Quirky

I do ignore your posts - when they are not addressed to me. I've been doing so for a while. But when you quote me and criticise me, I will respond. 

 

I suggest you ignore me. Please. Life is too short for this crap.

FWIW, as said, I did not directly criticise you, that's just your own postulation. You got what you bargained for.

​But nevermind. I've noticed you've got quite a distinctive way to 'respond' not only to me, but to others, too. I don't really give a crap, this is not that important. Just curious about things sometimes. 

It's nice that we agree on something, though. Life is indeed too short for the snarky, condescending and bleeding-heart drama followed by any kind of non-submissive communication addressed to you. So as you wish, I'm happy to ignore you from now on. Cheers. 

As I will buy something else when I find the right system camera, the FZ1000 may be a excellent camera to learn with. And use as a second camera later. Anyone have thoughts?

Yes, why not. I've been using something very similar, the RX10, as a backup and travel camera for almost a year now, and you can indeed handle both video and stills with one. The video side is easy enough to work with even if you're just learning, and the video quality is enough for some more advanced needs, too. The stills side is good enough for most web based needs, or even decent sized prints. Sure, it's 'only' a 1-inch sensor, so it's no low light monster, but it can be surprisingly versatile. The leaf shutter is a bliss when shooting among people, for example, because it's very silent.

What I said here applies to the FZ1000, too. But before you decide to buy one, I recommend going somewhere where you can try it in your own hands first. It's not too bad ergonomically but still, as with any camera, if it's possible, go and try one first.

Helios 44 / FF58.   Full frame is best since it uses the most of the lens's image circle and thus more of the character caused by limitations of the design show up.

 

Canon FD lenses are not characterful at all.  I'm amazed people have recommended them in this topic.  All designed with computers by the best optical designers of the time.  Modern coatings  The whole thing about these japanese lenses was that they were at the peak of technological ability of the time.  Very littler improvements have been made in optical terms since the FD mount was instigated.  - 1971 is modern.  Look at 1950's and 1960's glass.  Anything after that will be clean and boring!

Cute talent. Bokeh looked a bit odd in some of the frames. I've got the original UV filter for the Helios 44-3 model, and it gives quite an 'extravagant' flare, as expected. Did you use any in those final clips?

Oh and speaking of 'modern' 70's lenses, have you by any chance ever tried a Schneider C-Curtagon 35mm? 

Not that there's anything special about it, just an old surveillance camera lens or something, and rather small, and as such not too shabby as a vintage 'pocket camera' lens, either. I thought about re-discovering a specimen soon, just for the heck of it.

2nd sentence: pot kettle.

Quite. You don't need my help to make yourself look like a plonker. Looks like you manage that quite well without my help. Yes, so do I, but that's besides the point. I didn't tell you what to do or what not to do.

I was simply curious about the reasoning behind your quite positive and endearing comments. I don't care if they're 'right' or 'wrong,' just wondering about the relevance. But nevermind, it doesn't matter. Whatever floats your boat.

Dude I'm sure you're a nice guy, but for someone who doesn't use their real name, doesn't post their work and doesn't contribute much useful information, you sure spend a LOT of time pointing out what other people are doing wrong. 

I'm sorry, but that's just windy, sanctimonious bollocks. I don't need to justify myself to you, nor do I need your permission to be here. If you don't like what I write, feel free to ignore my posts. No need for a bleeding heart. I think there may even be a ignore button somewhere. 

The 120fps is really good, looks better than the GH4 at first glance. Need to shoot some more with it.

 

The 1080/60p isn't that great though. Shoot 4K.

Is it as bad / about the same as the NX30 1080/60p? Mediocre, moire and stuff?

Yes, thanks for the blog post, it was interesting reading.

However, it would have been interesting to read more than one sentence about the 1080p HD side of things, too. After all, many potential buyers would/might be shooting a lot of regular HD for a good file first, not just transcoding and then re-scaling the HEVC 4K footage into HD.

