tomekk

So who of the greatest film directors has used hallucinogens before? Has somebody confessed yet? This is quite interesting by the way. I think in the creative field, using hallucinogens gives you an edge, someone disagrees ? 

Can someone do a list of pros, cons, differences of using both FCPX and Premiere? Does FCPX has system around it like Premiere does (after effects etc.)?

but FCPX is MAC only, just kidding ;).

Sorry, I meant post-processing in general, whether it's photoshop/lightroom or anything else.

Average joe doesn't go beyond automode. If he does, he's not average joe anymore.

I'm just an advanced user but  to me purism doesn't mean you can't use photoshop. I would say it's more often than not it's the opposite. Photographs without post-processing hardly ever convey any emotions except to the person who took them, therefore they don't feel real. If you want someone to feel how you felt when you were there you have to do photoshop work. It's mandatory, IMHO. Now, if you make it too perfect and it feels fake, then it's just a bad post-processing (unless you wanted it feel fake).
Also, I'm yet to see anyone with an expensive camera on auto mode to make good photographs ;). Average Joe will improve only if automode improves.

Francis Ford Coppola liked the GH2 best in the Zacuto shootout. Are some subjective opinions more important than others in the opinion soup? I do believe they are.

Yes, they are, obviously. That's why I don't believe in democracy for example ;)... but we are heading towards more complicated topics. 

I've purposely added "..and it depends on a lot of other things too" to cover my back for questions like this one as it is quite long subject.

When does a big sample of subjective opinions turn into an objective opinion?

It doesn't completely and it depends on a lot of other things too but it's getting more objective than a smaller sample of subjective opinion. 

What/how the XYZ colours look to you is subjective. It has little to do with science, apart from the science of human behaviour and sensory perception.

Colours, things and events have no meaning or value per se. 'Horrible' is an emotional attachment. It's all up to your personal perception, so there is not much point in 'scientifically explaining' why something appears horrible to you.

 

Just marry your Canon and get it over with. Let others be happy with their horrible colours. Each to their own.

I'm not defending anyone here, but what you're saying is not entirely correct. Yes, how colours look is subjective but you can go deeper than that and take bigger sample to get more objective opinion which is what matters more a lot of times. If 6 billion ppl out of 7 billion will tell you something looks horrible you can assume it looks horrible to most of the earth population and go from there...

Of course this statistic doesn't say anything about if they're right or not... this is completely different topic ;).

@stab LOL

I'd definitely switch to A7S II with 5axis stablisation :O.

Piano is the beautifully titled "Undercover Vampire Policeman" by Chris Zabriskie.

 

How have you solved copyright issues? Have you contacted Chris Zabriskie to get permission to use his song for the reel?

Overall, I love it.

Quality video is never coming back to the DSLR line.

 

That is precisely what the Cinema EOS line is for.

 

And you must pay the asking price for it, or get a Sony.

I think, it's reasonable to assume that canon at least have to compete with nikon's dslrs. Other than that, I don't expect more too.

This camera is not a good sign for 5Dmk4 :(

Cinegain: Lol. And thank you so much rich for the advice. I am 20 and already make an enormously successful business and dominate the entire half region of my country (7 cities and approx 40 million population) as the only video man, so I am 100% booked and even get to choose which jobs I want to take, I am really really lucky to have almost no competetion, (advice: anyone who wants to run a successful video business, come here, to a third-world country, you'll make 100x more money than working in Europe + US. People's quality standards are also MUCH lower. No competetion and low standards do have their disadvantages, it doesn't challenge you creatively, that's why I dedicate a big part of my time here on foreign boards/creative places to see others' work and be challenged, improve, but it's not a very good solution either.)

So it's not really about getting booked but about making the clients happy and proud during the shoots, and also especially in documentary shoots, my subjects seem to be MUCH more responsive and helpful and respectful when I use a big-professional looking camera, and it will also directly make me able to charge more. You have to understand's the Egyptian client personal mind to get what I am saying, which is impossible! :D

If I had 40 million population market just for myself I for sure would be set for life long long time ago and for sure wouldn't be wasting my precious time thinking about cheapo cameras  ;). I'd just buy everything and threw away the ones I didn't like :D.

As I would like to start a side business making wedding videos I'm looking into copyrights. I found that you can buy a license that's covering any soundtrack from prsformusic.

Is anybody using it? 

http://www.prsformusic.com/users/recordedmedia/dvdsanddigitalmedia/Pages/LimitedManufactureLicence(LM).aspx

Seems cheap if I can use any music...

Had a second look at it, because it's so tempting but it seems there is only microSD port on it  so internal recording in high quality is unlikely :(... damn almost bought it for the second time.

sigh, almost bought it but low light performance kills it for me :(.

