jhnkng

You're posting interesting stuff and I like the look of those control grips, but shouldn't it just be on the main board?

I think what Liam means is that the "Shooting" subforum is for people who have a creative work to show, not a place for gear. The subheading for the Shooting subforum is "Screening room and the creative side of filmmaking - share your ideas / stories".

I don't know enough about grading to bring life to a log image without a LUT, and the LUTs I have all seem to be about 25% too strong. And some of them impart this faux film aesthetic that I'm not overly fond of, and while it's a look that serves well on some projects, but it's not appropriate for the job I'm currently working on. So it's been a journey to find a grade that I'm happy with, but we're getting there. The Nikon is so damn easy that it's spoiled me a little, but if I have a job with a quick turnaround I would 100% pack the Nikon than the Micro. I haven't seen much, I'm mostly interested in that camera for the stills side rather than motion. But I've worked with the A7s2 and the A7r2 (both stills and motion) and the image has been lovely, so as long as it's as good as those cameras I think I'd be pretty happy with it.

Haha, it's funny, when the Sony A9 was announced I spent the day tallying up how much I can sell everything for and how much a brand new Sony system will cost me (quick answer: a lot). But then I told my wife what I was doing and she asked me why I wanted to switch -- and to be perfectly honest I couldn't come up with a solid answer. Sure there are features that I'd like, but nothing I have now gets in the way of shooting and I like the results I get. I'm currently working on a documentary project for a local non-profit and I'm shooting on my Micro in 3:1 RAW, and workflow issues aside, I'm finding it harder to nail a look with the Micro compared to how quickly I found the look with the D500. Having a semi-flat profile rather than a full on log profile makes a really big difference.

Oh right, basically it takes a grid of 3 x 3 pixels and combines all that data and displays it as a single pixel. That way they can capture the full frame and reduce it to 1080p without line skipping.

You only retouch in 16bit in Photoshop if you're doing lots of blending and compositing, because you have more shades of colour to work with while retouching. And you need to work in 16bit if you're working with products that are specifically colour matched -- fashion, for example, where the colours of the clothing needs to match with the real thing, or a product like Coke where the red has to be a very specific shade. Working in 16bit (or 32bit for that matter) means you have more shades of red at your disposal. You can't actually see the difference in colour when switching from 8bit to 16bit, because screens aren't capable of showing 16bit colour. For critical colour in photoshop you need to look at the numbers -- you can't just trust the screen, even if you're using a properly calibrated Eizo. So to answer your question, yes, you will need a 16bit graphics card and 16bit display to *accurately* display all 16bits of colour information. Else what you're actually looking at is whatever your screen is capable of displaying.

How to do qualify "a lot less"? Because I own a D500 and I don't see any major difference in dynamic range compared to my D800 or D750. The D500 is definitely not as good as the D750 for high ISO work, but I've not had any issues with dynamic range.

Not sure, but I thought all the new Nikons did a 3x3 pixel site per HD pixel reduction? I certainly didn't see any moire or other weird artefacts.

I shot it on the Flat Profile as is with the Saturation bumped down to -2. I find that Nikons can go overboard on reds and yellows, pulling back on the overall saturation helps to keep it under control, and if the surrounding colours are looking flat I can boost that in the grade. I also shot with Active D-Lighting on High -- I like the extra shadow detail when I'm shooting so I don't raise my exposure too high looking at an overly contrasty image. I don't think it really gives me any extra dynamic range, but it's not hurting so I leave it there. No sharpening in post, having a grain track overlaid gives the impression of sharpness -- if you look closely you'll probably notice that the only time I nailed focus was on the very last shot on his face, and all the GoPro shots where it was infinity :D I haven't shot that much on the 4k, that additional crop means I don't have a lens that suits what I do. I only use the D500 when it's super run and gun; if I have more time or control (or if I'm not travelling) I shoot my BMMCC. Having that 4k crop means my 17-50 isn't wide enough when I'm indoors, and if I put the 11-16 on then it's not long enough for when I need to punch in. I don't love the image from the Sigma 17-50, but the IS really helps and the range is perfect for what I use that camera for. Oh I also shot the whole thing with Auto ISO on, it's so great! It does occasionally get confused, but it never goes more than 2/3 of a stop off and you can keyframe it back in the grade pretty easily. Hell yeah, I can't wait to get back there with a bit of a budget and do a proper deep dive into the scene! There are some proper outlaw clubs there as well, I dunno how they'd feel about a guy making a documentary but there's only one way to find out!

