squig

4 hours ago, IronFilm said:

I'll find it impossible to not talk about it!

Although, got a massive back log for my YT channel already that I should sort out. 

I'm curious about how those new limiters sound compared to Sound Devices limiters.

3 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Oh! 
http://taipeigeek.blogspot.com/2018/05/jason-lanier-removed-as-sony-artisan.html
I didn't know he'd been dropped by Sony. 

Never been a fan of Jason Lanier, although I sometimes watched his videos, but I did admire his promotional efforts as at one point he did seem to be everywhere you turned to look. 

Check out the size of that chip on his shoulder. What is that 88 megapixel?

2 hours ago, John Brawley said:

Actually RED initially were claiming 20 stops when they were first releasing images. Anyone else remember this ?

www.thephoblographer.com/2013/01/01/reds-dragon-sensor-lives-up-to-hype-of-20-stops-of-dynamic-range/amp/

and sure you can count 20 stops in that image. 

But we all know they don’t really have 20 stops. 

So anytime someone makes a claim about stops (including Blackmagic) I always judge by actually shooting something, preferably alongside another known like an Alexa. 

JB

The backyard test (paling fence in full shade, blue sky, fluffy clouds) sorts the actual from the aspirational dynamic range. BM marketed the BMMCC as 13 stops. I tested the BMMCC raw against the 5D Mk3 raw (11.7 stops) and the 5D had more latitude in the grade.

Good write up on dynamic range vs latitude: http://www.xdcam-user.com/2013/11/whats-the-difference-between-latitude-and-dynamic-range/

15 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

What do you need the NT-SF1 for?

I've been thinking it may be good for recording ambience for surround encoding.

Just now, squig said:

I've been thinking it may be good for recording ambience for surround encoding.

17 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

The F4/F8 are still very small recorders by pro recorders standards. Do you really need to go even smaller? Are you carrying everything all by yourself for hundreds of miles? ?

Pretty much

18 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

It is kinda strange that MixPre recorders fall behind in design/ergonomics vs the Zoom F series, even though Sound Devices has decades more of specialized experience in this niche. Maybe they pushed too hard to make the MixPre series be miniaturized / cut costs / crippled / etc & lost sight of the bigger picture.

Sound Devices probably wasn't expecting Zoom to catch up to them. The headphone control knob I can live with. The 3.5mm jack bothers me, they're not robust.

22 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

The Zoom F4 is the cheapest way to do this. 
 

Won't be happening this year, if it even ever happens. 
I'd only give it max odds of 50/50 that it would happen in 2019, and even then only in the 2nd half of the year. 

Yeah. I'm shooting a short in August so I might go the Mixpre-6 with the NT-SF1 coming out soon. The F4 is cheaper but it's twice the weight and about 50% bigger. I tend to write scripts that call for a lot of remote filming so size matters. If I was going to get a Zoom it would definitely be the F8n.

TBH I'm not really loving any of the current smallish options. The 1/8" headphone jack and side volume control on the Mixpre3/6 sux. A big step backwards from the MixPre-D.

Does the F4 have a better headphone amp than the F8?

7 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

For roughly the same ish price the Zoom F8n instead with its better thought out design and all its extra features/capabilities seems like a no brainer choice to me. 

Unless you really really want the small size portability of the MixPre3/MixPre6, or their HDMI trigger. 

I've been thinking about it and I've decided to go with a Mixpre-3 for my solo missions. Anytime I want to record more than 3 channels is when I'm going be paying a sound recordist to do it me thinks. Besides being the right tool for my narrative work, I may have a few overseas gigs on soon and I like to travel super light. Selling my Mixpre-D and Juicedlink will cover the cost of the Mixpre-3, always good when you're a starving artist. I'm keeping the PCM D50 for ambient recording. Eventually I'll get an NT-FS1 and a suitable recorder.

I imagine Zoom have an F4n in the pipeline, but it's likely to be too big and heavy for my needs.

@IronFilm Loose knobs are of an issue for me than girth. And I concur: don't grab your knobs during a take boys, it can be very embarrassing.

