doc in an arthouse cinema that was obviously shot mostly with DSLRs. Despite all efforts to mimic the analog 'world' (RIP), digital cinema, and 8-bit video in particular, never looks like [i]film[/i]. But I, a projectionst and almost an analog fundamentalist, found that I felt completely happy with the clean, videoish look, and that it did not weaken the impact of what was to be - er - [i]transported[/i]. If there [i]is[/i] something to be transported and not just the travesty of a look of the past. I say, let's stop comparing film to video. Perhaps we should eliminate the word film from our vocabulary and invent something else. Something that lets us love our stuff as it is, forget about stupid looks and start telling something. This can be great times for independent _ _ _ _makers.

I've been shooting with the RX100 for a couple weeks and would like to submit a few of my samples here:

Lowlight footage:
[url="https://vimeo.com/50587334"][media]http://vimeo.com/50587334[/media][/url]

Using the RX100 as a handheld "steadicam":
[media]http://vimeo.com/50493691[/media]

Chronicling the Hollywood nightlife with RX100:
[media]http://vimeo.com/49147544[/media]

In FCP X, there are no 'issues' with the GH2. You also won't need 5D2RGB. Just skim through the import-window with patience, in order not to crash the program by to hecticly hopping between AVCHD files, choose your desired clips, hit 'import' and leave the 'optimized media' preset at it's default (ProRes like with 5D2RGB). Then meticulously tag and rename the clips in the event browser, avoid too fast skimming movements between clips. Once you are finished, the selected clips have been transcoded in the background and you can create a project. With this workflow and disciplin you won't see the beachball even on slower macs and will be faster than with every other NLE.

[quote name='AaronChicago' timestamp='1347992108' post='18472']
This is hilariously awkward. Watch from 0:55. No applause, dead silence.

[url="https://vimeo.com/49672830#"]https://vimeo.com/49672830#[/url]
[/quote]

I was present backstage at a lot of such events. The presentation is worse than that of a new frying pan at a shopping mall. My English is not very good, but this comedian's English actually sounds as if he didn't know half the words he stutters by meaning. I don't get it. It's a billion dollar enterprise, they have made an amateurish promotion video, they prepared a very embarrassing show that could only have been rehearsed before anxious employees. An orgy of dilettantism! They should have studied Apple keynotes. [i]The only one who could ever teach me was the son of a preacherman[/i].

Did you hear Disney's true story about [i]The Lion King[/i]? All the original drafts showed lions in the jungle (that's why some parts still take place in the jungle to include the characters). Half year into the ongoing production a new minor employee joined the team. He said, hey guys, as far as I know, lions live in the savanna, never in the jungle. There were eighty people involved. Heads rolled. What's the moral of this?

Some are funny, some we're just fun:). This one was a test of Color Finesse grading and the Gh2 on a cloudy day:

http://vimeo.com/50270960

Check out my page if you so desire:)

[quote name='Axel' timestamp='1348066436' post='18592']
and is lured into the delusion that his grading skills will top those of the top engineers. It sounds promising for people who believe that by being more flexible in grading they will get a special kick.

[/quote]

I respectfully call [b]"[/b][b]BULLSHIT!"[/b] sir. BMC footage has been the easiest thing I've ever graded. Including DSLR stuff. It's riduculously simple to work with in Adobe Camera Raw.

If that scares you, use ProRes.... it's still better than 8 bit video.

Too short ;)

Lovely model Sucre d'Orge on a private show just for us... GH2 in action here with Voigtlander lenses 25mm & 50mm + Olympus 12mm. Lite Panel 1000 & 512, all handheld ! Enjoy !

Can't wait for the GH3 !!!

[media]http://vimeo.com/49556305[/media]

The review is invaluable for all who already bought the BMCC and for those who consider it for the future. You shouldn't underestimate the problems though. Somebody wrote (or did PB say it in the video?) the camera was [i]user friendly[/i]. Okay ...

[quote name='cameraboy' timestamp='1347003638' post='17498']
@markm
excellent observation ...
and surprise from BMD ...
[url="http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagiccinemacamera"]http://www.blackmagi...giccinemacamera[/url]
BMC with MTF ...
[/quote]

Now are the early buyers left out in the rain or can they swap ('[color=#333333][font='Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Geneva, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif][size=3][b]Now[/b] the Blackmagic Cinema Camera comes in two models')[/size][/font][/color]? My credo: Never buy the prototype!

[i]Dungeness[/i] may be beautifully shot, but honestly, these are [i]stills[/i], animated in a Ken Burns fashion by the Kessler (but very carefully). I do like PB, I don't want to sound like a 'hater', but am I the only one who would skip calendar shots in a vimeo playlist? Let alone endure them in a [i]cinema[/i]? Because this is what the camera is allegedly designed for. I have the imagination to tell how a real film [i]might[/i] look with the BMCC.