Thanks guys! Yeah that rolling shutter kinda freaked me out at the beginning, but I decided to roll (haha) with it because frankly that's kinda how it felt on the bike! It didn't help that I had it super clamped on the crash bar which was directly attached to the front subframe and picked up every vibration from the engine! I have the Hero 5 Black and the Karma Grip now so I'd be curious to see if that would help in that situation. Thanks mate, this was just regular 1080p. The more I work with that camera the more impressed I am, and I really want Nikon to put that sensor into a camcorder body. I'm so glad you feel that way! I originally wanted to see if I could get a few of his mates to come down and ride with us, but I couldn't get a translator on board in time. I really want to go back with a grant or a bigger budget and hire translator and driver so I can get some proper coverage and on-the-road stuff. It'd be great to go on one of those camping trips with them and really nut out a story!

I was in Tokyo earlier in the year and I shot this over an afternoon. Most of it was shot on a D500 with the Sigma 17-50 f2.8, the bike shots were on a GoPro Hero 3 Black, and I recorded the interview on a Rode Lav hooked up to a Zoom H1. Amazingly the bike audio was all off the GoPro -- I'd recorded some engine sounds on the H1 as well but the GoPro sounded great so I saved myself the hassle of synching audio. Edited and Graded in Premiere Pro with the Impulz Kodak Ultramax LUT (which was great because they had a LUT made for Nikons AND GoPros) and I used their 2.5K Grain track as well. Overall it turned out pretty well. If I had more time I might've found a better way to grip the GoPro to try and dial out the camera shake, but I wanted it to look rough anyway and I grew to like it. I'm constantly surprised by how well GoPro footage can look if you use it in the right way. Kinda wished I'd had the Hero 5 with the Karma grip, might've been able to do some faux drone shots by putting the whole gimbal on a stick and holding it from the back of the bike as we went along. Hope you enjoy the film, love to hear your thoughts! ---- What drives you to do what you do? With SEVEN ESCOBAR Direction/DOP/Sound/Edit/Grade JOHN KUNG

I've not had any experience with AI/AI-S lenses so I couldn't say, but I get the impression that it should work, but only in M mode. Not sure how that affects the Auto ISO function though. I like to go into camera stores and ask if I can put one of my lenses on to check it out. I also like to bring a card in and record something as well. As far as which camera to keep or buy... I guess it depends on much you love the image, and how much you love using the camera. Do you love the Nikon or the Panasonic? If it's the Nikon, do you love the image so much that you can put up with the differences in ergonomics? To me, it's always easier to stick to one system, so you'd only need spares for one system of camera. And your colours will match with less post work. And the less thought required to work the different cameras, the more brain power you can devote to making the film. If you don't mind a detour I can speak to how I decided on my current system. I previously shot motion with a GH4, and that was a good experience overall. But there were things that got in the way for me. I liked the GH4's image outdoors in good light but not indoors in low light, and I while like using the GH4 by itself it became heavy and unbalanced once I had to rig it up. And the image never really popped for me so I found it difficult to concentrate on the edit when I wasn't 100% confident I can get the image to look great. So out of all that I decided I needed a camera that is balanced in weight even with a bunch of extra stuff rigged to it so it's easy to use, that had good dynamic range and good colour, and I could put up with everything else. I ended up getting a BMMCC that I've rigged to be like an FS7, and it's great. It can go on the shoulder, I can handhold it, I can rig it with extra audio or strip it if I need to save weight, and with the V-Lock it runs for 6+ hours on a single 95wh battery. It's heavy, but it's balanced, so I'm not fighting the weight. With a speedbooster and my 1.8 lenses I get pretty good low light, but more importantly I like the look of the noise (I use Neat Video to remove the colour noise but I like to leave the luminance noise) . I LOVE the look, and I can put up with everything else. And as long as I shoot a colour card in the different lighting conditions I can pretty accurately match the colour of the BMMCC and my D750/D500, so I have tons of options depending on the job. Interview? D500 in 4K. Fast paced run and gun wedding? D750/D500 combo. More considered pieces, personal pieces, narrative pieces, and documentaries? BMMCC, with maybe the Nikons as B Cams. Not sure if any of that has helped, but I thought if you can see how my brain works it might help you frame your situation and help you make a decision. Good luck!

