KarimNassar

Hello everyone, I was lucky to take part in a two days digital cinema workshop presented by Marquise technologies and Free Studio in Geneva.

I will not try to relay all the information we received in this thread as I am not qualified and it would be a daunting task, but I will rather give you my thoughts on the workshop and give you a little wrap up of the event.

[img]http://www.freeimagehosting.net/newuploads/9u9u9.jpg[/img]

The workshop covered dailies management and data handling, debayering, the ACES color space, post-production, and DCP.
Special guests were Jean-Piere Beauviala founder of Aaton and DP Caroline Champetier (holy motors).

It also included a shootout between the following cameras that we compared on the second day from the dcp files in a movie theater:

Red epic, Arri Alexa, Sony F65 and Aaton Delta

[img]http://www.freeimagehosting.net/newuploads/alh7g.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.freeimagehosting.net/newuploads/u9qde.jpg[/img]

The first thing that surprised me was how big the F65 was.
I did not tape measure them but I felt size wise from smallest to biggest was like this:
red epic, arri alexa, AAton Delta, Sony F65

Here another view of the fully equiped Sony beast:
[img]http://www.freeimagehosting.net/newuploads/a3qc9.jpg[/img]

Each camera was presented to us and when discussing their features the most intriguing one was the Delta.
A couple things separate it from the others:

- An optical viewfinder,
- a very big ventilator to reduce sound emission
- integrated ssd recorder (4 of them stacked up in raid 0) non proprietary you can use the brand of your choice
- a little screen on the other side of the camera with the basic info so you can check them on both sides
- mechanical rotating mirror shutter
- the sensor that physically moves from half a pixel during recording

more info here: [url="http://nofilmschool.com/2012/10/aatons-penelope-delta-camera/"]http://nofilmschool....e-delta-camera/[/url]

The last feature was the most interesting one but we could sadly not see it in action as the prototype camera did not feature it yet.
According to the founder of Aaton, the variation in the image this shift produces forces our brain to stay more focused on the images.

You can see the big ventilator and small side screen here:

[img]http://www.freeimagehosting.net/newuploads/5wb3y.jpg[/img]

Another interesting feature was on the Sony F65, which has a special pixel array arranged in bee hive structure.
Which adds up to an odd ratio of 8192 by 2160 pixels even though the final aspect ratio is 17:9 close to 2:1.

[img]http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xb0_SirmzNI/TaLAb4d68EI/AAAAAAAAAy0/HJfBv7uuAbU/s1600/Sony+F65+CFA.JPG[/img]

explained in detail here: [url="http://camerarentalz.com/sony-f65-6k-sensor/"]http://camerarentalz...-f65-6k-sensor/[/url]

An interesting anecdotal info comes from DP Caroline Champetier who had a very harsh view on the Arri Alexa.

[img]http://www.freeimagehosting.net/newuploads/z4ysu.jpg[/img]

She tested the camera among others before shooting one of her films and really dislikes it.
The skin tones and color rendition are terrible in her opinion.
She says that that camera is a very good television camera but definitively not a cinema camera.

I was quite surprised at how categorical she was on the Alexa because of how good Skyfall looked to me.
So I was looking forward to seeing that "television" camera compared in the theater on the next day.

But it was no fair fight.
They received a faulty Gemini so they had to record prores instead of raw on the Alexa.
And it showed.

In theater camera comparison:

[img]http://www.freeimagehosting.net/newuploads/7qnai.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.freeimagehosting.net/newuploads/45taz.jpg[/img]

The subject is very subjective of course but there are a couple things that showed clearly and are not subjective:

- On one of the shots with half of a wooden box in the shade, the Alexa and Epic showed no information what so ever, pure black.
On the Delta and F65 the wood texture and details were clearly visible, a big difference in visible dynamic range there.
Now of course on the epic you would be able to pull some info from the blacks. But straight out of the cam was pure black.

- ProRes is not good enough for cinema. It looked very bad. The colors on the girl skin tones and hair were very weak and the clouds looked really muddy. You could really tell the difference. Wish they had shot with ArriRaw so that it would have been more fair.

- The Aaton displayed a very smooth gradation between shades of grey. Not a huge difference with the f65, but it was very smooth.

Now the rest is subjective:

In my opinion there was two groups, the bottom group with the alexa (sadly ProRes) and the Epic.
And the top group with the Delta and F65.

