TrueIndigo

I can't remember when I actually made the switch from being a consumer to being a creator. All I knew was that when I was a kid I was fascinated with TV shows, old Hollywood movies and European art house films, so it seemed quite natural to want to create something that would have a similar effect on other people. My parents bought me a second hand Standard 8 cine camera, on which I shot home movies and animated toys on the carpet. This was followed by a new Super 8 camera, which I hard-matted with cardboard to fake the look of CinemaScope. I didn't realise then how important the fun side of things was to me. By the time I went to art college I had a 16mm Bolex, which kind've slowed me down because the stock costs were too much for pocket money. I used the 16mm cameras at the college for the course projects, but never really used my own camera very much, and eventually sold it about 10 years later (it had become just a wonderfully built ornament on the shelf). I followed my college friends to London and worked for a film and TV company for many years, working non-stop on TV series and that eventually wore me out -- I made a few personal projects along the way, but the joy of story-telling with film (as in those Standard-8 days) was just gone. I was also becoming tired of the city, too, so went back home where I can just go for a walk in the fields when I want to. I continued to work in multi-media, laying out books and magazines for a publishing house, then doing fine art printing for a gallery. I never forgot film making, though, because it was in me, but I wasn't doing anything about it. But then DV camcorder technology and affordable computer editing we're growing up together very nicely, and I was shooting just for the fun of it again. It was portable, it was cheap, it was available and eventually it was even full HD. And when the still cameras started recording video, well, there was a welcome filmic glamour to the video image that was quite exciting. Coming more up to date, I was a full-time staff video editor for a small local video production company, though after five very busy years, I've since gone freelance. Doing much less work (and pretty broke as a result), but I have more time to work on my own projects. After an abortive start on one film, I'm currently making the props for another feature length no-budget project. I just can't seem to shift the idea that film making is something I have to do. I recently wrote a novel, based on a character from one of the scripts I wrote about twenty years before, so that was me genuinely trying another medium. And the freedom of writing, compared to all the hoops you have to go through even for unambitious and informal film making like mine, is quite remarkable. I've now written half of the sequel, so I must enjoy it, but, there's something about film making that really means something important to me. Perhaps it's because I like working with people on a collaborative art project, whereas writing is a solitary experience. Or maybe it's just that you never really forget your first love: Watching mysterious and surreal TV series like The Avengers, or 1940's American film noirs, and wondering if I too could create such atmospheres and involving entertainments.

Yes, I know what you mean about batteries - over the years, moving through various models and brands, you can't help feel being held to ransom by it. These days though I factor in the cost of every new camera purchase to include a battery grip and several batteries. Ultimately, I don't want the batteries to dictate what camera I buy. I've enjoyed using the D5500 and feel the 1080p from it is possibly still amongst the prettiest you can get in H.264 8-bit colour (I haven't tried the Fuji X-T2, though). For usability I have ISO mapped to the FN button for quick changes. The pre-set WB options are pretty good in most situations (personally, I've modified Daylight and Cloudy a bit along the blue axis to be closer to what I want), though if you need to set your own Kelvin values, yes, that's where the low price of the D5500 begins to show. When it comes to image quality I really do think we've been in the era of "good enough" for some time now, and it was relatively cheap cameras like the D5500 that brought me to that conclusion. Even this camera probably exceeds my current skill set; certainly, I don't feel held back by it! Be interesting to see what Nikon does next...

It's still a bit early, but might be a good idea to eventually start a sub forum here for ML video - as we have with the Samsung hack, especially if these two new developments (lossless RAW compression and the new crop mode) get ported to other Canon models. I installed ML on a second hand 5DII I bought a couple of years ago the first day I had it, so can't wait for a nightly with this new stuff to appear at some point for that older camera. I was thinking about buying a VAF filter for it to ease moire, but probably won't bother now with 1:1 recording. Unlike Canon's own EF-S lenses, I know that my Canon-fit Tamron 18-50mm does not clash with the 5DII mirror, so some of the independent crop lenses might be a good format match-up for ML crop video.

