jgharding

2K 4.2.2 sounds lovely, though I'd be happy if they just get this ALL-I high bitrate out into our hands :)

U2711 user here too, it's brilliant. You're basically paying for a worse monitor with the Apple one, cos of that bloody mirror screen. Reflective screens make black deeper and increase contrast, but you see your face in them.

Natural light is the bomb diggity, the sun has a lot of watts. ;) Plus I can't count the number of times I've rigged up about three different lights and thought it looked a bit dead, then switched one off and gone "oh, now it's good". [quote name='Philip Bloom' timestamp='1347293387' post='17709'] BMD were actually pretty cool about it. I asked them at IBC and they said all fair points. in their own words "it's not bad for a first attempt is it!?" [/quote] They're pretty modest! For an absolute newcomer to cameras it's pretty amazing to give what they have at this price point. That good relationship with Apple shows in the stylish manufacturing, though ergonomics could do with a bit of consideration... I keep thinking about the little niggles, then pinching myself and realising I'm moaning about a camera that shoots 2.5k raw (or more usefully, DNxHD) for the price the 5D MKii cost back at the start. Sure you gotta rig it and patch it as you do with the 5D ii, but just like the 5D ii did back then it's kinda offering something unique for less cash so there's gonna be suffering involved. Luckily as the review says, plenty of the issues can be sorted by firmware, bit by bit. I can see them bringing out one with interchangeable batteries too for the next model, because that -- on top of the EF mount -- is a design point that can be justly questioned. I'm interested to see how long it takes to get to rental houses now...

That's a good review, covers lots of little real-use details about the things I figured would be niggly, it's good to see that they actually are niggly and I wasn't just being an arse! Could've done without/different way of handling the Kessler slider plug in the middle though as that bit just felt like an advert squeezed in there. I don't think I'll buy one of these cameras but I might try one out or hire it as the kit will have all the batteries and the like as part of hire, no doubt. The footage does look nice. I've not yet seen anything that stands out though. That battery thing is a proper hassle though by the looks of it... I think it'd piss me off pretty quickly, as coupled with the need for rig etc, it'll start to impact portability quite heavily. Still small for a 'cinema camera' though, so I'm sure we should all still be happy we even have such a thing available!

If they can get it to work up to 3200 and 6400 ISO that'll be great for the low-light shoots that I love so much...

Wow! That's quite some bitrate control! For the sort of work I do 1GB per-minute is fine, awesome, let's keep watching and hope this matures into a release... :D

I'm engrossed in this one, it's fascinating!

Hmm. If I'd ordered the EF one I'd be pretty annoyed right now unless there were a cross-grade path or preorder alteration programme...

Lovely piece! Every time I get tempted to buy some new bit of kit I ask if it will make my work better, or if in fact I just need to make more work. Truth is it's very easy to hide behind technology, and say "I can't shoot til I've got X piece of kit", when really it's just part of a tool box. painters spending a lot of time discussing brushes and paints and canvases would be smart to spend more time painting, though such discussion is very useful. Usually I don't buy the afforementioned thing, I go and make a piece with what I have, find I'll always have a lot to learn, then go and watch my favorite films and realise what matters most is the story you tell, and they could have been shot on what I have. I suppose my favorite film isn't Transformers though ;)

[quote name='nigelbb' timestamp='1346853188' post='17364'] The Canon 17-55mm F/2.8 is one of the very few EF-S lenses that it's really worth investing in. Optically it's very good but the build quality is very plasticky & not up to the weatherproofing of an 'L' lens. The Tokina 11-16mm F/2.8 is the only other EF-S lens that's really worth it. It probably would be better to invest in full frame lenses but you need these two lenses to get wide end for the APS-C sensor as there is no full frame equivalent. The former is like a 24-70mm on a full frame while the Tokina is like a 16-35mm. [/quote] Yeah the 11-16 Tokina is the only APS-C I have. Actually it's shared because it doesn't get a huge amount of use, but it's good to have the ultra-wide option. In fact, last time I needed that wide a point-of-view I just stuck a cheap wide adapter on the front of my 20m and corrected the fisheye dostortion in post!!! No one noticed, actually someone complimented that shot, the soft edges looked pretty cool. I'll probably use that trick again ;)