The F65 red haired woman shot was simply superb!
The skintones and hair color and detail rendition were amazing.
The Delta delivered a more contrasted image which I liked less.

Interestingly the colorist that was presenting the shots said he would rather grade a more contrasted shot like the Delta instead of having to add contrast and the guess work that comes with it like on the f65.

[img]http://www.freeimagehosting.net/newuploads/wwgbh.jpg[/img]

Both theses cameras displayed a superior dynamic range and most importantly superior colors imo.
(The sony was shifting towards yellow in the highlights a bit)

The camera that delivered the most complete and appealing image to me was the F65.
But when discussing this with the other attendees as you would expect everybody had a different favorite.

All in all it was a very fascinating workshop.
Big thank you to Marquise Technologies and Free Studios for this.

FYI:

Skyfall was not shot anamorphic .
Roger Deakins shot it with Arri Master Primes (spherical lenses made by Zeiss)



Roger Deakins quote:
[i]''A widescreen 2.40:1 aspect ratio frames the images, which were shot “flat” and extracted from the Alexa’s 16:9 sensor. The lenses were ARRI Master Primes, usually focal lengths in the mid-range like 27, 32, 35 and 40mm. [url="http://www.codexdigital.com/"]Codex[/url]recorders were used with all cameras, up to about 10. Codex Datapacks were backed up on set and then sent for dailies processing.[/i]''



I think we will see more and more of this process, as film dies away and shooting anamorphic becomes a less used format , by shooting spherical digitally and cropping for 2.40:1 for release.

[quote name='KarimNassar' timestamp='1351761912' post='20773']


I call it the "shooting stars artifact" because it is rays of brighter color that travel from the top left to the bottom right part of the image, looks like shooting stars.

They are visible in dark parts of the image, mostly visible in very dark parts.
It is very visible when you push the image in post, if you want to see it download the dynamic range comparison I posted in my gh3 quick handheld comparison thread.

More subtle but clearly visible here (not my work):
[url="https://vimeo.com/47358813"]https://vimeo.com/47358813[/url]
At the end of the video on the wood behind the bea hive.
Watch in full screen you won't miss it.
[/quote]

I don't know if anybody picked up on this, but there seem to be a couple of issues in Flowmotion like a weird rain looking like pattern in dark areas, and flickering issues. Digging for a link while you're on your phone is a p.i.t.a. so i'll just tell you to look up a guy named "Roman Legion Films" in Vimeo. He points out an issue in one of his videos with it.. Maybe it's the same thing you're seeing as it seems like a common issue now popping up.. I didn't really see it in mine.... But i didn't really look for it either. Another issue was a lowlight shot with my new voigtlander and my 5 year old. I did a slow push from her full body sitting up in her bed watching tv up to her face. I wanted "eerie" with just the tv light reflections. The wall behind her bed is big, empty, and white right now so it looks creepy as hell. Try as i may adjusting shutter, and frame rate, i could not fix the fact that the light reflection was flickering consistently like i was shooting in PAL land or something. So i ditched the shot and put her to bed, lol.

The thing is, I didn't check it on my computer. I know the Gh2's lcd is awful with gamma shift, refresh rate, & such.. So maybe someone can chime in if they've seen something similar. I know Flowmotion is great in almost all other aspects, but i'm back to Sedna. It's an All-i patch and that could've had something to do with it as well even though FM is only a 3gop patch.. Who knows..

Point is, others have seen the problems you're talking about. I thought Flowmotion was the last patch I'd ever need until these little issues. Now i'm fairly certain a high bitrate, all-i patch is about as good as the gh2 can get.. All of these matrix adjustments to simulate 4:4:4 characteristics on a 4:2:0 camera are really indiscernible to me.. I can't see a difference in any of them anymore. Sanity was awesome regarding noise in lowlight.. I didn't have any hardly.. Until i saw it only pushed 17mbs in the scene and thus, just smeared it out along with blocking in the highlights of all things.. Lol. Bad.
Sedna and CM night seem to be the best from what i've seen... But then again, they're 150+mbps all-i patches that require the 64/95 card or forget reliability.

[quote name='charlie_orozco' timestamp='1351816027' post='20826']
This is what I have at hand. The shots of the guitar player and picking the guitar up and playing it with the skylight behind is an example. I had to lift the lows quite a bit in all of those shots.

