gethin

I shot my last vid in 8bit h.265 flat with active dlight cranked to the max, and I honestly think I got a better result than I've been getting with 10 but nlog.  Just looking at the histogram nlog was leaving big bands of nothing at either end so those extra 2 bits were probably going to waste. 8 bit was using the full histogram, and I think has some inbuilt noise reduction which saved me a bunch of time in post.  There were a couple of shots that I ettr'd a bit too much, but they were just about salvageable.

The post was so much quicker. I could chuck on all my presets from my z6, and the h.265 fell apart less.

But it leaves me wondering why I spent $7.5k on a new camera 🤔

They need to have optional noise reduction and dlight available on 10bit footage. Nlog is garbage.  I've not bothered with nraw yet.

Mostly shoot in 4k at 25,30,50,60 and a few 8k30 shots

well after a day of cutting z8 and mavic 3 footage, I'm wondering what the hell I'm doing. I stumbled on some phantom 4 pro stuff I shot a few year ago and honestly its less noisy, has better highlight rolloff, but most of all it was quicker: That's the thing I'm increasingly thinking. Maybe I can improve on what I was doing 3 years ago, but only a bit, if at all, and at what time cost? If I have to denoise every shot, and mask windows to try to squeak some highlights in from outside, for a marginal improvement in a sector where I'm competing with people charging $200 and shooting on an iphone. I've seen some of the HDR iphone footage and its pretty amazing.   

8 hours ago, MrSMW said:

Have you tried the Flat profile?

I’ve read and seen some good stuff coming from that.

Last day of a semi-working break and been doing some musing as you (I) do and the pairing of Z8 & Z9 are back on top (had a short dalliance with an imaginary gal called R3 and for her body alone, she would still be my pick, but lenses, less attractive), especially now that the Tamron 35-150 has been officially announced.

I wish I could try one but as none seem to be available in La belle France…

Yes but the z8 flat isn't as flat as the z6 😭.  The z6 flat is fantastic, and I swear there is more dynamic range than in raw (maybe the active dlight helps there?) 

Im still finding the highlight rolloff on the z8 much worse than the z6.  I'll keep plugging away at it, but at the moment I'm hoping the z6iii has more to offer.  I saw some real estate stuff shot on an iPhone and honestly I though it looked better than my z8 stuff.  They are obviously doing some computational magic to bring down the window exposures and stop harsh highlights.  But makes me wonder why I've spent so much to get worse footage, that takes me longer to edit.  Sigh.

This is just for what I shoot. Most.people won't be running into these issues. If I was a wedding or event shooter I'd love it.  Would I should drama on it? Nopety nope 

4 hours ago, Evgeniy85 said:

https://www.cinematools.co/nlog-z9

Aha thanks I just saw your earlier post too.  I'll check them out

I just shot my first couple of things in nlog.  Can anyone point me to alternative luts I can check out?  The nikon lut is contrasty, and the skies are a bit fluro-turquoise.  I've just had a go at grading it myself without the lut and I need something in-between mine and the nikon one.   I'm in premiere for now.  I've tried turning down the intensity and tweaking the HUE/HUE controls in premiere but its a bit limited. 

I bit the bullet and bought a z8.  I've done a bit of testing and couple of shoots.  First impressions are not great.
I need to do some more scientific testing this weekend, but the highlight rolloff and lack of dynamic range make the 10 bit h.265 look worse than my 8bit z6ii.  I was keen to get the raw video for those times where I wanted the best possible quality, but kinda hoping and expecting (from the general comments/videos/raving I've seen) that the h.265 would be a step up from the z6.  The stills dynamic range isn't quite up to my 11 year old d800 either.  And today I found the autofocus hunting a bit in low light.  Seeing as my bread and butter shooting involves low light and very high contrast I'm not sure it's the right fit for me so far. I've tried ramping up the d-lighting but meh.  

Anyone know if the highlight rolloff improves with pro res?  I really don't want to shoot raw for my little shoots - $7K AUD to make my life harder 🤦 

I really love high dynamic range stills cameras, I don't think there's one hybrid camera in sony's line up that is a good fit either. It's kinda depressing knowing that I could increase the quality of my output by shooting stills consistently with that 11 year old beastie. 

