pizmon

"Also, if that look is a creative choice then you can take an Alexa and do that to the image in post. Why purposefully hobble yourself?" If you develop film/photograph in a darkroom you probably know what I am about to add. There is a process of discovery and I strongly believe that someone will revisit the look from 28 days after and use possibly alexa and than add look in post. But perhaps he/she will look for Canon XL1 and see how he/she can get unique imagery from faulty camera. Once lens flare was argued to destroy your image.., If you want ultimate image quality than 3D animation is probably the answer, look at Life of Pi, Great Gatsby or upcoming computer games....... All that said I really appreciate you effort articles and great work!

Andrew I like your site and resources you provide, however this statement is misleading.    "If you’re not shooting with the best possible image quality you’re letting your content down."   A camera is a tool and it should work with a story  and often time the imperfection in resolution, lens distortion, grain/noise, faulty color add to the story with its greedy aesthetics .    There is many great examples when low-end cameras provided great results, look at some Dogme 95 films like The Celebration or Danny Boyle films...   Camera will not make your film, actors, set design/location and lighting does, sometime low res camera is more appropriate to hide low budget set design/make up and other imperfections..... You need to leave a some space for viewer imagination !   If your statement is correct, forget shooting and use computer animation which  bypasses all the imperfections of the image capture. (Actually this is already happening in the big budget productions)    

The problem is simple cameras are not advancing because it is getting cheaper and cheaper to make them with advances in computing and software development.  Red camera , Blackmagic cinema and I phone are working on the same principal. The  difference in sensor/lens size and a processing power, everything else is software. It is not hard to imagine that in a near future we will be able to assemble 4k cameras at home at low cost. It comes down to processing power and software, which get cheaper every month. There is also practical limitation with resolution (4k is more than enough for 2d cinema). So I really don’t know how else camera manufacturer can make profit in the near future. It will be more software companies that take over and maximize use of hardware - sensor and processor power inside a camera as we see it happening with hacking now - So the Hasselblad pimped camera business might not be that bad strategy for camera makers after all, thay just need to get better designers, but that is another topic  ;)))

Andrew I  am new to you forum, I like your website very much. I agreed pretty much with everything uptill now.   Couple notes to your previous article. I think that people at Canon knows that they cannot win the race with rapid advances in computing. It is easy to see that in the near future it will be not that difficult to assemble 4K camera at “home”. It all comes down to a sophisticated sensor; great computer power and intelligent software that will handle efficiently data flow from a sensor. I think the smart phones are good example where is the future of 2D technology. (Black magic cinema camera is essentially oversize I phone with more computer power larger sensor and lens mount :)   3D is here to stay and here is why. First, the problem of all 3D films these days is that they are filmed as 2D films with 3D technology.  Shots are framed as 2D, editing is 2D, film montage is 2D.  In the Hobbit I saw potential (in few shots, scenes) to use 3D space creatively for storytelling where it all comes down to anyway. In next 3D wave I hope someone will understand that 3D films needs to have different screen language as oppose to 2D (motion 24f/s blur, etc..) and a 3D film will be only made for 3D projections.   I started with 35mm film 20 years ago and I moved to 3D animation recently. It gives me much more creative freedom. Certainly I see more future in 3d animation and 3D filmmaking than any #K 2D filmmaking.   Physical light is an information; the question is what one is going to do with it :)