sanveer

Thanks largely to Andrew's original post, many people here already know that Shane Carruth shot 2013's excellent indie feature Upstream Color with a pair of hacked GH2s. At the time, aspiring filmmakers everywhere found inspiration that such a masterful film was created with such an accessible consumer camera. It still stands up today as a beautiful, challenging, thought-provoking film:
I just happened across some behind the scenes photos on Reddit posted almost a decade after the film's release. I've always wondered about the technical particulars of how this film was made and even though what was posted is pretty low-res and deteriorated further with early Instagram filters, it does show some pretty bare-bones camera rigs and a lot of natural light.
As I enter my forties and the dream of creating a meaningful narrative film in my lifetime seems to slip further and further out of reach, this is just the kind of inspirational kick in the pants that I needed. If 8-bit, 4:2:0 AVCHD from a Micro Four Thirds sensor was enough to create an immersive story like this in 2013, then the never-ending pursuit of marginally improved gear and software really is just a giant, capitalism-fueled distraction -- one that I know that I use to put off the very real possibility that when I buckle down to make something deeply personal, I might not have anything to say. But I also know that it will be my deepest regret if I never even try.
If there's one thing I've learned, it's that my own thoughts and ideas aren't particularly novel or unique, so maybe others on this board will connect with this too.

The photography is very distinctive. Very documentary-like.
The underwater shots totally without contrast. It must be a stylistic choice but the underwater ones are unwatchable.
 The BBC sleeps soundly
 
 

I really don't get the hype about phone cameras for cinema. No matter how you slice it, they are really expensive hard to use cameras for what they do. Like Kye broke down, the iPhone 15 can do an okay image at a basically fixed focal length and depth of field in bright light. Even with that, the image looks over sharp, and just weird in many cases. 
Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about the latest phone camera tech for personal use. The ability to pull my phone out of my pocket and get great photos and videos of my kids whenever I want is really nice. For that purpose, the quality looks great. But when it comes to shooting anything more serious, I could think of half a dozen cameras that are way cheaper, and would land you with much better looking, easier to capture, and more reliable results than a phone camera would. 
With an iPhone, how do you do a heavy handheld look? What do you do when the battery dies? How about overheating? Lowlight? Shallow depth of field? ND filters? Timecode? Audio? The list goes on and on...
It's basically the wrong tool for the job. It's like the latest hatchback advertising how much lumber you can stuff in the trunk for your latest construction project. It's great if you need it every once and a while, but if you do construction seriously, any old cheap pickup truck from the 1980s will do a much much better/easier job. 

Follow-up. After my earlier post I've determined the issue appears specific to the AAC audio codec, which is the codec utilized for all the lower bit-rate MP4 mode files. If I switch to LPCM the issue doesn't occur - LPCM is utilized for all of the higher bit-rate MOV mode files. Here's a new video comparing the two audio codecs:
 

On the whole, I thought that was really lacklustre to be honest and I'd say that, quite appropriately, he phoned that one in.
Ironically, that made it quite informative set against the slew of shock faced "OMG I can't believe I shot this cinematic masterpiece on a phone" videos on YouTube where a lot of production work has gone clearly in to them as this shows what you get out of one shooting in a more casual can't be arsed sort of manner.
I can think of far cheaper cameras than the £1299 the base model costs in the UK with which to get similarly meh results with that approach. 
It hasn't stopped the vast majority of commenters on it saying not only is the emperor not naked but he is wearing the finest of hand woven garments though, so I'm guessing they're seeing something different to me.
Filters seem to be this year's LUT packs don't they and this felt more about them than the camera.
 
 

On so many threads, I have to resist the temptation to just say "we should all just buy an FZ2000/2500 and get on with it" but its never far from my thoughts !
Again, its one of those where if they incorporated a couple of things like 10bit and PDAF into a newer version it might get a wider audience. Not bothered about the IBIS because the hybrid stabilisation in it is pretty great.
 

In the race to 8K, 12K, and beyond, how much resolution do we really need to tell a story? I brought my trusty FZ47 on a little New Year's trip to Arizona, and I think that 640x480 might just be enough:
Technical: I scaled up to 1920x1440 (no "smart" or AI rescaling). I did not add any sharpening or softening to the image, and I resisted the urge to clean up the digital artifacts and just embraced them instead. I did however do a little color work.
I was actually shocked by how good this footage looks, probably because it's progressive and not interlaced. I think I'd put this footage up against the DVX100, XL1/2, or comparable camera. And as we've seen in the 8-bit grading tests that @kye shared with us, it's kind of shocking how much you can push the image around in post (especially if you are either okay with some macro-blocking, or willing to soften/hide it). I think that's part of what makes this camera so much fun.
Is there a unique aesthetic afforded by this low resolution? I'm not sure. I've degraded 1080P footage to have a similar level of detail in the past. The compression artifacts are definitely smaller and easier to hide. But in full motion, I feel like they add a nice texture.

GH4 was the second dslm/r camera with 4K after the Canon 1DC afaik. And it was the first affordable one and approachable one with its 4K 100mbit codec.  First 4k dslr from Nikon must have been the D500 i think. @sanveer

Its curious. Panasonic has 2 Inexpensive Netflix Approved Lumix cameras, namely the BGH1 and Panasonic Lumix BS1H box cameras. Both are great for the price, even if they have a few minor hiccups (moiré, HDMI lag etc). Somehow they were meant to replace it's other cinema cameras, at a much lower price point. But that project didn't really take off, maybe mostly due to the modularity and the lack of great autofocus. 
Panasonic needs to have the G9ii, the S5ii and S5iix Netflix Approved. And ensure that they improve their marketing greatly. I feel ever since the GH4, which may have been the first 4k consumer camera (apart from some Nikon one), Panasonic hasn't marketed their 4k filmmaking cameras enough. They haven't communicated things properly to the right audiences, and their supply chain is still very off from Canon, Nikon and Sony.
All this while, Panasonic should have marketed their cameras as Indie Filmmaking Cameras, targetted at low budget film projects. They should have targeted film schools, film festivals and film contests online.
I also feel Panasonic needs to work with Sony, like Nikon and Fuji, to create a Prosumer Camera, that will address every issue with its Prosumer Cinema Lineup (mostly autofocus, even better lowlight, and more shooting frame rates and resolution options). And those two sensors should be in the majority of its M43 and Full Frame sensor, for atleast 3 years. 
 

