Laurier

I went from ursa mini 4.6k to A7r2 for similar reasons, But honestly get a a7r2 over a gh5 price wise it s quite similar,

You get better low light, full frame look if you want to ( with low rolling shutter) and very good auto-focus performances in video + it s a fantastic camera for stills.

Gh5 colors are worst than sony imo and dynamic range is so so .

If you are a solo shooter and not doing fiction work, honestly, get a camera with video autofocus, like a canon c300 or c100 mk2/c200/Canon XC10, or a sony  a7r2.

Some people will make fun of you or won t understand, but at the end of the day you will get a lot more usable shoots and a lot less stress.( and if you plan to use a gimbals, it is very helpful)

Get a small B-camera, and good quality batteries ( I fried a camera on the first 10 second of a paid job once, I wish I had a B cam that day) like a Canon XC10 /a6500

Also try to stay as compact as possible, just buy what you need, and fast zoom are a good idea, like the sigmas, you will never have enough light, and time so you want flexibility over fancy equipment.

Lightweight equipement is a bit more expensive, but totally worth it if you are a solo shooter, you can get compact rigs/sliders from edelkrone for example .

I went all fancy with a blackmagic 4.6k and vintage/modern cine glass, but today I almost exclusively shoot with a a7r2 and two photo primes, because of the auto focus and the compactness.

A7r2 have great colors if you know what you are doing. The Fs7 as well.

But otherwise I agree I graded a7s and fs5 footage on some jobs and its quite bad.

I would not be surprise if the a7s3 end up with the a9 sensor,

The rumors say that it will be in the a7mk3 and I bet the new Venice cinema camera use that sensor as well ( since they both have similar resolution ,top at 60fps, and have the same rolling shutter reduction technology)

I mean it s a fantastic sensor, great low light, with great autofocus in video and it s just cheaper to manufacture one sensor than different models.

But if they do 60fps and a9 phase detection , I will definitely get one , I hope for 10 bits as well since sony want to sell their hdr tv.

You can do pretty much everything with a 35mm and a 85mm (or 28mm/50mmm depending of taste) on Full frame and T2  ,so it s versatile for video.

I would say get the best equivalent of that for your camera system.

My favorite lens so far is the batis 85mm, because it s not too big/heavy, its very sharp across the frame but still have is own look, it focus silent, have stabilization  and is f1.8.

To be honest I don t share your view on it, after leaving the cinema I believed it was mostly shoot on 35mm, yes some shoot are quite grainy ( but I did found that more distracting than beautiful), I did found the image much sharper than what I was expecting ( So I was amazed as how much details they got considering it s super 16), I guess the master primes really shine there .
 

I love the movie and found the cinematography amazing, but I don t really see what super 16 did bring to the image, an alexa properly graded would have probably done the same if not a better job, also the dof is quite shallow in a lot of shots, not something that you use super 16 for.

But I understand that super 16 is Aronofsky mastered format, so his preference is not questionable, I just doubt it would bring anything really valuable to a new film maker.

My guess it s it have to do with how the electronic curtain sync operate , the rolling shutter and the encoding.

It s a subjective observation but for example the motion blur on blackmagic camera is much more ...somewhat contrasted and apparent, whereas on sony/panasonic mirrrorless it s less visible.In camera noise reduction also remove some of the motion blur smoothness making it more hard and less pleasing.

But the motion perception is affected by your stabilization and your focal as well, I guess hand holding a tele lense on a alexa or a red epic won t look very nice if you compare it to a 35mm on a7r2 on a gimbals.

1 hour ago, Damphousse said:

By your logic there should only be doctors in pharmaceutical ads because patients just take what their doctor prescribes them... And that is only if I go along with your premise that there are NO independent thinking women out there.

Even when I have recommended a piece of electronics to my girlfriend she doesn't necessarily just go out and buy it.  Even if she tries it out she can reject my opinion because she forms her own opinion.  I taught her a lot about cameras and now she has interests in photography way different than mine.