Neil: is it the size of your files you're out to decrease?

 

I don't care about filesize as disk space is cheap and I delete ALL my data when I'm done with my projects anyway. For clients I calculate in storage space in the final bill. But come on, how often have you been asked to cut again after the project is truly done and the final export have found it's new home on TV or other type ads etc.?

 

My workflow is as follows: 

 

- Copy raw files to HD

- Lates Raw2cdng (beta version) with default settings as converter

- Photoshop CC raw and ONLY adjust whitebalance and exposure, although I set my template to decrease sharpness a tad. All other settings at default.

- Export every file sequence out as a PSD's, as photoshop sequences that is. Remember to sync every file before doing that and check the 16 bit box

 

Now I have 16 bit file sequences that imports and PLAYS wonderfully in Premiere CC thats VERY gradeable of course.

 

The whole process is fast and easy. I really don't get all those other elaborate workflows people choose to use. I find this is the ultimate workflow regarding image quality. The only downside like I said, is perhaps the filesize of your project. I don't care about that.

 

This is why I won't give up my 5d mk 3 with ML raw.

Is there really an advantage of using photoshop at all? I import cdng's straight into premiere cc and do everything there.

Okay, so we have an audio solution with the Tascam.

 

Another issue with recording video with Canon DSLRs is that they usually don't have peaking or other focus aids, in sunlight the LCD panel is hard to see and their optical viewfinders are unusable in video mode (a problem that mirrorless cameras don't have).  So some sort of third-party add-on viewfinder is needed, which attaches to the back of the camera and shades the LCD screen while magnifying its image.  I've been looking at the Zacuto Z-Finder Pro 2.5x (see pic below) but it costs $375.  There are cheaper viewfinders available, but Zacuto claims theirs is better due to anti-fog coatings on their optical elements, etc.  Anyone have any experience using the Zacuto or the cheaper alternatives out there?

I've got zacuto, it really is nice help. Not really sure if worth the price. I bought it long time ago, about 2 years ago. It's just a magnifier. I'd guess 3rd party companies matched it in quality by now if they wanted as it's nothing complicated, imho. If there is an alternative for half a price I'd buy it.

Lookup "trade" and "dumping".  Regarding Amazon, they were not doing "R&D". They deliberately operated at cost / below cost for years to build market share.  And, yes, to drive a lot of brick-and-mortar establishments out of business.  They succeeded on both counts.

 

Let's talk solutions instead of causes. Thanks to third-party companies, you can add some of the stuff Canon deliberately left off their more reasonably-priced cameras.  Here's a box made by Tascam, designed to attach to the bottom of a DSLR and it provides a headphone jack for monitoring, XLR connectors, level meters and controls, etc.  Very reasonably priced at $200, the only drawback I can see being that it adds a pound of weight to your camera and makes it more bulky to carry around.  Probably more useful for tripod than hand-held use. Any comments on this?

I'm not going to derail this thread any further... Tascam looks nice, indeed.

To those who don't believe a company would lose money on purpose, the poster child for that very strategy is Amazon.com.  Their business plan stated that they did not expect to make any profit for the first five years; instead they focused on building market share even if that meant losing money on many transactions. That strategy, considered by some to be crazy at the time, did eventually make them the world's largest online company.

 

Another example was the "dumping" of steel by Japanese companies in the United States market back in the Nineties.  They purposely sold steel at below the cost to manufacture it, taking substantial losses at the time, in exchange for the goal of driving U.S. producers out of business.

ad. Amazon. apples and oranges, you can't compare startup company of any sort which invests first, needs funding and doesn't profit in the beginning for very obvious reasons to sony/panasonic now. Also, there is a difference between R&D cost and losing money.

ad. steel "dumping". Are you talking about a period after when Asian financial crisis hit? Firstly, please, link me to the details how Japanese companies were losing money by selling steel to the USA they probably couldn't sell anywhere else due to financial crisis where everyone was putting everything on hold/going bankrupt. Selling steel below US-market prices doesn't mean they were losing money on it. Even if they were selling below production cost it wasn't for reasons you mentioned. If you have no other places to sell, you are overstock but you still have to pay hundreds of your employees. What do you do? They had no other choices, that's hardly purposely, quite opposite in fact. You give more for less to keep you going (in this case you sell to the only market you can sell to - USA at lower prices). Then USA quite obviously wants to protect their market so they come up with "anit-dumping measures". Last but not least, coming up with an argument from times where market is heavily distorted is meaningless. It's always bad cause the market is not normal during these times so the argument is automatically bad as well.

The only thing oversimplified here was your response.

