fuzzynormal

There is, but it depends on what sort of AC current frequency you're sending or is being sent to those lights. The only way I've found to diminish light strobing without adjusting the shooting frame rate is to decrease your shutter speed to 0°. Doesn't get rid of it, but makes it less noticeable. Almost imperceptible dependent on the type of shot you're doing. It's a fine idea. I'd even conform 30p to 25p, but only if it's the type of shots that don't require sync to voice. The slight bit of slow-mo you get when doing this looks rather nice too. I've shot characters in film narratives at 30p knowing that I'd conform down to 24p, simply to exploit the aesthetic of it.

No. I hold it to my eye or I cradle it. Whatever works for the angle. And then I drift the camera as needed. A lot of times I'm doing what would probably look kind of like Tai-Chi to a casual observer. It's the M-IS1 setting, which is Sensor+Digital Yes, the AWB changes way too much in shooting situations. You have to pick a color balance and set it; no cheating! This particular video doesn't have much aggressive color correction, really. I adjusted white and black levels, tweaked white balance on some shots, put a cooling filter over it all, and finally added a slight bit of grain. I guess that sounds like a bit of a process, but that's what I do to all my stuff, so it's pretty basic for me. The Oly colors match my 5D quite well. Almost the same, really. In fact, there's a few 5D shots in this edit. With this video there's no LUT's or anything. Although, I've been wanting to delve into that process and experiment. This video would probably be perfect for that. If I accomplish anything worthwhile in that regard maybe I'll share. The thing I appreciate about the EM5II isn't that it's a great camera for IQ, (my old Gx7 is better) but that it allows me to adopt a certain shooting style that I enjoy and have FUN with. It's "floaty hand-held" --and it's helped me create a certain aesthetic easily that is serving me well on my jobs. I know some Sony cams have 5-axis on their spec sheet now, but it doesn't seem like it's in the same league as the Oly. For me Oly's stabilization is the killer feature that has me using it more often than not.

I'd recommend you should go give Oly a hands on try. The stabilizer on the EM5II is at a whole 'nother level. Crazy good/cool. At the very least it can be a useful Bcam for specific situations. Driving in a car, sailing on a boat, scooting along in a tuk-tuk. If you want or need it, it's a very very wonderful tool to have in one's arsenal. Or, grab a cheap EM10! Anyway, all these cameras listed here are pretty cool; can't go wrong, really.

I just did a 10 minute corporate thing with a gh4, 5d, and an EM5II. If you shoot clean and expose properly you can get em to match pretty close in the color grade, but you need to be patient at it. The GH4 looks like it has more resolution, because it does, but you can't really tell the difference in the final online delivery unless you're looking closely. FWIW, I shot for a month last summer in Indonesia (hot!) with LUMIX and Olympus gear and it held up fine. I got tons of great video and looked very unassuming while doing so. I'd recommend the Panasonic cams. Cheap and really nice video IQ. Not sure how particular you are about having the GH4's 4k, but the EM5II's 5-axis stabilization might actually allow you to capture better shots on the fly. That built in stabilizer is something else.... Plus, the camera is weather sealed, which is nice to have; something else to consider.

All using a cascading sequence of plugins within an editing app? In your case are you using Resolve? So, the FilmCovert plugin, to the Impulz plugin, to the Impulz plugin...? I'm also ignorant about Resolve.

I don't mess around with LUT's much at all as I typically eye-ball my coloring shot to shot with the Magic Bullet Suite... but am curious to try. So, from what I understand, one first needs the filmcovert plugin to apply these settings. Straight forward enough. You also write, "plus went to a kodak release print by going after filmconvert to rec 709 generic impulz luts to a cineon then off to a film print." Which I don't follow very well because I'm a bit ignorant. Sounds like you have a multiple color effects working though. First, the filmconvert set-up. Second, that's followed by "rec 709 generic" which then uses "cineon" and then finally to the "film print" effect. Are the "rec 709," "cineon" and "film print" part of the impulZ software? Eh, kind of a stupid inquiry as I don't know much yet...and I also don't shoot LOG, so lots to learn...

Cool. It'll be fun for folks to have home movies @3840 pixels. Actually, shouldn't that be 2160 resolution? Most people will shoot vertical videos with the thing, after all. I'd be pleased if Apple just implemented software that forced horizontal orientation regardless of the physical rotation of the phone, but whateva'. I'm sure the next generation will probably make and watch entire films with a vertical screen.

