maxotics

I'll try to put as succinctly as possible.  Sensor outputs data in the range of 4 trillion colors.  The most accurate colors are within 5 stops of a certain (correct) exposure.  Those 5 stops of most-accurate color take up 16 million values (the maximum that can be stored in an 8-bit-per-color-channel data container).  When you shoot LOG, the camera throws out accurate colors for noisy ones, above and below the 5-stop center of best exposure.  You cannot grade the center-best values back. 
One doesn't have to take the time to understand what goes on under the hood of their camera, so to speak.   But one day they will make a fool of themselves when they shoot LOG for a client and the client can't match it to footage shot by someone else, that maximized the color sensitivity of the camera.   When they try to bring color back, the contrast will appear cartoonish, when they try to match the contrast, the colors will look washed out.  That's the corner you shoot yourself into with LOG in a scene that doesn't call for it.  
To add some technical facts...
Why does it band?  Because in a solid color, like a sky, you don't see just one color of blue.  You see a range of them, say 1 to 1,000.  The "stupid" manufacturers have tested their products so that when you shoot a sky, you get just enough colors, say 1,000, to accurately show the gradient sky without contrast between two neighboring colors.  Contrast happens when you essentially see TWO DIFFERENT COLORS!  Okay, so in LOG, it doesn't take 1,000 colors in that blue range say, it takes 250.  Normally, one doesn't notice.  But if you shoot a scene where there is a blue gradient sky and it shows it to you in 250 shades of blue, they will look like DIFFERENT COLORS next to each other.  That's BANDING!  Of course, they are different colors, but you don't want them so different that the brain says they're not connected!
Sadly, many people don't want to follow the logic that if LOG creates banding; that is, if LOG distorts the image there, that it does it everywhere, though not as easy to notice.
  
 

Hey, if you get the image you want, great!!!!  But I'm one of those people who are very critical of LOG profiles.  I don't see what you gain using them in those shots because you crushed the contrast so heavily you even removed the noise inherent in the higher ISO the camera uses to achieve a LOG distribution of visual data.  That is, you could have arrived at the same high contrast footage, with more color depth, shooting rec.709.  The shot where she is on the staircase and part of the background is blown out, I could see LOG used there, but you don't use it to bring out the background, the dynamic range is severely narrowed in the end.  
LOG profiles only make sense to me when there is detail in part of the image (5+ stops away) that one wants even at the sacrifice of color saturation.  One cannot get color back.  
Don't want to rain on your parade!  I love what you did. Nice images, however you got them! But to be fair to yourself, shouldn't you have shot the scenes both in standard profile and LOG and THEN compared them?  LOG trades higher saturation for higher contrast detail.  There is no exposure trick to get your color back   That footage can never be made to have more color depth.
In short, if you want to show how you get the most out of a LOG profile, shoot a scene where you make a trade-off you can't get with rec.709. Why do you believe those scenes were better shot with LOG?  Again, I know you put a lot of work into this!  I enjoyed it!  I think you should go out and do some more!
 

If Sony only had 64 couolrs would 58 of them be different shades of green/yellow? 

I really, seriously, for the life of me, don't get it.  Canon maybe...Sony crippling their cameras?  I can't see any real world difference between 10bit and 8bit in an 8bit space.  I've tried.  Please don't get angry with me, but for me 10bit is a sham.  I don't look at the camera makers as giving me a better image, I look at them as marketing hokum.  Whatever banding 10bit may eliminate in a clear blue sky is smoothed over by the time the image reaches the viewer, in the real world.  
The achilles heal of these cameras, vs cinema cameras, is highlight roll-off. 
So the question to me, is what would you rather have, HDR or a 10bit CODEC?  Banding in a sky, shadows gone noisey -- I can deal with that.  A face with a white blotch on it, no.  It's horrible! For me, it's F-this camera time
10bit doesn't fix it because 10bit has nothing to do with dynamic range.  Sure, you can shoot in S-LOG, but now you're sacrificing color detail.  HDR, seems to me, might solve that problem.  So why should Sony put out 10bit over HDR?  It seems to me HDR is the real INNOVATION here (probably a type of dual ISO).  If it works well, it can make a big real-world difference.   
Yet, I believe it will also be marketing hokum!  It's probably what they call 10bit now   Still, we need to see what the camera will do.  