The M1 is pretty amazing. I guess the issue is with the algorithms. Those need a lot more work than what is currently with them. 

I've quoted this before during the G9ii saga but, yes, its right there on the front page of the Micro Four Thirds association official website.

That was the point at which they changed from being "Alternative Music" to "An Alternative To Similar Types Of Music".
They went from being The Smiths to being Coldplay basically.
He is absolutely churning the content out at the moment for some reason.
If you went for this version of the Zfc you could live in both an under $1500 world and a Barbie world simultaneously.

I've been saying that for the past 40 years and I almost mean it now.

Hopefully this means a simplified and more unified product line. Looking at their fixed-lens camcorders the last few years, they would have one or two "prosumer" models that were 99% the same as one of the "professional" models; apparently this was done because the "prosumer" model was handled by the Lumix/consumer division, and the "professional" model was handled by the pro A/V division, and I guess both needed to show they had produced something. I think fewer, better models would work better. With the S5ii and G9ii sharing a body, maybe some consolidation is already happening.
I would assume that this means no EVA-1 replacement anytime soon, if the S1H replacement has the internal ND they patented a while ago.

Ok.
Andrew (who owns the forums) prefers that if people post links and videos that they also include other information as well, so that the forum is a place of discussions rather than just everyones bookmarks.
What was it about this project that inspired you?
How is this relevant to how you (or others here) might work?
What things can we all learn from it?

I have an M1 iMac; so, I don't have the latest and greatest, but does really well with FCPX. The problem is, after several hours of processing, I can't really tell much of a difference except for compression artifact in 4k. At least the M1 is super efficient. It does decently with aliasing (electrical wires in 1080p), but moiré is another beast apparently. In fact, I don't know any consumer software that fixes it. The biggest fix for moiré is more resolution out of camera (and even then, without a low pass filter you'll have some frequency with it).

Oh ok. That's very curious. I guess it means that the software isn't prepared for processing by the majority of hardware for higher resolutions. Its way too hardware intensive. It's strange that moirè (and other artefacts) aren't corrected too. It can't possibly be too complicated in algorithms to fix it. 

I have version 3.1.11. I have had excellent results deinterlacing and slightly upresing 540i 60fps footage to 1080p 60fps. However, when I take 4k or even 1080p footage and try to improve, it's almost never worth the energy (time and electricity). This software is still in its infancy- it doesn't even correct moiré- a major point.

Very Interesting tests. The image holds on pretty well. 
Has anyone worked on Topaz Labs' or other similar software. Maybe upressed 8-bit 4k to 8k, and then increased bit depth to 12-bit when downressed to 1080p. Or is that only exaggerated claims of improving image quality? 

Don't need to buy anything this year, I have more cameras than talent. Unless of course Blackmagic or Panasonic release an L mount 8K. That will help take my lack of talent to whole new levels and will be more clearly defined.

Unimaginable tech in an item that is so small.  I have no clue how people can be so smart to be able to design something like it.

Perhaps a more telling image:

I'm still impressed with the GX850/GX800/GF9. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is still the smallest 4k DSLM setup. It weighs a whopping 269g and 55g for the 14mm f/2.5 lens. Not bad for January 2017. Still waiting for any sort of a replacement.

Is there a new camera module?  The current camera module used by cinepi is imx477.  It doesn't matter how fancy the raspberry pi is that you connect it to, it's still only a 12 megapixel sensor.  If Sony have a 45 megapixel 1" sensor that can read out at 12 bits, it could be cool to see that in a Raspberry Pi camera.

Until then, you'd be a lot better off buying a used BMPCC4K - it costs a bit more, but it's a lot more usable as a camera... and I say that as a person who doesn't like any "pocket" cinema camera except for the very first one from like 10 years ago.
(Or for just. little bit more, a Sigma FP)

Official NDs filters
https://store.insta360.com/product/ace-pro-nd-filter-set?c=2649&from=accessory

For example motorsports (Cars, Buggy, etc) applications is where you want to disable digital stabilization and add ND filter. Nothing worse than stabilization correcting the car movements and lack of motion blur.

Inferior DR did you see a scientific test that measure the stops, if yes can you please post it as I'm curious.

You seem to be very knowledgeable but your examples that you post are not what I would call "action" so not sure that claiming that this is not an action cam feels right.

In between the avalanche of useless YT review there are some pieces that show the potential of the camera.

From what I could see so far:
Gopro 12
+ 10 bit log
+ MAX LENS MOD (this for POV makes a big difference)
+ integrated mounting
+ a bit lighter
+ replaceable lens
+ 2.7k 240
+ a bit better stabilization

Insta360 Ace Pro
+ overall, it seems a bit better image quality.
+ low light
+ 2x "lossless crop"
+ 8k 24 (wish was at least 25)
+ better software
+ stats from Apple Watch
+ HDR mode seems more usable.

In daylight it seems to me that the RS 1inch is still the best one and is now quite old. 

Thanks to you guys I don't click on YouTube links to consume 15 minutes of bad journalism. I'm deeply grateful.