Laurier

13 hours ago, IronFilm said:

It feels like people have been for years promising that when the a7S mk3 comes out then it "will kill all other cameras under $X"!! And yet.... we've yet to see it get released. And neither the a7S mk1 or a7S mk2 came anywhere near to "killing the competition".

Exactly!
 

I suspect this mythical a7S mk3 when released will be "better" than the BMPCC4K in a few ways, but definitely not all! The P4K will still be better in some areas. 

We're not going to see that happen in ten years time. 

3D printing has been promising to revolutionize our worlds, and it will.... but not to that extent, and definitely not in that time frame. (not unless you're meaning printing very basic parts like the camera shell, but really 95% is coming from eBay. And even then... I highly doubt it could be really better value than what a company with economies of scale could do)

At entry level production I still see a lot more A7s and canon dslr than blackmagic cameras ( I owned 2 blackmagic cameras and 3 sony cameras )

The truth is that Canon and Sony are simply more convenient to use , you get better low light performance, autofocus, stabilization, size ....of course you loose on the codec side , but considering that most small production never budget proper color grading and that the content end up on youtube, that not as important as getting relatively clean image in a challenging environment .

My point is that , even at 5kusd for the 6kFF ( if they offer something similar to the MAVO , that an excellent price), they will still have to compete with a 3.5Kusd camera that will offer better performance and features overall.

You can get a a7III for 2k with probably the same sensor as the E2 6k FF , you loose slow mo and 10bits, you win autofocus and stabilization, better screen/evf and form factor.
and there is a 3k usd difference between the two option.

I hope for it too,

But looking at the Axiom camera project , that do not look that simple and promising. 

Sensor development is so expensive and complex that I doubt that it will ever be accessible to small companies ( you can make the parallel with intel/AMD, no one have really been challenging their supremacy for at least a decade) 

At best their partner with bigger fish, like RED and Foxcon. ( I m really curious to see what is going to come out of this)

1 minute ago, Kisaha said:

People are putting too much faith in Canon and Sony.

The smaller companies will revolutionize the products and processes of next decades (and the generation Alpha).

BM can print a body, put a sensor and some chips and make a 1400$ raw 5" monitor camera, while established companies with huge capitals need 4 to 6 times the money for similar, or worst, performance.

The A7Siii will probably be a better camera than the P4K, but for how much? And when?

I say, the future is now, and it is happening from small companies.

 

 

I believe that the sensor inside the pocket 4k is from Sony , the same as GH5s and Terra4k and E2.

They might be slow at releasing their own products, but they are the ones driving innovation. 
Without Sony/Panasonic ( and soon Samsung ) making affordable component available to small companies, those company would not even be able to make digital cameras.
In the sensor technology world, Sony is two years ahead of pretty much everyone else ( I m not making this up, you can have a look online).

Just now, zerocool22 said:

Not sure sony would release something that will wipe their FS5/FS7 line of the table. 

I should have been more descriptive in my answer, for me the FS5/FS7 are different because of the connectivity and ergonomics.

I was comparing the A7S3 compact bodies like the mavo bare body/E2/blackmagic pocket or even RED basic body, they don t have internal NDS or proper audio/video connectors.

 

1 hour ago, zerocool22 said:

Well if the FF6K turns out to be a mavo LF for half the money, its gonna sell like hotcakes. 

Yep , well the blackmagic pocket 4k is more or less the terra 4k for 1/3 of the price.

But by the time they come out, it will probably have to compete with the A7s3, at that point I expect the A7s3 to kill all other sub 10k camera for video in term of performance/price.
It s getting more and more probable that we will get some form of video raw out of it, so the benefit of a a mavo LF/E2 FF would be a lot less obvious.
Most  FF video camera seem to cap at 60fps at full sensor readout, so we might not even get a higher frame rate than a A7s3 either.

8 hours ago, andrgl said:

They’re planning to release 5 cameras in 2019:

E2 C

E2 GS

E2 S35 6K

E2 FF 6K

E2 FF 8K

 

Canon and Sony are slow, old, behemoths. Literally dumpster fires of money. They need to sell 10,000x units to make a penny.

