Loma Graphics Oy

It's very good now. You need to put in a few blank adjustment layers before you send it through, for convenience, plus it's best to switch off other grading and effects first too as they slow Speedgrade down.
 
Other than that, once you get over the first couple of hours learning hump, it's smooth sailing. Beats rendering IMHO

For anyone with Premiere CC, Speedgrade CC makes a lot of sense! Just send the sequence, then it comes back with an LUT which renders very quickly... non-destructive and very fast

Had a go with my newly aquired GH4 today. Took a short trip to local cemetery in bleeding harsh noon sunlight. Everything shot with the Nikkor 28mm 2.8 Ai-s and ND. Shot in 4K and cropped to 2K in AE. Graded with a lut only. Used James Millers settings with minor adjustments. Aspect set to 1:2.40 for the infamous "movie/film-aspect ratio".
Sorry for only still images taken from the edit. Have not been able to render out yet, but wanted to share what I consider a fantastic value-for-money camera. I think it captures wonderful images I can't wait to explore it more.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I make 3-4 wedding videos each year.  The couples I shoot choose their own music for very particular reasons, mostly some kind of emotional connection to a song.   It might be the first song they danced to, or a song that was popular when they first met, ...
What matters to them is that it's THAT song.  NOT a song that sounds a bit like it, or has a similar vibe, or a cover version ...
 
What I have been doing until now, is use that music in the wedding videos (including the online streaming versions), AND include proper credits and a direct iTunes link to the song(s). 
This is the best I can do right now, since publishers simply don't care about clearing songs for this kind of use.  Believe me, I have tried, and have never ever received a reply, let alone a quote.

I would be very happy with an easy, accessible online system where you can pay for sync for popular songs.

For all my other work, I find plenty of material at themusicbed or even the Vimeo music store. 

 

Have you seen this?
 
vimeo.com/blog/post:626
 
Essentially Copyright Match works like on YouTube where commercial music is matched to a database and flagged automatically. On YouTube the video is not removed, instead a link to buy the music or advertising is added under the player.
 
On Vimeo the match results in the user being marched off to an 'appeals process' where he must prove he has the valid license for the sound track in use, or that the video consitites 'fair use'. There are no hard and fast rules for what constitutes fair use.
 
Personally as an artist who likes to mix my cinematography with the best possible music, I see this as severely limiting my artistic freedom. I also see my personal work on Vimeo as purely artistic and not in any way 'for profit'. They are part of EOSHD's editorial but a completely separate entity to any part of the blog which makes money such as the Shooter's Guides and I don't run any advertising.
 
This decision by Vimeo means I will seriously have to consider removing 90% of my artistic work from Vimeo and placing it only on my local hard drive offline.
 
Copyright issues on the internet are universally dealt with by DMCA takedown notices and where money is involved, for example where someone is blatantly making money off the back of somebody's else's music in their commercial wedding videos, the issues is dealt with through the legal system.
 
I don't see why Vimeo need to get involved at all.
 
I also don't like how a company seemingly has the final say in what artistic expression I am allowed to make.
 
Also for those who use The Music Bed, the problem doesn't go away. Vimeo will still Copyright Match tracks on there. All music, at the end of the day, is copyright material. So everyone whether they have a license or not will have to go through the appeals process and risk the appeals people at Vimeo disagreeing.
 
Say goodbye to your Vimeo portfolio? Personally I am seriously considering moving out to YouTube or an alternative site. I didn't sign up to this shit!

Hi guys we recently shot an advert for Adidas using the 5d mk3 magic lantern raw hack.
 

 
I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Now THAT's a short film. It has a story, an actor, a score. If a work doesn't have these components, it's a short/art/music video, but not a short FILM.
 
Anyway, - Great pick, Andrew!

Dilemma of the century. Do you take the advantages of raw or 4K? Do you take the full frame sensor or the crop? Do you take the DSLR form factor or the advantages for video of mirrorless?

This is something I've been really trying to draw a conclusion on in recent weeks for my own sanity!

Read the full article here

Still can't beat the Nikon 1 v1 shooting 4k for only....$250! (yes, it's limited to one second but so much fun)
 

 
I still use mine to this day and I actually just licensed this video ^ to Samsung to use for their 4k displays.  Best $250 I ever spent!

