richg101

for typical scenes in outdoors bright daylight with dark shadows:-
set your ev dial to +2 then use the histogram.  If you're not sure what the histogram should look like for correct s-log2 exposure just set the camera to auto mode and see what settings it wants for a +2 exposure.  then you know roughly how to set the camera up and how the histogram should look.  
for fool proof exposure just use a +2 setting on your ev dial and auto shutter.  use a variable ND to keep your shutter as close to 1/50th as you can
 
if you're not shooting in these conditions switch to another picture profile.  a cine profile will be more preferable for low light where less priority is given on maintaing highlights of light sources etc.
 
for easiest exposure, I am a fan of cine4.  this was shot with the ev dial at -1.0
 

what a stunning lens!  20mm/1.4 full frame !  madness.  beautiful test images too.  on my want list!!!

Your 24-70 lens WILL NOT match the resolving capabilities of the samsung lens.  It just won't.  The 24-70 will have been designed with an approximate 30lp/mm onto a full frame sensor.
 
full frame capability of the lens 30linesx2pairs x 36mm(sensor width) = 2160pixels (wide) optical resolution onto full frame
apsc capability of the lens 30x2pairs x 24mm = 1440pixels (wide) = not even full hd resolution
Add to this that the lens is marketed as a digital and film lens meaning it's not optimised for either, its a middle ground.  It was also developed before 35mm sensors were any greater than 4mpx.  It's old technology.  Red strip or not, it aint a stellar lens by modern standards
The samsung will likely have been designed to 60lp/mm meaning for the same image area 60x2 x 24mm = 2880pixels wide.  immediately the lens is delivering 2x the optical resolution onto the same image width, and 4x the optical resolution onto the total area - That's a big difference.  The samsung will have been developed to cater to the 28mpx sensor of the nx1 - some of the most tightly packed pixels on any sensor yet.  It'll also have been designed specifically to be APO corrected for the thickness of the sensor cover glass.  
 
I'm not saying the A7R2 matches the overall res of the nx1 - it's clear the nx1 is doing great things.  but when attempting such a test you should always use the same lens, or at the very least, if one camera is being used with a lens optimised for it, both lenses should are optimised for each camera.
 
I'm pretty certain that if you;d used the 55mm/1.8 on the a7r2 the results would be closer.  
  
 
 

When you factor in how much of the total cost outlay is dedicated to stills performance; and how much of the video functions have been crippled (compared to an ursa mini, a kine terra, an fs700 etc video camera, or the 1dc for that matter - canon's prehistoric sensor tech needs all the help it can get when we're talking about DR, and without c-log this camera is not going to deliver the goods that the 1dc does; you have to factor in the performance in stills mode.  Anyone buying this brand new for video alone - instead of looking at a preowned 1dc, c300mk1 or c100mk2 is mad.  

The DPreview tests back up everything Andrew has said here...  Journalism is all about presenting information in a concise package.  DPReview's article is plagued with positivity - if they're not positive they don't get advertising revenue or free cameras sent early.  Andrews article simply points out and opens conversation regarding the less positive facts that are almost avoided by dpreview to best play political ball - brushing under the carpet hastily the fact that the 1dxii doesn't improve upon - infact based on the tests can;t even compete technically against a 4year old predecessor.
 
I like the article because it's brought to light that from a stills point of view my investment in an A7Rii was a good one and from what I'm seeing here canon won't offer anything that will compete for at least a few years.  

The DPreview tests back up everything Andrew has said here...  Journalism is all about presenting information in a concise package.  DPReview's article is plagued with positivity - if they're not positive they don't get advertising revenue or free cameras sent early.  Andrews article simply points out and opens conversation regarding the less positive facts that are almost avoided by dpreview to best play political ball - brushing under the carpet hastily the fact that the 1dxii doesn't improve upon - infact based on the tests can;t even compete technically against a 4year old predecessor.
 
I like the article because it's brought to light that from a stills point of view my investment in an A7Rii was a good one and from what I'm seeing here canon won't offer anything that will compete for at least a few years.  

I have a post-fix for that. 
http://www.bmcuser.com/showthread.php?16955-BMD-rep-tells-me-my-Micro-Cinema-Camera-has-FPN-Should-I-send-it-in&p=208317&viewfull=1#post208317

Has Canon moved on from 2012's flagship?
The results of DPReview's studio test scene might surprise you.
Read the full blog post

Nope.  It will adapt 'some' pl mount lenses to eos.  sadly very few PL lenses people actually wanna use will adapt to eos.  a few zooms, that's about it.

give the crew a $60k budget to shoot, and a $20k budget to pay for the edit/post for a promo video for the nex5n and the results would be just as awe inspiring.  The level of production value on this video makes it impossible to judge the camera because in real instances with these budgets they'd just add another $2k for the rental of an Alexa Mini for the couple of days of shooting.     $80k for 8bit acquisition and a lens mount incapable of using real cinema lenses, or $82k for arriraw acquisition and the ability to use cooke s4's..  
Nothing more annoying than consumer advertising techniques selling a dream to people that they'll be using a dslr to shoot these types of projects.