How does the HD off the HDMI line looks like? I thought recording straight onto a Ninja would be one way to bypass the H265 codec, for the time being.

Speaking of which, too bad Samsung didn't offer H264 as a second option, pretty much like Panasonic and Sony are offering XAVC, AVCHD and mpeg4/H264 .mov as standard options. A bit dumb from Samsung not to do so.

Yes well done OP. I'm really impressed with how well you posted those clips. I particularly like the way you embedded not just one but two videos ... and then added a few lines of text underneath!

 

HiFF - I agree. It's a hell of a thing trying to make a film on a shoestring budget, even when it's coming from one of the biggest camera manufacturers in the world. Nikon probably didn't give them much money because they probably didn't care if the camera they've spent millions advertising as being an exceptional video camera actually produced a decent cinematic image. 

Well, nothing is stopping you from showing both those clueless amateurs and Nikon how it's supposed to be done, without a penny or even a camera strap begged or needed from Nikon, right? 

So much jealousy, cynicism or just generally negative energy in this thread for some unknown reason.

Imagine if all that passive-aggressive energy percolating in this topic could be somehow transcoded and channeled into actual filmmaking... that might become a rather dark film, but man, you would own the film festivals!  ;)

I need to avoid rumors sites these coming months!!!

The new norm of media, online and off, is copying, pasting and propagating rumours and memes.

We are the Media of the 2010's.

You will be force-fed with rumours. Anywhere you look.

Resistance is futile.

You are right. Well done.

This was not about anyone being right or wrong. I was simply curious about the logic behind your comment.

If this movie or the genre of it was odd, I still wonder what kind of film would not be odd in your view.

From Nikon's POV, they proved a point. From the filmmaker's POV, they got their feature film made with the help of Nikon sponsorship. Sponsored or not, saying that the movie is just an advert for Nikon would sound almost like an insult to the filmmaker(s), wouldn't it. 

So kick away your tripod

Umm... no, I don't think so, not yet. With 5-axis IBIS or not.  ;)

Yet more great mirrorless technology, which makes me wonder if I will ever go back to a traditional DSLR again, with OIS on the lenses.

Why would you?

Let's indeed hope the sensor and the processor are improved from the previous A7, rather than the same. Looks like a welcome update in ergonomics. Something like what the rushed A7 should have been like from the beginning.

I think it's too early to say anything about the new IBIS, though. Hopefully it'll work as advertised, without any major compromises, either immediately or after an extended period of active use.

Because the film is sponsored by Nikon. It's effectively an advert for the D810. Do the math.

That sounds like a non-sequitur to me. Based on those teasers, Nikon is neither featured nor a key character in that film, apart from the quick cameo of the old FM2 in the beginning of that second teaser. It appears to be just a normal feature film, only made with Nikon gear and sponsor money. 

So I'll ask again, please explain why is the theme/genre of that film odd?

Or, would it be more clear if we turn it the other way around;

What would/should that film be like (or about), then, not to be odd in your view?

Just trying to figure out the logic behind your postulation, that's all. 

Personally I see nothing odd in Nikon sponsoring the making of a classic love story / drama film. Even if it's a 'chick flick.' If the story happens to be good and well filmed, it makes perfect sense to me, and no doubt to Nikon, too. The fact that the D810 is mostly being bought by adult men has nothing to do with it.

Average D810 demographic: male, 25-55yrs

Average demographic for this film: female, 13-23yrs

 

Odd.

Why is that odd? 

I've heard of some Oscar-nominated Hollywood movies popular among young women which are made by men in their 60's.With cameras having somewhat similar demographic, or even older.

Absolutely gobsmacking, eh? Sounds almost kinky, doesn't it.

It's amazing how DSLRs are shaping taste. Very few films in cinema history have been shot with a frame larger than super 35 and now it's not enough. Ten years ago we were only dreaming of shooting with 16mm sized sensors in consumer level cameras.

