maxotics

I used to think the way Andrew thought.  Have I become jaded, misguided, scared of the truth?  I feel the same way, but...
There's amazing content on YouTube now that was impossible to produce/see 10 years ago.  I find it sadder that many people aren't familiar with this amazing content, than the fact of "snuff" types of videos on YT (that's what they called similar stuff in my day).  For example, our own @Mattias Burling videos, @DaveAltizer,ColdFusion, Wendover Productions, Ave, Curious Droid, Sean Tucker, Red Means Recording--I could go on and on.  YT has got it more right, than wrong.
@Chrad makes the point that there IS a problem with suicide in Japan (and the U.S. with vets) which is a problem bigger than the ethical standards of any YouTuber or the Alphabet Corporation.  How does society learn about these problems, or guage their significance or scale?  If YouTube were able to block these kinds of videos would anyone ever get emotional about the problem?  I doubt it, it would just be another statistic.  Keep in mind, I am NOT CONDONING the vlogger's behavior, only pointing out that when you stand back, society works in weird ways.  He may have sent the message to get more viewers, but who ever send a message without some self-interest?  I've met no one.  I used to think I was above it, I'm not.   So I always try to focus on the biggest problem, not any self-interest.  The biggest problem is suicide.  The vlogger was society's weird way of having it put under people's noses.
Think about it, we're all as guilty as the vlogger in doing nothing about the problem--at least I do nothing, but talk.
Until the bigger problems are fixed first, I want information to flow freely, not matter how distasteful it may be.  All sources are biased and society still works in mysterious ways.
 

I used to think the way Andrew thought.  Have I become jaded, misguided, scared of the truth?  I feel the same way, but...
There's amazing content on YouTube now that was impossible to produce/see 10 years ago.  I find it sadder that many people aren't familiar with this amazing content, than the fact of "snuff" types of videos on YT (that's what they called similar stuff in my day).  For example, our own @Mattias Burling videos, @DaveAltizer,ColdFusion, Wendover Productions, Ave, Curious Droid, Sean Tucker, Red Means Recording--I could go on and on.  YT has got it more right, than wrong.
@Chrad makes the point that there IS a problem with suicide in Japan (and the U.S. with vets) which is a problem bigger than the ethical standards of any YouTuber or the Alphabet Corporation.  How does society learn about these problems, or guage their significance or scale?  If YouTube were able to block these kinds of videos would anyone ever get emotional about the problem?  I doubt it, it would just be another statistic.  Keep in mind, I am NOT CONDONING the vlogger's behavior, only pointing out that when you stand back, society works in weird ways.  He may have sent the message to get more viewers, but who ever send a message without some self-interest?  I've met no one.  I used to think I was above it, I'm not.   So I always try to focus on the biggest problem, not any self-interest.  The biggest problem is suicide.  The vlogger was society's weird way of having it put under people's noses.
Think about it, we're all as guilty as the vlogger in doing nothing about the problem--at least I do nothing, but talk.
Until the bigger problems are fixed first, I want information to flow freely, not matter how distasteful it may be.  All sources are biased and society still works in mysterious ways.
 

YouTube, social media and the web in general is still at the stage of being a world-wide social experiment of which no-one (or their kids) asked to be the subjects and that's controlled not by scientists but by corporations whose only duty is to their shareholders. And we wonder why the whole shit house is going up in flames.

Hmm, my techniques for avoiding certain social media's content must be working. I've never heard of him before your blog post.

Any good documentary maker would likely keep on filming too. Many war corespondents will of course tell tales of exactly the same situation, where they couldn't put the camera down but had to pick it up to capture the story even under horrible circumstances (often quite the reverse, as the more horrible it is, the more important it is they report on it!).
Now of course Logan Paul isn't a doco maker, he is a "YouTuber". 
But in a way, that is kinda sort of the "same thing"? As a vlogger he is making a mini documentary, every single day. 

Look on the upside perhaps? He is bringing more attention to Japan's terribly high suicide rates, maybe will do his tiny part in helping open a discussion to do something about it. 

