ike007

A medium format lens on a 35mm sensor does not give the medium format look.

It will still look as 35mm.

Eventually it may give the rendering typical of the brand of lens you are using, which will be less boring than any canon look,  but that is still ar from the look of the MF.

You do not get the typical MF look even on an Hasselblad or Phase system if you do not use some of the 50 or + megapixel backs, which have a  quasi 645 sensor size. The rest of the bunch is just in between MF and 35mm. And precisely this new Sony sensor is of the smallish kind, which is just a bit larger than a 35mm sensor.

"Already I am hearing reports that the rolling shutter on the A7S is really quite bad"

 

Source? I believe we are all very curious about rolling shutter skew in this camera compared to the known Canikons... 

He does not know.

He is just trying to give credit to his educated guess (very likely right guess though).

That's so true for everything.  I was amazed at the amount of barrel distortion in "Nebraska"  In fact, if you watch professional shot network TV shows you'll see all kind of problems.  Every time I point something out my wife is like "Whaaa?" :)

I rather suggest a Louis Vuitton bag. ;)

I'm not sure I understand the effectiveness of the idea behind capturing a stills from video because when I'm shooting video I'm shooting at 1/50. Sure if the decisive moment (frame) on my video was recorded without blur then great but I wouldn't trust that all important shots especially anything moving - would be frozen at 1/50th. I'm not going to shoot 4K video at 1/500 of a second either unless I just wanted it for a spray and pray stills exercise.

I find the GH series SH 40 frames/ second silent mode really a great compromise. It's not video but I can certainly capture the best stills shot  in an action sequence.

Not mentioning extracting the frames for the stills.

I remember shooting an editorial for a fashion magazine in the early 2000. We used a video camera because I wanted the pixelate look on the images. I shot all together less than an hour of video footage and it took 2 long hours days to decide which frames to pick for 10 images. Shooting on a still camera would have required 2/3 hours of editing.

So what are you trying to say that you are pro Nazi?  What do you mean by Russian invading forces? Soviet Union was just protecting themselves... Germany was invading countries such as Poland and so on...

Care to explain yourself Andrew?

Russians were not any better than the opponent.

For 3 grands is plenty good.

It offer a range of features that DSLR do not have. With the right adapter you can use the lenses that you already have, add the rig you use already on your dslr and you are all set.

The skin tones on your test looks beautiful.

On other tests that i saw, the dynamic range lacks a little and the highlights roll off leave a bit to be desired.

Yet you can get a great look.

For 3 grands, there is quite a lot to work with.

Ergonomics are a good topic when you write a review, but on real life, you get on and get the job done.

Then:

 

Explain to him how he's wrong about the ugly noise texture in all MX footage, especially tungsten-balanced, making the image look cheap and chunky and digital.

 

Explain to him why the shadows get so chunky and blue in any tungsten-balanced Red scene, whereas Alexas can be shot under any lighting condition. And then go on and add why the Alexa's superior low light ability is irrelevant.

 

Explain to him why it's irrelevant that the Alexa has a smoother noise texture, much more like film.

 

Explain to him why, despite the Red's 13.5 stops of DR being is a total lie (in fact the camera has no more DR than the C300, less than the F5, and a magenta-tinted highlight rolloff), it's still better than the 14.5+ stops smoothly handled in the Alexa.

 

Explain why the Alexa's superior midrange tonality isn't significant.

 

Explain why red code botching details in skin and foliage (again, some of the most emotionally resonant subject matter...) is irrelevant, whereas ArriRAW is fine and even prores handles these details well.

 

Explain to him why the color science of the Alexa matches 5219 almost exactly and offers smooth creamy flesh tones and beautiful green foliage, whereas the red totally botches memory colors, but that's ok.

 

Explain to him how he's wrong that the OLPF of the Red offers ugly internal reflections and color cast over highlights, whereas the Alexa rolls off smoothly like film.

 

I'm curious. Explain how an ugly image with good specs looks better than a beautiful one with somewhat lesser specs.

 

Personally I would shoot a C300 or F5 over an Epic; the Epic has a stranglehold on summer blockbusters for the resolution advantage, but the look is just so... ugly and the workflow so damn shitty.