Are the DSLR's shaping the taste, or merely popularising it by bringing the larger format to the hands of mere mortals? After all, this is nothing new per se, larger than S35 movies were just more rare. Well, a lot more perhaps, but the point is that be it film or digital, the larger format image has always been quite alluring, and people have been hooked by it way before FF DSLR's appeared. Films like that were so few and far between, though, that neither the audience nor the filmmakers at large got a chance to get used to the big film look. 

I've seen a few 70mm/65mm films on a proper screen back in the day before full frame DSLR's and seeing those 'spoiled' me for good. After seeing them the regular S35mm (Hollywood and documentary) films felt a bit 'bland.' But we sort of get used to the lower 'norm,' because there's not much else to see, and the content is still more important.

Impressive. Interesting to read how they were using a camera which only got released the week before they started shooting!

(Nikon) money talks and filmmakers walk.  ;)

Sony isn't really in a position like Canon that makes it possible to recycle the same tech for 5 years. Sony product cycles are fast... I think they'll always be until they find the holy Grail that gives them a big chunck of market share.

Yes, that's pretty obvious in general, but usually the less than a year update cycle applies to the lower end consumer models only. The A7 was supposed to be one of the higher end models that was released... um, less than a year ago? Cheeses.

Suppose they are trying hard to reach new market share with an aggressive than usual cycle. But I think that too short an update cycle even for the pricier models may come and bite Sony in the posteriore at some point. It undermines the perceived value of the product. Premium products are supposed to have longer product cycles.

Oh well, the A7 launch felt a bit rushed to begin with, not so long ago. Hardly a real premium product. Too little too soon, and/or not refined enough. I think the whole A7 FF E-mount concept was, and that may come back to bite Sony in the derriere at some point. 

Hopefully Sony know what they're doing and will get their mojo working next year. 

I think this explain a lot,  "OS X Yosemite and third-party SSDs: Here's what you need to know" - http://www.zdnet.com/os-x-yosemite-and-third-party-ssds-heres-what-you-need-to-know-7000035872/

And this:

http://www.macworld.com/article/2849366/mac-wont-boot-about-yosemite-and-your-third-party-ssd.html?utm_content=buffer2892e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

The original Sony A7 isn't very good for video, but if this 24 MP sensor shows improvements like Nikon made with the D750, this will be awesome!

IF the rumoured camera shows propellers like the DJI Inspire, it would be able to fly on its own.

IF Mrs. Johnson showed b@lls under her dress, she'd be Mr. Johnson. 

At this point we don't even know if the innards of the new model are the same as before, sans the 5-axis stabilisation and XAVC codec. We don't know if the 5-axis system will even work in video mode at all. Chances are the updates are mostly for the photo side of things. The rumoured specs don't say anything about all new guts inside the body, which it should have for this to be an "avesome" update for video shooters. But apparently we'll find out soon enough. 

Personally I wonder how they've done the 5-axis stabilisation inside a E-mount body, at least without significant cropping (or crapping out the IQ). Which leads me to wonder what's the point of adding it in the A7 in the first place. Proof of concept, perhaps? IF the rumour is true in the first place.

Another thing that I can't help but wondering about is why are they releasing a new model so soon after the release of the original A7. It'll be interesting to see what happens to the prices of the still unsold stock of the A7's soon, though, IF that rumour about the release time turns out to be true.

Haven't had time to test yet but will do soon, image has a nice feel to it so far though.

 

Using Handbrake as a replacement for the Samsung transcoding app. Works great. Giving me 200Mbit/s H.264.

I have no 'demands' about reviewing the camera, but since the camera is using H265 and it'll obviously take some time before the world has caught up with it, I for one would be more interested in how the camera works right now and today, as in good ol' 1080p HD mode. Does that use H265, too? How about the HDMI out? Any chance to record regular 422 ProRes out of that thing?

