mtheory

EF IS + SpeedBooster + IBIS + A7S-HIGHISO = A Camera that will see into a Black Hole. 

After so many years of full-frame photography I still find it so difficult to think in terms of classic cinematic FOVs because of 5D...I mean the framing that I instinctively know to be 50mm is really what....70mm in cinema? Or alternatively, when I see a cinema frame that looks 35mm to my mind...I have to remember that the lens was actually 25mm. This drives me mad. Really trying hard to retrain my brain from using full frame mm's when assessing FOV....anyone else have this problem? :)

Oh and one thing about sharpness, even though Hollywood types like to shoot 4k and beyond, they don't actually like sharpness. As quoted by this David Fincher DoP Jeff Cronenweth:

 

"I had never seen anything that clean and crisp and steady. I remember I told Harris that afterwards, and his response was: “I was afraid of that.â€

 

"I saw Gone Girl in 2K, and I was totally fine with it because you couldn’t see as many of the human flaws as you do in 4K."

 

"And it (film) was so remarkably soft. It was incredible to see the two side by side. What the standard was for us for the last 75 or 80 years looked so out of focus. But if you sat there for 20 minutes and watched it, you’d get into it, and you’d think it was beautiful, and you’d appreciate the nuances, and people look great. There you go."

 

Full article: http://filmmakermagazine.com/88054-cinematographer-jeff-cronenweth-on-gone-girl-digital-and-working-with-david-fincher/#.VG2-aIusV8F

 

Great article, there is a fun bit there where he talks about how shooting with digital cameras at ISO 800 basically gives you too much light now compared to film, and you now have to have crews block street lights

 

"What happens at night is, in general, you end up having to take away a lot of light in order to still control your contrast and direction and everything. Street lights that used to be fantastic with 500 ASA or 400 ASA now are becoming problematic in lighting areas that you don’t want lit and washing out whole zones. If you want to continue to own all that, then what you give up in having to use huge sources you now either have to have rigging crews or Condors with you at all times and take out street lights and block out light and think about these places, because if you don’t, it very easily becomes a reality TV program where it looks like whatever is handed to you, and there’s no real concept or continuity to the images."

 

This is definitely something that happens with A7S in some night scenes at higher ISOs, - lights go supernova.

Yep, "Locke" is wonderful, the kinda movie you could shoot in one night with a 5D, a BMW X5 and...umm...Tom Hardy ofcourse. ;)

Dan Chung said the 5-axis stabilizer almost certainly works in video mode. Considering previous A7-to-A7S delay, A7S II might be announced 6 months from now. My only issue, - the stabilizer only works with Sony lenses. Really not sure if I wanna say bye to Canon glass....

Inazuma, what about Interstallar did you find incredible?  How is it a movie that defines moves?  Have you see the original "Day the Earth Stood Still", or "2001 A Space Odyssey" or even "GATTACA" or "Contact", which are fairly recent?    

 

Ah, Gattaca was an absolute masterpiece with its mix of social issues, science and human drama. 90s was the last decade of intelligent movies it seems, 

 

Gonna watch Nightcrawler soon.

Ok, so Fincher started his film humbly with a simple setting and made a damn rollercoaster while Nolan started grand and crashed into boredom, banality and bad sound. Never expected that my fave film of the year was gonna be Gone Girl, as I waited for Interstellar.

 

I also find it interesting that both of these filmmakers stumbled with space/sci-fi genre, Fincher never went there after the Aliens 3 flop and I bet Nolan is gonna stay on earth for a while too...Cameron and Scott still heavyweight sci-fi/space champions?

Yeah well for documentaries RAW is overkill. For narrative films? It's just too good to be true. I still can't believe the image that the 5d raw puts out. No compression artifacts, extreme amount of color information, Canon color science. Pretty good lowlight (it's no a7s but it can still make excellent images in lowlight because the RAW cleans up extremely well compared to h264). Great to handle (yeah I actually think the 5d format is one of the best DSLR style handlers there is, a7s is a bitch compared. Just the record button placement on the a7s is ... it's just ... bad.)

 

This. You can take this CINEMA PROJECTABLE LOW LIGHT FRIENDLY SUPER GRADEABLE CREAMY DOF baby underwater, skydiving, to a shady dark alley and shoot your film in places you could never take Alexa or F5 to due to permits crew, power requirements, etc. And if it breaks, or you get robbed, just buy another one...:D

 

Plus...the son of a bitch MLV RAW has onboard sound recording for easy syncing with external sound...*look, ma, no clapperboards*...it still boggles my mind how good we've got it, ( plus all the other great cameras available out there. )

This parody is spot on, I've noticed an influx of bearded hipsters at local production & rental houses in the past two years. Filmmaking as fashion, fuck that...

Snow Leopard is still my favorite Mac OS, though I'm grumpily adopting Mavericks.

Would be nice to see noise comparison with A7S at equivalent ISOs.

7D2 and 5D4 will only be meaningful if ML team keep working on Canon cameras. I hope their latest switch to the Axiom doesn't mean they are abandoning Canon software hacking.

You'd sacrifice battery life, audio, video auto-focus. 

 

Both camera's have their strengths and weaknesses. Maybe the C100mkII's auto focus ends up being a game changer. We'll just have to wait for both cameras to be released. The arguing over specs never leads to anything but more arguing. 

 

It's the best camera for broadcast HD work, period. For filmmaking in 2014, with younger and smaller firms like Blackmagic and Kinefinity rolling out 4K and RAW, it's disappointing.