The biggest difference between these cameras and cinema cameras is battery life and storage.  So now the A7R will last twice as long?  It will have a USB port that can transfer 4K video as fast as a card reader?  It has dual recording slots, FTP over wireless, proxy recording? 10fps silent mode shooting.  If this camera camera out a few years ago the title of the post would be "Sony just killed the Canon C100"  

I've modified my vlogging mirror to work on gimbals.
 

mk1 is from a different generation, mk2 was the current one when the FS5 was released.
 
If  we want to talk about older secondhand cameras, then we need to include the likes of the Sony F3 or FS700. Which I'd take over a C100 any day.
 
But yes, the C100 is still an excellent camera (their being better cameras doesn't change that) which can be an absolute workhorse (heh, just last night I did a shoot which had the C100 as one of our cameras).

Personally I would choose the c100 mark 1 over an fs5 any day.

OK, I usually try to post on this forum only if I have information to share, but in this case I find it absurd that people expect every new camera to be a RED for less than $3000.
People were shooting big budget features on shitty 8 bit 1080p when the 5DII came out and hailing it as the best non-film image ever.
If you need more: Buy. A. More. Expensive. Camera.
Get some perspective.
 
Thank you.

The biggest difference between these cameras and cinema cameras is battery life and storage.  So now the A7R will last twice as long?  It will have a USB port that can transfer 4K video as fast as a card reader?  It has dual recording slots, FTP over wireless, proxy recording? 10fps silent mode shooting.  If this camera camera out a few years ago the title of the post would be "Sony just killed the Canon C100"  

FINALLY!!!

I grabbed my Samsang NX300 this morning for the first time in ages and the battery was flat, but not a big deal! Didn't need to find a charger, could just grab any one of my many many USB cables I have lying around and charge up the NX300!  Very useful. (and this is not even counting the handy feature of using it with a USB powerbank, as an external battery)

Made me wish that every camera had USB charging, why isn't this common place with all cameras??

Another option is to use both.  Get an inexpensive shotgun (amazing what you can get for under $60, from Chinese DSLRs minis to the Rhode videomicro) and a decent lav (which you can't go cheap on).  Unlike the others here, I don't do this for a living.  However, I feel I can re-express some of what's being said.  IF you're in a room that isn't echo-y (doesn't have bare walls), then a shotgun will work really well and is much simpler to set-up.  Wiring people up is a pain and is invasive.  So I'd invest in the lav, but also have a shotgun for primary or backup.  
Another thing not pointed out is a shotgun will pick up just enough room noise to feel really natural.  The lav doesn't.  The lav is also bass-y, being close to the chest and has movement noise risk, etc, as others have pointed out.  Anyway, I'm always curious about this stuff too!

I have been using the Ursa Mini 4.6K for the last 2 months for client work.
It is a great camera and I love the images it produces. But I have 2 qualms:
It does not do low light - as in, it is not even an option. Period.
It doesn't 'wow' naturally.
Let me explain the last point:
The canon C500 would supply all the 4k benefits, but you would be a bit weak on the codec side. But, and its a big butt, Canon will look like 'wow'. 
I am still figuring out why, but my feelings are irrelevant. My clients like Canon. 
Do them a favor and go Canon. The spec differences only smooth our experience, but not the image. The Blackmagic image is a specific look or stock that we as a community love, but is subjective. 
General folk see Canon footage and photos and appreciate that stock.
They dont care about 444 or DR. They want to look good.
Canon does that with their voodoo. Get the best Canon 4k image you can get get... and get a Ursa for yourself.
Just my 2c.
Oh, and low light does not mean night. Actually, with one light, the ursa is fantastic for night shoots.
I mean, for example, you want to fo for a beauty or group studio look. LEDS cannot supply enough power, let alone if you want to expose in tandem with the window view etc. 
Your options become a bit limited once you want to get creative with light. Unless you buck up for more powerful lights etc. 
Which is where I would advise to hire.
But bigger crew...
Slippery slope...

