maxotics

Interesting question, here's my stab at it.  When you shoot 1920x1080 you're really shooting 480x270 red pixels, 480x270 blue pixels and 960x540 green pixels.  These pixels are arranged in a "bayer" pattern.  Before creating an image, the camera or your computer, de-bayers each pixel, a fancy name for taking the missing color information from neighboring pixels (red borrows green blue, etc).  Add to that, the greater number of green pixels are more sensitive to light then the red and green, so you're creating an image with less red and blue than those percentages indicate. 

It works pretty well in practice, but in the fine details there are problems where the neighboring color is NOT correct for that pixel.

when you shoot 4K and scale down, you are creating pixels (4 into 1) that have no borrowed information because you are blending the three colors into one unique pixel.  Moire and aliasing should be greatly reduced.

My friend compared both the GX7 and G6 the last time he was at BH Photo and felt the EVF was hard to use.  He liked the G6 more, though he didn't expect that.  Also, I think the GX7 is still a bit over-priced.  I have no evidence, but I'm 99% sure you won't see the difference in video quality between them.  I thought the G5 was amazing.  If you need to convince yourself, just remember the GH3 shoots in all-I mode, better than the GX7. (though most don't see any difference anyway)  So you have to compromise somewhere ;)  And if you are going back to total confusion don't forget to look at the GM1.  They just came out with a new lens for that http://***URL removed***/news/2014/03/24/panasonic-announces-leica-dg-summilux-15mm-f1-7-and-gm1-kit?utm_campaign=internal-link&utm_source=news-list&utm_medium=text&ref=title_0_4

Pixel peeping always amplifies the effect. If you have a strong story to tell then rolling shutter won't get noticed by most of the audience. 

That's so true for everything.  I was amazed at the amount of barrel distortion in "Nebraska"  In fact, if you watch professional shot network TV shows you'll see all kind of problems.  Every time I point something out my wife is like "Whaaa?" :)

The RX10 is still worth a lot of consideration because the lens is completely tuned to the sensor and it has a bigger sensor.  I don't know the comparable, but it's possible the 1.8 on the MFT would be the same as 2.8 on the RX10. Coming from a P&S I wouldn't worry about sensor size at this point once you're past MFT.

Sony makes the best travel cameras in my opinion. You wont' have to fuss.  When I'm lazy I want an RX10 ;)

However, should you get into photography/video more, you could use the Sigma 18-35 1.8 on just about any other camera.  I had a G5, boy was that camera easy to use.  It is also light, which I found good for travel.  One of my favorite lenses is the $30 c-mount Fujian.  You could use that on the G6 too.  Also, you can get the G6 cheap if you watch the prices.  

So the more I think of it, the more I think Pascal is right on the money :)

Maybe because it was shot in bright sunlight a high shutter speed got in front of the readout.

I've been working on house photography lately.  You can might find some of this interesting  http://maxotics.com/?p=199  Here are my suggestions.

1. Almost no house looks good in direct sunlight.  Shoot either early morning, golden hour or when cloudy. If you must shoot in direct sunlight, as Pascal says,  don't let all your shadows go to black.

2. I used to shoot some house videos.  Used with an EOS-M or Nex7 (both worked great).  I bought some used Smith Vector quartz lights for about $100.  I just shone them mostly at the ceiling and let bounce light fill the room.  The windows will usually all blow out, but at least the interior will have less noise.  

3. Mind your lines! Picasso said if you want someone to look at your painting hang it crooked.  However, I think he meant just a pinch ;)  In any case, make sure everything you shoot, photo or video, has good lines.  (I've been working on this and feel it is something I'll be working on for the rest of my life.) in any case, you want the viewer to feel the house is "striaght". 

4. If you have the money, get a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema camera and an 8mm lens.  That will give you about 24mm.  With lights and a fluid head tripod you will get amazing quality.  Just shoot in prores and do the auto thingJ in Resolve.  Extra work, but NO ONE will touch your videos in quality.  Will the difference show in youtube?  Yes (because h.264 cameras are shadow/detail killers--unless you're lit perfectly within a few stops).  