I would like to give my platform to up and coming musicians around the world to showcase their music through my cinematography to an audience of around 250,000 people per month. This is the EOSHD Music Challenge.
Readers act as DJ - they can pick music from up and coming singers and bands, with suggestions that might suit the mood of my cinematography and future camera tests.
Cinematic music is really important to me but I haven't been satisfied with The Music Bed or similar resources so far.
How does the challenge work?
1. Suggest a band or musician on this thread. They have to be up and coming not signed to a major label or already huge.
2. I investigate and do the contacting of those which I like and credit you for the find!
3. If they agree to let me use their music, they will find a new audience through my blog and hopefully sell some tracks on iTunes from a link on EOSHD. You will be designated as the discoverer of talent and winner of the challenge.
4. You can have fun with this challenge and play DJ - use your taste to select the right standard of music to fit EOSHD and in turn you might discover new music yourself which you really enjoy listening to.
5. My cinematography at EOSHD is purely an artistic endeavour and experimental, non commercial and does not make any money but for all videos featuring unsigned acts I will consider enabling the Vimeo Tip Jar and sharing the proceeds with the musician 50:50!
This is a new idea and it will start off as a trial. If it works then great! If not then we will swap things around until it does, because I am determined to find new music and up and coming artists.
Good soundtracks are really important for filmmakers and I believe in finding new talent. Perhaps you know some artists yourself? Perhaps you are one?

these types of cameras fall into a really confusing territory.  Why would someone buy one of these when the type of work this product is aimed at is clearly undertaken primarily by people who rent. And why would a rental firm buy it when they can just rent out an Alexa, f55, etc out and know it will deliver to their clients continuously day in, day out.
 
Come on black magic.  Redesign the pocket with an evf, proper sized battery compartment for sony NP style batteries, CF card slot and user friendly interface and prores LT.    Give us an all in one solution that can actually be used in small budget situations that works like a dslr.
 
There are people who would pay 3 times what they are asking for the pocket camera if it worked like a dslr without all the flaws.

It still can be. I've never seen a genuine opinion shut down on this site, regardless of how far it strays from conventional wisdom. I have found respectful disagreements to be welcome if not encouraged. With that said, I have also seen rudeness, cockiness, malice, and ill-temper attempting to pass itself off as "just a genuine opinion what's the big deal," and on that I agree with the overall sentiment of this post wholeheartedly - it needs to stop because it detracts greatly from the benefit you can get from scrutiny among friends. 

I would be in favor of stricter community moderation as a first step, with more aggressive steps taken as needed. There are plenty of other festering cesspools of partisan hatred on the internet. EOSHD is (and should continue to be) a place for honest, frank, respectful discourse.

Over the last few months it has been a shame to see such good information from level-headed people here on the forum being totally drowned out by poor quality posts, bullshit, rudeness and just general argumentativeness or stuff which has nothing to do with filmmaking or even reality.
 
Frankly it is becoming a real pain to moderate and I just don't have time for it.
 
All over the internet forums are the same, they are all a total PITA to read because of a disruptive few.
 
I am considering a change to the forum which would effectively see it closed but for a few selected members who have a proven track record of good posts. The forum would have a lot of exposure and readers. Like a 'second blog' to EOSHD that everybody can get something interesting out of.
 
In preparation for the potential change over the next few weeks I will name the top quality people on here. Those who contribute interesting and cool stuff to the forum...
 
This is so EOSHD readers can check their profiles and check their posts more often - essentially I want to start drawing attention to the good guys rather than them always being drowned out.
 
By quality content I also mean good attitude towards other members, not just regular posting of constructive and creative stuff. People who help other shooters out when they are in need of it... and people who avoid the inevitable mud-slinging when someone with 2 or 3 posts jumps in to stir things up for their own enjoyment!
 
To have so much good info here especially on the anamorphic forum, drowned out by a vocal minority of idiots is simply unacceptable.
 
I'm not going to start censoring and banning en-masse - it is a shit job and I won't do it. I will simply close the forum and when it reopens it will be a circle of friends and 100% constructive. No bullshit. Like a cool hangout before the tourists get hold of it and ruin it.
 
Some may feel this is undemocratic. I will listen to them and get feedback on the idea before I decide on it 100%.
 
I just really think a forum with fewer members but LOTS of readers would be more useful to the readers of EOSHD.
 
So to those who get a kick out of a fight or a kick out of annoying myself and other filmmakers on the forum, it's time to consider whether you want the forum to continue, or whether it will end up being closed but still readable. I am thinking this could be the most useful outlet for the good stuff on the forum and a way to assist me in running the site.
 