As I said that what my personal experience is, but I did not said that they all do that, i m sure that Annie Leibovitz knows exactly what she need and what she want.

But I m more speaking about the large volume of entry professionals, because some of those are shouting at nikon as well.
It s like the 5d syndrome, everyone got one because everyone tell it s a great camera, but you see most of them with the kit zoom ( I m not saying it s bad equipment at all) that what people work with because that what they were told to buy.

Also I think that manufacturer endorse either bloggers with a large following group, or the top end of photographers, and there are not a lot of women there, and the one there, they are already endorsed by multiple brands ( most of the time the endorsement is exclusive).

From the post I saw on facebook from some pro female photographer i know, it feel more like they were personally frustrated to not have been selected within the invited women rather than the whole femi-nazi thing going around. 

I m going to sound sexist here but what are the demographics in term of camera sales ? I m sure this kind of equipment is mostly purchased by mens and that woman change their equipment less often.
From my experience women pro photographer mostly buy what is advised by male photographers, and they focus more about taking pictures with their camera rather than treating their gear acquisition syndrome. But that a very personal opinion based around the female photographers I know.

3 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

The point is that when you crop into a medium format image you get the compression of the 80mm, whereas when you crop into a 2x crop sensor from a 25mm lens, you never get the depth compression of an 80mm or telephoto... it's 25mm.

A 25mm is a 25mm.

An 80 is an 80!

Cropping a full frame image out of medium format = 80mm on full frame

Cropping a 2x crop image out of medium format = 80mm on micro four thirds

Now, you can't say an 80mm portrait lens on micro four thirds looks like a 25mm portrait on micro four thirds.

Andrew, nikkor is right I m sorry,only the minimal dof change, digital medium format have been used for resolution gain more than anything else , it still true today.

But don t worries I had the same misunderstanding for long time.  

19 hours ago, Nrubloc said:

Thanks for the test footage share. Looks nice. I would assume you have the slog2 sharpness dialed down by a large amount as I was thinking it would be clinically sharp with modern Sony glass. I usually use older glass, but I felt the sharpness was not overdone in this case.

Was this shot in 4K (full frame or apsc) and just down sampled or just shot in 1080p. Curious if you used a custom setting for slog2 or the default. The mixed fluorescent light with patches of what appear to maybe be daylight at times from the side or background windows came out as good rendition of color as well. Not sure how much of that was corrected in post grading verses the taking of different white balances or color temp settings during shooting to test what would be best for that particular location, but it seemed to work.

 

It was slog2 with minimum sharpness in full frame, and the 35mm zeiss 2.8 wide open, it was downsampled just because it was a sample to send to the client, but it was shoot in 4k and the music video will be released in 4k, for me in term of sharpness it s quite similar with 65mm film.

I think color balance was shade, and color correction was mostly done with film convert tools.

I paid my a7r2 1900 euro new on ebay, I had a a7s + shogun before and it was a pain to use, now with the autofocus of the a7r2 I can put everything on a pistol gimbal and have very high usability in a small footprint, and image quality is quite amazing honestly, and sensor stabilization help a lot with rolling shutter, on the a7s1 it was really ugly honestly.

A cinematic image is the combination of a lot of things, 

But between a a7s2 and a a7r2 , I would get the a7r2 ( I had both, I kept the a7r2) Full frame mode is good on the a7r2 and have less rolling shutter than the a7s2, colors are great if you know what you are doing with Slog2 .... and autofocus is super useful, much better than the a7s2, now I shoot my video with it all the time, it save you a 1st AC in most case.

I would consider autofocus glass over manual glass if you invest in sony. 
If you are not in a hurry I would wait a bit, a A7III might also be very good in video if it get the A9 sensor and autofocus system.

That some location scouting I shot with a7r2 + 35mm 2.8 in slog2 + grading.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jgmgxhkood9tytl/newturn_test.mov?dl=0

19 hours ago, Mattias Burling said:

Honestly buying a second hand Full Frame, that is not a recent model,beside for your ego, is pointless when you can have an m4/3 for 2k usd new.

m4/3 glass is much more advanced and competitive and you can get a more shallow dof for most focal if it s what you are after. 

