jgharding

Obviously this came from a place of lecturing myself more than anything else, but figured it may help us all once in a while. It’s SO EASY to get pulled into obsessing over specs, or the thrill of the eBay chase and so on.

at the start of the year I moved studio and just had mountains of audio and video gear to shift, some of it I just got preoccupied with a notion that a certain sound or look would “inspire me” but TBH it was nonsense, I just enjoyed the hunting and buying, as soon as thing arrived the hit of endorphins was gone and it gathered dust.

So now I’ve sold a ton. I still have a lot, but try to keep to stuff that really makes a difference.

i settled on the S1H as my camera now. The company I co-run still has a GH5 and C200, but the S1H is the best balance for me, and I’ll stick to it and learn it. The autofocus makes me want to yeet it off a cliff though, but hey I just stick Zeiss primes on it with Nucleus nano and I’m happy!

One interesting aspect of the modern budget anamorphics is the sort of "caricature" look. For example I've seen loads of SLR Rangefinder clips that show s sort of comically saturated blue flare that looks much worse than a good post-production flare plug-in, like Optical Flare.

I've also seen Aivascope clips where the sides are SO distorted it goes beyond charming retro and into a sort of parody of anamorphic distortion. even on a 50mm taking lens that'd look great with an Iscorama for example.

This happened in the pro audio world too. The early emulations of analogue tape (both software and hardware) were really exaggerated cartoonish ones that were far more than people wanted. As the years have gone on the emulations are now stunning, far better than a decade ago. They still aren't made as well really, build quality never returns it seems, but the final result is close enough as to not matter to the end user. And when all is said and done it's the experience of the final consumer that is important.

I wonder if lenses may go this way too.

After getting an S1, then returning it for an S1H (i found the latter for a very good price) I have to agree.

For me the only downside is the AF. Maybe the fact the battery life isn't the best of all, but that's nitpicking really. I think it's an icredible image, the best IBIS I've used and yeah for manual lenses it slays. It takes uncompromised stills and has stunning video specs with beautiful colour.

It proves that the whole is more important than the spec sheet...

Hi all,

This short vlog may be of interest as it's just a little chat about the dreaded Gear Acquisition Syndrome, and shot on S1H

All natural light, VLOG 10-bit 4K 25fps full frame, I used a Tiffen Black Promist 1/4 and some stos of ND, Lens is the L mount Panasonic 50mm 1.4

Lighting is a window and a large silver reflector

Looking back and forth between two tabs: your story about this flaw, and the street price of the Leica.

Unbelievable really. 

5 minutes ago, BTM_Pix said:

Sigma now do a plugin for Photoshop

https://www.sigma-global.com/en/download/cameras/sigma-x3f-plug-in-for-photoshop/

The Quattro series can use DNG so its less of an issue than it was on the DP series.

Sigma PhotoPro has improved quite a lot from when I first started using it but, yeah, its still not exactly super fast.

Most of the time I just use the batch processor in PhotPro to save them to TIFFs and then edit them in Lightroom.

 

you know what, I enjoyed the DP3 so much the idea of using it photoshop makes me thinking of buying one again!

On 5/4/2020 at 11:00 PM, Mark Romero 2 said:

Actually, I am kind of happy with the Fashion Low Contrast lut in the Varicam pack. I still do my exposure in a node BEFORE the LUT is applied, and just use the shadows / highlights and contrast / pivot controls. Then I do the color changes in a node after the lut is applied. 

ah ok ill have a look at this one cheers, i skimmed through them and there's so much "my first grade" in there i gave up

Glad to see a review of a Sigma! They're still trying new things and haven't given up on Foveon which is amazing.

People often forget Bayer arrays ahve like half the resolution they claimto, and you need 8K to get true 4K and so on (I had to explain once to a graphics guy why generated graphics were twice as sharp as footage at a given resolution.

I used to have this DP3, and I used a wide angle adapter to get a wider view sometimes as it's fixed 50mm which is portrait on APSC

It has the most beautiful skin tones, I still think this is the most overlooked Portrait camera. Yes literally any movement above ISO 100 started to screw things up, but for portrait that was OK.

The downside is you couldn't process the raw in anything but their PAINFULLY slow and clunky software, which ruined the whole experience. I don't think this has changed AFAIK, So it went the way of eBay.

It's amazing how software can ruin a great camera.

Thanks all. I chatted to Alex and he said he’d like to update specifically for the S1 but maybe in the mean time try the emotive LUTS for GH5s as it’s also a little more magenta

i did also find that an ACES transform is less magenta. 

for some reason Panasonic's own LUT is Crazily pink

On 4/29/2020 at 10:13 PM, Mark Romero 2 said:

Yeah, as far as the prebuilt luts, the Nice709 is probably my favorite.

In fact, the other LUTs in that varicam lut library are basically unusable, IMHO. I don't know, though. Maybe someone smarter than me can put them to good use (and there are lots of people out there smarter than me. just ask my wife.)

The other LUTS are pretty much atrocious yeah

I’ve heard all these great reviews, watched tons of YouTubers rant about how great it is and so far it’s bad and I’m thinking of sending it back.

lag is so high you can’t use it to pull focus, which is part of the point, and out of the box the screen is bright orange. The white balance is so far off on the monitor it’s comical, and there’s no way to change it.

even using a correction LUT doesn’t really work as the top whites still stay orange, I guess because the monitor itself is orange so the high whites are just it’s orange backlight.

i actually have the calibration unit you can use with it as I bought it for other monitors but they want £100 for a cable to calibrate it, and Get this: I’ve read of people buying their expensive cable, running calibration and finding no success.

I've just got a Ninja V for the S1 and the delay is massive. It feels near to half a second.

Hi all,

I recently bought an S1. I've been using a GH5 for ages, with Emotive colour LUTs. They do a great Job of changing Vlog-L to an Arri like look.

Well, cue using Panasonic's official Vlog to 709 LUT and everybody looks pink. 

Does anyone know if someone has made LUTs to correct this, or shall I just set about making my own?

10 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

 

As for Panasonic S1 and GH5 users, as well as Fuji X-T3 owners - it is more of a dilemma, and will depend on if you need the Dual Pixel AF, full frame 8K, 4K/120p and Canon LOG / Canon colour science on offer with the EOS R5. Let's not forget how much more the expected costs will be $4k body, expensive FF mirrorless lenses, expensive media. I don't think GH5 owners will rush over too soon. It definitely has AF over the S1, but again the 4K/24p from the S1 will probably be better looking, especially in low light.

So it all comes down to whether you need that 10bit codec at 120fps and have plenty of Canon lenses to make use of Dual Pixel AF.

Or are tired of 8bit on Sony cameras.

Lolle, yeah this is me, who just bought an S1. We've had a C200 since launch and never used the raw cos the file sizes are crazy, so I hope they've got more options ont he R5...

The Panasonic S1 has a lovely image but I'm really disappointed with the autofocus, it's basically trash. I don't have any STM lenses at all though so ya know, it'd be a whole new system. But still, I was tempted to jump up to S1H and Atomos within a year.

Maybe R5 will change that? 

As usual I'll keep shooting in the meantime and keep an eye on it... But I feel like a kid in one of those American dramas, waiting to be disappointed that dad doesn't show up to my big baseball game again, trusting him again... hahaha... damn you Canon. Maybe this time he will turn up and I'll hit a home run... *pans up to the sun with emotional music playing*

6 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

2012 Canon - "here, have this soft 1080p"

2013 Canon - "here, have even worse soft 1080p"

2014 Canon - "here, have some moire"

2015 Canon - "here, we've got some 1080p"

2016 Canon - "the 1080p is now more expensive"

2017 Canon - "4K has arrived. It is MJPEG with a huge crop"

2018 Canon - "the 4K still has a huge crop"

2019 Canon - "I don't think we will ever give you proper 4K"

2020 Canon - "Here, have this 8K full frame RAW and 4K 120fps 10bit H.265"

I think this is what makes me very suspicious! Either they have genuinely turned a corner cos the financials are getting very bad, or there will be some nasty surprises real-world VS this spec sheet...

3 hours ago, Django said:

To each their own, I recently bought a C200 not expecting to use RAW that much but with the very simple workflow, USB-C speed & storage space coming way down, I'm finding myself shooting RAW as much as possible. It's kind of hard to go back to 8-bit after 10-bit but even harder once you start messing with 12-bit RAW. 

Having access to RAW internally at a flick of a switch is a godsend imo and brings me back to MLRaw days (minus the post workflow & reliability issues!).

I have 2 Atomos recorders (including the V) and use them as monitors 95% of the time. Internal recording is the way to go for me.

HEIC is also very interesting for stills giving basically 10-bit 4:2:2 vs 8-bit 4:2:0 for JPGs. 

Depends on the job i guess, I've yet to have anything to justify shooting it all raw over GH5 10bit 422

Having a C200, and never using Canon RAW because of the file sizes, it does not excite me.

TBH I spend more time these days using a GH5 in VlogL at 4K 422 150meg 10-bit, as it's a great balance of file size and quality.

I abandoned Premiere when i realised i'd been paying for years and it had gotten steadily worse, meanwhile Resolve was getting better.

Every software company now wants the right to constantly dip their hand in your bank account, and renew entire years at a time, and yes I think it's absurd.

You pay and pay and pay for software and they hold your files effectively to ransom. Back when you could buy a version you can keep it indefinitely. But now as soon as you stop paying that's it, you can't open your old projects. I find the whole "model" a bit poor for consumers.

I guess it's just for stills really, with that ultra-high resolution sensor and so on, the video is a bonus.

I've still yet to a Sony below the F55 where the colour didn't upset me.

The way they process their sensors seem to turn tungsten yellow and screw with skintones.

I'm guessing it's from the ADC onwards, because the same Sony sensors in other cameras have far better colour.

On 4/2/2019 at 6:27 PM, androidlad said:

https://lilliputdirect.com/lilliput-4k-ultra-hd-monitors?product_id=781

Ah sorry, I should have been more specific, it's to use with a computer, for edit etc, so this would be a bit too small...

On 3/23/2019 at 4:07 PM, kye said:

What do you mean by 'portable' ?

a reasonably flat not massively heavy monitor in the 15-20 inch range i guess

Hi all,

I'm currently looking for a reasonably portable, mains-powered 4K monitor.

There are lots of options on Amazon but some have no reviews.

It's for a windows machine, the reason i specify mains is because USB bus-powered ones tend to have very low brightness.

The Asus ProArt PQ22UC is the greatest such monitor, but at over £4000 pounds it's way more than i need for this job.

Any suggestions or experience out there?

I don't mind 1080 if it's nice colour etc. I will calibrate it obvs.

Yeah why not? The FS5 colour isn't up to much and I find the whole thing looks a bit sterile.

You can stick the pocket 4K in a bag and go shooting wherever.

Obviously that bag will also need forty-five batteries in it

Try not to be old, and make movies ?

FFPGA is very interesting technology.

Antelope Audio use it to deliver real-time emulation of microphones and more

https://en.antelopeaudio.com/hardware-based-fpga-effects/

It will all go RF and they'll want everyone to re-buy all their lenses again, would be my guess, so they'll put some kind of benefit in RF that you cannot have with an EF adaptor.

They're so obsessed with selling IS as a lens feature that they're miles behind in terms of things like sensor stabilisation though