For me its about mood and themes, I like using music as a canvas, or an inception of an idea that is to spawn from the music. Letting music play and piecing a loose storyboard in my head depending on the mood of a track on my mp3, trying to connect the theme and plot into an understandable narrative or "path." My teacher always mentioned that it doesn't always have to start from a beginning, it can spawn from the ending, the middle, even as simple as a conversation at a dinning table. The point was to start a spark somewhere and then to try and fuel that spark into a flame to structure your story.

[quote name='kirk' timestamp='1346916312' post='17424']
My understanding of the ISO issue was that you'd better avoid the top line??? Or arrive from one step above?
[/quote]

That's what I do: When I wake up my GH2, it starts at ISO 1600. If I want i.e. 320, I go 1600→ 800 → 400 ↓320.

Did you dial down the saturation to -2?

And: I know I'll be getting stoned for that, but most of the colored-noise-issues simply don't show up with standard firmware.

[quote name='KarimNassar' timestamp='1345982928' post='16501']
Okay so here is a first test with anamorphic <3
[media]http://vimeo.com/48236294[/media]
[/quote]

The actual AR seems to be not 1:2,6, but 1:3, should look like this:
[img]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/57198583/screenshot.jpg[/img]Needs to be squeezed more.

Your two clips above are fantastic.

[quote name='bwhitz' timestamp='1346576004' post='17141']Smoke and mirrors. People just want to get paid to play with big toys that other people can't afford.
[/quote]


[left]Fundamental truth. Male brain stem. Threads like this (and the whole technical gadgets affairs) are more fueled by testosterone than by economical reason or technical needs (EDIT: You see that what you say about 'the people' tells a lot about yourself. Like in [font="Arial, Verdana, sans-serif"][color="#000000"][i]what I myself do think or do is what I expect of others too[/i], german proverb. [/color][/font]It's a mechanism called 'projection', which is my domain, but really in a technical sense ;) ).[/left]

However, on a commercial film set (no matter if it's a film with Diane Keaton or if the director is a woman), you have at least four people responsible for the image: DoP, operator(s), lighting technician(s), focus puller(s), a few hundred dollars more or less for gear rentals simply don't count much.

Why do we compare an Alexa to the cameras we can afford? Masochism? Penis envy? A sober calculation whether our finished feature might be rejected by the distributors because of some far-fetched color-issue? Are we indies or what?

[quote][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]But if both the cameras (GH2 and 5D3) were priced equal - theorically - which one would you prefer QuickHitRecord?[/font][/color][/quote]

Priced equally? I may catch hell for this on these boards, but I'd go with the 5Diii. It is not a camera that I am excited about, but it is pretty stable. No banding (that I have seen), better low-light, built-in headphone jack. The fewer camera quirks and shortcomings, the more attention that I can pay to actually shooting.

But the fact remains, they aren't priced anywhere near the same and I do have high hopes for the GH3.

[quote name='Xiong' timestamp='1346485280' post='17077']Lets say we don't have alot of gear, only a few lights, simple boom mic to H4N. Its fine when we're in a controlled set/environment, but if we try to move to say a parking garage? Or an office building with bad yellow florescent light? Wouldn't we want to shoot in RAW? Where we have the option to try and fix these issues?

[/quote]

[quote name='EOSHD' timestamp='1346503849' post='17090']
Indeed, a large production would spend a lot more than they spend on post, to fix issues with a location and lights.

We, the ones who are smart and think differently, will be able to do a lot of that in raw now.
[/quote]

When part 2 of the Zacuto shootout was discussed, everybody agreed with the conclusion that 'forgiving' greater capabilities of high end cameras lost against conscientious lighting and clever planning. This is not rendered invalid by an affordable raw camera. With photos, I admittedly use the raw format in the same sense. There is a temptation to do a sloppy job, because almost everything can be fixed in post.

Or so it seems. As a longtime analog photographer and professional darkroom laboratory worker (sounds awkward, from german), I know that 'raw' (undeveloped emulsion) actually came long before Jpeg. Digital imagery are historically the first instances of baked-in compression, and I always scoff at the post-deniers who consider themselves better pros.

The point is that the goal of it all is a better image and that you will fail if you believe that a 'forgiving' codec will get you there. In the end, decisions have to be made as to how much the colors should deviate from average, natural looking values to creatively change the mood or express something. I suspect that many who welcome raw for making their lives [i]easier[/i] will just botch around and compensate for being too shirt-sleeved. Raw needs the same care during shooting as any other format to lead to good results. And the post is actually most demanding.

Hello everyone, I first heard of the gh2 and anamorphic lenses on this blog and I got curious.