I've abusing the heck out of slo-mo since the FS700... One thing about aerials and slow-mo, as they become more popular I'm forced to very strategic if and when I use it. Which is fine. Don't want to rely on tech more than creativity anyway.

Man, I'll never be able to make my Magnum opus if I keep having to wait for these new cameras to come out.

Man, you should see the crap I do to pay the bills that I never show anyone. Besides, I look at stuff like what Ed David does and think...why am I even pretending. I came to terms with the fact that there's always going to be people out there so much better at this than me. That's okay and as it should be.

Indeed. Those handheld arc shots were very dynamic. Thanks for the inspiration.

Not me. I'll take an aggressive grade anytime. It's like a writer using creative prose rather than an author that avoids adjectives. Both can tell the same story, but one just has more interesting things going on. Subjective. I think I like deep coloring because I grew up watching some low quality projected prints at my local multi-plex and drive in. Everything all over he map visual-wise. I gravitate to similar stuff out of nostalgia perhaps. Hey Ed, who's calling the shots for those sequences in the boxing doc? You and the director? You going in with an outline? Making it up on the fly? All of the above?

For IQ, it's not competitive. The GH4 shoots a very clean video that is 4x the resolution of the EM5II. The Gh4 does look really good. But here's the thing about that: I've edited together projects that were shot with both cameras simultaneously and the client never noticed or cared. So, you have to decide why you want a particular camera. Are you aiming for the best IQ? Then go for it. Consider 4K. For me, I required something that I could use with quick ease and have it look really smooth and elegant handheld. Resolution wasn't the biggest thing I was concerned about. With the EM5II, easy smooth handheld shooting was possible more so than the GH4. If you're interested why, just look at some of my past postings on the subject. Here's my take on all of this: If you buy a camera for around 1-1.5K you're gonna have something pretty great to work with. If you buy a 4K camera for $600, it's gonna be great to work with. If you buy a 1080 camera for $700 with 5-axis stabilization, it's gonna be great to work with. If you buy a 1080 Lumix camera from 2013 that's been discontinued and only costs $350, it's gonna be great to work with. There are not too many wrong answers anymore when it comes to mirrorless camera bodies. Except for Fuji. The video from their cameras is pretty bad. Now, when you want to talk about lenses...then it get's pretty interesting...

Whatever works! There's no right or wrong answers. You'll read mostly technical stuff on this particular blog, but as you've noticed, making money at this sort of thing on the lower end has almost bupkis to do with that --and more to do with relationships. Ive been using an EM5ii for half a year. Many people don't like the camera because it's not the ultimate in image quality. But, it does the job for me in a way that streamlines a good chunk of my production. That sort of thing is valuable to me, so I've been recommending that camera for consideration to folks on a similar level.

Based on what I'm reading, I'd recommend refining your technique and craft before investing in a camera. However, I do know that doing both in tandem is possible and often a strong motivator to get better. I admit to doing this just to shake myself up a little and rejuvenate my process. Without question, however, if you want to be accomplished at this sort of thing, it's not enough to just do it, you have to try to understand everything that's going on and then do it well. In my market there's hundreds, if not thousands, of people that claim to make videos, but only a handful that can do the one-man-band sort of thing with any notable craftsmanship. Of course, it depends on your angle in relation to the work. Being a good salesman is more important for the commerce often times than having a flashy reel.

Not quite. In this context, we're talking about achieving the opposite of keeping many things in focus. In the example mentioned, the subject would be in focus and the background would be blurry. Therefore the image would be more pleasing because the subject would be the focused visual interest while the background would not be --on account of it being out of focus and not revealing distracting details. And the author of the post mentioned that the space needed to accomplish such a look would be smaller...because larger sensors with wide-open f-stops can make that look happen in shorter distances. Its all about the math of how light moves through your lenses and how much area you're trying to focus that light onto. You don't really need to know the ACTUAL math, but understanding the concepts allows you to make good decisions on how to shoot things.

It's called the "circle of confusion," which, when trying to understand the physics of light when being bent through curved glass, can be appropriate. Basically, a large sensor camera with a large aperture lens creates an image with a very shallow depth of field. This is useful for creating images that have focus on a certain subject, like someone talking, while other things farther behind or in front of the subject are out of focus. It's a useful look to achieve for certain things. If you do an online search of the phrase "circle of confusion" and "Depth of Field," you'll learn a lot about what you can and can't do with particular cameras/lenses.