I agree that the highlights are intentionally blown in order to gauge dynamic range and rolloff, but I don't agree with you at all that chroma clipping isn't a serious issue. Especially on a camera like the C500 that has less dynamic range than an Alexa or Dragon (but still good and better than its reputation), you can't always expose for the highlights. There are going to be traffic lights, headlights, practicals, blown out skies, etc. in some scenes and avoiding them at all costs or underexposing horribly isn't a viable option. IMO, you cannot make all camera systems look good, otherwise they would look good more often. Most digitally acquired content–even on the high end–doesn't look as consistently good as film, even with the same crew. Only the Alexa seems to get close imo, though I have seen some good looking content shot with other cameras, of course, and some "intentionally digital" looks that work. A friend of mine had a piece graded by Stefan Sonnenfeld, and I remember he mentioned that chroma clipping was Stefan's biggest bugaboo re: camera systems. I won't get into the details because I don't want to put words in someone's mouth, but if the greatest colorist in history struggles to wrangle with chroma clipping, it's a problem, and you'd better hope you're the greatest DP in history to never blow out a single source. Or just use a camera that handles chroma clipping properly. (Fwiw, I don't find hard luma clipping problematic if one grades the knee nicely, and even film appears to hard clip rather fast when processed photochemically–so this is a discussion about color space and rolloff, not dynamic range.)
And there is a massive difference between how the Alexa handles chroma clipping and how the C500/Q7 (as set up there) and F5 or pre-IPP2 Red etc. do. Sure, you can make an Alexa look bad if you're wildly incompetent. But I'd argue you can't light a scene with someone lit by a practical flare on an F5 or C500/Q7 (at least with the settings above, and the ones in the C500 footage I've worked with) without it looking too terrible to really fix in post, because the camera will blow out the highlights to red or to red and yellow, not to white, as with the Alexa (which clamps saturation at maximum at 30 IRE then slowly reduces it over its extremely wide dynamic range). With the Alexa, lighting that same scene well is as trivial as exposing roughly correctly. 
Of course you can to SOME extent avoid that kind of situation, or white balance to your practicals so they blow out more nicely assuming nothing else is blown out (dicey workflow, though). And if you record raw and process correctly this likely isn't an issue even with the C500. I'm just surprised that Canon Log has this problem far less severely than the C500/Q7S combo does, though I imagine there are settings that handle chroma clipping better. Some of the newer film emulation LUTs and even the SLOG3 colorspaces for F5/55/FS7 are fine in this regard, too, to be fair. As is IPP2 a huge improvement over Red's original pipeline. Canon Log, weirdly, has always been kind of good... there's the appearance of chroma clipping, but detail is almost never lost and the knee can be graded smoothly. Not so with any of the footage in the test above.
And all that said, I think most operators overexpose the CX00 series pretty substantially. And in practice this isn't a huge issue under normal circumstances. 

The Ursa 4k I'd put below almost anything, including the cheapest 4k dSLRs. Super clippy and slow with lots of fixed noise. Fairly soft image, too.
But the 4.6k I'd put above both Canons (except in low light).
The C300 and C500 do have the same sensor and the C300 has the sharpest 1080p I've seen and it has to do with the sampling not being traditional Bayer interpolation but instead instead it just groups the photo sites into a faux-Foveon type array so it's just insanely sharp looking. Sharper than the Epic or Alexa or F3 or F5 or F55 at 1080p and noticeably. From what I've seen, C500 has a razor thin OLPF and the Q7 has aggressive debayering so the 4k image from the C500 is sharper looking than a 5k or 6k Red image but it has significantly more aliasing, but not objectionable. Both cameras have similar DR. RAW doesn't seem to provide much improvement there over ProRes, but better shadows than the internal codec for complex scenes.
The C500 is basically a C300 with extra features if you use a raw recorder,  so if money is no issue and you WANT to use an external recorder (I hate them) get the C500 instead. If you plan to crop or stabilize, 4k could be useful for 1080p delivery, though personally I'd (almost) never shoot 4k and if you don't crop or stabilize the 1080p output will actually look sharper, shockingly. But maybe not in a good way. The Alexa is softer, but... "smooth." But you gotta experiment with the Q7 workflow when you shoot raw. When it's set up wrong to record ProRes FROM raw, it can induce chroma clipping and aliasing you wouldn't get in the C300 or C500 alone. And shooting actual raw IMO is not worth the trouble (then again I don't think 4k is either). 
I dunno. Rent for sure, but  think the 4.6k is Ursa Mini Pro sounds like the camera for you. It can alias, even worse than the C500, but in practice I haven't seen much of it. Maybe there's less sharpening to make the aliasing pop. Maybe I just haven't worked with it much. Dunno.