Being a tiny company in China you could stay afloat selling 500 cameras a year. Their government basically subsidizes industry with cheap loans and no cost shipping.

I bet the sensors in those camera are from Sony ...

I would not be surprised it the FF6k is share the same sensor with the A7iii and the Mavo LF.

54 minutes ago, kye said:

Is that where the majority of ARRI footage ends up?

Genuine question - not trying to be rude or anything - I don't have any visibility of this part of the industry.

I would have thought that Alexas were too expensive for 'free' distribution unless it was advertising materials, and that they'd mostly be used for movies and TV behind paywalls or at least licensed by broadcasters who pay with advertising revenues.  These cameras sure seem expensive to me!

 I mean for the Alexa LF specifically over a regular Alexa, I don t have the exact numbers in mind but It cost about  3 times the money to rent a LF over a regular Alexa , plus the extra storage and battery consumption. 

So for a small commercial that just overkill, in my experience the majority of decently produced jobs will try to be as cost effective while maintaining a good output, that why the Alexa mini with let say a set of kowa anamorphic is popular, it s fairly cheap to rent and get you the look .

5 hours ago, Julien416 said:

The revenant wasn't shot entirely in Arri 65, IIRC the majority of it was done with regular alexa's. As far as I am told, the sensor on the LF is exactly the same sauce, they just stick two of them (3 for the Alexa 65). Maybe it's the added resolution that bothered you.

 

Well, let's say that in spherical there MIGHT be a lot of FF options... But when it comes to anamorphic, which represents a fair share of the professional productions, there isn't that many options. Old anamorphics covering the 29/30mm of FF 4/3 aren't that many I am effraid...  

Of course many of us will be forced to use LF if we want to bring the arri look to Netflix, but as much as I love the Alexa look, I think I'd switch to Varicam instead of letting go my precious Panavision anamorphics that won't cover LF...

Well , If you shoot open gate 2x anamorphic on a normal alexa you already get a 4k image and the image circle is not that far of FF 4/3 so I guess you can get away with 50mm+ focals .
Since you have a larger sensor you probable get the same FOV in the end.

Beside, they are not many vintage anamorphic under 35mm to start with .
I think a few netflix Film/show where shot like that on Monstro and on alexa 65, using normal 2x anamorphics 

I don t want to really argue about that , but I really don t think the lens selection is the issue , a lot of content is shot on relatively common gear anyway.

I think the LF is here specifically for the netflix/movie market productions that want to shoot spherical and output 4k, but that still a minority of the content shoot overall .

 

23 minutes ago, AlexTrinder96 said:

Definitely so, I remember even Roger Deakins opted against using the alexa 65 for Blade Runner 2049. He didn't like the look and went with the mini and alexa xt! Full frame/large format isn't replacing super 35mm anytime soon imo

1 hour ago, kye said:

Interesting.  I watched some of the wolfcrow review of the LF (I know some people here don't like him, but he has more experience of the industry than I do) and he said that the feedback from rental houses was that the cameras with larger than S35 sensors just aren't that popular.  He suggested that the manufacturers might have overestimated lots of people would be coming from FF DSLR revolution to cinema cameras, but who knows. 

 

Well, The cameras are massively more expensive to buy/rent, most content end up in 1080p on youtube so that a cost hard to justify.

4k+ camera also mean more data and more expensive post production.

Plus the DOF is more shallow, when you pull focus it make things harder, and if you want a deep DOF you need more light if you want to keep the iso low.


 

18 minutes ago, Julien416 said:

The problem lies in the lens selection. DP want textures and look, and there isn't so much choice in vistavision for now. I am pretty sure everyone and their mothers will soon rehouse all the old FF glasses available to give a nice selection. But the sad truth is that it will solely be stills glasses, with all the caveats they bring (breathing for one). And in some particular case, like anamorphics, the old and legendary glasses will still be only available in S35.

The folks at Panavision told me Arri was about to come up with something new in the S35 segment. I said "4k?", they answered "Higher".  I guess we'll see;

I don t think that much of an issue, they are many options available both modern and vintage, available already and rehousing solution for those have already been here for years
Even the alexa 65 use rehoused mamiya 645 glass for the Arri DNA set ,and people are fine with it, vintage cinema glass also breath, much more than modern glass .
For FF/vistavision you can get old cooke double panchro, panavision glass, leica R glass, russian glass ect....