I'm curious about this sort of assertion. Not because higher latitudes are nice, but because viewers seldom got more than 12 stop of latitude from their cinema experiences during the first 95% of cinema history. "Cinema style," by my own experience, isn't about the end viewer getting a ton of DR. If you want to make a good documentary, DR and that sort of technical craftsmanship is a consideration yes, but I personally kind of think it should be farther down on the list of things to fret about. Content demands to be king when it comes to docs. How could it be otherwise? If there's no story, how do awesome visuals overcome that sort of shortcoming? When it comes to docs, I'd suggest being there and getting the coverage in the best way as possible for your project should be the main consideration. Of course, the OP needs to balance those sorts of considerations out with what he ultimately wants IQ-wise. Myself, I'd be perfectly content to shoot a doc on a NX1 with a 50mm lens. If I knew I was going into a bunch of low-light situations, I'd consider a Sony. I'd not worry about off-board video recording. I mean, any camera with some talent behind the shooting will easily offer a "cinema" experience.

Thanks, part of that is really a benefit of being in front of someone with a low gear footprint. The EM5II, and a lot of other mirrorless cameras, are small and not intimidating, which is why I use them. For me, this is of high value when trying to relate to someone quickly, easily, and somewhat intimately. I'm not a guy that likes a lot of equipment on a shoot -- not for what I do most of the time. Personally, I don't get excited laying down dolly track, packing blankets, c-stands, lights...or playing with any of that sort of stuff. With the EM5II, I can even forgo a tripod. It's literally just a camera and a small wireless mic. So, for me and my experiences, I'd argue that IQ is not always the thing to consider when picking out a camera.

One shoots faster frame rates than your editing frame rate --if you're eager to do slow mo. For instance, I often shoot 60p 1080 a lot because I like to be able to use my shots on a 30p editing timeline at regular speed AND switch over to 1/2 speed on certain shots if I wish. This works well because 60 is "smoothly" divisible by 30. Also, the higher frame rate of 60p seems to me to use only about a stop of extra light than 30p, so it's not going to crimp you from shooting in lower light situations. Anyway, I think Andrew's basically saying you CAN shoot in those high frame rates if you want to because they hold up visually. In the past you'd get some weird image processing artifacts from capturing footage at such a high frame rate. This new Sony camera will not only shoot continuously (no buffering) @60fps, but also in 120fps. That's fun. Here's an example of some 120 and 240 I did 3 years ago: If you don't want to do slow mo, or if your clients don't require slow mo, this is all a moot point. Also, I don't understand your comment about learning a whole new grading system simply because you switch cameras. Can you explain that?

What game are they playing and which part of it is changing?

Use an IP proxy from the U.S. and it should go through, I think.

Yes, once I figured out the best way to utilize it. It's useful in some regards. Still, I can pull focus manually with my eye on the EFV and with focus peaking off, which is how I prefer to shoot.

Do you mean zebras or focus peaking? There's an exposure clipping function, but is disabled once you're rolling footage. I really don't bother with it. Decent. I'd like to see it roll off a little more gently, but it's pretty good. I've been shooting as flat as the natural color profile will allow and then notching the shadow/highlight curve one step. Seems to help. Plus, using an older less contrasty lens is offering me images that I quite like. The same as my Canon 5D, more or less. 8-bit is what it is, although Oly does offer a 77Mbps AVCHD intraframe for 24, 25, 30fps. But, you know, if you expose properly in camera even their 50Mbps looks fine. (which I use for 60p and slow mo) Since we're talking documentary work, I think the goal is to try and capture the right moments on location, and not necessarily to try to preserve your highlights so they can be saved in post. I feel that sort of thing is more for the arena of narrative fiction filming. If someone is extremely demanding on retaining lots of IQ during an aggressive post-grading process, then they'd want to consider a camera with RAW for sure. I've pushed it to 3200 for sustained stretches of shooting, but I prefer to stay below 1600. Any more than 3200 is too much noise, but I've taken a few shots higher because I had to. Finally, I'll say this: Right out of the box this camera is set-up in such a way that video looks kind of lame. It takes some tweaking to adjust it to something more suitable for production. Also, another gripe I have is that I can't adjust exposure in camera during rolling. Exposure compensation has to come from a manual lens' iris ring. Not a big deal, but an annoying usability oversight.

You know, one other thing I should mention since this is a site where there's a lot of discussion about color science and how it's incredibly highly valued... Well, I've been shooting a Canon 5DII and the EM5II side by side on the same projects for a few months now. They match up quite well and can often look indistinguishable from each other depending on white balance and f-stop settings.