 

I took the time to read the financial reports for Canon and Panasonic. As someone else previously mentioned, Canon is making a profit currently and Panasonic is losing money.  It's starting to get clearer what Canon's strategy is here.  With the market for mass market cameras shrinking due to competition from cell phones, etc., they have evidently decided to preserve profits by cutting product development costs except for their high margin lines. So their APS-C cameras have shared the same sensor design for the last five years.  4K capability was added only to their two most expensive cameras.  The only real innovation added to any Canon model under $10,000 in the last few years that I can think of has been "dual-pixel" focusing on a few models.  Panasonic and Sony are doing the opposite - taking some losses to make cameras so advanced that they hope cell phones can't compete with them.

 

For the advanced videographer who doesn't have $15,000 or more to spend on a camera, currently the best choice of what to buy, I'm sorry to say, is probably a camera that doesn't say "Canon" on it.

We're not talking about mass market products in this forum but if canon is moving away from lower end cameras (which 7d and higher aren't) then that might be a smart move. 

Panasonic and Sony aren't taking losses on purpose (this doesn't make sense, logically speaking). They are much more likely pushing their products because that's the way to stop losing money. So I'd argue reasons for doing what they're doing are completely opposite to what you're saying. They're losing money so they have to innovate. That's how it works usually. If you're a weaker player in this game, you have to give more for similar or lower price and rightly so. Buyers gain, bigger companies are forced to improve as well, bla, bla, bla. 

Of course, canon is not right choice now for videographer's and is lagging behind after recent releases from competition. I'd be pretty surprised if they don't at least match competition with their next releases though.  Time will tell.

The real successor to the 7D for filmmakers is the C300 and Canon knows this.

 

This is why they don't need professional standard video on their DSLRs. It really is that simple. C300 sold incredibly well. Job done.

 

Canon thinks the soft, mediocre 1080p on the 7D is good enough for 90% of their intended user base.

 

All I can say to that is... hahha... now get back to work.

 

They are royally underestimated their customers. We demand more. Hobbyists and enthusiast with high knowledge especially absolutely realise how Canon are falling behind on performance terms vs the competition, for stills let alone video. Nikon has refreshed very recently across their entire line and Sony, Panasonic, Fuji, Olympus have all innovated with high end mirrorless stuff. Canon has done none of that.

 

For stills performance look at the aged 5D3 vs D810 or indeed the D750, which is cheaper than both. Or the Sony A7R for resolution and the Sony A7S for low light photography. Dynamic range is also a problem. Canon are 2 stops short. Then for video, ignoring the abject mess that is the DSLRs, the Canon C300 just does NOT compete on equal terms with the Sony FS7. It looks like 7 years older technology and when you see the 10bit 4K of the FS7 next to the 8bit 1080p of the C300, and the 180fps vs 30fps, you will see it in your bloody work as well. I'm not paying money for that kind of shortfall no matter how good the ergonomics and lenses are!!

 

What I find deeply odd, is Canon's complacency in the midst of all of this.... Vs the big guys like Sony and Nikon it is baffling enough. But then you add into the mix out of left field, Sigma(!?) making significantly better lenses than Canon, and their 35mm F1.4 outselling the Canon 35mm F2.0 IS so much that Canon had to give it a price drop... and of Samsung making more technologically cutting edge APS-C sensors... Samsung!? OF ALL PEOPLE!! I mean come on, wake up.

 

Canon's whole success has been built on leading the technology race. Best sensors, best cameras, best lenses.

 

Stills shooters STILL (if you excuse the terrible pun) have no high megapixel sensor from Canon. Why not? Nothing to beat the 36MP offered by Sony and Nikon.

 

Sony have the best sensor for low light photography and it does superb video. Where's Canon's answer? They don't have one!

 

Sony have a medium format sensor actually already in cameras right now, getting sold, and Canon could but doesn't.

 

Sony has mass market 24MP and 36MP sensors which are better performing than Canon's and not only that but they are giving Canon's biggest rival on sales, Nikon, an image quality advantage. It's all very confusing.

 

If Canon don't fix this, their good karma won't last and they will remember the dissenters like me in a few years wishing they'd listened.

You're oversimplifying. Very short term thinking. Sony's, Nikon's or whatever other's company better products now don't mean anything in the long term. It's quite normal competition takes the lead sometimes. It doesn't mean they're better company overall AND will win in the end, though. You're looking at it from a very narrow minded point of view - few products they've released recently which are better at this point in time ignoring/forgetting everything else. 

 

 so I know they lie to their customers. I have seen it for myself.

Same with other corporations. 

I think similar but slightly modified (to the Cinema line vs competition) questions should be asked at a video related event. It was pointless from the beginning in here.