The compression things is not accurate, its only relative to your camera to subject distance, you can make the same image on any format, just the dof change.

The only advantage is the image ratio if you don t like m4/3,and mayyyyyybbbeee if you shoot landscape and want to close the iris a lot because of the circle of confusion ( but CMOS sensor get noisy on long exposure anyway)
 but in term of functionality those cameras are dinosaurs, I had a Sony A7sii, I had a fun time with it, but I traded it for a m4/3 and never looked back.

If you want an interesting look, shoot polaroid, instax and packfilm...

... or learn to separate your personal preferences from facts. Image quality is not measurable. Specs don't mean jack. No camera in the history of the world is factually "better" than another camera. It depends on the user and is always subjective.

Well, you can make fun of me as much fun as you want, but for dof your statement is plain wrong , to match a 85mm 1.2 on full frame you need a 46mm f 0.6 om mft or a 137 mm f 1.9 on 645.

Same thing for the circle of confusion.

Medium format is not a competitive market, less money is spent on development and the companies making the camera are not as big as big corporation such as sony or panasonic.

I did own an GH4 and other m4/3 cameras, but I also worked with digital medium format and owned one as stated.

Image quality is not measurable, that a plain stupid statement, medium format CCD suck at high iso , small format sensor as well.
14 bits raw was reserved to medium format in the past, but now you have it on a7r2.

The ego note was self criticism as well, since I owned a digital medium format myself , and yeah it make you feel you achieved something as a photographer but then technological reality hit you. 

Honestly buying a second hand medium format, that is not a recent model,beside for your ego, is pointless when you can have a a7r2 for 2k usd new.

Full frame glass is much more advanced and competitive and you can get a more shallow dof for most focal if it s what you are after. 

The compression things is not accurate, its only relative to your camera to subject distance, you can make the same image on any format, just the dof change.

The only advantage is the image ratio if you don t like 35mm,and mayyyyyybbbeee if you shoot landscape and want to close the iris a lot because of the circle of confusion ( but CCD sensor get noisy on long exposure anyway)
 but in term of functionality those cameras are dinosaurs, I had a mamiya zd 645, I had a fun time with it, but I traded it for a sony full frame and never looked back.

If you want an interesting look, shoot film, 6x7 and larger format.

On consumer grade stuff colors got a lot better, I sold my a7s mk1 because of that, but slog2 on a7R2 looks great.
A lot of the bad color reputation also come from the fact that people don t know how to handle slog files.

I had a DP2 and a DP3 Merrill, loved the look and the leaf shutter, but autofocus was terrible and dynamic range so so.

I did try the sd quattro , but autofocus is still bad, the viewfinder is really average for 2017, dynamic range is still so so.

And let s be honest, usability is quite limited on those camera .

I only use filmconvert, and almost only the kodak stocks.

I tried most lut and film emulations solutions, and in my opinion it s the best because it s camera/profile dependent. 

Most luts you will find will crush your highlight or your shadows so you need to make adjustment before the lut and it make the workflow very awkward .

Also using luts on 8bits footage, outside of the  rec709 conversions ones, never led to good results for me.

If you want film look, like orange/teal stuff, you need to learn to do it by hand, pre-made lut never work properly for that.

To be fair, most camera will do a ok job in controlled environment, but if you go shoot in uncontrolled mixed light environment, or outside in high contrast situation, the gh5 will fall apart compared to the ursa 4.6k. That what you pay for.
Also the motion is not even comparable, it s just ugly on Gh cameras, it s fine if you do documentary/corporate work but for fiction or music video the aesthetic is not very appropriate .

Hi had a preorder on the 5k, canceled it and got a ursa mini 4.6k.
I had good experiences with blackmagic consumer services, they replaced my pocket in a week back then.