EDIT: it's exactly the thumbnail shot that I'm talking about, and all those shot from the same angle.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ44i0Woa6E[/media]
[/quote]

There is Quite a bit of noise in your video (on the staircase, and the seats, etc etc). I just saw a few seconds of the start, and there was already a lotta noise (strange artefacts).


[quote name='KarimNassar' timestamp='1351788409' post='20798']
I wondered if it was my camera that was faulty but then I saw it in others people footage like the vimeo link I posted.
Maybe you guys should try to pull the shadows all the way up and see if it's there?
or maybe it is specific to the flowmotion hack?
[/quote]

Naah, i don't think its got to do with the FlowMotion Hack. All settings, with very high contrast,and very low light scenes have it. I saw it in the 5D videos too. All cameras with 4-2-0 have it (maybe even with the 4-2-2 have it, though,it may be less noticeable).

Though, the noise on the GH2, IMHO,seems to vary,under different circumstances.

There are good ISO settings, and there is the ISO bug, and, I also suspect, that, in low light, certain shutter speeds also govern the level of noise.

Check this out:

[url="http://vimeo.com/18580410#at=0"]http://vimeo.com/18580410#at=0[/url]


Its not a big deal, I guess. Everything comes with its limitations. We just have to learn, to work around it.

Btw, i realised, that the GH3 has a strange update, on the continuous shooting rate/ high speed burst mode. Whereas, the GH2 shot 4MP pics, at 40 fps, for exactly 1 second, the GH3 does 4MP pics, at 20fps, for 2 seconds. Doesn't, then, the processor power, seem similar? ;)

good I was wondering if they were going to back down because Sony did not make any official price announcement on theirs. So today is the day. looking forward to finding out

[quote name='jgharding' timestamp='1351618918' post='20639']
I've just started daydreaming because of this... I love cinemas and theaters... what city are you in, if you don't mind me asking?
[/quote]

I live in a small town in southern Sweden called Näsum... I'm an artist painter, my wife a musician. We wanted a place to arrange concerts and exhibit paintings, and found this closed down 110 seats theatre/cinema with adjoining house, built around 1900, for next to nothing... it is quite a special feeling to watch movies in your own cinema, with the dog snoring on a rug...

To tell you the truth, I don't see how this could be a "Game changer." if it did all that's it's claimed to do and sold for $3000 (hell, even %5000-$10,000) then yes, that would be a game changer. Will it be better then a Scarlet or C300? I'm sure it will but at $20,000 it had better be. And really, I think this just underscores the great challenge that the BMCC has cast out there into the industry. In my mind, a game changer would be one that offers high-end features at a lower price point, bringing pro features to people who would not normally be able to afford them. If you're going to call it a game changer and charge $20,000 for it, it had better have features that blow away the competition. To me, the only "Game changer" I've seen is the BMCC. Even with all it's flaws, lens mount, sensor size, internal battery, etc., it's still so much more compelling to me then any other camera out there right now because it does what no other camera can do at $3000 by a long shot.

Yeah, I think they just wanted traffic into their site and channel. The final video has no value whatsoever as a test or comparison. Next please!

Just seen the new Bond film Skyfall in 4k Sony Projection .
It looks stunning image quality is amazing .
Arri Alexa and Roger Deakin's Cinematography are a stunning combination!
the film is very good too! great ending!

It's worth seeing in 4k Projection

[url="http://www.dcinematoday.com/dc/PR.aspx?newsID=3000"]http://www.dcinemato...spx?newsID=3000[/url]

[b] ARRI hosts Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC, at IBC[/b]


This year has seen an increased take-up of ARRIRAW recording for big-screen movies. Being unencrypted and uncompressed, ARRIRAW helps ARRI's software and postproduction partners to create the best possible 4K or IMAX deliverables; post houses such as ILM are praising the ARRIRAW workflow and the most respected cinematographers in the industry are testifying that ALEXA images look incredible on even the largest IMAX cinema screens.



[img]http://i.ytimg.com/vi/24mTIE4D9JM/mqdefault.jpg[/img]
[color=#606060]SKYFALL trailer[/color]
ALEXA was the camera system chosen for the biggest film of 2012 so far - indeed the third highest grossing film of all time and the fastest ever to reach $500m in the U.S. - Marvel's THE AVENGERS. Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, ASC, BSC, was so impressed by the functionality of the camera and the image performance of ARRIRAW on AVENGERS - his first digital movie - that he bought his own ALEXA. "The AVENGERS was my first feature film with the ALEXA," he notes. "I was really happy with our images. What was particularly impressive was how well it held up in IMAX theaters; this was a revelation to me."



Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC
Another ALEXA film to get the IMAX treatment, as well as a 4K DCP, is the next James Bond film, SKYFALL, directed by Sam Mendes and scheduled for release in November this year. Cinematographer Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC, comments, "On SKYFALL we are producing a 4K DCP from the ALEXA using ARRIRAW. It was only after I had chosen the ALEXA that IMAX projection became a consideration. Not to worry! The images I have seen in the IMAX theater are simply superb. The quality of the 4K image makes the usual IMAX 'enhancement' process totally unnecessary."

Hello everyone not sure this has been released yet so I took a couple of snapshots of the interesting parts of the gh3 user guide:

[url="http://www.freeimagehosting.net/9argv"][img]http://www.freeimagehosting.net/t/9argv.jpg[/img][/url]

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[indent][url="http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?87757-Everything-changes-IMPORTANT-post"]http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?87757-Everything-changes-IMPORTANT-post[/url][/indent][indent]Everything in the electronics world changes... usually for the better, cheaper and faster. EPIC just did.

We have learned how to make EPICs in quantity, lowered our assembly costs, found better suppliers and paid off our NRE.

That means we can continue to charge the same for an EPIC (and now make an obscene amount of profit) or lower the price.

Those of you that paid the initial price hopefully got your money's worth. It was the best price we could offer at the time. You rented your cameras. You used them to generate income by shooting projects.

The industry struggles how to handle it when technology gets better for cheaper. [b]We just tell the truth.[/b]

We are ready to lower prices on EPIC.

So if you bought an EPIC did you lose? Only if you did not put your EPIC to work. These are professional tools. They need to work. That is your responsibility.

Is your EPIC still relevant? Absolutely. Can it be upgraded to Dragon? Yes. Is it frustrating that you paid $X and it will soon be sold for some percentage less than X? Yes. But this is the nature of electronics. It has been. It is. And it always will be.

I paid over $2400 (in 1984 dollars) for an original 1984 Macintosh. That is over $4000 worth of today's money. It had no hard drive. It was 128K of RAM. 3.5" floppys. All I could do with a 1984 Macintosh was MacPaint and MacWrite.

Today... for $4000 you can buy an iMac with a ton of RAM and a bazillion times more in storage that is 10,000 times faster and more capable with a billion times more applications. If you thought the world was changing rapidly then... hold on to your hat. We now live in the world of exponential.

So. We could easily pretend and invent a new model to justify a lower price with higher performance. You are too smart for that. So are we. Instead... we will just lower the price of EPIC.

EPIC continues to be modular. Dragon will be an upgrade. Meizler is a module. All is good in the world if you accept the fact that everything gets better, cheaper, faster and for less money over time.

If you bought an EPIC in the past 30 days... we will offer a credit towards accessories. That amount will be posted along with the new EPIC pricing. Nov. 1st is when it happens.

Here is to transparency and honesty. Here is to the future. This is all an experiment. Let's see how it goes...

Jim[/indent]

The GH2 takes it. That last shot, where you've matched em up. It's just nicer, there's more detailed, no aliasing on the edge of the glasses or the stubble. The GH3 may hold the highlights better here (it was exposed lower though, so no surprise) but there's more noise and that ALIASING! It's a fizzy, nasty thing in this comparison.

Tests of people are the most important, imagine you're trying to get into watching a scene and there's aliasing dancing all over someone's face! It's pretty shocking how bad it is on the mustache, for example, really distracting. What have they done?!

vimeo.com/52122205

some of the shots really show how superb the images are on this

Oh and sanveer I.dynamic and I. Resolution turned off

Get the new firmware here for the 5D Mark III

The 2nd Alpha release of Magic Lantern for the 5D Mark III brings a very useful feature for anamorphic shooters such as I, a real-time anamorphic aspect ratio preview in live view. This is extremely useful for shooting bare bones with an anamorphic lens, or for those with no monitor / EVF that supports anamorphic de-squeeze.