I just tried the movements you mentioned and with a little practice I think it could work for you. As far as I can tell it doesn't work for random movements -- but a simple left - right or up - down the system works pretty well. When I get the chance I'll play with it more and maybe post something else. The crop would probably be more, since the D750 is 24MP (6000x4000). Looking over those short clips I shot, I think the 4k looks even better than the 1080p, there's more texture to the image. I have a Tokina 11-16, and that's wide enough for me even in 4K, so while I hadn't planned on it I might actually use the 4K mode more now. So thanks for giving me the incentive to test it out! :D Would I would love (and would never happen) is for Nikon to go crazy and do a 2.39:1 scan in 4K, so 5168 x 2160. The sensor width is 5568px so it would just fit. The XQD card is plenty fast enough to write it, and I should think the new Expeed 5 chip is fast enough to handle it. It's not real anamorphic, but gee it would be an epic crop!

It would be amazing to map the eVR to a button, so you can easily turn it on and off as required. I can totally see myself using it tons more if I can click it on when I want to hold steady, and click it off when I move. But since it crops the image I can't imagine that will ever happen. The image is at least as good as the D750, but I think the D500 has a slightly better metering system. It makes a difference for any of the auto functions like Auto ISO, which is freakin' INCREDIBLE. Being able to follow someone from outside to inside and have the camera just sort it out is brilliant. Match that with the excellent Auto WB system and it makes run and gun weddings just that little bit easier. But I agree, if you have a D750 and don't need a second body it's not worth switching.

That was all auto white balance by the way, which I've always found works pretty well. And I have played with the Electronic VR, and it's a mixed bag. There's a crop for starters, I'm not totally sure what it is but it seems half way between normal and the 4k crop, so maybe 1.7x -ish? And while it does a great job if you want to hold the image completely steady, if you try to pan or tilt there's a lag so the image stutters as you move -- not even remotely close to being smooth. It basically mimics a tripod. The good news is that you can turn it on and off in the movie quick menu that's available when you're in live view, so it's easy enough to turn it on and off, but it's nowhere near a regular use feature.

I don't have anything in production to show, but today I shot a couple of short clips that I've uploaded to Vimeo: The password is: eoshd The clips are straight from the camera, you can download it from Vimeo. The first is my son backlit with a colour card in very light shade, there's bit of flare at top of frame. The second is to give you an idea of what kind of dynamic range you can expect. Both are shot in 4K using the Flat profile with the Nikon 20mm f1.8, around f2 - 2.8 (can't remember). Regarding live view, you have to engage live view every time you turn the camera on. I'm pretty sure there isn't a way to have live view turn on automatically. Then again, even when the camera is on it uses very little battery, so there's very little penalty to leaving the camera on and live view off. Except for changing lenses with IS/VR/OS elements, if you don't turn off the camera the lens won't park the moving element and you'll hear the lens rattle like crazy. I'd appreciate it if you don't share this all over the internets, I made these for this community because I've learnt tons here and I want to give a little back. I just feel a bit weird about my son's face all over the internet even if he is hiding behind a colour card...

It'd been ages since I've imported RAW into Premiere, but is there a setting that applies a look or a curve or a gamma to your footage? I use Resolve for my BMMCC footage (I shoot 3:1 RAW) and Resolve automatically applies a default colour space and gamma, if Premiere does the same thing then it might be applying the wrong colour space / gamma?