 

Yes there is beautiful content shot on red. But Prometheus, for instance, required a lot of CGI lipstick to dress up that pig.

 

I do find the character of the Monochrome sensor to be superior.

After watching Prometheus that as you said is clobbered with CGI, I also watched the Counselor and although it looks pretty good visually I am still wondering why Ridley Scott has not dumped those Red cameras and picked up Alexa. Especially for the landscapes, the interiors scenes in available light, not mentioning the night scenes in total dark in The Counselor, the Alexa should have been a no brainer.

So has Arri reached critical mass?

 

And why the Cinema EOS cameras cropping up in such top flight productions? The image isn't as good as the Alexa!

They are used in little bits here and there, when a smaller rig is needed. I guess EOS are the best crash cams of choice.

On the last 18 months, I have been watching movies made with Alexa, Sony f55 and Red cameras. 

Over all the best productions are picking the Alexa, if we exclude David finch and Ridley Scott, most of the best looking movies are made with Alexa and sometime f65.

The reason why the best movie making productions pick Alexa is because over all ARRI is a better and more reliable company than RED. Probably also because they are more familiar on dealing with ARRI from the film days.

I do not think is just a matter of image quality from the camera, (personally I like Alexa the best) but it is the over all production package (including the post) that make the best looking movies. It happens that they pick the Alexa.

The short answer should have been: Because is quickly becoming the new normal. And much quicker than even the host was imagining, since he could not realize that 4k TV were costing already 3/4000 usd when he was assuming they were 20k.

4k playback devices will be blooming all over the place on the next few months.

The new Sony 4k player is costing only 700 USd like a good Blue ray player. The Koreans will do some cheaper version very soon.

Fiber optics in Asian countries is almost a standard at home, in Tokyo cost only 30 dollars per month , including 2 phones lines.

To deal with 4k footage all you need is a faster 2000 dollars PC, with one or two nvidia cards. Of course storage as well.

Big deal. 

time runs.

japan sinks.

walk around london now everyone is snappy snapping or iphone samsung video ing.

nikon will get a panasonic connection at some stage if it does not go under or is asset stripped sooner.

the elephant in the room alas and know body talks about is cancer from fukishima.

you see the spent fuel pools are on a broken roof enough radiation to kill everyone in japan and dose the rest of us.

maybe the world should talk rather than ignore the fukishima equation.

ge of america helped japan build nukes on fault lines not clever unless like david attenborough,prince phillip and bill gates that humans are a plague on the earth.

camera only digital device will become like a film camera for the hipster pixel peepers only.

maybe lovely fuji should make us a radiation heavy metal foot tester with the usual superb build quality.

And you pulled this out of your... hat?

reading some blogs  reporting the finding of some anti nuclear expert? Are you ready to migrate to Mars since we have already lost the "north emisphere" BS?

Outside of the locked down 20km zone of Fukushima, there is ZERO radiation. Embassies from around the world conduct daily indipendent tests of radiation on water and air on the major cities of japan the the results are "non detectable" level of radiation.

Sure there is a big problem in Fukushima, yet is a catastrophe only for those living in the area.

It will take time but they will fix it, as they fixed Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Japan sinking... sure.

The culture may not be to everybody liking, but come over here and see the most flourishing and advanced civilization of the planet.

Despite the problem of "aging population", which is the problem that all evolved countries of the world have anyway, this is the most efficient and safe place to live in the world.

I'm not Japanese BTW.

NO.  You wrong.  

 

In todays climate it's not economically viable to make lenses of the standard of the contax zeiss for modern consumer grade cameras (of which every Sony alpha camera is consumer grade).  Anyway, you're clearly a fanboy so I'll leave it there.

By your above words it seems that you are simply making assumptions and do not have direct experience with Zeiss Alpha lenses.

While I owned 2 of Contax 645 bodies with 4 lenses for 5 years and recently several Alpha Zeiss lenses.

Any close observation and extensive use on the above products will prove me right and that you are wrong.

In any case I was simply pointing out that the Alpha Zeiss are not plasticky as you stated and are professional grade equipment.