I've been planning on upgrading to a Mixpre6, I've got a MixpreD/Sony PCM D50 combo ATM. 4 balanced inputs is OK, but 5 would be ideal for me. I'm gonna have a closer look at the F8n, look-ahead limiters sound cool.

8 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Too late, I've ordered the A5!

LOL. Well if it sux, just send $1200 to Western Union in Cairo.

22 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Cheers for the tip! That headed me down the right path, I purchased this:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/263540665944

Was a no brainer decision. I'll now place next an order for the Lilliput A5. 

I'm selling my barely used smallHD 501 if you're interested. My eyesight isn't what it used to be so I've gone back to using my AC7.

2 hours ago, kaylee said:

legit question: when was the last time a short or a directors career took off bc of a festival?

NOT cuz a video also has 3 million views on vimeo

seriously curious abt whats going on in these streets

Gareth Edwards http://filmlondon.org.uk/news/2011/april/gareth_edwards_on_sci-fi_london

https://www.mangauk.com/gareth-edwards-from-factory-farm-to-godzilla/

13 hours ago, Robert Collins said:

Honestly speaking, I really think you are the one who is 'missing the point' or 'are just simply out of touch'.

LOL

1 hour ago, IronFilm said:

haha, that was "my first" ever video camera I ever used! As I owned a Nikon D50 which couldn't do video at all, but my girlfriend (still with her!) has a D90.

So for the first 6 months or so of my film studies I bounced between using my gf's D90 or my sister's T2i. Until finally I purchased my own Panasonic GH1

The D90 was my first V-DSLR. It has a very cool lo-fi look, the heavily compressed M-JPEG makes the colors bleed and creates an interesting look. The rolling shutter is hideous, but I soon discovered you can use a tripod with a center post to get a pseudo steadicam effect by opening the legs and holding it by the center post.

16 hours ago, Geoff CB said:

Honestly really makes me want to rebuy a D750 and shoot in 1080p. 

D750, pfft. The D90 is the shizzit.

@Andrew Reid I think you're missing the point. The key issue isn't whether or not your tools are any good, it's: "It is designed to fix common audio issues with internal stereo mics on DSLR and mirrorless cameras".  Filmmakers and videographers should NEVER EVER record sound with internal mics. Decent external mics are very affordable these days. An easy hack (when you don't have the budget to boom) is to hang a mic off the end of your rig, I got a few lengths of aluminum underwater lighting arms for this. Alternatively solo operators can hire/buy radio mics.

12 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

There seems to be a misunderstanding in this thread with some people who haven't used it, haven't even read the page on the blog, or watched the tutorial or listened through headphones. No effort in = no results out. But they still have an opinion on results. Interesting!

You have to understand there's sound pros with 20+ years experience on here. Listening to a noisy intro video spruiking (among others) a denoising preset doesn't inspire much confidence. If you have confidence in your product you should A) put the engineer's name to it, and B) get a film sound professional to review it.

Just a bit too subtle me thinks.

If you have a look at a similarly lit scene in a film on your imac, you might get an idea of how much the calibration is off and then you can compensate for it a bit. When you don't have access to a calibrated screen it's best to view it on as many screens as possible to make sure it's going to look ok. I tried to grade a short on one of those glossy screen imacs and it ended up too low contrasty and undersaturated. Remember if it ends up playing at festivals it's gonna be projected, and you wanna be sure the audience can see something.

38 minutes ago, mercer said:

@squig what’s that shot from?

The Keeping Room

If Canon just plays catch up (as I suspect they will) they're not going to win back any Sony, Panasonic or Blackmagic shooters. DPAF is good, but it's not everything. I haven't shot anything with an 8bit codec in years, and nothing else Canon puts in a camera would make me wanna go back to 2012. If Canon goes with Canon raw or ProRes raw, then it could be interesting, but they won't.

8 hours ago, mercer said:

I will say that the top shot may need to be brightened a touch... he is really lost in the darkness... or is it just my screen?

I'm looking at them on a properly calibrated screen, the top shot is very dark and low contrast. The 2nd exposure is better, but it could do with some tweaking. @kaylee there doesn't seem to be too much noise there. You can send me a DNG of each if you like and I'll have a play around with them.