"Exposure and curves are OK" -- that's great to hear, thanks. So, can we say the OK sliders are: Temperature, Tint and Exposure, and leave the rest alone? And keep on using "2012" because "2010" makes no difference? I've used Saturation and Contrast a few times but not on clips that would show much change anyway, so don't know if that's all right, too.

Squig, when using ACR to work the DNGs, is there now a known fix for the exposure fluctuations when a clip has big changes in luminosity? Some people have mentioned using "Process 2010" instead of "2012 (current)" - does that have any effect?

Thanks for sharing, and the grades look nice, too.

If you shoot a lot viewing the rear LCD screen (rather than the viewfinder), how about using the neck strap? I never used to bother attaching it to any new camera I had because I mostly shot on a tripod. But several years ago I put a strap on one of my DSLRs just to carry it about, and when I used it for informally shooting something, I found that with a short strap, pushing against the two strap connections gave surprising extra stability than handheld alone. You can gimble your waist to perform moves, and pushing against the strap seems to iron out any micro-tremors that can happen if you are holding a camera free from any support.

Thanks, mate, it's something to think about.

I bought the Panasonic GH1 when it first came out to resurrect some C-mount lenses I had. Having got the X-T2 in mind for a possible future purchase, I was wondering if the 4K crop would make it practical for C-mount lenses? I'm thinking, if I cropped the 16:9 frame yet again (top and bottom) for 2.39:1, maybe you could get away with just slight vignetting? Anyone tried C-mount lenses on it? Would be great to bring those old lenses back into use again (I have a Schnieder 10mm and Angenieux 15mm).

For folks who just can't bring themselves to delete the RAW files, this will save some storage space. And if it also helps the actual recording datarate, the older DIGIC 4 cameras will get a performance boost: keeps the 50D and 5DII relevant for people who already own those cameras.

"link doesn't work" -- you are right, sir! New link:

Here's a short home movie I shot last year of my dad making a black berry pie! All straight out of the camera with no colour correction showing what the Nikon D5200 looks like in these conditions: interior near a window, and one LED light for fill. Modified Standard picture profile and lens used was the Tamron 17-50mm 2.8 constant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_au...ature=youtu.be

There is no live histogram with the D5500. What I do is shoot a few seconds of a representative view of my shot, and then quickly review it -- no need to play it, just see the (default) first frame. By enabling histograms (in the menus) you can have three colour or a single luminosity histogram display of that first frame to check your current exposure is not clipping. Use the up/down joystick buttons to toggle through display of histograms or no histograms. This is obviously less elegant than having a live histogram active all the time, but after a while it only takes a short delay to make the check. Of course, there will be a further delay if you actually need to adjust your aperture with an auto lens in response to what you learned from the histogram! You have to go out of live view to make the aperture change and then perhaps shoot another short video clip to again preview with the histogram in order to confirm that your new exposure is going where you want it. With a manual aperture lens you do not need to leave live view to see an aperture change, and I've got the FN button assigned to ISO changes to help speed that up, but you still have the delay of shooting another clip to check the new histogram. I put up with all this because it's important enough to me to want to know where my exposure is technically. And I've come to prefer the Nikon video image over my previous experience with Canon DSLR video: I've been using a D5200 since 2013 and got a D5500 early this year.

The trailer really gets over the fun, energy and attention to detail put into that movie - please keep us posted about how/when it can eventually be seen.

I have a similar thing with writing text on the screen - it looks fine, but the moment it's printed on paper, I see problems straight away.