JCS is my God lately, so I don't want to disagree, but I think any sort of speed-booster will have limited use because, except for those cool shallow depth of field shots of a flower pot on the window-sill, you want depth.  For that you need LIGHTS.  Maybe I didn't say that enough.  If you had to get anything I'd get a bunch of small and large flat-panel lights.  Batteries wouldn't be bad.  My biggest problem was running wire from outlets.  

I guess that's enough of my silly advice for now.

My favorite quote, "Amateurs talk bodies, professionals talk glass and photographers talk light."  LIGHT, LIGHT, LIGHT!  

If the OP had any experience with ML he would know that even the 95MBS SD cards are limited to under 30MBS in those cameras ;)  Hopefully that card will drive down the price of the 95MBS card!

We need an "Ask JCS" thread on this forum ;)

Hi Ebrahim, If your computer had all the power in the world it would default to 32-bit floating, though, as Yellow says, most displays output in 8bit (24bit color) because the extra data isn't need and all the colors we can see can be described in it.  The larger the chunks of data, the more time it takes the computer to process, making it slower.

You will find it easier to understand these issues if you don't think in video compression schemes like 4:2:2, etc.  They were meant for display, not for image acquisition and editing.  You want to think in pixels

Let's start from the beginning.  When you look out the window on a bright day your eye's iris will close down, just like a camera's, and you may look at a tree at say f22 (though an eye isn't measured that way) and say one of your eye "pixels" read a value of 16,000)  When you look inside, your iris opens up, say for f/4, and you look at a chair in the room, and your eye reads a value of 16,000.  But it's 16,000 at f4, NOT f22.  The great thing about our brains is it constructs an image out of an incredibly wide range of values.  The brightness of the tree and the cup may be 200,000 shades apart on one scale, but the brain adjusts it though you CANNOT look at both the tree and chair at the same time, just like a camera, and properly expose.  In real-time, our brains do what no software can even approximate.

If you could read your brain's final image, you could probably display it in 24-bit color.  It would fit the 200,000 shades into a 16,000 shade space.  HOWEVER, if you wanted to make the chair brighter, for example, you'd need go get shade information that your brain threw out, so you'd have to go look at those values between 0 and 200,000.  That's what 32-bit floating point is about.  It's what the camera "eye" saw.

I suggest you read up on RAW image data, how it works, how it is de-bayered, etc, into final data.  Learn the roots of digital photography.  Then all this will make more sense.

But like you, I still don't know what decisions to make when using these dang editors ;)

Thanks for the reply Maxotics. You need to check out some of the video reviews of the 70D though, as you'll see it's autofocus (thanks to the new sensor and the way they use it) is amazing. No hunting around for focus on subjects... just touch the touch-screen and it goes there.

The reason DSLR focus well is they have an independent focus system that works when the mirror is down.  The problem, is that when shooting video, the mirror must be up, so they must use the sensor to figure out focus.  The problem is that the sensor is being used to capture images ;)  What Canon has done is put some of those sensor pixels aside to do double-duty, both take images and figure focus.  However, these pixels can't figure focus and capture images at the same time.  I don't fully understand the issues, but know, when shooting RAW, that these pixels are hot (because they're on focus duty).  Canon probably switches the sensors back and forth, from image to focus mode OR, they just interpolate around them in video mode before video compression.  The second is my guess (because they show up in RAW).  

The 70D has a bigger sensor than the MFTs, so it will have a shallower DOF which is both good and bad for auto-focus. Good, when it's working well, bad, when it's a little off.  The technology you talk about, where you press on someone's face, is in my lowly GF3, and it works really well.  That technology is new to the DLSRs now, because of the sensor focus pixel developments.  

What you're going to find, in photography in general, which I think every serious person on this forum will tell you, is that auto-anything is nice to have for events and when you want to drink and shoot ;)  As soon as you want to capture a image, in a certain way, auto won't work because no camera or computer can read your mind!  Nor can the camera predict if your subject will move forward or backwards a foot and change focus to match that perfectly.  Do you want the subjects eye's in perfect focus?  Do you want the best focus that lines up 2 people, or 3?  Do you want to focus on the ash-tray first, and then the person's hand, and then their expression?  Do you want the subject to be lit properly, or do you want them a bit dark, and the room exposed correctly?  All these things you have to set the camera to do.  