The sensor in the z9 is designed for speed. I've found Nikon flagship D4/5 cameras lacking in dynamic range.  It was the first thing I googled when it came out: what the video dynamic range was like, and from everything I could find it wasn't great. And yep the odd video sample with gnarly highlight rolloff. Say that itqs dynamic range is limited in a Nikon group and people go slightly nuts 😆.  I'm a Nikon shooter, im used to waiting: so I'm waiting for the z6iii or z8, and Nikon hopefully getting back to the 14 stops of the d8xx's

Photons to photos just released its stills dynamic range results and it's really confusing. I like P to P because at least you can compare one cam to another.  Xh2s has worse dr than my z6.  How that translates to 14 stops of video dynamic range I dunno. 

I just saw the pricing in Australia 

I was expecting 3-3.5k AUD, but $4200 is kinda nuts. Sigh  

On 4/15/2022 at 9:58 PM, Django said:

$11K?! You talking Australian dollars? Z9 is $5,499 USD.

Yep! I usually specify that, I forgot

Just been looking again at Fujifilm esp xt4. Always thought they had poor dynamic range, seems I'm wrong. How are they regarded?

I'm a one man band when it comes to shooting. My bread and butter is real estate videos (hopefully with a bit more flair than your average shoot - plonk music - edit it in few hours variety).  With gimbal shots, I shoot super wide, fixed focus even on full frame. I've used the face autofocus when shooting talent a handful of times but it is hilariously hit and miss.  The other thing I do is shoot landscape, and factual stuff, some tourism related stuff. The latter is probably where I'd miss the hybrid camera the most, but its a small fraction of my output. I could always hire for those shoots. (Camera assistants and/or gear). 

I admit I've not looked properly into file sizes. I know i'd be dealing with "much bigger", but I've never quantified it - which I probably should.  

@django mentioned noisy footage: I've just been googling it. Thanks this is really good to know. My perception of it was that the noise was excellently controlled.  Knowing that I'll have to ETTR and denoise pretty much everything I do is quite a a turnoff.  I'm happy to be a bit slower shooting, and do a bit more grading, but if I'm adding 5 mins to each shot I work with over the z6,  then that's an extra 3 hours or so in my average edit.   

I wish nikon were doing something with HDR raw - even in stills - with the Z9.  My 9 year old d800 has more dynamic range than any camera I've owned since. That z9 has the sensor read speed and processor to merge on the fly I would've thought. 

after ~3 years of z6 and then z6ii I'm wanting to focus again on quality rather than speed. 
toyed with getting a ninja v, but just looked at 10-bit prores n-log files, and they're noisy and 🤮 And just watched  a review of the BM video assist with the z6. Heavy and short battery life.

So I'm thinking of the BMPCC 6k pro. I'll have to adapt my nikon glass, and get used to manual everything, and I'll be back to 2 separate cameras for video and stills. 
My other, slightly nutso thought, was to trade in my 2 z6's and a few nikon F lenses and get the z9.  But I suspect I'll still get a nicer video image out of the Blackmagic. 


 

On 4/8/2022 at 12:00 PM, Robert Collins said:

I have a mate who has been doubly unlucky with drones. 

1. First he had a Phantom which true to their name occasionally had batteries whose capacity would suddenly go from 40% to 10% in a few seconds. Tried to get it back over water but it sunk 20m from dry land.

2. The second time is immortalized in this video, The chances of 2 drones colliding in 3D space seem pretty slim to me but it happened in Myanmar. What happened next can only be described as 'lucky'

eeeek 😬

I've got a phantom 4 pro: I was waiting for the mavic 3.  I'm now looking at the EVO drones. Mavic 3: gimmick camera, dynamic range not significantly improved from phantom 4, expensive and with issues.  

just checked out this 8k raw footage: around 0:46 there is some false colour/moire on the balconies, centre of shot.  

I dunno.  so much to love about this cam but eek If i'd paid $11K for a camera to find that I'd be grimacing

I heard on a YouTube channel that shall not be named that readout for video was around 20ms in 8k. That's not what folks seem to be saying here.  🤷 I know readout time is different for different modes, but don't understand why readout would be slower for vid than for stills.

Also I saw mention on here 2 different modes, one prioritising dynamic range. Anyone know about that? I found it a bit worrying that Nikon didn't mention dynamic range in its marketing spewage yesterday.

16 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Would be good to post examples of your work and other people's work you're comparing yourself with?

Might be it is nothing to do with the gear at all, and there are other factors. 