Cheers - Andrew

bring it on!  4k medium format is great , I shot stills Medium format for 15 years so all those cool Zeiss lenses are back in business!

the main issue with these cameras is that they use sensors which are not quite true medium format.  they're somewhere in between medium format and full frame.  they can have all the resolution in the world, but in order for the actual medium format look to be felt it needs the actual jump from full frame to medium format (6x6, or 4x4.5).  ie.  approx 55mm wide sensor area.  these miss the mark by 7mm and effectively it's like the difference between full frame and aps-c.  the fact that the lenses tend to be f2.8 fastest isnt a problem when you're using a true medium format frame, but once you crop away 7mm off the width the depth of field / field of view ratio isnt worth the lack of lens speed.  an 80mm f2.8 on medium format will smoke a 50mm f1.2 on full frame in terms of overall 'big' feeling (due the the in/out of focus separation being that much more beautiful when rendered with a longer focal length) while matching the field of view and depth of field.   The same 80mm f2.8 lens on the 'almost' medium format sensors of these new breed of so called medium format cameras therefore no longer quite competes against the 50mm f1.2 on full frame - a combination now easily accessible thanks to the A7S.
 
Come back to me when someone creates a proper 55x55mm sensor and a set of anamorphics to suit:)  

Hey guys, I've written a really simple command line app for Mac that will resample GH4 footage from 4K 4:2:0 to 2K 4:4:4 using pixel summing. This will give you real 10 bit data in the luminance channel, so it's not just doing a brute-force bump from 8 bits to 10 bits. There actually is some interesting pixel finagling going on here:
 
http://www.mediafire.com/download/f7h950spj5hrn9f/gh444.dmg
 
There's no GUI, so you'll need to run it from the terminal. Do this by copying the app into the directory that contains the GH4 MOV files and using the following command in a terminal:
./gh444 INPUTFILE.MOV Make sure you cd to the current directory first if necessary. You can do this by typing "cd" into the terminal, add a space, and then drag the folder containing the MOV files into the terminal window. It will automatically add the path to the cd command. It'll look like this:
cd /path/to/gh4/files The app will spit numbered DPX frames out in a folder named "dpx_out."
 
I'd love for you guys to give it a try and see if you find it useful!

Cinematic-ness probably can be broken down to this:
Color balancing with priority given to skin tones Lighting and adjustments to shadows and highlights to mimic the dynamic range of the human eye. Motion blur you get with 24p, People say it's because we got used to 24p in the theaters.  I think it's more than that.  Motion of 30p and above and can steal your focus/attention from the subject. Cross processing for complementary colors.(usually in the bounds of natural looking skin) The wide aspect ratio. And maybe reduction of chroma noise to make it look more like film grain, but that's only when noise/grain is desirable in the shot.  All these are adjustments to make the image look natural and pleasing to the human eye, because images straight out of the camera look entirely different.
 
If you miss one of these points, it starts looking to what some people may call un-cinematic.  And sure, you can deviate from this if you know your limits or if you are doing something abstract.  So far, it seems Panasonic is more willing to deliver better out of the box results.  Canon is always trying to decide which feature to leave out so they can sell their more expensive variation.

You hit the nail on the head.. Everyone is clamoring about the ability to shoot 4k but no one is paying attention to the underlying issue that the GH4 still shoots a poor de-bayered image that(much like pretty much anything else currently available under 12k) lacks detail. Shooting RAW OR 4k is not a feasible solution for MANY projects. I recently shot almost a Terabyte of 1080 footage for over the span of 3 days for a documentary(think about how that would limit or impact what you shoot, how you shoot, how often you would need to backup, etc). I see many positives to what the GH4 can provide(cropping 4k is super useful, pulling stills, etc), but I also see many negatives(including the headaches and limitations of the dslr footprint).
 
I too would rather have seen a dslr format that could shoot a better QUALITY(non-debayered image a'la F3, c300, 1dc) 1080 image with increased bit depth, dynamic range, and the ability to over crank rather then get 4k and an externally powered box that enables sound and hd-sdi.  
 
Aside from it appearing to be an awesome camera with some great features, Right now I can't help but see the 4k feature in particular as being more of a "gimmick" for aspiring filmmakers to waste money on rather then becoming a serious tool for the arsenal. 

So I played with the GH4 this afternoon at Jessops, Oxford Street, London. Although I spent around an hour with the camera, I was not allowed to record any footage to my SD card as the Panasonic rep said that the unit was a pre-production model without the release firmware. Being a nice chap, he did allow me to test many of the video functions and looked closely at the 2 Cinelike profiles the camera has, Cinelike D and Cinelike V.
 