I have the D750 and the D500 (and a D3s and D800), and they're both excellent. The difference between the two are mostly to do with features rather than image quality -- both images are pretty much the same, you have to push pretty hard to see the difference. One place where you can see differences is at high ISO -- the D500 might have a 1.5 million ISO headline, but it's pure BS. It's just acceptable for certain applications* at 12,800 ISO in RAW, the D750 is definitely better at 12,800 (not a massive difference a la A7s, but noticeable.) The D750 and D500 has the same colour, they mix and match perfectly. Not sure if that will be the case for any new cameras, since I've noticed that Nikons do change in look from generation to generation (as you would expect). It changes enough so that I keep slightly different Lightroom presets for each of my cameras to get a consistent look, even in RAW stills. Another thing I'll note is that while each new Nikon I've bought have feature differences, they're not hugely different. Nikon is at a place where they're happy to do 4K in crop mode -- I wouldn't expect a new upcoming Nikon to do 4K without a crop. Nikon is incredibly conservative when it comes to adding new features, it would not surprise me that it would take a D6 (probably 4 years from now) before you see un-cropped 4K. No one buys Nikon for bleeding edge tech, they buy Nikon because it always works, under any circumstances, all the time. (That said, the 4K crop is about the same as the GH4 with native lenses at 2.3x, and I never had a problem with either camera. I do have a Tokina 11-16, which is a lovely looking lens) For what it's worth, if I absolutely had to only go with one camera I would pick the D750 with the 24-70. But only just, since I also have a D500 with the Sigma 17-50 2.8 with OS, and that is a pretty sweet combo. * I'll go right up to 12,800 for events in a dark room, but in any situation where I have some control over lighting/set/talent, I'd keep it no higher than 6400.

I just got a D500 to complement my other FF Nikons and it's a sweet little camera. I don't really notice that it's not full frame, and it matches my D750 so well that I have to check to see which files came from which camera. I'm mostly a stills guy, but I have shot video jobs with the D750 and I like the video I get from it, it's got a really efficient codec but there's still a little bit of room to grade, and once I get the loupe on the screen I don't miss peaking at all.

I had a first gen Nikon to m43 Speedbooster that didn't fit onto my Blackmagic Micro Camera. It was fine on the Pocket and the GH4, just not the Micro. I read it was something to do with the Pocket cam's mount being slightly different in thickness to the spec. Apparently Metabones can replace the speedbooster mount but I just sold mine with my GH4 and got the BMPCC Speedbooster which fits perfectly.

I've got the Tascam 701D and it is SUPERB. I thought my Zoom H5 was pretty good, but the 701D sounds even better. I've got mine in the Orca small sound bag which is also excellent. I have a Rode NTG3, a matched pair of M5s, and the Rodelink and they all sound great.

A new Pocket camera with the 2.5K sensor would be amazing, but even the existing sensor with a redesigned body to take LP-E6 batteries like the Micro would be a welcome update. Hopefully that means it'll have more space for a bigger heatsink, and 60p.

Sounds like lots of people really want an updated Pocket Camera with LP-E6 batteries and 60p... Actually, somewhere on the internet there's a guy who showed that you can use a servo tester for RC planes to make your own controller for the BMMCC (like this). You get 4 channels of analog PWM controls with the expansion port, and if you attach a servo tester to each channel you'll have direct control over each of those settings. Add a LANC pistol grip and you're almost there with what you have in mind. In fact, you can take the composite video out and send that signal to a little LCD that takes composite, and you can do it all with just the expansion port (Composite out, 4 x PWM channels, and LANC). Find a mechanical engineer friend who has a 3D printer and away you go! Though having shot the BMMCC for a month now I don't know that I really, really needed anything like that (definitely a "nice to have" rather than a "need to have"). Though I built my micro camera into a camcorder style that's bigger than the GH4 it replaced, because I found that I needed the weight balanced rather than the smallest possible package. It's hard to beat the original Pocket Camera for size if you really need to get under the radar.

