Bruno

I wouldn't be surprised really, but some reports also say they want the 70D to go back to the prosumer segment, with a better feature set than the cheapest models. I guess we'll see next week or so, I don't really care, personally I want to see what the 7D will bring.

If they're stepping up their game, it will happen with the 7D2, not with the consumer cameras, though the 70D could also show some significant improvements.

 

I'll eat this blog, eat it whole if the 100D's 'new sensor' gives us a significant improvement...

 

Notice that I said 70D, not 700D or 100D. I also said I wouldn't expect such improvements with consumer level cameras :)

http://***URL removed***/previews/canon-eos-700d-rebel-t5i/2

 

I'm curious at the MJPEG video codec, did other Canon cameras have that before?

 

DPreview seems to believe they're using the same old 18mp sensor, makes me wonder what's Canon's definition of the word "new"...

I'll eat this blog, eat it whole if the 100D's 'new sensor' gives us a significant improvement...

 

"Significant" is a very vague word... :)

Then again, I'm not even sure the sensor is indeed new, but they do say so, and if so, improvements could be in line with the improvements between the 5D2 and the 5D3, not day and night, but definitely improvements when it comes to low light performance, and even video.

 

They haven't improved their sensors in 10 years.

 

That might be a bit of a stretch... :)

 

2003: Canon 300D, 6.3mp, Top sensitivity: 1600 ISO, 3072 x 2048 RAW, No video

2013: Canon 700D/T5i, 18mp, Top sensitivity: 2500 ISO, 5185x2912 RAW, 1080p Video

Are we betting on this? Cos I do like a dead cert... ;)

 

I'm not betting on anything :)

 

They did use the same sensor on about every single APS-C camera they released over the course of 3 years or something, but they never claimed it was a new sensor, and this time they did.

 

I have no doubt Canon could produce a much better 18mp sensor these days if they wanted to, do you?

 

Obviously this doesn't mean they have, but I don't like jumping to conclusions, good or bad, based solely on press releases.

I think we should wait for tests to reach any conclusions, they do say it's a new sensor, and that could make a huge difference. Any way, these are all low end consumer cameras, which have shorter life cycles and are updated at least once a year, even if there's nothing new.

I do think it makes sense to have a smaller DSLR in their line up too.

If they're stepping up their game, it will happen with the 7D2, not with the consumer cameras, though the 70D could also show some significant improvements.

There's something I learned from back when I used to work in print. Most gradients would have some sort of banding when printed, even perfect computer generated ones, and the solution to that problem was to add a bit of noise to the images.

 

You could try adding film grain, you can find authentic 35mm film scans free on the internet, that you can overlay on top of your footage, and it will probably help disguising the banding issues.

Even though western civilization marketing campaigns consist entirely of Hollywood blockbusters, there's still way more independent and art house films than there are blockbusters, by a huge margin, so there's no need to worry really. :)

 

I'd be happy with one of these every year, but it might be asking for too much!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ngxn9NzLzs

That looked great man, good job!

A lot of these analyses assume that the world of film is going one way: to VFX driven pieces.

 

I didn't want to assume or imply that at all, but we're talking about the problems faced by the large VFX facilities, and those are directly related to their work in large VFX movies.

 

I'm all up for non VFX movies, I'm not a fan of VFX movies just for the sake it, I've actually worked on a few "big" movies that I haven't even watched and probably never will, but today with the digital age we're bound to have digital post work done to every single frame of a film, regardless of its scale, so it's good for everyone if this industry and these post facilities are running smoothly.

 

The large VFX facilities live off large VFX blockbuster work, but they always have a few smaller film projects going on the side, usually at cost, to establish relationships with directors, etc. We can't ignore the importance of large commercial films in keeping this industry running, it would be much harder for independent art house films to succeed without the infrastructures created maintained by the big guys.

 

Look at Duncan Jones' Moon for instance, it was made for a ridiculously low budget and yet it was shot at the same studio as some large blockbusters and had VFX done by one of the large VFX companies in London. Without those infrastructures it would have been impossible to make with that budget, but they cleverly used everyone's downtime periods to their advantage.

The tension between DOPs and VFX Supervisors has been heating up for the past decade as Hollywood shifted more into more blockbusters with movies like Spider-man, Matrix, LOTR, 300, Avatar increasingly inviting VFX supes to come in and take over the duty creating the "look and feel" of shots, sequences and whole sections of the movies from DOPs, who are understandably getting pissed for being pushed out of the creative process.

DOPs will either have to accept that they are not as important to the process as before, or evolve their creative control into the post production because their purely photographic skills are not enough to deliver beautiful cinematography anymore.

 

They both have their places, but the process has changed and they've been slow to adapt.

 

All the work done by post facilities was usually handled by the VFX Supervisor, and that's what everyone expected from them, including directors and producers, however the role of the VFX facilities has grown a lot lately, not only in the scale of the projects but in how early they get involved in the process. Lately VFX facilities design action sequences from the ground up, while main unit hasn't even began scouting for locations, and during this stage it's all about shots and filmmaking, it makes all the sense to have the DP involved, and it's not even about lighting yet...

 

Recently I've seen DPs getting more involved with tasks such as previs, and the VFX sups staying away in order to focus in the visual effects side of things, which is what they should be doing really.

cant unlock the one second limit with some hack?

It's a hardware limitation, it stops when the memory buffer fills up. Using a larger memory module should help, but I doubt it's easy or even possible to replace it, and even then who knows if the camera would recognize it and still work?

Also, let's say you could increase it by 20x, making it shoot 20 second clips, the saving time would also increase, so for every 20 second clip the camera would be unusable for almost half an hour... hardly appealing.