Meanwhile, I for one don't find it impossible to transcode the H265 4K if necessary. Therefore I'd also be more interested in the look and quality of the 4K footage acquired the obvious way, with the Samsung transcode app, rather than read about some nerdy tinkering with VLC's and Handbrakes. No doubt the blogosphere will be filled with that soon, anyway.

Unless the Handbrake route does actually work nicely, which would be a slight surprise, but anyway, surely you get the point. Rather than workarounds for the software, what's more interesting at this point is how the camera does out of the box, and in HD mode, too.

Sounds pretty cool. Not quite sure about the Kodak-colorscheme of the branding though (orangy red with the orangy yellow).

Do markings on cinema lenses really have to be orangy yellow?

Yes, they do, to identify/differentiate them clearly and visually from others, like Zeiss, Samyang SLR Magic, etc.

What's wrong with orangy yellow, anyway?

I've got nothing against some daddy Eastman-esque vibe in them, especially if they turn out to be good and 'Eastmancolormatic' enough.

This isn't much use to me without knowing which specific clips you are referring to.

Sorry, I don't have time to go through it clip by clip, and I'm sure you'll figure it out, or leave it just like it is.

Like said, it's not really that bad, it probably looked better after a second look, and we're more or less nit-picking here, because you asked for feedback.

But just as a quick example, if you really want to, you could try experimenting by leaving out the old soft b/w camcorder bits, some softer or mis-focused action bits, might have been D600 stuff or whatever, and most of the narrated seaweed bits, too. Or shorten some things, or something along those lines. The seaweed bits are not that weak technically , but you may have more than enough seaweed in the reel as a whole, and the narrated clips don't quite fit with the music and the rest of the clips, or the general mood of the video.

If you wish to cut the reel into two separate bits, try experimenting with one 'blue' reel and another reel with a different mood, theme and music bed. Just a thought. That's just my nit-pick-twit sort of feeling right now, feel free to totally ignore it. 

Do you guys consider the lack of sharpness/resolving power a "charachter" point? I love my lens sharp, all the vintage high quality cinema lenses were extremely sharp contrary to modern belief, they are mainly just as good as the latest photographic lenses or sharper.

I think the lack of resolving power, and horrible characteristics like high purple fringing and chromatic abberations, strong distortion, etc are not factors in making a lens unique or give is character they just make it worse. Just my opinion.

I'd say there is no single right or wrong answer. Sharpness alone is just one factor. Character is a somewhat subjective term, and the bottom line is go with whatever suits you. Pick a lens. Shoot with it, then edit and grade it, and see how the end result looks. If it looks good and your workflow has been pleasant enough, great, go with that lens. Then try finding another one that matches the 'look' of it.

It's different with different cameras. Some cameras with no low-pass filters may benefit from lenses with less resolving power, even though sharpness is desirable. Cameras with strong low-pass filters may give a slightly different look and benefit from different kind of lenses. There are different colour casts, and out of focus blurs look slightly different among different lenses. Different sensor sizes are using different size portions of the lens circle. Some people are looking for a slightly different 'look' than some others. And so on. Whatever floats your boat.

No one likes strong purple fringing or chromatic aberrations, but that's another story. If it's a vintage lens, we can try working around the gotchas and enhancing the good bits. Or go with whatever lens gets the most votes in online forum acclamations, or the highest score in DXO photo lens tests. It's all up to you, anything goes.

Thanks Ash  :) Yeah I really need to consider cutting it down because part of me really thinks you are right. The difficulty is that, like me, you guys are watching lots of videos so patience is always at a premium. Plus you are not the target audience - if you are a potential client who is considering paying me to make a film, do you think you might want to see more than a couple of minutes? I don't know ... Maybe not. 

 

I'd really appreciate other's input into this.

In this time and age, shorter is better. Even for the 'intended' target audience.

Make an empirical test, show the reel to a bunch of random friends and see if they start talking during the clip. If they do, you'll know it's too long. That particular reel may not have enough clip/content variety (or alternatively, clear enough a plot) to justify the four and a half minutes. 