Sony UWP-D11 is the best "no budget" wireless. Get an OST Lav mic as the next upgrade from it.
 
Shotguns are a big no no no for indoors! (With rare exceptions)
As a soundie, to be hearing people say a shotgun is a good choice is probably how a videographer feels when he reads people recommending using your iPhone to film with! lol
 
(Just because lots of people use iPhones to film with, & are happy with the subpar results, doesn't mean we should be recommending that!)
 
Rather use a cheapie Samson C02 than say a RODE NTG2
Then if you're shooting it solo then get a C stand and boombuddy for your boom mic.
Zoom H4n is a pretty horrendous recorder for production location sound. I'd upgrade that if you can: 
http://ironfilm.co.nz/which-sound-recorder-to-buy-a-guide-to-various-indie-priced-sound-recorders-in-2017/

I can tell, most people here are camera operators.
Shotgun mics work alright in very well treated rooms, or studios. If you want to spend an hour, and have the right sound blankets with you and the tripods and gear, and the space, to treat the room right, or change location in then be my guest. In any way it is much easier to use a more appropriate tool for the job. If you own just one long tele zoom, then it is ok, use a shotgun mic everywhere. 
I am not going to discuss Rode microphones, but the specific ones mentioned in this thread, wouldn't be on top of any of my lists. 
Canon dSLRs have notoriously bad mic amps. Whatever you put straight there (except some with good in built amps) wouldn't be broadcast quality.
@Drew Allegre if you can rent, Sennheiser MKH 50 is one of the best, ever. Others prefer Schoeps, for me, if you do not do much post in sound, then Sennheiser can be a better bet. Reliable, very hot (signal wise, so you can avoid bad mic amps some) and tough as nails, too. For just little money you can rent one of the top 3 indoors microphone one can use, just put that on perspective with your imaging gear.
Just my 2 cents.

Another option is to use both.  Get an inexpensive shotgun (amazing what you can get for under $60, from Chinese DSLRs minis to the Rhode videomicro) and a decent lav (which you can't go cheap on).  Unlike the others here, I don't do this for a living.  However, I feel I can re-express some of what's being said.  IF you're in a room that isn't echo-y (doesn't have bare walls), then a shotgun will work really well and is much simpler to set-up.  Wiring people up is a pain and is invasive.  So I'd invest in the lav, but also have a shotgun for primary or backup.  
Another thing not pointed out is a shotgun will pick up just enough room noise to feel really natural.  The lav doesn't.  The lav is also bass-y, being close to the chest and has movement noise risk, etc, as others have pointed out.  Anyway, I'm always curious about this stuff too!

The Ira Glass team use some decent but not too pricey gear to make pretty compelling radio documentaries. Here, Ira describes using the Marantz PDM661 recorder and AT8035 (and similar) shotguns for this very long running and wide-ranging show. One could quibble over audio quality at times, but there is the law of diminishing returns at play here: for a reasonably modest price you can achieve good, and often very good audio in a wide range of settings, including indoors. For a lot more money, and with a wider array of microphones you can get some incremental, and occasionally significantly better sound. But since it isn't Hollywood, does the expense-for-limited gains make sense? With a documentary, it's about the story, and some slightly imperfect sound is usually well tolerated as long as the story is good. The H4N would seem good enough for the task. For a microphone, I'd probably stick with a battery-operated shotgun like the Audio Technica AT897 or Rode equivalent. If you are likely to be in a very reverberant indoor setting, simply go somewhere else with curtains, carpets, etc. If you can't do that, spring for something like the AT4053b (hypercardioid). I'd probably go for second-sound into the recorder, rather than straight into the camera, since if the camera switches off you might miss some important audio that could otherwise be included in the final documentary albeit covered by cutaways. Use the camera's audio for sync.