But as a starting point, I'd say consider: Z7 for the landscape work, plus a Ninja V for the Z6 to get ProResRAW

yep I linked to my youtube channel at the bottom of my post

hey thanks folks, sensible suggestions here! 
 

SO yeah I think the choice comes down to get a Z7ii now and wait to see what the Z9 brings or get the A1 now and start transitioning to sony.  One thing I'd love to play with is a camera with decent autofocus 🤣I have a knack for buying first gen stuff with shitty AF: canon 7d, d800, z6 (it really isn't good).  Thats Af for stills, but even in video it would be nice for instance to be able to track in to someone and have the camera find a face from 3 metres away on a 20mm! 

there are bugs in premiere I have been trying to resolve (boomtish) for like 6 years.  I even ended up tweeting at various managers to try to get their attention. Theres one that was introduced after ppro2018, which has kept me on that version. I've thought about making a Louis Theroux style documentary where I try to get adobe to repsond. It's hilarious how shite they are at dealing with bugs

Well you lot are no help 😆

Lets say you have about $15k USD to spend before the end of the tax year, all your kit is nikon but you've been looking on at 8k raw files a bit wistfully

what kit would you buy? (Knowing that z9 is not out yet)

I'm toying with the idea of an R5, but nikon glass doesn't seem to adapt to canon, whereas there are adapters out there to sony.

My bread and butter work is real estate video, but I also shoot timelapse, nightscapes, landscape. I've got a d800 (which I still love for stills), and a z6.  The z6 is fine for real estate, but I'm starting to see amazing quality video shot by people at the same level as me. I'd like to get a higher pixel count for landscape work, and more dynamic range in my video. 

I've considered the zcam z6 and the blackmagic pocket, but the lens mount and lack of creature comforts kills it for me (I still need AF and IBIS is handy for my bread and butter work).

I don't have a ninja. I'm open to lens suggests too. I'm lacking a modern portrait lens (had my eye on sigma 105, but it's huge and not sure about adapted sigma on z-mount)

My current lenses:

z mount 14-30 f4
f mount:
70-200 2.8 GII
14-242.8
20mmG1.8
50f1.2 ais
105mm F2 FD

sigma35f1.4
Sigma 150-600c
a few other cheapies and a couple of crop lenses

Here's my very occasionally updated youtube channel so you guys can get some context: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE723psa8znEtUTx4owjoMg

Starting to look at phones with better stills cameras than my ZenFone 5 (which is now 20 years old in phone-years. They're the same as dog years dontcha know).

Idly wondered if the camera centric phones have 25fps available yet: I have totally struck out.  Anyone know of any? I won't be shooting much vid on it, but it would be nice to have the option.  It's a bit of a headfuck that it's not available.  I can imagine for a documentary film maker having an emergency 4k cam on hand 24/7 would be awesome, but not if you have to do pulldown on the footage.  

Apart from all that: 

Any suggestions?

(I'm not a apple user, and Samsung I'm a bet meh about too). 

Yeah but if I'm Paying $3k for a z7, I may as well pay $4.5k for a z7ii 😆.

The other option is to stick to what I know and get a d810. Only 1080p, but usable 1080.  And an autofocus that works 🙂

WHat I'd really like is decent 4k60, but the z9 is going to be 10k, the A1 is the same, and I just don't know if I can go back to Canon. 🙂

5 hours ago, Trek of Joy said:

I've easily shot 50k images with the a7r2 and its still my favorite of all the Sony sensors, eventually I'll probably own another as a landscape/backup camera. I'd love it if they did a faster version of the 42mp sensor for the next a7IV. Even at about $900 or so used, the a7r2 is a bargain for the IQ. But if I were in your shoes, I'd probably stretch that for a used Z7 just for the easy compatibility with lenses/batteries and same colors if the budget allows.

Cheers

Chris

Yep I thought about that but used z7s are still about $3k in Aus, I saw a used a7rii yesterday for $1000!  

I figure I can get an autofocus lens adaptor. And still be ahead. But yes matching the colours might be interesting.  I probably should find some RAWS and footage to play with before I jump in.   

My lovely battered d800 is near the end 😭😆

My z6 is my video shooter.  I still prefer the stills from the d800. It has better dynamic range than the z6. 

Ive been thinking about getting a second cam that can shoot 4k of some sort, but primarily for stills.  

I can get an a7rii for half the price of a d850 (and half the size and weight).  From what I've seen the raw files are similar to the d800. 

Is that a terrible idea in 2021?