All this is another reason why everyone is arguing other benefits of the cameras than auto-focus.  Does the 70D do auto-focus better than the 60D.  Absolutely!  But after you get into it, will you care?  

I understand that you say the GH3 and even G6 have better video quality, but if the 70D is easier to use for a newbie, you can see the attraction.

Hi Stormz, there are no real secrets in the camera world (once you've been around the block a few times).  There are only trade-offs.  Obviously, every manufacturer will brag about what they improved, but NOT what they gave up to get there.  The 70D is primarily a stills camera.  I don't have it, or a Gh3, but my guess is that my lowly Panasonic GF3 would auto-focus in video better than the 70D because it has a smaller sensor, is mirror-less, and Panasonic trades off photo quality for video.  Does that mean I don't see the "attraction" of the 70D.  I do.  Those are great stills cameras.  The 70D will, for the most part, take better photos than any of those MFTs. 

If you're new to this you need to assume many of the people who are posting are presenting their views in relation to what's important to them.  There is no attraction for everyone, only tradeoffs!  One mans' trash is another man's treasure :)

Once you have used 10bit 4.2.2 in post you will never want to deal with 8bit 4.2.0 again if you can help it. 

Yes, Yiomo, you want to answer this question before making any huge changes. Also, Shirozina is talking in video compression language.  Another way to imagine it, is photographically.  Would you want to create a video using 24 frames of RAW files from your camera, which at 1080p would be 4 megabytes each, or would it be okay to use the lowest quality JPEGs from the camera, about 100k?  

Again, not saying you shouldn't go MFT!  In fact, I'm videoing an event Sunday where I'll be using Panasonic cameras because the round-table will take an hour and RAW would actually make the shoot next-to-impossible for me.  

Here is a post where I try to go into the details best I can

http://maxotics.com/?p=146

No camera will give you the best of both worlds, video/photo or Portability/Professional Features

I have gone through a lot of cameras.  For background.  I currently use a Sigma DP1M for medium-format still quality in a small/inexpensive package.  I use a BMPCC with a 14-45 for video.  I use a Nikon D600 with 24-85 or 85mm 1.4 for portraits.  (I also have 24mm and 50mm primes which I don't use that much anymore).  I have an EOS-M, which I use as Magic Lantern camera,etc.  I also have a GF3 with a 14mm pancake which my daughter uses mostly now.

What you should keep in mind, about this forum, is that it is video focused.  So most people like my hero Andy :) will be more biased (thought also more insightful) about video.  

I have ABSOLUTELY no desire to carry, or pay for, full-frame cameras.  My experience is that the dynamic range, low-noise, color saturation benefits are real.  If you are serious about still photography, can afford it, and weight is not a factor, than full-frame is what you would use.  You can get shallower DOF in full-frame, as you point out, but that is NOT why I use it.  

Panasonic makes superb interchangeable lens video cameras that shoot decent stills.  As a stills camera, in less than perfect light, I believe the quality from your 5D will be much better, especially if you print large.

My biggest problem in suggesting you go with MFT is that I too wanted to go backward from my Sigmas and a original 5D I had.  Once you've worked with full-frame images you see that 3-d look and you, or I, get very fussy when it is harder to get back.

As a video camera, I would get the GH3 over the 5D (native video).  But I would not get the GH3 over the 5D hacked with Magic Lantern to shoot RAW.   So you should consider getting a 1000x CF card and learning ML and Davinci Resolve (or ACR workflow).

That is another thing to consider on this forum.  There are people who shoot mostly Panasonic H.264 video (which is best in class) and those who shoot RAW.  Panasonic lets you focus on shooting, composition, editing, etc.  HOWEVER, you'd have to be blind to not see the difference between H.264 shot footage and RAW based footage.  There's a lot to read on this forum about all that.  

If you want to focus on video, your plan has merit.  If photography is important, prepare for potential regret.   I love my BMPCC.  You can use Canon lenses on it with an adapter.  

Another option is to find a used i7 with Windows 7 (NOT 8!) and use it as a conversion/rendering PC, or to see how you like it.  Some even come with photo/editing software, like CS version 5, etc.

Maybe I need to move!