I have one experience of Tamron: I wanted a cheap walkaround lens instead of all my primes. I sold it a short while after I got it: poor AF and MF, plastic build, felt tacky to me. I also owned a Sigma 20mm f1.8 for a bit and Sigma 28-70. Both of those had flaws, dodgy image at certain lengths and apertures, slightly tacky build. I just saved a bit more and switched to older high-quality manual primes. If you do want a zoom the advice stands with lenses: buy the best you can save for, it saves you selling the cheap one when you get tired of it and buy the nice one anyway! :D Plus they outlive camera bodies by a long way, especially if you pick Full frame ones that can adapt with any body you might get in the future. Not sure about investing in EF-S as opposed to EF, just because it's limiting in a way, but it depends how you think you may use it in future.

It's a lot more work. Many are used to cameras that "bake-in" a look or feel. The BMD will spit out a raw look and you rise or fall by how you treat it. Great power is great responsibility and all that. It's lots of layers of things on low percentages of opacity and mix that really make a nice look I find, things become more organic. It's the interaction of various layers of user-controlled non-linearity that introduce a human feel to raw and high dynamic-range digital media.

To draw on my audio background: It's a bit like the difference between recording a vocal to high sample-rate and bit-depth digital, or to quarter-inch tape tape. The former has huge dynamic range and tons of information, making that feel nice and human is a matter of removing information, dirtying it up so it isn't sterile, introducing non-linearities and controlled distortion to make it feel "real" not hyper real. Quarter inch tape does all that for you, it's a baked-in sound or feel. Video wise, the Canons just lucked out (or were designed) so they happen to bake in a nice aesthetic which, though it's worse on paper, in reality just does something people like. Things like BMD cam are going to make many people learn a LOT of post skills. Without those it'll end up look like TV digibeta.

[quote name='Mirrorkisser' timestamp='1346837611' post='17352'] I like the canon look, too. But its too much in fashion now. I was working at a tv station and people were already telling the cameramen 3 years ago: Uhh i want that canon look, that super duper shallow depth of field. The result was, that even in situations where its totally unnecessary or unneeded, there is this super shallow depth of field now. [/quote] Yes I've had some horrible footage given to me before: interviews shot at f1.4 or f1.2 in bright light with ND, so the face goes in and out of focus as the subject moves. Totally the wrong setting for the scene, he should've started at f4 or f5.6 or so. it was just a fad because the tool was new, people thinking "How do I shoot this as shallow as possible?" rather than "what depth of field is right for this shot?" and lighting and setting ISO accordingly. I don't see that as the Canon look though, just someone not knowing how best to use that size of chip. Their look is in the colour reproduction and a kind of unique rendering. Even with a VAF filter to cut down moire and sharpen it up or a hack to increase bitrate, the EOS footage maintains its feel. It's pretty unique. It's probably a combo of all the tings: the sensor itself, the AD conversion process after the photo-diodes, the colour processing, encoding, so on. A lot of stages there to affect the feel of footage. [quote name='Mirrorkisser' timestamp='1346837611' post='17352']End of the day though, no matter whether its canon or anything else, its the person behind the camera and the feel of that person. Instincts for composition and making the audience feel that you put something of yourself into that footage. I know quite some people who would beat me anyday with worse things than an iphone. No matter what i had. [/quote] Yes that last point is very true. I've had some 7D footage given to me before that whipped the previous two C300 jobs. Shame about the moire, but it mattered less than the soulful job that the DP did.

If all of this is in it, I think it'll be a lot of money. Over a thousand for sure...