Beside, Sony bodies like the a900 and a99 are not exactly consumer grade.

"Why have Sony, with their huge 4K marketing push, not yet utilised their sensor to its full extent?"

Well, they sell a few video cameras that already do it. They may like to keep selling them a little longer.

I guess, they will start canibalizing that portion of their market only when really necessary.

probably next year.

It is a bit hard to tell from a youtube video, but the A7r film at the Parisian countryside looks quite good. Especially colors and dynamic range look more than satisfactory for many jobs like fashion films that will end on magazines web sites and iPads.

As for the lack of AA filter, I think for print use, it makes a little of difference, It may be worth or not it depends on the eye of the beholder. I had a few cameras lacking AA filter, including digital backs, and I can only praise the gimmick. Moiree occours only once every few thousands shots and you get that little extra crispiness, which helps to get a little more hyper realistic, if you need it.

You can go through the whole post processing and retouching without ever applying any USM or smart sharpen and just deliver the image unsharpened. It just plain works and looks better.

Plus Sony do not even overcharge for it.

no crop on legacy lenses.  I imagine some of the contax zeisses will outperform the new plastic crap zeiss now make.  adaptors are avialbable for every lens mount there is:)

 

finally my distagon 25mm f2.8 will be given a proper test.

Well you have imagined it wrong.

The Zeiss in Alpha mount are all metal, even the focusing ring and they feel like Rolex. 

Optically speaking, they are about the same design as the Contax with an improved coating. So I let you figure that out.

I think the update does maybe show the virtue of Adobe's team pulling together to focus on CC, or at least a big push on to establish Cloud.

 

 

I think the Adobe package is the over all best solution for most productions needs. It is affordable and offers a lot of powerful tools with an easy learning curve. As david fincher once said about it: It  just works, it is a no brainer.

I'm very happy that they will support DNG and especially for my needs, Sony Raw, since the F55, is the new Alexa at half the price and 1/3 the rental price per day.

I guess a Nvidia Titan is the optimal solution for raw playback in real time at 24fps.

Or eventually, if it works with the mercury engine, 2 of gtx 670 cards used in SLI configuration.

Lucas has already cashed out his chips to the tune of $4 Billion dollars and is finished as a filmmaker.  Spielberg has been looking for foreign money to prop up Dreamworks and to finance his films and I don't think really cares anymore about making quality films, but money, even though he's already super rich.

 

Lucas burned out in 1983 after Jedi, but with Spielberg, I think he's reached his theoretical event horizon long ago, probably around the time of Jurassic Park.  So I think both of them are saying, "Look, if we can't make good movies anymore, and the system is abhors new talent, and new ideas, then Hollywood is pretty much screwed."

BUT, what both Spielberg and Lucas are VERY good at is finding new talent.  If they focused on finding the newest talent, they could save Hollywood...perhaps.

Sometimes I think that bombs like "The Lone Ranger" are intentional; simply a payout for the actors and producers as a reward for previous hit projects AND also act as a way for studios to mitigate any of the remainder of tax losses.  Disney is a HUGE corporation, and probably pays little taxes as is, and flops such as TLR probably help to mitigage any tax burdens.

You may be right!

Why not loosing a bit of money that otherwise would go to the tax man, with a movie, that within few weeks from its release, it will be for ever forgotten and no harm will be done.

First, we may know that Lone Ranger is a comic, but who the heck is Lone Ranger to make a movie about? It is DOA.

Second, i can hardly see how this movie could cost 250 millions, unless they gave a big chunk to Johnny and did not bother to revise any of the estimates from the suppliers, just for the sake of spending a sizable budget.

On a different note.

Does the possibility of watching the movie few weeks/months later on those 50/60 inches flat screen TV, with amazing sounds system, in a living room with an Italian sofa (or similar) has something to do with people being less bothered to go to the theater? I know I'am.

there are quite a few things that annoys me about watching a movie at the theater, that make me enjoy more watching it at home when it will be available.

It use to be the theater experience and for some may still be, but some of our home sofa experience can be quite something.

It use to be the fact that there were just a few "must see now" movies per season in the past and now we have plenty them. if we miss one or watch it few months later, it is not the end of the world.