I've never held a GH series camera in my hand before, so I was very suprised by the light weight of it. I'm used to the weight of my 5D MKIII with lump of L glass, so it was lovely to hold a camera that felt so nice in my hand. The OLED screen was very sharp and clear and worked perfectly to pull focus. The EVF was bright and full of detail. The eye piece was ultra comfortable. Focus peaking worked an absolute treat. A quick word about the autofocusing, its very impressive and I noticed no 'hunting'. I think it will be pefect for shooting with the 96fps function when you want to track something that is moving at speed.
 
The Cinelike profiles look interesting and I believe no footage we've seen so far has used these profiles to capture footage. Cinelike D is pretty much like a Technicolour style flat profile which is probably going to be the most used one on the GH4. Cinelike V seems to crush all the shadows into black and I found it hard to see what purpose this profile would serve.
 
The DR of the GH4 looks really good. Even though we were inside near the back of the store, when shooting out towards the windows, plenty of detail was retained outside. I know on my 5D, lots of it would have been blown out, almost white!
 
Unfortunately, I was not able to look for moire or aliasing as we could not connect the GH4 to a monitor and it was too hard to notice it on the OLED or EVF as they are too small.
 
In all, its a great camera and I can't wait to see more footage from it in the coming weeks. I did get the Panasonic rep to watch my showreel and while winking at him said I've love to shoot something for them :)
 
If you have any Q's please feel free to ask. Finally, some photos of the Cinelike profiles, this is the best I could do :(
 
'>
 
'>
 
'>
 
'>
 
Adrian

I've been out in Dubai for commercial work, and in my spare time I used the 5dmkIII + raw to shoot a travelogue.  Tried to capture some of the lesser-known parts of Dubai and the surrounding region.  Enjoy!
 

Really hoping they can actually follow through with any of this. The next couple months are going to be a huge deciding factor for me as to whether I decide to stick with Canon or jump ship and start swimming toward mft island. Of course I'd love to be able to embrace the benefits of both, but when it comes down to it, I just can't afford that. I'm sure many others feel the same way.

Except that most of that work isn't actually enhancing the footage, it's getting to a reasonable place to start.  You can't intelligently grade your footage until you see it for what it is.  That's not what you really start out with most of the time when shooting raw or if you've shot linear with a baked in LOG curve.  
 
If I was a client and I'd shot film and I got rushes back that were different every time or, worse, I was at a lab timing my film and having to sit there and watch the colorist poke around and try this or that to get my footage to simply look as filmed and as good as I would expect from rushes with house lights I would take my film and go someplace else.  But somehow this is how folks are expected to work with the digital equivalent to a film negative.  It's awful.
 
Once you're really grading, I wholeheartedly agree, methodical, logical order.  But it's easy enough to see in upload after upload that most folks aren't starting their grade from a good place before trying to get to their look.  Just look at Shane Hurlbut's BMD tests.  They're no better looking than Joe Six Pack bought himself a BMCC's uploads to Youtube.
 
I've got this fellow's entire short shot on an Epic sitting on a drive.  I look at the footage as-is in After Effects it looks just as bad as it does in Redcine-X.  Just awful.  Unusable for my purposes.  So I'm having to linearize it all to a meaningful place to work that's appropriate for display on an sRGB monitor.  That extra work is eating into time that might otherwise be spent doing my actual job on this fellow's film and it's going to be the same waste when he goes to do his final grade in Chicago because the colorist is dealing with it like everyone has always had to deal with it.
 
At least most of these cameras seem to have decent monitoring now, even if you're going to have to work to get it back to looking like what you remember from set once it's shot.  One of the most said phrases by Brian Singer on the set of Superman Returns, the first motion picture shot on the first model Sony Genesis, "it's not going to look like that, right?"  We have come at least that far.

This advice makes the assumption that you're doing things wrong, or at least, not as well as you should.  It's also making the assumption you're applying some bull-shitted "film curve" that applies a uniform transformation without respect for the digital file's origination.  It's like good advice for doing things wrong which I don't get if it's coming from that Australian colorist.  Resolve doesn't clamp or integer-ize intermediate results at the output of a modification node.  It makes no sense.
 
You will lose information if you read in 8-bit footage, apply a LUT and then save it back to an 8-bit file.  Don't do that.  That's bad.
 