I've just added my Magic Lantern RAW video camera test for the 50D in the "Shooting" section if anyone wants to check it out: http://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/20129-ml-raw-video-50d-camera-test/

I finally edited some shots I made during summertime in the harbour at Weymouth (Dorset, UK) in 2013, using my Canon 50D and an old version of ML -- better late than never, I suppose! Shot with just the standard Canon kit zoom, it was my first serious test shooting with ML RAW and I recorded wild audio for some atmosphere sound. Post production workflow was: import DNG sequences into After Effects to export small proxy files (H.264 MOVs) for the off-line edit in Premiere. Then reproduce the edit in After Effects for the on-line, which includes final colour work (invoking ACR) and enlargement to 1080p25 for the export. Almost any camera can pull off a decent close-up of something, so although it's a bit boring, I shot mostly wide views on a tripod featuring lots of detail to see how well it was resolved. It was a warm day and as expected the 50D got very hot. On a few occasions when I wasn't noticing the temperature warning turning orange, some takes were automatically terminated because the camera was forced to shut down -- sometimes the top of the pentaprism was actually too hot to touch. But turning the camera off frequently after a few takes was a reasonable working method for heat management and using a battery grip probably helped too. It's not a short film but a camera test - the leisurely editing style is purely to give a bit of time to see the RAW image character, though it's a shame something of the sheer luxury of the RAW look does not fully survive my H.264 export followed by youtube's own secondary encoding. But I do like the character of these older Canon cameras with RAW shooting: almost incandescent colours are available in the files yet skin tones remain very natural. And the fact that the 50D can't normally shoot video at all makes it strangely rewarding. Some technical info Date of shoot: 26th August, 2013. Camera: Canon 50D (no Mosaic Engineering VAF filter fitted). Lens: Canon kit zoom 18-55mm. ML build: 2013jul27.50D.109.go.unified.728e571a1276. RAW frame: 1584 x 662 x 25 fps. Camera frame AR: 2.39:1 (final export within a 16:9 frame). Sound recorder: Zoom H2 (wild sound). Export: 1920 x 1080 x 25 fps H.264 MOV (12,000 kbps). Here's the youtube link: https://youtu.be/BemZ_oXCMII

In case of interest, here's a short film I shot last month on the Nikon D5200 with footage straight from the camera (no colour correction or exposure fixes), covering the memorial of a local personality who used to run a record shop. I quickly edited it to put something up for the people who couldn't make it on the day. Details: Lens: Tamron 17-50mm zoom (f2.8 constant). Mostly shot at f5.6 for this shooting. All handheld (pushing against the camera strap for extra stability). Picture profile: Standard, Modified: Sharpening (4), Contrast (-3), Brightness (0), Saturation (-1), Hue (0). White balance: Cloudy preset (closest match for the conditions). ISO: Most of this shooting was shot at 200-250 ISO. Here's the YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC4Ol8e7hsU

"Consistent apertures" -- I imagine using old manual prime lenses for time lapse would help solve that compared to auto lenses, though some may question their ability to do justice to ultra high res modern sensors. The image quality of course depends on what old lenses you use.

The X-Pro2 review is up on DPreview: http://***URL removed***/reviews/fujifilm-x-pro2

In this DPreview interview with two Fujifilm executives, they say in the new line-up of their mirrorless cameras the video quality has been improved (their unique X-Trans filter was harder to read out than the usual Bayer pattern, and this problem has been helped by a faster sensor/processor). Would be interesting to see just how good (and characterful) this 36 Mbps H.264 1080p video quality now is. The earlier cameras allowed you to use the attractive film emulation picture styles for video shooting, though it was a bit academic because of the moire. Maybe the new cameras are credible now? http://***URL removed***/interviews/6258617860/fujifilm-interview-jan-2016

They have recently started a new section called "Adapted lens talk" on the DPreview forum which might prove helpful for old lens info: http://***URL removed***/forums/1065?utm_campaign=internal-link&utm_source=mainmenu&utm_medium=text&ref=mainmenu

Be interested to hear how you find the colour character of the image compared to Nikon, Michael.

Thanks, mate. It was Standard profile, modified with: Sharpening = 4, Contrast = 0, Brightness = 0, Saturation = -1, Hue = 0. It was shot at 25 fps.

Did a quick test yesterday, just an exercise in shooting something and uploading it the same day since I haven't done anything for a while, but I thought you guys might like to see it because there's no colour correction - you can see what the Nikon D5200 looks like in these conditions: interior near a window, and one LED light for fill.