2 hours ago, Inazuma said:

Really interesting stuff. First time I've heard of Duclos, Celere, CML or most of the rest that was written. 

Surely the easiest way to prove Celere and Samyang lenses are different would be to post the lens diagrams? 

That actually were the nuance is , the guy from celere is arguing that the glass might be different, but they never say a work about the lens design itself.
On top of that some review say that the housing and mechanics of the celere is not even that good.
On their website apparently the company got sold to an another one, so I guess they are done with this line of lenses.

2 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Optically they're identical

Oh gee! I never knew that

 

https://cml.news/g/cml-glass/message/225

 

And their response:
https://cml.news/g/cml-glass/message/261

 

My understanding is that the gecko  genesis G35 are also rehoused samyang with the front element re-coated to be warmer and look like canon k35 .

Developing a full line of optics require large resources, it s very unlikely that a small boutique company is able to do such thing. 

For the celere, I found a interview of the owner where he was praising is company because Angenieux congratulated them on developing a full line of optics, and was considering a collaboration where angenieux would do the coating for them so they match the look of their zoom. Considering that they did probably just rehouse samyang/sigma designs , that quite ....scandalous 

They are good lenses , I had the 16mm t2.2 and the 135mm t2.2 

For the prince nothing come close, when you buy vintage there are very often some issues , plus the cost of adapting/declicking. 

Here it s plug and play.

The big bonus for me is the weight, for cinema primes the year are quite compact and light .

The issue for me is the same as any entry price cinema gear, it s accessible to a wider untrained audience, who produce tons of garbage with them. So you get a biased judgment based on that and brand loyalty. 

Look at the Celere, some DOP were  praising them for their look , until duclos pointed out that they are rehoused Samyang....

6 hours ago, omega1978 said:

How do you set the project in resolve to do the conversion? In this way:

No , you leave the project settings as default, Color space transform is a effect node as seen here :

https://ibb.co/YyX97PD

and you need the following lut :

http://www.hingsberg.com/downloads/2018/s709_cube_V200.zip

Cheers

 

I saw people doing color space transforms to Alexa , it work quite well. 

But the thing is that Sony basically said that the Venice sensor is the a9 sensor.

So my reasoning is that the a9 sensor output very similar colors as the a7iii and a fair amount of the cine Alta color science is actually in the last LUT they provided.

Since IMO the slog3 is unusable on the A7iii, using color space transform just to remap the colors from HLG to slog3 give you the best of both world , a profile easy to expose with a lot of DR and the best colors science Sony have to offer .

It s definitely nicer on the skin tones and the green colors when you shoot nature .

I have a a7iii + ninja V as my main video camera setup (and a a7rii for photo )

i got the a7rii when I still had my blackmagic ursa mini 4.6k .

the a7rii in slog 2 had a bit more DR thank the ursa mini in pro res , so I sold the ursa ( mostly because of the form factor and the video autofocus)

The a7iii is a killer camera , I shoot HLG with it because I found Slog 2 to be unusable ( too much chroma noise , even externally) , but in resolve I do a color space transform back to slog3 and use the Venice rec 709 Lut , so you get great colors.

Dynamic range is really not an issue anymore on modern camera , I don t believe that the Alexa is that much better anymore , but it still have a nicer roll off in the highlights when it clip .

The roll off is more important than the dynamics range at that point , also realistically Film only have 11 stop , so it s hard to blame mordern cameras over analog for DR.

Warning harsh opinion ahead.

Indie filmmakers need to be realist, the general audience/distribution platforms won t care about your project if it s not up to the industry standard.
If you have a very good script and are surrounded with people with decent credentials, you are likely to find some money to make it happen properly.

If you are complaining that the audience is crap and don t understand you, your project is the issue.

It s definitely possible to create good content with very little money but it s very hard to maintain the quality all the way to the end to the production, you need talent and discipline. 