For the price of C100MK2 one could get a much better Cine kit with:

 

Sony A7S Body $2,499

Metabones EF Adapter $399

DJI Ronin Stabilizer $2,999

 

This setup will significantly minimize rolling shutter, lights investment and provide a better post experience with a 4K upgrade option for the future. Plus, you can swap out the body for A8S or 5D4 when it comes out for example. Much more modular. 

Seems like C cameras have displaced 5D and 7D as indie festival cameras of choice after all, especially for films that don't require extensive post production. I'm actually surprised they are bothering with a 1DC follow-up...unless they unlock the EOSRAW internal codec on it...what could it possibly offer now? 

Hahahahahaha.

Haha, typical Apple bullshit, Mac Mini was becoming too popular as a low/mid-range Mac system so they decided to can it. I was considering buying it few months back and watched this guy's FCPX-centric youtube reviews ( 

), - anyway his conclusion is it's a good system for HD editing if you get the quad-core version, good luck hunting it down, don't think it will last on the market very long.

Awesome, did you guys shoot in RAW?

I guess this explains why DVX100 was able to achieve true 24p, - because it used a CCD sensor instead of CMOS?

 

And what is the variation of readout speeds between C300 and 5D for example? The 5D has more natural motion than C300 in my view.

For years there have been discussions about C300's video look, - I have always insisted that even the 5D had a more cinematic look than C500 after careful observation, and it wasn't just due to larger sensor, but it was apparent in the specific quality of the motion itself. 

 

After doing some reading of the C300 white paper from Canon I found this:

 

"When the sensor is set for a 24 frame picture capture rate the readout of the optoelectronic transformation takes place at a high speed of 60 progressive frames per second. That significantly reduces the “rolling shutter†effect that is synonymous with CMOS image sensors. "

http://learn.usa.canon.com/app/pdfs/white_papers/EOS_C300_New_35mm_CMOS_Sensor_WP.pdf

 

This is confirmation that C cameras do not in fact use true 24p capture of moving subjects, but use the video 60p, then simply downscale to 24p internally.

 

What this means is that while C camera satisfies the display standards of 24, 25 and 30 fps for broadcasters, the actual movement of actors or objects is faster than what our eyes are used to in the cinema, hence the image has the video quality regardless of lenses or codecs you use.

 

I'm glad to finally have closure on this. The Panasonic DVX was a hit among indie filmmakers in the pre-5D era because of interchangeable lens adapters and a "True 24p" capture, which Canon camcorders never had. Canon simply ported that old tech into C's new housing.

 

So even if the next C100/300/500 Mark II will have 4K and RAW it's pretty much dead to me as far as I'm concerned. RAW 4K video is still just...video.

I feel like I've been punched in the gut..I have been a fan of all of Glazer's work for over a decade ( commercials, music videos, films ) and when I saw this absolutely ugly video mixed with his trademark creative directing/editing style all I could think of was how good the commercial SHOULD have been with proper cinematic visuals applied ( better camera / grading ).

 

This actually made me think how much equipment DOES matter, and how much that shitty digital camera look can rob an amazing filmmaker of his visual style...man I will need some time to recover...ughhh...

 

This is how Glazer work is supposed to look like.

 

 

What's funny is 7D is literally one of the most popular cameras for independent films at film festivals around the world, with a track record of theatrical distribution in US and worldwide. ( More than 5D ) 

 

That's a hell of a market to walk away from.

Andrew Im glad you are looking into nikons again. I do love them and used the D810 recently so I can agree it does feel like a much better version of the D800 camera. The video, stills and the Group focus points all are really great. I wish the value of my D800 wasnt so low now or Id sell and upgrade.

 

As for nikon hackers I do hope they get some great advances soon. The Nikon bodies have the ability to write a lot of data to cards and buffers very quickly. Especially as Ive been saying with the XQD cards they are unbelievably fast. 

 

I have kind of given up on the DSLR Video stuff but like having it around. Ive moved on to the Kinemini 4k but its a huge camera. Anyways again glad you are pushing these guys because they will be there own worst enemy with their current mentality on what we want as users.

 

I'm going with the Kinemini as well and out of the DSLR cinema land, are you happy with how the camera keys greenscreen footage? I haven't seen any tests but expect it to be super smooth. Also, do you notice image quality improvement in the 2K 14-bit mode?

You're seriously not comparing a 7DII with the above cameras, are you? All those are FF cameras! 

 

I am simply comparing current-gen cameras. A crop factor is not a barrier to great low-light performance, - ( remember 1D Mark IV ), - Canon could've kept the 7D2 at 18MP and optimized low-light instead, or given us a full-frame 7D2 with ability to crop the way A7s does, - the tech is there, the will isn't.

 

I am mostly renting gear for shoots these days because there is nothing to buy from Canon at the moment to replace my current gear. It will be mid to late 2015 before 5D4 and 1DX2 come out, that's almost a year of waiting. I was hoping to 7D2 was going to be my solution for stills or video, but it suits neither.

What surprises me the most about 7D2 is not the lack of 4K ( half-expected it ) but lack of low-light capability. Right now D4s, D810, Df and A7s are radically changing photographic conventions by delivering acceptable noise-free ISO1600 images...I didn't believe the hype until I rented a D4s and tried it myself...wow...Nikon truly raised the ISO bar here with not one, but three of its cameras. I'd go as far as call this low-light development as next-gen, and it made me excited about photography again, while Canon is refusing to compete. 

 

I already knew that my next video camera was going to be non-Canon, what i didn't know is that my next stills camera might be non-Canon too...and that I still find hard to digest... 

 

Last hope for that 5D4 announcement in Feb.