Come on guys, does it really need to get this low?

That's why I avoid talking about my personal work here, even if that makes many in here think I never did anything and all I do is speak out of my ass.

This is mostly a camera and technical forum, and still things heat up enough when talking about $1000 dollar cameras, so let's not expand the discussions to our own personal work, since that tends to get more personal and emotional, unless it's constructive criticism (which is often already quite hard to digest).

in filmmaking there's a process of pre-production, production, and then post. I assume PI was just completely post and no camera involvement or lighting. I see. He wasn't ''there.'' I'm not the one being comedic.

Saying that VFX companies do the post work these days is very inaccurate. They're involved since day one, bidding based on the screenplay (and possibly affecting it) and doing previs and designing VFX and action sequences before they're even shot. I know this because like Sean I've also worked on VFX. I've been involved in projects where we started designing sequences even before there was a cast or even a DP attached. There's a huge lack of understanding regarding VFX from everyone else in and out of the film industry, and that's why the VFX artists had enough and are now trying to gain momentum in order to impove things.

most of you talk about cinematography as if you're ASC but let's be real...c'mon...let's be real...

Ever thought there's a remote chance some of the people here might actually know what they're talking about?

The Chemex Coffee clip, towards the end shows how timing of the edits can also be a problem. Cuts create a herky jerky pace that doesn't flow with the composition, because they should be extended just a little bit longer. Anything less than steady is amplified by the quick pacing. So here we see good work stifled by the camera.

 

It's true, wide shots usually take more time to "read" than closeups, and keeping a steady pace doesn't necessarily mean cutting all the shots with the exact same duration.

I find it funny when people defend Claudio Miranda saying that it's hard to light a green screen evenly :D

 

I haven't seen any DP lighting a green screen actually, it's usually set up by the technicians who put it up or lighting assistants, maybe 2nd or 3rd unit DPs in some cases. And I also have seen very few evenly lit green screens, if lighting a green screen deserves an oscar then maybe they should add an oscar category for roto artists too, who get all the crappy work because they couldn't be bothered to light the green screens properly.

 

And yes, most DPs are barely involved during post, maybe they're called at the end for the DI process, but that's it. Most of the shot composition, lighting and look of full CG shots/sequences has no involvement from the DP whatsoever.

 

I don't blame Claudio Miranda though, it wasn't his decision after all, if they had given it to me I probably would have taken it too! :)

Yeah, a 7Dmk2 with similar (or better) quality to the 5D3 and 50/60fps would do it for me. 

I prefer APS-C to full frame when shooting video, but if Canon would add an APS-C crop mode to the 5D3 it could change my mind :)

I feel like this is still a requirement for film students in many places.

 

Nowadays it's really a pain in the ass to develop super-8 film these days, and unfortunately most schools that used to use 16mm are now using Canon 7D cameras. Dark times for film...

I don't think he's skeptic about digital, it might not be his personal preference, but he sides with Anthony Dod Mantle in that article, who has been shooting on digital since the Dogma movement's first days. He's die hard about having artistic control and no studio interference, which is different, and he's awesome!

 

I recommend the documentary/TV documentary "In the mood for Doyle" if you guys haven't seen it.

Yes, anything from the 550D to the 60D to the 7D will give you the "Canon look", but also the nasty anti aliasing, let's see what this year brings... 

Looks very promising, great job!

Some people I notice are not quite getting the 1 second thing - yeah it is a very small amount of run-time but that is the beauty of it. It gives your work a theme. I already have sequences in mind that will be lucid flashes of a day, cut together - it is all in the cutting and editing. The way you sequence the clips will form your narrative, rather than letting each clip play out on its own. This is an interesting style of filmmaking.

 

It's definitely interesting, it's also a kind of a one trick pony, and quite limited, but yes, could produce interesting results.

 

The 1 second thing doesn't give your work a theme, it gives it a timing and pacing constraint, or a gimmick if you will, very different things.

 

Technical limitations can be a great way to fuel creative ideas and solutions, and I'm sure something very interesting could be done with this camera, but then again, once you define your film conceptually, you might as well shoot it with a better camera, if the final result is well thought out and well done, it's not the raw and 4k that will make a difference.

 

The Aranofsky example is not appropriate though, those clips were taken out of longer takes, editing a film with very quick cuts is not the same as editing a film shot with very short takes. The more coverage you have, the more you'll have to work with during editing so you can sculpt your final piece (some say films are made in the editing room), and in this case you might miss out on the best second in front of you, because you just couldn't know at the time, and the camera happened to be buffering when the magic really happened.

 

I made a Super-8 short years ago for a competition/festival where all the editing had to be done in camera, and we had to deliver an unprocessed Super-8 roll, it definitely makes you think a lot about what you're doing, but after you do think about it, if it's a story you think is really worth telling well, why limit yourself and stick to the gimmick?

 

It's great that a technical aspect or limitation fueled your creative juices, but in the end the creative side should win over the technical aspects, and drive the entire production, and I see no reason for you to go out and shoot a great idea with a lesser camera, just because that camera is the gimmick that sparked the idea in the first place.

 

If it's just an exercise it doesn't really matter, whatever will do, but if you're talking about relevant filmmaking and storytelling, and you have a BMCC lying around, why would you impose such restrictions on your art?

Next, I exported all of the frames as JPEGs into another folder and loaded all of those shots into a little few dollar time-lapse making app.  Set the output video to be 24/25/30/etc. fps.

 

Most video editing apps can import those image sequences as video files, saving you the additional conversion step. Quicktime Player does it too.

Would it work if you import those images into Photoshop as an image sequence and then export them as a Quicktime movie?
People tend to forget that Photoshop edits video too.