Oh, and as for censorship, I don't believe in any of that. "We don't have free speech to talk about the weather".

I agree.  My father, who got me my first camera, said that B&W is pure visual expression of an idea that is the same for all people; whereas color creates an emotional distortion that affects each person differently.  I don't remember his exact words.  I agree with @TwoScoops that the lack of color is too disruptive for most viewers; however, color has become a lazy-way to generate an emotional feel.  I thought "The Artist" or whatever that semi-recent B&W film didn't use B&W properly.  Anyway, I'm with webrunner5.  I'd be hard-pressed to think of a suspenseful film in color that matches Hitchcock and others in the 30s and 40s.  
Last night my daughter put on "Hot Fuzz" again.  It's in color of course, but Edgar Wright never uses color, in my opinion, to tell the story. No LOG bullshit for him   All his visual conceits and story bits would work in B&W.  The only film I can think of recently where I really thought color added something that couldn't be done another way was "Her".  And while I'm rambling.  Watched the 1st episode from Season 3 of "Black Mirror".  By God, the distance between those stories and what one sees in the movie theater these days!  And finally, what those cinema cameras and projectors can do these days!  Wow!

I was just commenting on a Curtis Judd video about this issue.  So many YouTubers mangle these concepts and I hate feeling the outcast.  Anyway, AFAIK the concept of 0-100 IRE dates back to when video was produced by tube cameras (which I shot stuff with back in 1985).  With those cameras, a video signal was an analog signal that was read by an oscilloscope, the waveform being one way of displaying the signal.  The 0 -100 ERI basically measured when you were under exposing or over-exposing the image.  It assumed an analog input, so I don't believe you could save, later, anything above or below those values.  Anyway, I believe it is a limited metaphor for today's digital equipment.  Even though they are displays available in Davinci Resolve, etc., they confuse people who doesn't understand the difference between a recording gamma (which doesn't exist in RAW) and a display gamma.  If I'm wrong, I hope others will chime in.
I think where you might be confused (and I was too) is believing that luma is encoded in your data.  It isn't, though it is implied.  When you record a value with your camera, whether a gray tone, like 128,128, 128 or a color 78,53,250, the brightness is ultimately set by your display.  So the difference in brightness between say 128,128,128 and 250,250,250 might be 2 stops or 3 stops, depending on your display gamma.  Your video data doesn't know the gamma it will end up in, though again, for most cameras there are expectations baked in.  Think about it, if luma was baked into your data than on some displays it would look really washed out, on others very bright.  Every display, from your phone to your PC monitor, transposes a range of brightness levels, calibrated to its expected output, onto the data.  If the data was to say, display 128,128,128 as a fixed level of brightness then how would each different piece of equipment do that, if some couldn't?
The whole "rec709" problem, IMHO, is a fake problem thought up by people who wanted to sell cameras, or their color profiles or LUTs.  I have never experienced a practical problem between shooting sRGB, AdobeRGB or others.  All the color spaces outstrip our ability to differentiate colors and they have a complex relation to luma.
Anyway, the fact is, assuming your expose your material favoring what you want exposed, then all software will work to create a relative output that assumes the display is using a rec709 type color space, or similar.      

Definitely not for RAW which has no assumption of color.  He's my cynical view of LUTs.  A person looks at some movie, likes the look of the color.  Can't figure out how to create it for their footage using Resolve or some other color grading software.  So they buy a LUT, which is a "look up table" of color substitutions made by a colorist who can duplicate the look of that film.  So what you're buying with a LUT is only another person's opinion of what looks good which matches your opinion.   There's no such thing as a LUT that creates better colors, though there's certainly a market for those who believe there are.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Color styles, like everything else in the arts, goes through FADs.  Right now, we're in an unsaturated-color FAD with so many people shooting LOG which is a destroyer of rich and vibrant color.  However, at some point, the bit-depth of cameras will increase, removing the need for 8-bit LOG gammas, and a FAD in highly saturated images will happen because everyone will want to show off their high-bit footage.   There's a prediction for 2020!
I need to quit this stuff again for 2018
 