Having to ship your camera back and forth to china is a no go for me., If your BM camera break it s easy to replace/rent one to finish your production. If you plan to do serious work with your camera that something to consider.

I prefer the color science from Bm but the one from the terra is nice too.

I was considering waiting for it, but went for a URSA mini 4.6k ( I know it s not the same price range).

I had a pocket, a a7s and a GH4/vlog.

For docu and corporate work I think the GH4 was a nice camera but the motion cadence/DR was bad ( the motion cadence is also quite bad on the varicam apparently )

SO... yeah the gh5 is a better GH4, is it a cinema camera, no , is it worth 2k ? maybe , but for 2k you can get a second hand ursa mini 4k and I would probably go for that, especially if you do narrative/ music video work.

The problem with HDR with a A7s/R is that your video feed will be 8 bits only, So what ever you do you won t have a lot of information to display, HDR displays are 10 or 12 bits usually.

It s a bit like displaying 720p on a 1080p TV, it s fine but you won t use the full spectrum of resolution.

If you output a video in rec2020 color space it will look like crap on a normal display, your display monitor also need to be set up in rec2020 space
Ideally you can work in something like davinci in ACES mode and apply the Lut at the end for exports.

3 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Isn't a V-lock battery just as much hassle though?

It weighs more

It doesn't last very long on the Ursa

It's pretty huge

Just like an external monitor

The C500 is fantastic but there is something about a mirrorless camera which turns me on.... I haven't used my C500 nearly as much as I expected to. Overkill maybe?

The ursa mini  is actually using less power than a red or an alexa, I use Core SWX HyperCore Slim V-Mount Battery , they are fairly small and lightweight, they last around 1.30 hours
The mini is really made for shoulder rig use so the whole thing make sense.

I m quite sure a C500 + recorder will end up weighting more than a ursa mini or a red .

I had a lot of issues with external recorders in the past, it s just not my thing.

I was considering it too , but I went for a ursa mini 4.6k.
I never liked external recorders, it s more batteries to manage, more cables around, the whole thing is bigger ect...

You should go red or blackmagic IMO
 

On 3/6/2017 at 1:16 PM, Juxx989 said:

Does this meet the criteria cheap and made big money... And made a career!

Wonder if you could write your crappy cam into the story... act like it was a Secret Government film from the 60 made to train and or document psychic troops maybe in the style of those old propaganda films?....(boy as im writing this the naysayer in my head is all ready saying NOPE you suck.... Cloverfield, Blair which, Starship troppers, scanners , Push, ITS NOT ORIGINAL NO NO NO! Thats lame you just Finished Reading the Poetics and Aristotle said Tragedy is Trite Vulgar The HEIGHT of story is Metaphor in simple language ah... back to the books!           

Yes, it got shot on a fairly cheap camera back then ( but that would be in the ballpark of a blackmagic camera today if you compare price )
But the movie got transferred to film for release and that not something affordable without the backing of a production studio. ( and that process made the image....well much more cinematic)


 

As for the pro not adopting them.... Well a lot of high end pro go to rental houses, who invested tons of money on expensive system.
A red epic package is usually around 1k usd per day , for the price of a week of shooting you can buy a 4.6k mini package, so I won t be surprised if some rental house are being protective toward their equipment by saying that the ursa mini is not usable for pro work. It s probably the same thing for operator/owner of red/arri.

If people hire you for your past work they won t care much on what you shoot. If they hire you just to operate they will probably expect something else.

At the end of the day, the image coming out of the 4.6k is on par with arri and red, for a fraction of the price.
The camera is flexible enough to do what most jobs require, without being too big or need to many batteries.

People usually have a distorted view of what arri and red do, they create solid production cameras, but they don t do miracle, if you underexpose, all camera sucks.

I think blackmagic have their own market, a weird niche, but IMO they have the best company philosophy .

As for a new pocket/micro camera, I m not sure it s very useful, maybe replace the S16 4k sensor  as the DR is low.
Blackmagic released fair amount of cameras over the last years because there was a lot of improvement to be done, but today, they have a solid lineup.