So that was awesome... I'm thoroughly convinced Sigur Ros is like bacon. Put that shit on anything and it becomes at least 36% better... This should win a contest though.... or has it already.

The video quality is improving. By the time the GH3 is out (which I suspect, will be by December end, or early next year), the video codec will be finally ready.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDa97Pn4eDg[/media]

I think Panny was in some kindda dying hurry, to release the GH3, at Photokina. Maybe, because it was auspicious for them, or something. And, because, it’s the largest, the most famous, and the greatest, of them all, and it arrives, just once, every 2 years. Maybe, they couldn't wait. Plus all the China problems and so many other issues have delayed a lot of the Japanese electronic giants.

Some good news for Karim, though (I think GOD is communicating through these Panasonic videos, in a very subtle way ;) :P :D ).

If you look carefully, during the Start of the video, at the mini wall, adjacent to the pavement, you will Notice, that it DOES share something, very Unique, with the GH2.


Namely …



...



...



...

The (return of the ) ISO Bug … roflmao … :P

The photography blog ([url="http://www.photographyblog.com/"]http://www.photographyblog.com/[/url]) has some new gh3 footage

[color=#000000][font=arial, helvetica, sans-serif][size=3]"This is a sample movie at the highest quality setting of 1920x1080 pixels at 25 frames per second with 72Mbps in ALL-I. Please note that this 14 second movie is 124Mb in size."[/size][/font][/color]

Right click and save as:
[url="http://img.photographyblog.com/reviews/panasonic_gh3/photos/panasonic_gh3_01.mov"]http://img.photograp...onic_gh3_01.mov[/url]

Looks bad to me, does not have good detail looks muddy and videoish, and even though it seems to be raining the sky is fully burned out and pure white, where is the "new high dynamic range sensor"?.

Am I the only one let down by what we have seen so far from the gh3?

Don't get back at me with the specs on paper, I've read them and they looked good.
But the footage I have seen so far does not.

Yes, I have. These presets are just combinations of parameters every color correction software has built-in. And the 'look' is just applied as an effect, there is nothing genuine to it. When will we finally be freed from the urge to make such awful mock-ups?

You want a sophisticated look? Create it. Save combinations of filters you experimented with to your own, unprejudiced liking. Do it for a reason. Enhance the emotional impact of a scene. If you want it to taste special, never use spice blends!

[quote name='KahL' timestamp='1347939300' post='18413']
After seeing the prototype first shots ungraded [url="https://vimeo.com/49558910"]https://vimeo.com/49558910[/url], NOW I am convinced.
Highlights SEEM on a Canon level finally so far, though I want to see some night time shots w/ street lamps. But, so far looks great. And skin tones seem on point too.

Definitely impressed so far. Take my money!
[/quote]

that's funny because when I saw this footage my reaction was were the hell is the high dynmic range?
Highlights and shadows are burned out and the footage is too contrasted, dslr like.
Looks no better than the gh2 to me but I know I must not make a judgement on a single video, so I am not, and waiting for more footage.

[quote name='KarimNassar' timestamp='1349077913' post='19271']
is this their website?

[url="http://www.slrmagic.com/products.php"]http://www.slrmagic.com/products.php[/url]

where do you guys order from?
If that is their website I find it quite confusing, where is the full products list?
[/quote]

The lenses are not available for order till December 2012 for the 35mm T1.4 and Feb 2013 for the 35mm T0.95. By then the website will be updated with the new products.

I've got deja vu here.

Boss of company appears on message board to belatedly explain delay without really committing to a firm delivery date, throws a bone with some new features that will be included thanks to this delay and everyone thanks him profusely.

RED really did start a revolution didn't it? ;)

Too short ;)

I'd gladly contribute this week end by pushing the footage in post from your raw files Andrew to see how they hold up.
And then share the results here.
Sadly I most likely won't have any time until Saturday.
If you have the time to do a quick edit until then I'd gladly take a glance at something like this:

[url="http://postimage.org/image/r2mgys5hz/"][img]http://s15.postimage.org/r2mgys5hz/gh2_dynamic_range.jpg[/img][/url]

I took some of my raw gh2 footage and simply recovered the shadows and highlights in AE.

Would be nice to see the same before and after on the gh3 footage if you can.

Using the new high dynamic mode of course :)

My thoughts exactly Astro
So far it has only looked good on paper
And what we've seen looks like markII footage
wait and see
fingers crossed