Hey Mercer, finally a post where I can say, "SHOOT LOG ALL THE TIME!"  The drawbacks of LOG, chroma noise, only create a nice film-grain look in BW.  All that said, I believe you'll still get a better image shooting RAW.  I compared the RX10II to the professional X70 I had at the time an couldn't see a difference.  In short, those RX10s shoot a sweet image and have a nice selection of LOG profiles.  If I was going to shoot B&W that would be of my top 10 cameras.  
Nice images!  I keep meaning to shoot BW.  Another hangup I need to fix.  Post a video when you have one!
@UncleBobsPhotography  First, you'd need to remove the Color Filter Array (like the Leica Monochrome) to shoot true B&W--in STILLS!  In the RX10, it's actually a 1080 image downsampled from 4K, so you shouldn't have much chroma problems interfering with your B&W.  In other words, not sure a b&w sensor would give you much benefit except it should be more sensitive to light (having no light-slowing micro-filter-lenses) and give you a higher effective ISO.   h264 duplicates values in 420 or 422.  Cracks me up that in some other threads people want 444 in 10bit.  Who needs that?  Give me 444 in 8bit and I'll throw a party!   Anyway, h.264 stinks for everything compared to RAW but stinks less for B&W
Rock on Mercer!!!!
 

The Sigma will do very well in that test, because they're both APS-C sized sensors and the D5500, in the Foveon world, is considered a 6 megapixel sensor   However, against a Nikon D810/D850 (which has more pixels to de-mosaic and wider DR) things would get interesting.  
Very nice shot btw.  That's is the kind of shot that I believe will look better from a Sigma.  You have specular lighting and a lot of neutral colors (gray).  The kind of stuff that makes color artifacts galore in bayer cameras.
Really looking forward to your photo comparisons!!!!!   

also remember that 1080p RAW is less than 1080p video in resolution... debayering eats resolution.
But ML RAW's forté lies elsewhere, as we know

I like using "High contrast mono" picture effect with my Sony A7s for stills and have been trying to think of something to use it for video too.
This is a quick and dirty video screen grab using my FD 24 1.4 L @1.4

@Hans Punk first off, thanks... some of your videos, amongst others, made me explore the 5D and ML Raw. And I could not be happier.
So wait, with the new nightly builds, the camera will record as mlvfs? Or the process in post to open as mlvfs is simpler?
I think the next short film I do with the 5D3 will be in B&W. I just love the classical, dramatic look of it. 
For what I bought the RX10ii for, run and gun fun and slow motion, I am fairly happy with it for a glove box cam.
@maxotics I am glad you replied, because I love your recent posts on Log and Raw, though admittedly, and sadly, a little out of my depth. When I shot with sLog in the past, I did have some banding issues, so I was curious if the 4 luma values would help stave off the banding and I haven’t noticed any banding yet, where as with color in sLog2, as you know, it will creep up in wide sky shots.
Anyway, thanks for replying and pushing me to understanding the technical elements of an image... one day I’ll be able to grasp it and have an intelligent conversation on the matter.

YES!!! what a good topic
i LOVE b&w photography, thats how i started, shooting 35mm black and white film  ive made many b&w darkrooms in closets and bathrooms lol
frankly, dealing with color is WAY harder than shooting b&w (so many variables!) – b&w should be really freeing~! i think most ppl will find a HUGE amount of room to play in post, since you can fuck with hues and exposure like crazy to get a cool b&w image. although id love a dedicated b&w camera, having the color data to play with in post can be quite interesting
i would love to make a b&w feature! anyway heres a few shots i took the other day that i ~chose~ to treat as b&w bc the color was so meh... much better!
*i would recommend listening to the song low desert by r.e.m. while viewing these pics