Just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents. A couple of years ago (can't remember when, it was around when Resolve 10 came out) I built a bang for buck PC for my workstation. For context I'm a photographer who also shoots video, so I wasn't out to build a full on editing/grading powerhouse, just one that let me edit and grade 4K material from a GH4 for 1080 delivery. I'm also a Mac guy through and through, though as a kid I built PCs for gaming so I know the ins and outs of building PCs. I spent about $1800 AUD in total, and went with an i7-4770, 16gb RAM, an nVidia GTX770 card with 4gb video RAM, an SSD as a system drive and a 3x 2TB RAID 0 array for storage. I also had a 4TB drive running as a backup using File History (hourly backups kinda like Time Machine, more on this later.) I'm happy to say that hardware wise it has been rock solid, it's still more than fast enough for my purposes running the latest Premiere Pro and Resolve 12.5. Where it's less stable is in the software. I don't know if it's Windows, or just that Windows apps are less stable than their Mac counterparts, but weird niggles seem to come up more often than on my macs. Windows itself has come a long way and it's perfectly fine to use, I never see the whole OS go down in flames, but I do find myself restarting more often because of some weird thing with one program or my Wacom would stop working. I've never lost any work though, and I've been just as productive on Windows as on OSX. A few things to note though: - I run my PC off the internet pretty much all the time, only putting it online when I need to update stuff or access Dropbox. I (now) never ever access the web with it -- the last time I did I somehow got some spamming virus that injected ads into every web page I went to, and that took half a day to clean out. I still run antivirus software, which is universally an awful experience. - File History is not as robust as Time Machine, if your file name has characters not supported by Windows, or the file path is too long, it won't back it up. It won't even tell you it didn't back it up, it'll just put an entry in the log and that's that. Totally idiotic. But it seems that the only trouble mine has is with the default apps that was downloaded through the Windows Store, so it hasn't affected me. Still, one more thing to worry about. But I always keep a master backup of all my work elsewhere, so this doesn't worry me much. - There are some weird inconsistencies in software features in both Premiere and Resolve. Resolve Windows doesn't support MP3s, and has no audio plugins at all, while on the Mac it uses the Core Audio effects built into every mac. And Premiere doesn't currently read Prores without Quicktime, and QuickTime is now discontinued with a massive security hole, so if you need Prores you're outta luck on Windows. Native Prores support is coming soon apparently. Overall though I'm happy to have built my workstation, it saved me a ton of cash at the beginning and have worked very well thus far. Obviously Your Mileage May Vary, etc etc. If money wasn't an issue I'd probably go with a 5K iMac, but it's $5600 Australian for a spec'ed up version, and then you'd need to get some kind of external storage array to work off (at least another $1000 for something thunderbolt and fast). For that kind of money you can build a 6 core i7, maybe even an 8 core i7. The new GTX10XX series are so powerful that for balance you’re better off adding extra CPU cores with your money than to go SLI (from memory the free version of Resolve only supports 1 GPU only anyway). On the other hand, I was just overseas shooting a personal project on the BMMCC and I only had my 2 year old 13in MBP with me, and I managed to come home with a rough assembly just off the MBP. I was shooting Prores which played just fine but it dropped to 12fps with LUT applied, so I used EditReady to transcode to ProRes proxy with a LUT applied and edited off that. Worked a treat, and EditReady did the transcode overnight like a champ. It was a workaround to be sure, but it worked pretty darn well.

I picked mine up last week, and I've not had the chance to shoot anything worth showing, but I'm loving the form factor. I frankensteined a rig together out of bits I had thinking I would get a cage or something, but it turned out so well that I'm keeping it the way it is. It's basically built on a long Manfrotto plate, with a bunch of rod clamps and 1/4in screws, with a single 15mm rod that runs over the top where I mount my DP4. The DP4 has side 1/4in sockets so I've put a hot shoe screw on one side with a rubber washer which holds it in place via friction, so I can change the angle of the screen with one hand. I also broke out the soldering iron and made an expansion box with an on/off button for stop/start, and two push buttons to control other stuff (I've mapped mine to white balance and shutter angle). I've put a handle on the right hand side and it's really comfortable to use at chest level. I can also mount my Atomos Power Station to the back, which makes for a nicer balance if I'm using a heavier lens. With the Power Station you can even pop it on the shoulder... for a short time (the Power Station sits on the shoulder, there's no padding or anything but it's totally doable for a few minutes at a time). Hopefully I can get out there this weekend and use this thing!