There's some funny info in this thread.
Shotguns are perfectly fine indoors. I've used the Rode NTG4 in almost every shape and size room you can imagine. Even solid walls or window walls. The results are more than acceptable every time. If you'r shooting in a room where a shotgun simply doesn't work, then you'll be hard pressed to find any mic that will. That said, of course there are alternatives, and many are better in certain situations, but to rule them out like that is kind of silly. 
I film TV interviews for a living, and have used many different lavs. I will always chose a mic on a pole if the option is there. They don't take long to set up and make it near impossible for the talent's hair/necklace/zips/itches to effect the audio. Of course, that can also be avoided with mic placement, but a stand can go in the same place every time, and nail it every time. EDIT: you can also have everything set up, so the talent can come in, sit down and go, without having to be wired up first and remember not to take the mic with them on the way out.
You also don't need to worry about charging extra batteries etc. because they just take power from your camera/recorder.
On that note though, if you do decide to go shotgun route, maybe look at the Rode NTG2 - I know it's old, but it can run on an AA battery OR phantom power. If you use it with a battery, you can run it straight into your 5D3 and avoid having to sync anything later.
 

Hypercardioid condensers are neat for this application, but also very sensitive to sibilances which gets you really close to your subject. Which you may or may not want. Obviously a condenser mic will always sound better, but they are not gentle when the subject turns their head against the mic. A lav would be safer because of their omnidirectional pattern meaning the sound won't change as much when not faced directly towards the sound source.
Also lavs are way more flexible, and take very little time to set up, especially when moving around, and a lot easier to carry around than a big mic stand on smaller projects. Especially if you're on a budget (EDIT: and will use the equipment for future projects, wireless lavs are deffo not that cheap!) a lav is the way to go. I like the Sennheiser AVX system because of the rugged antenna, but the g3 has the advantage of being able to use AA batteries.
my 2 cents
Edit: come to think of it, you can get lav mics with standard jack cables for cheap if you don't need the wireless transmitters/receivers, if you really want to budget.

The science is far from settled, for example on the topic of renewables and the management of food, land and the agricultural economy. Further research is needed there to gauge the impact losing all that land to wind farms will have on food supply. Furthermore, it's interesting to hear what Freeman Dyson says in the film about the computer models - that they are a good tool for understanding the climate but a bad tool for predicting it.
I'm no climate change denier but the discussion is getting way too dogmatic on both sides of the fence.

Maybe if films like BR 2049 had real suspense people would keep quiet.  That's the elephant in the room no one wants to talk about.  Yes, there are people who are simply rude in theaters (as in every other place).  I've turned around and pushed a guy in the chest to get him to shut up.  Which was stupid; three of them.  So I hate people who talk in theaters too.  However, once I get over my initial annoyance at someone talking, I often think about it and conclude I would have talked too if I had no interest in film-making itself. 
I enjoyed the cinematography of BR 2049.  Hearing the dialogue added nothing, if anything, it made matters worse.
The filmmaker has someone's undivided attention to start.  The audience has paid real money.  The saying in stand-up comedy that you must "kill" your audience is almost literal.  The audience will show no mercy and "kill" the stand-up comedian if they're not funny.   Hollywood gets lazy; good for the independents!
In short, I no longer blame the audience when many people talk.  Ironically, no one talked at my showing of BR 2049, but I respect my audience-mates less for it

Maybe if films like BR 2049 had real suspense people would keep quiet.  That's the elephant in the room no one wants to talk about.  Yes, there are people who are simply rude in theaters (as in every other place).  I've turned around and pushed a guy in the chest to get him to shut up.  Which was stupid; three of them.  So I hate people who talk in theaters too.  However, once I get over my initial annoyance at someone talking, I often think about it and conclude I would have talked too if I had no interest in film-making itself. 
I enjoyed the cinematography of BR 2049.  Hearing the dialogue added nothing, if anything, it made matters worse.
The filmmaker has someone's undivided attention to start.  The audience has paid real money.  The saying in stand-up comedy that you must "kill" your audience is almost literal.  The audience will show no mercy and "kill" the stand-up comedian if they're not funny.   Hollywood gets lazy; good for the independents!
In short, I no longer blame the audience when many people talk.  Ironically, no one talked at my showing of BR 2049, but I respect my audience-mates less for it

Convergence culture is king. Whilst the big screen is important, accessibility is even more important. Of course you can have both the theatre release as well as the streaming release. Obviously they might be opposing forces.
I co-wrote a dissertation about horror films last spring (speaking of "It"), and while I learned alot about building suspense, I realised how cheaply they can be made and how well they can perform at the box office. The last couple of years has been great in that genre, with films making two times their budget on the opening weekends. Maybe the only genre that can to that, persistently, in this day and age.