You might want to consider shortening or leaving out the weakest parts of it, and some of the repetition. I mean that's what I'd probably do if it was mine. Or, consider making a set of different videos with slightly different content, look and theme.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=blackmagic+pocket&_from=R40%7CR40&LH_Complete=1&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xblackmagic+pocket+body&_nkw=blackmagic+pocket+body&_sacat=0

Well duh, obviously there are plenty of 'cheap' BMPCC's for sale right now, soon after a major sale. Some people and maybe even companies hoarded them when they were on sale, not to use them, but in hopes to make a profit after the sale is over. But the 'official' list pricing is back on the original level already, including the BM website.

After the new discount stock is sold, you'll only get either used ones or new ones around $800 or more. Oh well, like said, nit-picking, doesn't really matter. 

What matters more in a demoreel like yours is consistency.

Now some of the clips don't quite match with the rest of the clips, and the weaker ones sort of disrupt the wholeness of the video. That's one more reason to consider trimming it down, not for us here, but for that intended audience of yours.

Just my 2c...

Okay, I got to start looking into that CC thing. I know it's probably very simple, but how do you add those hide-able subtitles?

I haven't used any so far, and on the rare cases I have, I've simply 'burned' them on the clips. Which make them reliable, but always visible. I thought it might be nice to be able to hide them once in a while, as long as the system is reliable enough.

nit-pick mode on

BTW, regarding the header, I thought the BMPCC is back to $900 or thereabouts again, so it's not exactly an under $700 camera, even as a body alone, is it. 

/nit-pick mode off

But other than that, nice and 'blue' reel.  ;)

I've read that the RX100 mk3 has the same video quality, is that right?

On paper, maybe, but in practise, nope.

Don't look at the specs alone. It all depends on what exactly are you wishing to accomplish with the camera, and where and how are you going to use it.

 

If video quality was equal I might go to the RX100 due to size and the tilting screen, although If bright enough I would like the constant zoom, water sealing, audio in/outs, hotshoe etc on the RX10.

If video quality was equal the RX10 would still be a no-brainer. That is, as long as video shooting is concerned. The only practical reason to consider the RX100 over RX10 is the size difference. If tiny, easily pocketable size is your number 1 criteria, then go for the RX100.  Other than that, the RX10 is a more versatile video camera.

It ultimately depends on what you need and what your willing to compromise with.

Right. 

Andy, HUGE thanks for the RJ adapter! I'm going to order it! :)

Do you think this one is the same? It could arrive  in less days at home:

http://www.ebay.it/itm/ADATTATORE-CANON-FD-MICRO-4-3-SPEED-BOOSTER-OLYMPUS-PANASONIC-GH4-GH3-GH2-M4-3-/351116470242?pt=Filtri_e_Lenti&hash=item51c02c27e2 

(I read that it's better not to point to lights to avoid blue point: is it true?)
 

I believe it's the same. Looks like the same Chinese product is being sold with a dozen different brand names. Surely there can't be that many different manufacturers for those. I bet there's only one or two. I take it even that Camdiox one delivered in that fancy yellow box is pretty much the same thing... right? 

So I believe it's a matter of taste, price and logistics. Pick any one that suits you best, or pay more for the Metabones one.

I think this is an oft repeated misperception 

Or perhaps just a slight misintrepretation on your part. 

DO NOT upgrade to Yosemite if you are booting from a third party SSD drive.

I think you should consider reversing the highlight in that sentence. Starting the bold text from the word if, not before it. The way it is now looks a bit daft. 

That's not the only solution. Another solution is to not buy into the Apple ecosystem.

Yeah, well, consider yourself lucky with your other solution. Yours may just not be enough for some others. 

Other than that, Mac vs. Windows (or Linux) is as productive as Canon vs. Nikon (or Canikon vs. Olysonicsontaxleicafilm), so let's not even start, please.