Hey Mercer, finally a post where I can say, "SHOOT LOG ALL THE TIME!"  The drawbacks of LOG, chroma noise, only create a nice film-grain look in BW.  All that said, I believe you'll still get a better image shooting RAW.  I compared the RX10II to the professional X70 I had at the time an couldn't see a difference.  In short, those RX10s shoot a sweet image and have a nice selection of LOG profiles.  If I was going to shoot B&W that would be of my top 10 cameras.  
Nice images!  I keep meaning to shoot BW.  Another hangup I need to fix.  Post a video when you have one!
@UncleBobsPhotography  First, you'd need to remove the Color Filter Array (like the Leica Monochrome) to shoot true B&W--in STILLS!  In the RX10, it's actually a 1080 image downsampled from 4K, so you shouldn't have much chroma problems interfering with your B&W.  In other words, not sure a b&w sensor would give you much benefit except it should be more sensitive to light (having no light-slowing micro-filter-lenses) and give you a higher effective ISO.   h264 duplicates values in 420 or 422.  Cracks me up that in some other threads people want 444 in 10bit.  Who needs that?  Give me 444 in 8bit and I'll throw a party!   Anyway, h.264 stinks for everything compared to RAW but stinks less for B&W
Rock on Mercer!!!!
 

B&W video can look beautiful for the right subject...especially portraits of interesting faces and documenting everyday life. Without the distraction of colour, often the viewers attention is drawn closer to the subject and can give a timeless feel.
Without the luxury of a monochrome sensor, it’s always best to monitor in B&W - since the composition often benefits from contrast in lighting and tone that is not easily noticed when viewing in colour.
@mercer MLVFS is now working with the most recent nightly builds, making post processing very painless...especially when combined with Resolve for export.
Here is an early ML video that made me upgrade to FF Raw a few years ago...something magical about it.
This music video also looks great in B&W:
 

Ah yes, hardly the best showcase of the potential of the EVA1, but still cool to do one of my little vlogs with it :-D

My vlog got fancy, latest one was shot on a Panasonic EVA1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT7sUr0J5Tc
 
 
 
(footage is in vlog.... for a vlog, ha! Yes, is an amusing pun I just realised this second)

@IronFilm Audio is the only one that hasn't been picked yet... It's up to you to defend the most overlooked part of filmmaking  

I know what we all really want is an Alexa 65 and $100 Million to finance our feature, but there's only so much Santa can do in two days...

I tested @maxotics mirror setup and really like it! By gaff taping the mic on the corner of the evf it turns into a really lightweight setup for people who need to film themselves. Really great! 
 

I fell asleep! But to someone who doesn't know a lot about it he is pretty good at explaining it. It does help to know how stuff works to make it work for you.
 

Trying to fix various misunderstandings I experienced while posting my findings about LOG gamma profiles last year, I'm starting at the beginning--Camera RAW.  Most of you probably know all this already, but if you have 25 minutes to kill, or just want something to put you to sleep.  I've done a video on RAW.  I hope to do others, taking someone all the way up from RAW to video LOG.  As I do these, I learn a lot too.  There is plenty about video LOG that I DO NOT UNDERSTAND.  Anyway, here is part one
 

Trying to fix various misunderstandings I experienced while posting my findings about LOG gamma profiles last year, I'm starting at the beginning--Camera RAW.  Most of you probably know all this already, but if you have 25 minutes to kill, or just want something to put you to sleep.  I've done a video on RAW.  I hope to do others, taking someone all the way up from RAW to video LOG.  As I do these, I learn a lot too.  There is plenty about video LOG that I DO NOT UNDERSTAND.  Anyway, here is part one
 

Trying to fix various misunderstandings I experienced while posting my findings about LOG gamma profiles last year, I'm starting at the beginning--Camera RAW.  Most of you probably know all this already, but if you have 25 minutes to kill, or just want something to put you to sleep.  I've done a video on RAW.  I hope to do others, taking someone all the way up from RAW to video LOG.  As I do these, I learn a lot too.  There is plenty about video LOG that I DO NOT UNDERSTAND.  Anyway, here is part one