I think it must be cool to take the kids to the movies, the earliest times can be one of those unforgettable experiences when you are so young. yet in 2013 they are so overwhelmed with incredible experiences from all over the places, that even that it may not matter anymore.

Wonder if it has something to do with a 50 year old white guy playing a Native American. Cause we all know there are 0 Native American actors...

Well, he got an heck of a tan though....

It's not a matter of being beautiful, it's excellent design, those are different things, beauty just for the sake of it is useless.

Look at the current Mac Pros, no matter how old they are, their design is still sublime, and the competition hasn't yet caught up in that regard. These new ones are an evolutionary step forward, an attempt to create a new kind of computer from the ground up, which most other makers are not capable of doing, sticking to the old conventions instead.

If you have to look or deal with something every day of your life, that being your partner in life or something you have to use for work, beauty has an immense value.

BTW, this thing is portable. to me this is one of its major breakthroughs. it will fit in a carry on, even a shopping bag, or in a suitcase between your T-shirts and dirty laundry.

They may still be able to sell a stripped down version starting at 2499, as they always did with their Pro. 

For Apple as a company, since when they became a "mobile" company, one of the major problems with the old Mac Pro, which was probably raised by analysts and share holders, it is the profit margin decreased by the foot print  occupied by the large boxes they ship with, or they sit on the expensive real estate of the Apple stores at the exclusive location they are normally in. At the apple store in Soho NY, one of those large boxes may cost about 30 to 50$ of rent per month and it takes the same space of about 20 ipad or 60/80 iPhones, that may be sold in few hours.

This kine camera although it may be more than usable, it has the build quality of a cheap black & decker drill. 

just look at the buttons, seams and decals. we do not need to know how it is made inside...

To put this product in the same sentence with an Alexa is an insult.

If the colors of the BM production camera will be spot on, unlike the current BM cinema camera, I would buy the BM over the Chinese one at anytime. But BM colors are a concern.

Everybody seems to be concern about BMPC dynamic range, but what is more concerning are the colors of the current camera.

Skin tones and saturated colors of the current BM are not acceptable , reminiscent of the quality of early 2000 DSLR.

We tested one BMCC before shooting a commercial for skin care product and decided to give it up, because of the issue with the skin tones. it would have made us waste time (money and time of our life that will never get back) on post to fix  colors and never get satisfactory results. It was a pity that we could not use this camera that otherwise was good. So we decided go with a Sony F55 which in Tokyo is only 500 usd per day with the 4k recorder and the viewfinder, (vs 150 of the BMCC). the cost of renting rigs and lenses would have been the same for both cameras. at the end we spent an extra 350$ per day and we saved a lot of time and money.

You normally get what you pay for.

Here's a short shot with the panasonic LA 7200 and 5D ii from a few years ago and it looks suprisinly good. I think.   : 

 

http://vimeo.com/52401060

 

[Edited by EOSHD - just paste Vimeo URL no need for embed code. Cheers]

Nice! Very nice actually.

I haven't managed to use the hack on the 5d3 myself, but do you think it really compares to an F35 image quality?

 

not even close.

Does it leave a sour taste because I am being sour, or does it leave a sour taste because I criticised someone you like?

 

I suspect the latter.

 

Really, it is time for a more open and honest debate on the merits of our DSLR community leaders I think.

The "blogger" part left a sour taste in somebody mouth, but made me laugh since it was written by one.

I'm sorry man, I have respect for your work as a "researcher" in this domain, but too often you criticize way too far, people that have a different view from yours and your followers. I know for certain that you have a very low level for tolerating criticism toward yourself.

I'm not a fan of Laforet at all, but he is a quite good photographer of international level and became a pretty decent cinematographer. Is carrier at this point is at level well past "Reverie" (which, BTW was a video that any decent fashion photographer would have been able to do blind folded).  He has access to other kind of pro gear and he cannot waste time at the 1 dollar store anymore.

What is he supposed to say?

you did a lot of good work the past few days on testing this RAW thingy on the 5D. You did not need of making fun of anybody else that does not share your enthusiasm.