After reading and reading I finally decided to take the leap and ordered one.

Although I'm not new to images from my post-production trade I am new to film making and it's fascinating.

I'll share the videos of my journey in this thread, there is a complete rundown of each vid on vimeo if you are interested.

I should get my anamorphic clamps and diopter next week, can't wait to get them and finally try my anamorphic lens! :)

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts thanks

http://vimeo.com/46627432

http://vimeo.com/46683852

Hey everyone, just wanted to post a link to my website

www.seekingheartwood.com

I've spent the past 21 months on the road shooting this doc with a hacked GH2, AF100, HMC150, and a little Gopro thrown in.

On the main page you'll see a video for my Kickstarter campaign. I used the AF100 for the main cam with a 50mm old zeiss lens, and the b-cam was the GH2 with vanilla eoshd hack and an old 90mm vivitar series 1 lens.

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5ngqj0Rwjk"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5ngqj0Rwjk[/url]

thanks!

These are not exactly new "problems". Stu Maschwitz describes the limiting of values (that is cutting off blacks and whites) in his [i]DV Rebel[/i], and for DV, hence the name. I didn't understand why, it has to do with broadcast safety or what have you.The "fix" is quite simple: In your NLE (not limited to Premiere or FCP) open the luma waveform monitor. This should have a y-axis from 0 to 100. Lower the highlights until they all are crumbled under the "100"-line (some of them will go to 110 or so) and you'll get better defined whites, raise the shadows to "0", but not higher or you will get fog. Do all this with 32-bit floating point precision.
[color=#ff0000]Premiere[/color] shows you the quality of any filter as an icon right to the filter's name in the list, it is something like a folder with "32" in the middle. The [i]fast color corrector[/i] i.e. has it. Never use just one effect without the 32bit-icon!
[color=#ff0000]FCP7[/color] does [i]not[/i] show you if a filter uses 8-bit or 32-bit. There is this [url="http://documentation.apple.com/en/finalcutpro/usermanual/index.html#chapter=65%26section=2%26tasks=true"]list[/url], however, and there you see the little ¹ that indicates 32-bit-filters, the Color-Correctors are among them. As you can see, there are also many, many effects without 32-bit rendering. Don't use them. Let these things be done by Motion (where you change the bit depths in the projects properties, as in After Effects).
In [color=#ff0000]FCP X[/color] grading is not only completely done with highest precision, it is also no longer an effect, but just the always available [i]info[/i] of the clip - just never, never, never use the secret analyzing, auto-balancing and autocorrecting method FCP X offers you when you import media!

I tried the different settings of 5D2RGB, I tried ordinary Quicktime (did you know, that there is no gammashift in Quicktime anymore since Lion?), I tried .mov (7D) and .mts (GH2) as originals in Premiere, and I didn't find any permanent damage to the footage with any of the methods - as long as you do the contrast balancing described above manually and don't just hit [i]auto balance[/i].

5D2RGB is useful though for FCP X, because you may not have Cinema Tools, that allowed you to flag a clip with a different frame rate (within Premiere you right-click >[i]interpret footage[/i] and change the frame rate). During transcoding 5D2RGB can change 60p to 23,98p or whatever

.EDIT: My friend says, if you work for television, you are not to twiddle with the settings. Broadcast safe values were there for a reason.

[color=#222222][font=Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif][size=4][background=rgb(255, 255, 255)]I'm curious as to why so many people think that an affordable larger sensor RAW camera from BMD or anyone else is just around the corner.
The BMCC seemed at NAB to be an incredibly disruptive and innovative product. It took BMD a lot longer than they initially anticipated to get the product out the door. Then there's the super 35 sensor Kineraw, which has some of the same limitations as the BMCC (like no overcranking at full resolution, though it does support up to 720p60) but costs twice the price.
So why do people talk like it's easy to crank one of these things out and the sub $3K RAW camera we've all been waiting for will be out in a matter of months? Sony and Canon have not shown themselves to be nearly that nimble, and I think it will be a number of years before Blackmagic can put out another camera. [/background][/size][/font][/color]
[font=Helvetica Neue]I'm sure in a few years there'll be a great super 35 RAW camera at an accessible price point, with all the features we've been asking for like higher frame rates, but there comes a point where one has to stop waiting and make the most of what's available now. With the inclusion of DaVinci Resolve and Ultrascopes, I think the BMC offers a value proposition that we won't see bettered for a good while to come.[/font]

[quote name='vincegortho' timestamp='1345918601' post='16474']
So the GH3 is staying micro 4/3 sensor size then?
I ask because, so many people gave panasonic grief about it's small sensor size.[/quote]

Because extreme shallow dof was fashionable. I hope that MFT will survive, because it is a very smart compromise:

• the sensor size allows for lens resolutions as close as they can get to be covered by actual pixels for HD video without line-skipping. Bigger sensors don't.
• practically all bigger mounts can be adapted, but not vice versa.
• the mechanics of DSLRs with their clumsy, loud shutter mirror, perishing fast, will soon be realized as hoary relic. EVF and LCDs are getting brighter and sharper with every generation, and they show >focus, >exposure [i]and[/i] >color temperature (which mirrors can't). If you replace the shutter, the camera can be much, much smaller and lighter, provided that the lenses as well are small and light.
• the fastest lenses for full frame may be f1.2. If they are good, they are very expensive. The famous Noktons are with f.95 one full stop faster. They compensate fully for the 2:1 crop ratio ...
• ... if [i]extreme[/i] shallow dof is desirable any longer in the first place. You see it everywhere, I feel it starts getting old.
• The BMCC has an even bigger crop. Who knows? Perhaps MFT also will be adapted to the Blackmagic.

Let me quote those last words:

[quote name='Coppola']

[font=Helvetica][size=3]... for once the so-called professionalism about movies will be destroyed forever and it will become an art form.[/size][/font]
[/quote]

He is not talking about any technical issue. What he predicted became reality at once. With Super 8 cameras and later home video. There were artists, driven by the need to express themselves, who took these simple, so called 'unprofessional' means without glancing at what 'the industry' did with their millions.

To an artist, the comparison of consumer cameras to professional cameras is of little interest. [i]Ars gratia artis[/i] (pompous MGM phrase). A real indie doesn't need comparison. If I have to say something, I don't care about if it meets technical specs. If all I want to do is identify myself with the achievements of others, I am pretentious:


[quote name='Coppola']

[font=Helvetica][size=3]Nothing is so terrible as a pretentious movie[/size][/font]
[/quote]

BTW: Great film, I prefer the original cut. One good argument for the use of true anamorphic lenses:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078788/technical

You see the typical lens flares and the funny looking focus transitions very often. What you also see in the specs: Shot in 35 mm, but published in 70 mm. Nobody ever complained about inappropriately low resolution ...

Let me quote those last words:

[quote name='Coppola']

[font=Helvetica][size=3]... for once the so-called professionalism about movies will be destroyed forever and it will become an art form.[/size][/font]
[/quote]

He is not talking about any technical issue. What he predicted became reality at once. With Super 8 cameras and later home video. There were artists, driven by the need to express themselves, who took these simple, so called 'unprofessional' means without glancing at what 'the industry' did with their millions.

To an artist, the comparison of consumer cameras to professional cameras is of little interest. [i]Ars gratia artis[/i] (pompous MGM phrase). A real indie doesn't need comparison. If I have to say something, I don't care about if it meets technical specs. If all I want to do is identify myself with the achievements of others, I am pretentious:


[quote name='Coppola']

[font=Helvetica][size=3]Nothing is so terrible as a pretentious movie[/size][/font]
[/quote]

BTW: Great film, I prefer the original cut. One good argument for the use of true anamorphic lenses:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078788/technical

You see the typical lens flares and the funny looking focus transitions very often. What you also see in the specs: Shot in 35 mm, but published in 70 mm. Nobody ever complained about inappropriately low resolution ...

[quote name='EOSHD' timestamp='1344776311' post='15393']By the way it isn't so much 24p at 24Mbit which is the problem on the FS100 but 60p at 28Mbit, because bitrate is allocated variably per frame. The more frames the more the available data is thinly spread across them.
[/quote]

That's not correct. With Mpeg4, practically all redundant data over time are reduced. The lower the frame rates, the more radically the content alters from frame to frame, so you'd have less redundant information and need higher bit rates. For 120 fps, you'd need about 30 mbps. Ever did stop motion animation? You only draw the changes, and what changes between two frames of 48 fps is a fraction of what changes between two frames in 24 fps in the first place. In hand-drawn animation, you'd simply draw a few motion blurred objects connecting the key frames, no matter how many phases the frame rate actually demanded.

What about camera movement, when [i]every[/i] pixel has changed position in the next frame? That used to be my argument, but the engineers' answer is: If the position changing is predictable, it is a classic motion path, which doesn't even need particularly high bit rates. If it is chaotic ("stressing the codec"), the encoder tends to simplify the details, which by their nature then cannot be recognized as details by the human eyes.

Noise, though not detail, is not only redundant. We perceive noise subconsciously as a natural phenomenon. Watch the shadows below your desk in the evening. Are they dead?

That's why too low bit rates are a problem - at any frame rate: They iron out the random noise. With 60p you [i]always[/i] see this effect, with or without interframe. That's because you have more than twice the temporal resolution. 24p is a very effective way of temporal compression. As little as possible, as much as needed.