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Jon de Zwaan

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Posts posted by Jon de Zwaan

  1. Fixed some minor issues:

    • Custom resolution (and 4096x2160) now keeps correct aspect ratio when lower is recommended.
    • VP9 encode speed calculation now more realistic. Generally speaking it will only be recommended when not on a tight deadline, else faster H.264 encoding is recommended.
    • Added 30fps to source settings and preset.
    • Added Vimeo Pro/Plus resolution limit to 1920x1080p.

    Still hoping on some more feedback guys, it'll be much appreciated.

  2. PUBLIC.png

    Hi guys!

    As part of my graduation project, I'm trying to develop a (web)tool which should make video encoding a lot easier and faster. It's actually a follow up to my previous research, in which a lot of participants stated that time is often a limit to quality. After learning some basic PHP skills, I've completed the base code and I think I need to share it first, before I continue to develop the tool any further. Let me know what you think and most importantly: don't be gentle!

    You can view the tool here and if you've got any spare time, please provide some feedback in this topic or in this form.

    Thanks!

    -Jon

  3. Hi all,

    As part of my graduation at my university in The Netherlands, I'm doing some basic research about 1080p H.264 encoding for Youtube, so in short, I'm asking for your help! I would dearly appreciate it if you would take a couple of minutes to complete a very short survey about H.264 encoding for Youtube. I did my best to translate the original Dutch survey to English, so I apologize for some mistakes.

    Cheers!

    - Jon

    Link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1iYI6NuSI9wq_tzN9o9pu_TEC0WqNbeg-obPs89vzXoc/viewform?usp=send_form

    Disclaimer: It's a personal school project, results will be anonymously published in my research blog.

  4. It's really fun to read all of peederj's frustrated comments. Dear sir, who are you trying to convince? Are you trying to justify your $$$ 8bit purchase, while everyone else gets raw (eventually) for a couple of bucks.

    You're spending way too much time on preaching and defending your beloved Canon C$$$ and posting about Blackmagic's small mistakes. Even Andrew's side by side raw-8bit comparison didn't hold you back. We all know the situation BMD is currently in, but eventually everyone will profit from their market strategy.
  5. I wouldn't use a 50D as my A cam, it's probably fun to experiment with, but far too limited as a dedicated video camera. My advice would be a GH3 with speedbooster and the sigma 18-35mm f1.8 as a versatile low light zoom lens. The Panny 12-35mm f2.8 and 35-100mm f2.8 can suffer from moiré and aliasing, probably because of the in camera lens correction.
    The GH3 won't shoot raw, but has a very decent All-I codec without a hack and who knows what if it gets hacked.
    A Pocket Cinema Camera with Speedbooster could be a viable option as well.

    With the speedbooster, you won't have to worry about sensor size or lowlight shooting. Both options will cost slightly above $2000 including the sigma lens.
  6. Andrew, this is getting pretty insane. I'm sorry to say it, but you're acting like a child that didn't get his Christmas present he wanted.

    Who are you trying to convince? I signed up here because of the valuable information and helpful community, but it seems like it's turning into a Personal View 2.0.

    Blackmagic Design will deliver the cam's eventually, don't worry about it. Cool down and enjoy Magic Lantern in the meantime.
  7. Andrew, please excuse my curiosity, but why did you delete the previous post which contained some criticism? If he was talking nonsense, you could have easily responded with some facts. Now it feels like he did have a point and you acted like the Russian dictator on that other forum.

     

    Not that I doubt your integrity or honesty and I haven't bought the book, but if it contains a lot of research done by the Magic Lantern team, maybe you could consider donating a small part of the profit to them.

     

    Nonetheless thanks for making our lifes easy with your website and books!

  8. I'm going through the agonies of purchasing a Panny GH3. Reason being, the lack of focus peaking while shooting video and no zebra stripes. Initially, I was going to just pick up the camera, along with a Lumix 12-35mm f/2.8 for around $2,500, but since reading in these pages how good the Zacuto Flip EVF is, I'm wondering: should I get the Zacuto and the Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 pancake lens instead? You see, I'm limited to around $2,500 and it's going to be a long while before I can purchase anything else... I'm really confused at the moment! I've been using a Panasonic TM900 for the past year, but I really like the image quality I see coming from these SLRs and MFT cameras. I plan on doing narrative work and documentaries.