It is not A-OK in the U.S.  My brother and sister were walking down the street to meet us.  I started shooting them with my EOS-M RAW setup.  Another couple were walking in front of them and when they passed the guy said something nasty to me.  

You know what I do Andrew?  I think about a few hundred ways of beating him up, telling him he's a philistine, saying things like "Every corporation and government agency photos you a million times during the course of a day and you're upset with my photo?!"  I get REALLY upset.  It RUINS MY DAY.  I think of packing all my cameras away, that's how sensitive I am to it.

Maybe I'd be better off blaming them or the laws.   Do you think that is the best way to think about it?  

One of my favorite story lines in movies is the Lyle Lovett character in "Short Cuts"  He plays a baker.  A husband and wife come in and order a cake.  He makes it.  They never show up.  He's so incensed with their rudeness he throws the cake on their porch, or something, only to find out they had lost their kid.  Something like that.

We never know where people are, in their lives, when we're shooting them.  Maybe those kids were kicked out of school.  Or just spent a day getting yelled at by a boss in some dead-end, low pay job.  I like to believe people don't choose to be mean.  All this doesn't make getting the finger any less painful, at least for me.

It's a very interesting subject to me.  But the posts suggesting it's the subject's fault don't convince me.  Again 1.) Pointing is rude, I honestly don't like people pointing cameras at me either (about about you?); I just tolerate it better 2.) The person may be having a bad day 3.) The person may be starved for power, like the woman you shot, and you've started the "relationship" and 4) Some people actually think they're doing you a favor by acting out.  Believe it or not, those boys may have thought they were helping you!

I hope you don't move to the U.S. because I really enjoy the stuff you shoot in Europe.  I get the pleasure without the plane ride!

Just tried it on a RAW file from my EOS-M.  Very nice.  The de-bayering is key, as you say.  The de-bayering in RAWanizer wasn't very good, used that RAW to ProRes util.  

My experience, taking photos of people for 40 years is that, yes, people are now more offended when you point a camera at them.  In my opinion, if they think you're a tourist they're more tolerant.  The internet age was supposed to bring closer communication, sympathy and understanding.  Instead, it is has aggravated our primal desire for power and security.   Power, in that we control how we are perceived to others.  Security, in not losing our narrative (place in society) to someone else.  The internet has made us feel smaller (which is a reason why tattoos have taken off--people permanently mark themselves as being unique).

Starting with the basics, even dogs don't like cameras pointed at them.  People don't like to be pointed at.  That's why pointing, in general, is considered rude.  Maybe it comes from the depth of history where someone might point to you as if to say, 'let's send him in the cave to see if there's a bear in there.'  Or, 'let's eat him, he looks appetizing.'  Generally, people don't point at you for a good reason ;)

My family and friends only tolerate my taking photos of them for two reasons.  The first is that we're related (already accepted/trusted), the second is they use the photos on Facebook, etc.  The photos add to their reputation.  That said, I've become very annoyed with my family on a few occasions because they ask for good photos, for book jackets, LinkedIn, etc., and don't spent even a few minutes preparing.  As everyone on this forum can relate, I spend hundreds of hours trying to figure out how to take a good photo.  Why can't they spend a few minutes on their part?  The sad truth is that they don't care any more about my "art" than I do about theirs.  

Don't get me wrong, I love my family more than anything, but if they can't spend time helping me get a good photo, who will?  I return the favor by not playing a part in their "screenplay", so to speak.  Again, it's hard to be giving in this internet age, for all of us.

Who wants their photo taken? People who pay, of course.  When someone pays you to take a photo or video they are paying you to make THEM look good.  When I take photos it's implied that the photos aggrandize my artistic skills.  The person in the photo is MY subject.

So when Andrew pointed his camera at those people a couple of the guys gave him the finger saying, "You're not making me a subject of YOUR story.  F-U.  You're not better than me. (and if anyone has to venture into that cave it won't be me)."

I just did a quick test between the Panasonic 14-45 and Nikon 24mm 2.8D, both at 5.6 at 400 ASA.  Shot RAW.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/bmpcc/

The images look pretty similar to me; however, the Panny, shows barrel distortion.  As noted by others above, one less thing to deal with, with primes.

Interesting - my copy of the 14mm/2.5 doesn't have OIS. Where and when did you get your's?