Sony A7Rii / Sony A7S
Neutral creative style, sharpening dialled down to -3, contrast dialled down to -3, saturation boosted +1  
Auto White Balance with 2 points downwards (towards magenta) on the wb adjustment.  (important to allow awb enough time to adjust before hitting record)
0.0EV on the camera ev meter (multi mode exposure meter).  No matter what the scene is the highlights are always recoverable.
 
 
Premiere cc - use only 32bit effects.
 
import footage into 4k timeline (even if footage is lower than 4k) - scale up if required
apply ProcAmp - brightness -8, contrast +16, saturation +25 - allows easier visibility for curves adjustment below:-
RGB Curves - start on red.  lower or raise midtones until happy with overall hue.  adjust highlights and shadows to compensate for over warm darks/highlights.  move to green and adjust, move to blue and adjust.
Apply unsharp mask (1.4px) while viewing at 100%.  adjust until it starts looking graggy.  back off to half the amount it took to get graggy.
apply and overlay of film grain or monochromatic  noise (higher res than the footage).  adjust so it matches the prominence of the footage noise in the shadows, but finer due to the higher resolution than the actual footage. - tweek contrast/brightness of noise with procamp until it sits on the footage without affecting perceived contrast or shadow levels.
Nest everything.  then apply unsharp mask at 1px as before - this glues the grain and the footage together and creates the perception that the actual footage was aqcuired at a higher res than it is.  it also provides fine detail for vimeo and youtube to bite into and retain during their compression
 
export at 2560x1440 or 4k at a very high bitrate, 2pass, h264.  100mbs target, 200mbs max - as high as I can before reaching maximum upload limit.
 
upload to vimeo.  
 
delete big file knowing I can retrieve the original from vimeo at a later date if required.
 
drag project files into external drive for future, freeing up SSD system drive..
 
 
    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I assumed correctly they shot this on L series.  and it looks like also the L series 'cine' versions.  It's not the camera that makes this feel the polar opposite of the look of No Country for Old Men.  It's the glass.  If they'd had cooke s4's on the front of the 1dxmk2 i imagine the image would look like a real movie.  The fact that they can be in just about the most filmic location I can imagine and it still feel like a dslr shoot is because of the lenses.  
Canon glass = photo journalist snapping a criminal after his day in court 
Cooke glass = Hollywood.
Shame Canon stick with their EF mount and stop people using real lenses.  If you want it to look filmic you need filmic glass.  An Alexa mini with an EF mount and L lenses looks just as non filmic

actually of all the modern offerings the loxia are definitely my favourites.  If I had the cash I'd be all over them!  The problem with modern lenses is that they all seem to be over contrasty meaning they don;t render things like skintones quite as nicely as older lenses IMO.
TBH, it might be that correct use of diffusers and netting might make canon L series more appealing to my eye, but the fact remains is that the lenses have been used extensively in non cinematic environments to the point where they impart a non cinematic look.  It's like the opposite of panavision lenses.  if you take stills with a panavision c-series lens the still looks like a frame from a movie.  when you shoot a movie with an L series lens it's like a series of still images taken by a newspaper photographer.  
 

I assumed correctly they shot this on L series.  and it looks like also the L series 'cine' versions.  It's not the camera that makes this feel the polar opposite of the look of No Country for Old Men.  It's the glass.  If they'd had cooke s4's on the front of the 1dxmk2 i imagine the image would look like a real movie.  The fact that they can be in just about the most filmic location I can imagine and it still feel like a dslr shoot is because of the lenses.  
Canon glass = photo journalist snapping a criminal after his day in court 
Cooke glass = Hollywood.
Shame Canon stick with their EF mount and stop people using real lenses.  If you want it to look filmic you need filmic glass.  An Alexa mini with an EF mount and L lenses looks just as non filmic

For sony, You could fit panavision lenses if you wanted to.  But in the real world with a very cheap e-mount to oct18 adaptor you can fit lomo copies of the old arri 35mm format lenses.  at £100-150 a pop the oct18 lenses are the cheapest way to get the look I consider 'cinema'.
for canon you are pigeon holed into using lenses that can be adaptoed to eos - so most 35mm motion picture lenses are not usable.  but IMO a set of old 1970's nikon adapted to eos are a good call.  or better, some leica summicron-r lenses.  The problem is that unless you're using the full sensor of the 1dxii (which you are not when shooting in modes where they take a full readout - full frame mode is mushy and lacking the image quality you get from the aps-c and aps-h modes), without having a full frame sensor area, you are then obliged to purchase an additional wider lens than you'd normally have to.  assuming a set of full frame lenses like a 35mm/2, 50mm/2 and 85mm/2 were in your budget they'd be great in full frame, but when in aps-h or aps-c modes you'll need to invest in a wider lens (25-28mm) whch will be more costly and likely not as good image image quality as a good 35mm/2.