I recently saw Shoplifters, the movie got a lot a attention and won a lot of prices ( and yes, was well funded) but honestly that definitely the kind of movie that can be done with a super small budget.

I did a fair amount of grading/ post production for indie movies, mostly shorts, you can see that the directors were more focused on shooting expensive equipement than really focusing on their script/skills.

But couple of times, I also meet very talent emerging directors that, in the same shooting conditions made very high quality movies.

But to really get produced properly, I think you either need to make a decent indie feature with no money, or very successful shorts and have a feature script ready.

No one is going to come to you if you are no one with big dreams and no actual material.

I think all those platform are really looking for new quality content, and are willing to fund all kind of projects, I think the issues is more down to the filmmakers with unoriginal obsessive zombie movies projects .

13 hours ago, Dave Del Real said:

 

Was this shot in SLog2?

No It was HLG3,

I find Slog2 too much of pain to use ( tho the Aces implementation is great ) , and in interior shoots I tend to get colored noise on white walls .

Also my 95mm variable nd is from Schneider ( you don t have a lot of options at that size ) and they don t allow a massive light reduction ( In order to maintain high IQ apparently), so a base Iso of 800 is too high in exterior with this setup.

Testing the A7iii in anamorphic setup in exterior condition, some quick run and gun test shoots but I m very happy with the result .

A7iii ( full frame mode ) + Ninja V + Cinelux ES + Rectilux HCDNA + Russian Primes.

Look very cool on paper, If I could justify the cost, It  would probably be my top pick,

but full frame without autofocus is a pain if you are a solo operator, and to shoot with a lens longer than  50mm.

I run a7iii+ninja V +batis , I would be curious to compare the IQ of the mavo vs my setup.

I think the mavo lf is a bit like the Red raven, too cheap for big production, too expensive for small production.

Speaking about the Raven I m doing the post production of a short shoot on it, colors are nice but I m not impressed by the noise performance/DR, it s hard to justify the price of it.

On 10/26/2018 at 9:40 PM, Mike Mgee said:

I had to create an account to respond to your comments regarding the A7III and the Ninja V.

Oh nah. That's a negative. It can definitely not be classified as massive. I have both an a7III and an Atomos Inferno..while there is a difference, it is negligible. Here are some examples here and here comparing XAVC-S vs ProRes .  And once you upload the video online and youtube has its way with it, the difference with compression artifacts are even more negligible. The money you invest in an external recorder for 8bit Slog2 would be much better invested in an other things.

Yah. If you are shooting 4k...you can't really track faces reliably. The LCD on the back of the A7III goes off and you get no green box on the external monitor. Sure it "tracks" but in more of a "I pray this works" sorta way. 

Except that slog is unworkable internally ,you get color noise and compression artifact all over the place, so If you want to have all the DR that the sensor have to offer you need to record externally .
I do a lot of post work and when you start to move things around, it s immediately visible .
The youtube argument is a nonsense, because even in cinema your bitrate is limited to 250 Mb/s, it s about having some room in post to get your image where you want it before you compress it again.
But my work sometime get screened at festivals so to me it matters.

The motion blur look very different as well.

The examples you sent me have little motion to them.
But yeah, if you shoot cine4 and upload straight to youtube, that make less sense. 

I disagree with the face tracking comment , I shoot with Batis and it work very well, way better than any focus puller would manage on large format/long lens/large aperture , I do MV and fashion mostly and I can t always know where the model/performer is going to move ( and if it s dancer, I want to let him/her do his/her things).

Beside on a shoulder rig you can see both the rear screen and the recorder so you know when it lock in, the screen don t go off if you setup the video signal/trigger properly.

You need to go to the menu and force 4k 24fps out then deactivate the internal recording , and activate to control trigger over hdmi.

If you leave the default parameter, the screen go black and you loose face tracking.

1 hour ago, heart0less said:

Would you be as kind as to share some sample footage? 

I was looking for an external monitor, maybe I'll go for Ninja V instead. 

I will try to shoot something interesting over the week end 

I just did some test with the ninjaV + A7iii in slog2.
Even if it s still 8 bits,I feel there is quite a massive difference in image quality, a lot less compression artifact and color noise ( not perfect but absolutely usable )
The colors and motion blur also look a lot better.