You will lose information if you think because you shot 8-bit footage you can grade in an 8-bit project.  Don't do that.  That's bad. (I don't even like working 16bit any more)
 
If you are working in a floating point project. there is nothing lost after applying a LUT.  There is no removal of anything.  Nothing destructive is happening.  I can crush an image down to practically nothing and expand it back out to its original form and everything is still there.  That's true in After Effects so I would be really, really surprised if Resolve did something boneheaded like clamp or integer-ize all intermediate steps between nodes.   You should really be operating in a floating point project and saving both intermediate and final imagery to a high quality, un-compressed format with enough precision to not be destructive.   edit: he's also referring to "print LUT" which, while highly anachronistic and a dubious proposition at best in any case, is very different than what FC is.  A "print LUT", if you were going to do such a thing, would definitely be the last step, if you were really after an old telecine look (but if you work without having it on most of the time you are in for headache and heartache doing your grade, being happy with it and then applying something like this).  It's analogous to AE's View->Simulate Output->Kodak 5218 to Kodak 2383 (which would only really look right if you were working with scanned 5218 negative though they also have a "universal camera film" to 2383 as well).     When you watch a movie on TV or BD or DVD or LD, ideally, you're not seeing the influence of a print stock.  Likewise with commercials shot on film.  They scan or otherwise transfer from negative.  If a movie has had a DI odds are no video representation you have or will ever see has any printing influence.     Ideally you're always wanting to be looking at some representation of the IP and not something that's been "stepped on" because, yeah, you don't grade/time a film once you've printed it.  Maybe a "print LUT" would be useful if you were wanting to simulate the very specific look of old (like '80s and earlier) telecine (transfers from print rather than negative material) or something like Technicolor's ENR or other silver retention process applied to the printing of a film, creating an image that you would only ever see in a theater from select, expensive prints and not your typical release prints.  This is a look that you would not get seeing the same movie digitally projected or on a home video release.  

fuzzynormal, think about what you're saying.  Why do you set the aperture to be 2.8 vs f8.  Why might you not use f22 if you want everything in focus?  Why would use use 25fps in Europe, but not the U.S.?  Why would you turn sharpness down in the camera?  Why wouldn't you expect to use your pancake lens with an adapter on a camera not designed for it?  Why might you use a Blackmagic camera for stuff you plan on showing at your local theater, but would use a GH3, say, for an on-line video series?  You think more like an engineer that you realize ;)
 
Andrew has argued this before.  You can't separate the technical from the artistic.  Yes, you DO NOT have to be a technical expert to create great art.  That's why movie-making is the most collaborate of efforts.  No one can know/do it all.  You have to have multiple experts.  However, if you are doing this yourself, YOU want to know as much as possible.  For the guy-and-a-dog filmmaker, this site is an oasis.
 
Most people here are not learning the tech to be "curious and cool".  They're learning it to be better artists.  
 
This is how I got here.  I've never liked skin tones in compressed video.   I come from a film background.  I tried all kinds of things, but nothing worked.  Then I read a blog post here by Andrew on the 50D and how it was shooting RAW video (which I had no idea about).  So I bought his 50D guide, a camera, and tried it.  I just followed Andrews step-by-step instructions.   The first clip changed my life.  And I've been here every since, learning and sharing my knowledge and clips with others.  
 
I admit that I get lost in the weeds in the technology, which becomes counter-productive artistically.  We all do.  I think that's why Andrew shot his latest video in the dark with a non-RAW camera using internal stabilization.   That's a real video, a real work of art, for a real client.  Andrew has amazing cameras.  He could have shot with RED.  But he shot with the Olympus because his technical knowledge told him what would be THE BEST EQUIPMENT TO REALIZE HIS ARTISTIC VISION.  
 
You can get into the technology and still use a super-8 film camera!  One does not preclude the other.

That's why it's such a shame, the technology is excellent but the implementation of their technology is completely unsuited to what a large number of their customers want to use it for - VIDEO - and how hard is a proper 16:9 mode for live-view so you can frame the damn screen properly!? No effort whatsoever!
 
I use the Baby Photo thing to knock Nikon over the head with in the review purely to make a point... That with no movie mode on the dial, Nikon shows where their priorities lie... They are with even the smallest stills feature or gimmick over the head of video.
 
Do you know the Nikon J1 at $399 does a 4K raw output in video mode from the sensor, and Nikon haven't made use of it at all? Why are they so allergic to making video cameras? Is it the staff re-training costs or something? Just do it. See if it sells. If it does, build a business division off the back of it and THEN train new staff and reps. If not, don't do another one. Simple!
 
It's just like the early 90's when Nikon had the chance to buy Photoshop. It isn't a camera, so they don't bother. Why such a narrow attitude to the imaging business?