Ummm, I painted it on ;)  You're right, sorry, the 14mm does not have OIS.  I don't believe any of the pancakes do.

The MFT mount on these cameras puts one between a rock and a hard place.  I have the Panny 14mm and 14-45 and they both have OIS with an external switch that works well on the BMPCC.  Optically, as Cantsim says, they are acceptable but are not useful for photography (at least for a sensor-size believer like me).  Also, these lenses feel very cheap.  The zoom on the low end Panny lenses is not smooth; indeed, you wonder if they could make the lens any cheaper feeling.  The idea of spending $1,000 for the MFT mount 12-35 just for video is too much for me.

At the hard place, using Nikon (or other glass) on the cameras looses lens stabilization and that's not good if you're shooting above effective 30mm in my opinion.  Once you start adding rigging, well, one no longer has a "pocket" camera.  

I used to be pretty much a Canon guy.  But the ability to use Nikon/Nikkor glass on both full frame Nikons (like the D600--which you can get for fantastic prices used because of the oil-spot worry) AND on any video camera with adapter, makes those investments futureproof.

Back to the rock, having a small MFT lens is nice for portability and ease-of-use.

In the end, I believe your real choice is between cheap or overpriced single-use optics in MFT mount, or larger glass good optics and bulk issues with lenses made for full-frame.  I go back and forth on the two myself, every day.   

In conclusion, if you're going to shoot set pieces, invest in good glass that will work with most cameras (not MFT).  If you want a portable camera, then get MFT lenses (used if you ask me, because they don't get any less plasticy over time).  That's my 2-cents.  I found the comment, sorry I can't paste from earlier in the thread, about using medium format lenses on full-frame quite interesting!

In general, sorry for para-phrasing what others have said very well ;)

As we say in the consulting biz, never let a fact get in the way of a good story ;)

I feel like a lot of the cons on your list also apply to the original BMCC, but yet you loved (still do?) that camera; doesn't that seem a bit unfair?

I know its two years on, but the BMCC is still one of the best out there.

I'm still stuck on why everyone who can, doesn't own a BMPCC :)  I had a meetup for camera RAW in Boston and one of the guys said, "I love my BMPCC but you'd have to rip the my original BM out of my dead cold hands"  

I don't want to get flamed, but the GH4 is still going to be a "video"-like camera ;)

Thanks i will definitely check this out :) Would be awesome if there was a board here for this type of stuff tho

Andrew has set up threads, but no one keeps up with them so they fall to the wayside.  

Hello Everyone,

I set up a Flickr group for stills taken (frames) from Blackmagic cameras--any camera! ( I have a BMPCC).  If any of you have nice photos taken, or not so nice but illustrate a problem, please post.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/bmpcc/

I'm really curious to see stills form the 4K.  That should make things very interesting!

Thanks,

Max

AVCHD isnt really a codec though. It's a package right? Most avchd videos use h264 codecs, which in my experience (from animation renders to video encodes) is far better than mjpeg for both filesize and quality. PS. No offence but that photo from the Rebel looks like crap :P

 

There was more than one photo in that set.  I have a whole trunk of crappy photos, you underestimate my talent ;)  I find the photos very interesting, wouldn't have been what I got from my 5D at the time, which I didn't bring.  My point is only that different camera, different look and sometimes faults can be interesting.  Because the camera didn't do high-ISO, you get all that blurring.  

"You lose context of the scene", that's up to you and your f-stop and shutter speed.  It is sensor neutral.  Of course, with full-frame you can physically get a shallower DOF than an APS-C or MFT.  If you shoot 2.8 on full frame it's pretty much 1.8 on APS-C, etc.   If you're going to shoot low-light photography, you want a full-frame camera.  Doesn't mean you can't shoot fine without one, but if you have a choice, and  size isn't an issue, it's no question to me, or anyone else I know who has a choice.  Metabones isn't an option, for me photographically, because it degrades the optics (okay for video, but not if you want to maximize your photo image IQ)

In any case, if I had a GX7 and I had the choice between really good flashes and radio triggers, or a 6D, I'd go with the former.   Light is always what you really want.  Spending a lot of money for a camera to shoot in bad light is no real victory ;)