    Buy only what you really need if you're on a tight budget. I would recommend buying lenses over additional accessories like the Zacuto EVF. Zebra stripes and focus peaking are nice features, but won't make you a better filmmaker. Learn to read the histogram and practice with focusing. You could choose to buy a Varavon GH3 loupe instead, if you're really having trouble getting the focus right. It's a lot cheaper and keeps your rig compact.

  9.  


    A shoulder mounted camera mounted on a shoulder is not handheld  It is shoulder mounted.

    This should be pretty obvious .

    Handheld for a professional crew is a professional term  the camera operator is actually quite skilled in achieving this effect.

     

    Hand held by amatuers is usually thought of a as a way to make amatuer films.

     

    Your thoughts and some others seem based on something that doesn't exist except as a concept made up as you go along and therefore anything you want to attribute to your view of what handheld should and could be will be acceptable within your reference framework.

     

    Handheld is therefore whatever tripod you wish to attach it to.

     

    Great, thanks! You got it right at last, we're talking about the difference between the look of 'handheld' footage and the way you're holding a cam. Don't mess those things up. When you're shooting shoulder or chestmounted you get (most of the times) the look of handheld footage, so that's why it's called handheld.

     

    Handheld in the way you describe as holding the camera with just two hands only is only 'doable' with smaller cams for a short period of time. With the larger cams, like the pdw-700, holding it like that means you can't pull focus or zoom at the same time, even pulling focus alone will mean you have to support a 10/15 kilograms beast with just one hand, good luck in getting usable footage for longer than let's say 20 seconds. In my experience you're always looking for a third point of support, it might be a part of your body, a wall or the floor, it's just for keeping the cam steady, the motion in control and getting the shot right.

     

    But let's end this discussion and agree that 200mm on crop and handheld isn't recommended to say the least.

  10. Well, let me say this, I agree with the fact that it's not ideal (impossible?) to use a 200mm on a crop sensor without any support besides your hands only. But I think you're taking the term handheld way too literally. When we're doing a live event multicam or even a movie, we lable all the shoulder mounted camera's as handheld. It's up to the operator and director how to use it, as long as we're getting mobility and handheld like footage.

     

    Using a EX-3 or a PDW-700 is really hard in the way you describe handheld. So I consider shoulder and chestmounted cam's as handheld footage.

     

    In other words, you wouldn't recommend using a 200mm on crop handheld, I agree, but using 'silly' as an argument is rather silly.

     

    Edit: Bruno nailed it as well.

  11. Got my CN-70, can't say that much about it yet. Comes with three filters/diffusers, USB cable and schuko plug for charging.
     
    Hot shoe mount tightens a bit hard, says a lot about the build quality, but the light itself looks ok, pretty bright actually.
     
    This is what it looks like on top of a GH2; 

     

    [attachment=316:CN70.jpg]

  12. Leang +1

     

    It's not that hard to find some handheld footage at 200mm, even on a crop sensor some shots look pretty usable to me. All you need is a pair of steady hands and probably an extra support like a shoulder or chest mount. You probably wouldn't want to drink too much coffee before shooting with 200mm handheld.

     

    [url="http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=200mm+handheld&oq=200mm+handheld&gs_l=youtube.3...1414.4982.0.5150.16.15.1.0.0.0.103.931.14j1.15.0...0.0...1ac.1.MspKL7xiDfc"]Youtube search query[/url]

  13. I just ordered a CN-70 LED light very cheap on eBay, while retailers in Holland are selling it under different brandnames for like 100 euro's. Don't know anything about it, but can't go wrong for something less than 40 euro's, otherwise I should smoke a little less for a couple of weeks.

     

    It has barndoors, two filters and is powered by an internal battery. If you're curious I could write something about it when I get it.

  14. Remember the GH2 has the EX tele conversion mode. It's very useful when shooting in decent light, so with one prime you actually have two focal lenghts available.

    Otherwise I have to agree with the others, there are no cheap zoom lenses that offer the same iq as decent fast primes.

    If you're able to spend a bit more money you could take a look at the Tokina 28-70mm f2.8. It's a bit long on the wide end, but it has constant aperture and is not that expensive.

    Another option is to dig into c-mount lenses. There are plenty of dirt cheap fast tv-zooms, but most of the time you'll need to modify the mount and use the EX tele mode, because of the vignetting.

    Good luck!
  15. Interesting to learn about the noisy blacks asf. Encountered similar problems with XDCAM EX recently, compared to EOS and GH2 footage. But I like it. This effect in particular:
    [img]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/57198583/screenshot-v.jpg[/img]How done?

    I guess it's creative use of a stereoscopic anaglyph plugin. 

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