mattbatt

Couple of things. Let's talk about the GH2, the hack they used was not stable and crashed a lot. I don't think it would be viable in a real production. One thing that seems to be misunderstood is that the scene was supposed to be very dark. The original lighting was supposed to be a room with a few practlcle lights on in the house and the extreme light coming in form the window. What Colt and Jonny did was to over light the scene and make it a bright room. I think people interpreted this as having the most DR as opposed to being the most pleasing and artfully done. I preferred Polly and Rodney's interpretation, it was more about retaining a moody scene.

There are two tests. In part 3 you are going to see how the cameras look out of the box in an apples to apples test with no lighting changes. In part two you saw what talented DP's can do with these cameras. Together this shows you the comparison of what is-- and what is possible.
Steve

Andrew - I guessed A,B,C,D,F,G,H correctly in my write-ups. I feel proud of that, missing only E and I. I'm glad C300 was not I. I was second to last for me, even behind G. Just too sterile.

My favorites guessed last month were: H, F, C and A.

I agree with every word you said about camera H - the F65- and I am happy that we both saw and write the truth with how it handled NATURAL light and looked most like film in the skin.

The reason why B was down on my list was that it is by far the most lit scene and upon one quick glance (which most of the voters did), looks most memorable. However, B is the most ‘digital’ looking scene to me and here is what I mean:

B looked digital by looking like a soap scene or a staged lit scene. Like a greenscreen effect with shadows slightly off, B looked too pampered and ready and set.

I started looking at all the lights and pretty faces and forgot the mood of the scene and that it was a room.

Also B had some aliasing on the window frame, skin tone was yellowish and flatter and I saw some compression in the shadows.

In other words, the “room” became a “set” because of the lighting. Could you ever see a scene from “24″ being lit like B? No, there is much more moody realism and grit in 24 with natural spill light.

Now, H for me was sharpest, had the most latitude and best color fidelity (detail in the lamp and lights). Seeing it is the F65 and looks like that WITHOUT the relighting all the other scenes had is simply - Amazing!

To add light and tons of post work is a detriment to a camera. A camera is supposed to make the MOST of natural light available in which the DP gets to sculpt with artificial light – in the hopes of creating a masterpiece. But it is all about the use of LIGHT. When obvious changes become so dramatic that the lighting looks staged, that speaks to a camera’s weakness far more than resolution or price alone.