actually of all the modern offerings the loxia are definitely my favourites.  If I had the cash I'd be all over them!  The problem with modern lenses is that they all seem to be over contrasty meaning they don;t render things like skintones quite as nicely as older lenses IMO.
TBH, it might be that correct use of diffusers and netting might make canon L series more appealing to my eye, but the fact remains is that the lenses have been used extensively in non cinematic environments to the point where they impart a non cinematic look.  It's like the opposite of panavision lenses.  if you take stills with a panavision c-series lens the still looks like a frame from a movie.  when you shoot a movie with an L series lens it's like a series of still images taken by a newspaper photographer.  
 

give the crew a $60k budget to shoot, and a $20k budget to pay for the edit/post for a promo video for the nex5n and the results would be just as awe inspiring.  The level of production value on this video makes it impossible to judge the camera because in real instances with these budgets they'd just add another $2k for the rental of an Alexa Mini for the couple of days of shooting.     $80k for 8bit acquisition and a lens mount incapable of using real cinema lenses, or $82k for arriraw acquisition and the ability to use cooke s4's..  
Nothing more annoying than consumer advertising techniques selling a dream to people that they'll be using a dslr to shoot these types of projects.

The A7R2 in aps-c 4k mode is outstanding - clean to 25600iso, little to no nasties at all.  
Full frame is a little ropey but still good IMO, and still way better than what you'll be used to with the a7ii.
I shot all of this in full frame mode on the a7r2 _  https://vimeo.com/142447881   password: scotland
I was shooting with a 24mm f5.6 lens so the iso was usually at around 3200-12800 in some of the lower light scenes.  As you see, the image is good, even on the flawed full frame mode.  As you probably know, the still mode is unreal, and having a full frame 42mpx camera for stills and a camera that shoots flawless 4k in aps-c mode, as well as damn good (if a bit flawed) video in full frame mode is a great package - particularly now it shoots uncompressed raw in stills
 

give the crew a $60k budget to shoot, and a $20k budget to pay for the edit/post for a promo video for the nex5n and the results would be just as awe inspiring.  The level of production value on this video makes it impossible to judge the camera because in real instances with these budgets they'd just add another $2k for the rental of an Alexa Mini for the couple of days of shooting.     $80k for 8bit acquisition and a lens mount incapable of using real cinema lenses, or $82k for arriraw acquisition and the ability to use cooke s4's..  
Nothing more annoying than consumer advertising techniques selling a dream to people that they'll be using a dslr to shoot these types of projects.

Music promotion for the german band: CORTEZ
Made with Sony A7SM2, Leica Summicron (35, 50, 90) and the mighty Van Diemen Cine Iscorama M2.
Enjoy!!
 

give the crew a $60k budget to shoot, and a $20k budget to pay for the edit/post for a promo video for the nex5n and the results would be just as awe inspiring.  The level of production value on this video makes it impossible to judge the camera because in real instances with these budgets they'd just add another $2k for the rental of an Alexa Mini for the couple of days of shooting.     $80k for 8bit acquisition and a lens mount incapable of using real cinema lenses, or $82k for arriraw acquisition and the ability to use cooke s4's..  
Nothing more annoying than consumer advertising techniques selling a dream to people that they'll be using a dslr to shoot these types of projects.

give the crew a $60k budget to shoot, and a $20k budget to pay for the edit/post for a promo video for the nex5n and the results would be just as awe inspiring.  The level of production value on this video makes it impossible to judge the camera because in real instances with these budgets they'd just add another $2k for the rental of an Alexa Mini for the couple of days of shooting.     $80k for 8bit acquisition and a lens mount incapable of using real cinema lenses, or $82k for arriraw acquisition and the ability to use cooke s4's..  
Nothing more annoying than consumer advertising techniques selling a dream to people that they'll be using a dslr to shoot these types of projects.

The 1080p from the f3 is better than the 4k from any camera system within the same budget (sub $3-4k).

The 1080p from the f3 is better than the 4k from any camera system within the same budget (sub $3-4k).

they're a little heavier than authentic canon batteries and twice the weight of the usual aftermarket cells.  also being white you don;t get them mixed up with your inferior batteries and know which are yours if you;re sharing batteries with colleagues.