Here's a good example of a night interior, it's dark, but there's a lot of detail there.

On 5/31/2018 at 2:52 PM, brianvp1985 said:

Hey guys, Finally joined up after watching for a while. I'm Webrunner5's Son in the -Reals Life- and stuff like that. Anyway, I'm trying to understand how this whole ML thing really works, but the more I read, the more I'm confused about a few things. This buffer on the camera and the write speed is #1. Ok for the 5d III, what can I actually record say....10 minutes of Raw video without something filling up or stopping? #2. This crop factor, how does this factor into Compressed and Uncompressed Raw on the 5d III? Finally question #3: I keep seeing the 70D is compatible with ML....but isn't? Can someone help me understand a few things, because it looks amazing and I'm prepared to really jump into Canon here, but there is always a catch....

Thank you for your time and knowledge. 

Brian.

#1 The 5D MkIII can record until the card fills up as long as the data rate doesn't exceed the maximum write speed of the card. It tops out at around 90MB/s, fast enough for 1080p 24p 14bit uncompressed.

#2 Resolutions above 1080p are cropped and have a higher data rate making compression or lower than 14bit recording necessary.

#3 The 70D ML firmware is in development, I haven't been following the development closely so I can't say how usable it is. There's a 70D thread on the ML forum you can check out.

1 hour ago, kidzrevil said:

@squig so thats what that ugly mesh looking noise is when you underexpose huh ? ?? Do you think it might be a better option to overexpose +0.5 to +1 and normalize the exposure in post ? 

Either get your exposure dead on or overexpose a bit. If you're shooting in bright light at 100 ISO you can get away with a bit of underexposure but at 3200 ISO I wouldn't recommend it.

1 hour ago, kaylee said:

::sigh:: smh why dont i know what this is

Fixed pattern noise.

5 hours ago, mercer said:

Haha, seriously?! Sometimes I really think all of the talk about this camera or that camera, is a bunch of nonsense... I visit this site and watch most online videos on my phone, like 95% of the rest of the world and since I knew you shot ML Raw, I just assumed that scene was shot Raw as well. Crazy.

Either way it looks awesome, man! All of it does. Those screengrabs are epic. I love the choice of making some of your lighting practical... SMART!!!

Did you use the same Leica Rs with the Raw shots as you did with the h.264?

Thanks. Yeah, bottom one is the Leica-R 35/2 and the top one is either the 135/2.8 or the 90/2. Practicals are great, I modded those Tilley lamps myself with 4000k LED strip lights and 12v batteries concealed in the oil tanks.

Most important thing with cameras is knowing their limitations and how to work around them, with the 5D it's underexposure and FPN. With only around 10 stops to play with at high ISOs, some blown highlights are better than unusable noisy footage. I've tested a bunch of other cameras like the A7s and the BMMCC, but I always come back to Magic Lantern because matched with the 5D MK3 sensor, it's killer.

9 hours ago, kidzrevil said:

God damn ???those screengrabs look amazing @squig

Thanks. I had to bust my arse to get that shit right. And they're just tests, I've still gotta go back and shoot the damn scene.

On 5/15/2018 at 11:12 AM, mercer said:

@kidzrevil what is the super scale feature? And what program do you use for Chroma Noise? I can usually fight it with ETTR but as I am starting exterior night shots in my film, I’m afraid of that blotchy chroma noise in the shadows.

@squig in that scene you shot for your film where the guy was tied to the chair, did you have a lot of shadow noise? I assume you lit that scene but I remember the scene was designed to have pockets of light and shafts of shadow, were there any issues, or did your lighting design compensate for ETTR and chroma shadow noise?

ETTR? LOL That was pre raw bro, It's all H264. I lit that room with a single overhead 20w LED. I can't remember the ISO but it was high (for H264) probably 1250, maybe even a bit higher. I shot it as hot as I could to keep the noise down, so yeah I did ETTR. There was some overexposure on the skin, but it graded really well. There's no denoising, but I did add some grain and crushed the blacks as hard as I could. I shot it with my Leica-Rs, mostly the 35mm f/2

Shooting raw, shadow noise isn't usually a problem when you ETTR up to 3200 ISO. For example: