Oliver Daniel

Funny you metion the F55. I'm a regular user of the FS7, but I was given an F55 for today's music video shoot. It had a shoulder mount and Sony EVF to get closer to the FS7 ergonomics. The F55 didn't improve our creativity and the quality at all. If we shot on the FS7, I'd expect the result to be very similar to the F55 footage. Ultimately, I prefer the FS7 because I don't need the benefits of the F55. The shoot could of been better, and this was nothing to do with the camera & gear choice. The pre-production logistics were frail and lost a lot of time. The best shots were actually on a BeSteady Plus gimbal and a GH3. The combo really caught the energy of the band. My point then - yes cameras are 2nd fiddle to everything else. Totally. But the right choice of gear can clearly influence creativity and set you on a path of consistent results. On a troubled set - a little GH3 and myself experimenting with it on a gimbal brought it all to life. Did I say I had an F55?

Cheers for making some suggestions Zach. I'm always one of the first to say that creativity/story/pre-production/lighting is far more important than the gear, but the gear is part of these creative choices and also part of a business model which wants success. A bit of history about myself - I've made over 250 music videos and 20+ corporates through my own production company. We are small, but doing it every day. We focus mainly on creative development and ideas. Gear comes 2nd - but we wouldn't of got anywhere if we didn't buy anything and invest. We don't have the capital to invest in more staff, so we invest in the content we produce, the right tools and hire someone if we need them. The guy I'm helping out wants to basically do what I am doing, sort of. Different boats. Same principle. He needs the gear to start-up and storytelling will quickly become centre stage. The reason why we are not joining forces is because we are too different with what we want to achieve.

The guy has a 7ft jib, not the biggest. I've got a Kessler Pocket Jib and I find it pretty useless. Love big jibs, as long as they don't weight a ton and takes years to setup. Drones are great - common to us but to the client, they love this stuff. Personally I've enjoyed helping out with this and gathering opinions, it's inspired me to have another look at my gear, which is currently doing the job but getting absolutely battered to shreds!

1. Because it looks better. 2. Because it suspends your disbelief. 3. Dreamy is a form of imagination. 4. Imagination can create great art. 5. Tell A DJ that vinyls are history. Now tell a filmmaker the same thing about 24p. 6. Just my opinion.

I asked someone to fetch me the FS7 for tomorrows music video shoot, and they came back with the F55 (no FS7s available, but got it same price!). Global shutter then. Will be interesting to compare the "motion cadence" to the FS7 footage I have.

​ You only have to look at The Hobbit in 48fps to answer this question. The added realism introduced by a higher frame rate really didn't work. At all. The suspension of disbelief was destroyed... the magic of 24p makes it more fantastical to the point you are immersed and believe it. With faster motion, you are looking at the actors thinking they all look ridiculous talking nonsense about powerful rings in someone's posh back garden. This is also the issue with the modern TVs, they make the motion look faster. I'm watching the Walking dead and the "added realism" of the faster motion just gives me the impression that someone is messing around with a home movie camera and dressing up like zombies just for a laugh. Switch this back to normal motion, and you are immersed within seconds.

​ I picked up the word from internet forums and professionals on set. I don't know what the actual term is, but a lot of us understand it as "motion cadence". Maybe in 2005 some one made it up and it's stuck for some of us. I'm 29 now and I picked up my first camera when I was 17. I bought a cheap JVC handy cam for £400 and started experimenting with it. The "motion cadence " thing was something I noticed straight away, I wanted a filmic feel in the image out of the camera and changed the settings to make it very motion blurry. I then recorded the final film onto a new tape by actually filming it straight off a TFT monitor, because the motion on the TFT monitor was better than straight from the camera. Sounds ridiculous, but loads of my fellow students thought I shot on film (again ridiculous), but shows you how changing the conditions attributed to this look of filmic "motion cadence". So I think your bullet points are right, although i definitely think the motion encoding is the "magic" some of us look for in the overall feel.

Seriously the amount of friends I have who have been watching Breaking Bad, Game Of Thrones etc in these weird TV modes, and not noticing anything is strange to me. When I "fix" the issue, they think I'm some sort of holy grail TV wizard. Why do you think the TV manufacturers put these settings on default? Why make your product look worse? It's madness! Lots of metion of the D16 here. Such an amazing achievement.

Nice motion cadence is the key to suspending that disbelief. When modern TVs ruin it with these weird smooth modes, I personally feel like I'm watching a cheap home movie, when really it's a very well made feature film. Goes from one extreme to the other just from the flick of a "motion" switch. 48fps for features is a terrible idea. I tried The Hobbit in 48fps and turned it off within a minute. I didn't believe a load of hairy big footed little men were trying to steal a magical stone from a maniac dragon, I thought a bunch of actors were having a theatre dress rehearsal in someone's fancy back garden in the countryside. For this effect alone, this motion cadence is far more important than a lot of us think. The further we are suspended the better. So cameras with more pleasing motion cadence should be a very important factor when considering shooting a film. Much more so than resolution.

The Digital Bolex to my eye certainly has the most pleasing motion cadence on the market - that CCD sensor might have something to do with it. I do agree that there is a unique characteristic in the motion that makes them more pleasing, but would be interested to find out what attributes quantify it. Lenses are also a factor and in my opinion can destroy it, or improve it. Why do you think this is?

I've no idea! I just hope his new computer chair has an 8k Global Shutter!!

Firstly, I have no idea why j named the thread "Motion Cadencemo"... those last two letters just appeared! Next.... this is already a very interesting thread. By all means we can discuss why cameras differ and how we can get pleasing motion cadence from our tools - it is just more interesting when this is an emotional reaction rather than looking into algorithms and stuff. Do what you want really! Progressing the topic, I find it weird that so many people settle for this horrible fast motion on modern TV's. I see a friends TV set and I'm like "what on earth is wrong with your TV, this expensive film looks so cheap!". I correct it and it's like a revelation - they claim I'm really smart as though I've uncovered the meaning of life by realising the motion is wrong. I've held off the FS7 as a buy because of the URSA Mini, mainly just based on motion cadence. If I had the cash to spare, I'd buy a Digital Bolex on motion cadence alone. Just imagine it became a big selling point - "Blackmagic Cinema Camera 2 - 15 stops DR! Film emulated motion cadence!" Don't you think motion cadence should be a major attribute explored in cameras? The difference it makes on an image is far more staggering to me than DR and resolution.

Hey Jimmy. If you feel this camera is right for you, then I'd ignore anything anyone says on this forum. Prove everybody wrong that it might be in fact a great drone cam. I personally wouldn't buy it due to the cost, but that's me. I have no purpose for it where others will. Like everything really. I dislike stating the obvious, but obvious in filmmaking is quite a complicated thing.

When buying/renting a camera - most of us look for features such as resolution, dynamic range, bit rate, colour etc.... The first thing I actually look for is motion cadence. The way the image flows and feels in motion. It's such an important characteristic, I wish more attention was given to it. Modern TVs kill nice motion cadence. They run at 120hz or have this feature switched on called TrueMotion or SmoothMotion. The amount of TVs I've fixed (by turning the feature off) because friends are watching The Walking Dead like a cheap soap opera. It helps the motion when it's 1/50 shutter, progressive blah blah. But there is magic in there too. (Digital Bolex). My opinion is (for film like motion): - Panasonic GH4 (poor) - Sony FS7 (average) - Digital Bolex (the king!) Lovely cadence is a massive feature as it adds character, emotion and beauty compared to "poor" cadence where the image feels erratic and ugly. I also think lenses add to it. Cheap electronic lenses ruin the look of nice motion cadence as the image is vastly over sharpened, brittle and loses ounces of soul within the motion. I don't intend this to be a technical thread with boring mathematical numbers and nerdy bar charts/graphs and other snores. More what the "motion" of an image means to a camera and your own work. How do you see motion cadence as a feature? Is it important to you?

The iMac has been bought already. I think the Hackintosh is interesting but there is no way I'd run a business on one. I'm going to get an iMac Retina myself with a beastly external - should be great for years. Also he's waiting for the BM URSA Mini and spending his dosh on lighting, lenses (Sigma ARTs), A7S and er..... a new computer chair. Lovely.

Like him, I have to use Mac OSX. All my programs work on this. I don't own any PC software at all. Plus being a 95% FCPX user. I understand there is a Hackintosh route, I don't know much about it. I'd feel very nervous building one of these that my business relies on as it could go wrong. With a maxed out iMsc 5k - you get everything and it just works. Isnt that security and reliability worth the extra money?

​ I think he's going iMac 5k top spec. Gets a 17% discount too. In what way do you think this model isn't good enough for post work? He already has a gimbal. Ronin-M is an insane price though! A7s being bought for sure... not sure on the other stuff though.

I think it's best to wait until next year for one of these one-handed 3-axis gimbals. Just like any technology really. Wait.

I couldn't give a rat's bum about this camera. There are a plenty of other options on the market. It's much more interesting talking about those.

Budgets..... I'm guessing from £1.5k to £15k. I think he's decided NOT to buy the big camera body and follow my advice by getting in his lighting, lenses and CPU power upto scratch. I think that's the right thing to do. If he makes lots of money then a bigger camera body down the road won't be an issue. No one away from the Internet has advised him to buy a big camera body.

Well if the zoom falls out of place when looking down, then the XC10 is borderline useless for drones. I work with drone guys on a regular basis using SJ1000 and SJ800, they always use GH4s with the Olympus 12mm. My opinion from the outlook is the XC10 is a confused product and needs to be half the price to even consider.

C100 looking good! How you finding it Aaron? I think the JVC has its purpose - they said themselves it's a camera designed for educational video. Very specific, but i think they just mean low end corporate. Looks absolutely fine for that. No news what my pal is doing with the money other than an iMac 5k purchase.

$50k! Now you're asking.... I would do this: Get the C300 Mk II as A cam.The 1DC used as a B cam. The A7S as a creative all-round tool. Zeiss Prime Set from Duclos lenses or similar - EF or Nikon Mount. 2 decent zoom lenses to cover the full range. 2 Kino Flo 4-Banks. (get some chroma tubes too)3-head Arri Lighting Kit.Scorpion Light Complete Set.Gels/Diffuser/Polyboard/Reflector.Ronin Gimbal & EasyRig. Oddyssey 7Q+ + sony + canon license. Sound - not sure on models but (wireless transmitter, lavalier, boom, shotgun, external recorder). Studio - get a DIY space, grab some friends and build your own green screen etc.

This is the worst camera release I've ever seen. I wonder how many sales they have so far? I reckon I could get the GH4, the FZ1000 and the LX100 for the price of the XC10.

​ The A7S hasn't even been out for a year.