I can't imagine these lenses having any real character. If you're gonna go M4/3 you can still use nice glass, it's not like I've ever shot video on the EOS with the 18-55 EF-S Canon kit lens! I mean, who would buy a dirt cheap plastic Canon prime over a second hand one from back when things were made of metal and glass or a nice big ol "loadsa glass and metal" Samyang. It's just madness... The GH2 video is definitely sharper than the Canons, with way more detail when zooming in 100%. But in delivery format it always feels pretty 'camcorder' to me, regardless of pixel peeping. Exceptions are when it's fitted with expensive anamorphic glass, that seems to overcome it. Same with the RX100: it's sharper than the EOS, but cutting it together in a timeline with EOS footage (or with the FS700 footage) you can spot the slight flatness of the RX100 footage like a sore thumb. This is the only thing that worries me a little. Since it's a new sensor in the GH3, hopefully it'll be improved in this sense, and the scaling methods and the like will make it all feel a bit deeper. Last night I was watching Lost In Translation on Blu Ray. It's amazing how soft that film is, it reminded me of EOS footage. Maybe I just like that look ;)

Awesome. I reckon intra-frame codecs are the best bet for film like quality, that or very short GOP.. Big files are fine, and buffer bypass is a benefit as far as I can see. Then the only cap is the speed of the card writer in the camera. Let's hope it's fast enough. There's still more life in the older EOS cameras yet ;) 4:2:2 would be so nice. The deeper they delve the more they unearth it seems... Great stuff!

[font=arial, sans-serif][size=2]I can guarantee that Canon will now start selling lenses at a premium saying "4K ready!" when their still lenses have been shooting way beyond those resolutions for a long time. Damn, people are suckers...[/size][/font]

What is this talk of glass designed for the BMD's resolution? The Zeiss still lenses, for example, resolve enough detail to look good on the 38MP Nikon D800. That's [b]7360 x 4912[/b] pixels. Nearly [b]8K[/b]. So I think they can resolve enough detail for 2.5K. Breathing is another matter, of course. When did dick-waving contests arrive here though? I was hoping they'd never turn up...

[url="http://abelcine.com/fov/"]http://abelcine.com/fov/[/url] Here's a useful tool to help with focal length decisions, when comparing sensor sizes. It might be worth a pin, as I'm always popping back to it! Blackmagic Cinema Camera is included. JG

I downloaded the EOSHD H264s converted from the DNGs and watched on my 2.5k monitor. Man that stuff has crazy levels of detail. Just bonkers. It feels very electronic straight out of the camera but that's to be expected, it's all in the post like RAW photography. After playing around a bit I'm confident it'll look amazing. The big crop is a bother though, but since I think in about 1.6 crop anyway, it's not as much as the 2.3 that's thrown about for my mind. I don't think of video focal lengths in 135 photographic full-frame terms. It's be nice if people talked in terms of crop from super 35 more often, not from still-photo film. Bloody 5D.

I think they'd need to give me a lot of what Magic Lantern does but straight outta the box, such as histogram in video mode, good peaking, manual audio, possibly crop-marks for 2.35:1. Intraframe codec with high bitrates would be brilliant, plus a good sensor that has some optimisation for video resolution. If they made it a 12.6 megapixel sensor that'd be 4K, which would be nice for scaling down to 1080. Or taking short 4K video clips for special composting and crop zoom shots. It's also enough for good pictures really, but something tells me they'll make it a bit bigger than that for sales' sake. A great EVF would be nice too. I'd still never buy off a spec sheet though, I'd have to see the video! Every sensor and codec combo has such a different footage 'feel' these days. I can't wait to see some video!

In-body image stabilistaion?! There's an awesome feature if I ever saw one! Shame it isn't on the mirrorless line so I can use my Contax glass on it...

I've never shot anything that long with it, just B-roll for promos, but yes it does get warm after a lot of video use.

I'm really looking forward to GH3! I never quite made the jump to GH2 from EOS, but my mind is still open, they have someone here they could sway, I hope they go all out and give Canon a good kicking for their complacency. I just hope they iron out the little bugs before releasing, like that banding issue and the high ISO horizontal band thing that looks pretty ugly...