10 hours ago, TheRenaissanceMan said:

I legitimately don't know why it would.

Lots of dynamic range, so easy to light and flexibility when you can't control the light. Good at high ISOs, so not much penalty for not bringing the right amount or size of lights--or even not being able to light at all. RAW and ProRes, so all the flexibility you could want in grading. One of the easiest camera brands to color, as well as having an easy, established workflow for LUTing your way to a simple r709 output. ProRes and CinemaDNG are both dead simple workflows now. Endless lens options. Three different storage media options. 

The only thing I can think is battery life and non-articulating screen, but an external battery adds very little to your rig, and you'd want an additional monitor for production work either way. Plus you can always strip down a small camera if needed; you can't disassemble a big camera down into a little one. 

I could see this doing tons of doc, wedding, corporate, narrative, and all manner of broadcast. Hiking and kids don't pay either way, so...not entirely sure where you're coming from here.

Because we live in age of Sensor stabilization, good battery life and good video autofocus.
That convenience over raw quality output.
I had a ursa mini 4.6k and when I got a a7rii initially for photo... well I sold the 4.6k.

I think you are right about the pocket 4k as B/crash cam for URSA pro users, but very few production run that setup, I always see canon C series or FS series for small/mid sized jobs, I only saw a handfull of blackmagic on production and is usually a random single guy run and gunning , not a small crew. 

I see the pocket the same way I see people speaking about LOG profiles, sounds cool on paper, but most user will have no clue how to use it properly, will end up blaming the camera because it s relatively cheap. 

Personally I think RAW is overkill for the majority of work I do ( prores-raw sound much more workable) so I always end up in prores LT or standard. 

I had seriously considered the pocket 4k as well , but then I got a a7iii + ninja V,
Being able to focus track faces, with a steady shoulder rigged  135mm at 2.8 in full frame, without a focus puller is priceless IMO.
In the end I have a much higher production value for a single operator with this kind of equipement than any traditional cinema camera .

Got mine couple of days ago.

The AF is really impressive ( coming from a a7rii) both in photo and video.
A lot more video friendly features as well, like gamma view assist and fully custom zebra ( now you can more or less use it as a replacement for false color for Slog exposure)
The big negative point for me is the temporal noise reduction in video, it don t look too bad in Slog-2, but then I get a lot of color noise from poor compression , I ordered a Ninja V so hopefully that will solve the issue.

Colors are very decent as well, especially if you use S-log with ACES , and actually look great with filmconvert.

I will also use it for street photography for my photo project https://www.instagram.com/ccinis/ , I did shoot a lot with the  original A7 and the zeiss 35mm 2.8, but on the A7iii ,from my initial test the autofocus is incredible, by the time I orient the camera toward the subject the face detection already kicked in and got the subject in focus, that will be fantastic for discreet shoots taken from the hips.

3 hours ago, eleison said:

 

Sony's plan has worked.  When the a7siii finally comes out, sony thinks it will be good enough to make you, once again, "upgrade".  I think that is why we offically haven't heard of the a7siii yet -- sony wants people to buy the a7iii first; and then ultimately the a7siii.  If they bring out the a7siii too soon, a lot of video people would skip the a7iii.  Sneaky sony... But I'm not going to buy the a7iii.  I know their game plan, but it sure is hard resisting ?

I doubt that the case, it s better to sell a product once at a higher price than having your clients buying something cheaper, plus it create a lot of product on the second hand market that hurt your sales.
On top of that I hardly see the regular mirrorless buyer spend 5 to 10k on a system for occasional work , that FS5/FS7 territory.
If anything they will be introducing a new segment of product, with a "brain" and extensions. 

1 hour ago, ntblowz said:

The reason they are not bringing it out right now cause they need more time testing, especially the thermal management part.

Wanna bet it wont have PDAF because Pro Video guy doesnt need it, and hopefully that means no more 30 minute limit.

Well C100-200-300-700 users will tell you otherwise, I get paid for shooting MV and fashion stuff mostly and autofocus is very valuable in those situation.