hyalinejim

My short documentary The Cloud of Unknowing, shot on 5D3 Magic Lantern, has been nominated for "Best British / Irish Short Film" by the London Film Critics' Circle. The awards ceremony is on January 28th... so fingers crossed for that!

Here is a short extract from the film with some info about it:


And here are some more details on the award nomination.

http://www.iftn.ie/news/?act1=record&only=1&aid=73&rid=4291381&tpl=archnews&force=1

Thanks Magic Lantern! 

I think you should get both. Spend a month playing with them. Then sell one.
I think 5D is slightly better for short films and GH5 is significantly better for bread and butter jobs.

Shadows on GH5 have grain-like luma noise. 5D has lots of chroma noise and blotchy low frequency ugliness in underexposed areas.

The answer is... it depends!
5D3 ultimately has better image quality (stands up to fierce grading) so for a short film I would choose that. However preview in high res modes is hard to use, so if focus pulling is important you might be better off sticking to 1080.
For promos, GH5 all the way. It kicks the 5Ds ass here. I have used ML for corporate work with great success, but I prefer the GH5 for its usability.

Today I grabbed my DSLR and went for a short walk around the neighbourhood to take some pics. I wanted to get some shots to test a film look DCP profile I've been working on. As part of my research for this I discovered that most contemporary DSLRs deliberately underexpose when using in-camera metering. This is because for most sensors there aren't actually that many stops between middle grey and totally blown out. For example, my 5D3 will clip at around 3.3 stops above middle grey. I know this because if I shoot a white sheet of paper at 1/3 stop increments and examine the linear RAW values, the exposure that gives me 18% of the maximum RAW value is around 3.3 stops below the one that clips... and that, by definition, is middle grey.
However, this leaves very little room in the highlights. The DR of the 5D3 is around 11.5 stops. So there's three and a bit above middle grey, and around eight below. If you were to meter correctly, you would be very much in danger of blowing out highlights. To help combat this, it appears that most camera manufacturers use 12% grey as the basis for metering. The effect of this is to provide an extra stop or so of highlight headroom. And in fact, this is borne out by checking values in ACR, where actual 18% grey sits at around 185 and 12% grey sits at around 119 (the given RGB number for middle grey in a 2.2 gamma).
Anyway, that's all very interesting or very dull, depending on your point of view. But for some reason it inspired me to shoot on auto exposure on my walk. Even though I normally think of manual exposure control as being the absolute best, I was now considering that Canon have probably tested this a lot and perhaps auto isn't so bad. So I put the camera on aperture priority with auto ISO and started snapping. At first I was kind of worried as I could immediately see two things happening that I would have rectified straight away if I had been shooting manual:
Low contrast shots were looking a bit underexposed (I would normally ETTR in these situations to minimise noise) In high contrast scenes some sky was getting blown out (I would normally protect highlights as much as I can) However, I just went with it. When I got back to my computer I also did something that I never usually do and that was to click the "Auto" button on the ACR exposure tab. I was really surprised with how well everything turned out. ACR's best guess did a great job at expanding or contracting shadows and highlights automatically. All I had to do was tweak overall exposure, and sometimes highlights or blacks as well. Here are some of the results:

Are there clipped highlights and crushed blacks? Absolutely. But the pics still look good.
Now, I don't know if I would shoot this way for a client. However, I've got to say that it was such a blessed relief to not be constantly chimping the histogram and re-taking shots to get the ideal exposure. And it was also a very good feeling to get the processing done in two or three clicks. It made both shooting and processing a lot more fun.
Who knows, maybe I'm ready for auto white balance next!
 

Shot this on the Leica 12-60 in HLG profile (ALL-I, 1080, 50FPS) with a Gorilla Pod.
 
 
Gotta love that weather sealing! 

IIRC you can do scope (eg: 1920 x 804) RAW at 60fps, but it's not continuous. Shooting compressed and a lower bit depth will help here with recording times.

Today I grabbed my DSLR and went for a short walk around the neighbourhood to take some pics. I wanted to get some shots to test a film look DCP profile I've been working on. As part of my research for this I discovered that most contemporary DSLRs deliberately underexpose when using in-camera metering. This is because for most sensors there aren't actually that many stops between middle grey and totally blown out. For example, my 5D3 will clip at around 3.3 stops above middle grey. I know this because if I shoot a white sheet of paper at 1/3 stop increments and examine the linear RAW values, the exposure that gives me 18% of the maximum RAW value is around 3.3 stops below the one that clips... and that, by definition, is middle grey.
However, this leaves very little room in the highlights. The DR of the 5D3 is around 11.5 stops. So there's three and a bit above middle grey, and around eight below. If you were to meter correctly, you would be very much in danger of blowing out highlights. To help combat this, it appears that most camera manufacturers use 12% grey as the basis for metering. The effect of this is to provide an extra stop or so of highlight headroom. And in fact, this is borne out by checking values in ACR, where actual 18% grey sits at around 185 and 12% grey sits at around 119 (the given RGB number for middle grey in a 2.2 gamma).
Anyway, that's all very interesting or very dull, depending on your point of view. But for some reason it inspired me to shoot on auto exposure on my walk. Even though I normally think of manual exposure control as being the absolute best, I was now considering that Canon have probably tested this a lot and perhaps auto isn't so bad. So I put the camera on aperture priority with auto ISO and started snapping. At first I was kind of worried as I could immediately see two things happening that I would have rectified straight away if I had been shooting manual:
Low contrast shots were looking a bit underexposed (I would normally ETTR in these situations to minimise noise) In high contrast scenes some sky was getting blown out (I would normally protect highlights as much as I can) However, I just went with it. When I got back to my computer I also did something that I never usually do and that was to click the "Auto" button on the ACR exposure tab. I was really surprised with how well everything turned out. ACR's best guess did a great job at expanding or contracting shadows and highlights automatically. All I had to do was tweak overall exposure, and sometimes highlights or blacks as well. Here are some of the results:

Are there clipped highlights and crushed blacks? Absolutely. But the pics still look good.
Now, I don't know if I would shoot this way for a client. However, I've got to say that it was such a blessed relief to not be constantly chimping the histogram and re-taking shots to get the ideal exposure. And it was also a very good feeling to get the processing done in two or three clicks. It made both shooting and processing a lot more fun.
Who knows, maybe I'm ready for auto white balance next!
 

When I'm on holidays I bring a Canon P&S and shoot on Auto and everything looks great. With my DSLR, on the other hand, I was always trying to ETTR as a matter of principle. Yes, it will ultimately lead to a cleaner image but the whole process of taking a shot, checking the histogram, and maybe taking another version of the same shot with slightly different settings, and then maybe again... all this means you're staring at your camera LCD and fiddling with settings.
Recently I had a go at shooting on film, and followed Kirk Mastin's excellent guide for those starting out with film. He gives "set it and forget it" settings for shooting in daylight. It was such a pleasure to just shoot through the viewfinder with no image to review, no exposure tweaks necessary. I was looking at the world and not looking at the back of my camera. So if auto exposure for digital can really be trusted, then shooting becomes a whole lot more pleasurable.
 

Today I grabbed my DSLR and went for a short walk around the neighbourhood to take some pics. I wanted to get some shots to test a film look DCP profile I've been working on. As part of my research for this I discovered that most contemporary DSLRs deliberately underexpose when using in-camera metering. This is because for most sensors there aren't actually that many stops between middle grey and totally blown out. For example, my 5D3 will clip at around 3.3 stops above middle grey. I know this because if I shoot a white sheet of paper at 1/3 stop increments and examine the linear RAW values, the exposure that gives me 18% of the maximum RAW value is around 3.3 stops below the one that clips... and that, by definition, is middle grey.
However, this leaves very little room in the highlights. The DR of the 5D3 is around 11.5 stops. So there's three and a bit above middle grey, and around eight below. If you were to meter correctly, you would be very much in danger of blowing out highlights. To help combat this, it appears that most camera manufacturers use 12% grey as the basis for metering. The effect of this is to provide an extra stop or so of highlight headroom. And in fact, this is borne out by checking values in ACR, where actual 18% grey sits at around 185 and 12% grey sits at around 119 (the given RGB number for middle grey in a 2.2 gamma).
Anyway, that's all very interesting or very dull, depending on your point of view. But for some reason it inspired me to shoot on auto exposure on my walk. Even though I normally think of manual exposure control as being the absolute best, I was now considering that Canon have probably tested this a lot and perhaps auto isn't so bad. So I put the camera on aperture priority with auto ISO and started snapping. At first I was kind of worried as I could immediately see two things happening that I would have rectified straight away if I had been shooting manual:
Low contrast shots were looking a bit underexposed (I would normally ETTR in these situations to minimise noise) In high contrast scenes some sky was getting blown out (I would normally protect highlights as much as I can) However, I just went with it. When I got back to my computer I also did something that I never usually do and that was to click the "Auto" button on the ACR exposure tab. I was really surprised with how well everything turned out. ACR's best guess did a great job at expanding or contracting shadows and highlights automatically. All I had to do was tweak overall exposure, and sometimes highlights or blacks as well. Here are some of the results:

Are there clipped highlights and crushed blacks? Absolutely. But the pics still look good.
Now, I don't know if I would shoot this way for a client. However, I've got to say that it was such a blessed relief to not be constantly chimping the histogram and re-taking shots to get the ideal exposure. And it was also a very good feeling to get the processing done in two or three clicks. It made both shooting and processing a lot more fun.
Who knows, maybe I'm ready for auto white balance next!
 

One of the reasons Canon is King is that their Auto functions work really well.
I know this post is about Raw stills but I’ve even shot with Shutter priority and ML Raw... with surprisingly okay results.
I think if I had the time to really test it... Shutter Priority, +2-3 stops, in conjunction with AEL Hold, one push AF and an IS lens... the 5D3 becomes a P&S cinema camera.
Btw, nice images.
 

@mercer, you beat me with the first Like by one second!
@hyalinejim, massively great color. Pics don´t look good but fantastic! Awesome write up. Super fun to read. One of the most interesting and enjoyable posts of the last weeks. Thank you!

Today I grabbed my DSLR and went for a short walk around the neighbourhood to take some pics. I wanted to get some shots to test a film look DCP profile I've been working on. As part of my research for this I discovered that most contemporary DSLRs deliberately underexpose when using in-camera metering. This is because for most sensors there aren't actually that many stops between middle grey and totally blown out. For example, my 5D3 will clip at around 3.3 stops above middle grey. I know this because if I shoot a white sheet of paper at 1/3 stop increments and examine the linear RAW values, the exposure that gives me 18% of the maximum RAW value is around 3.3 stops below the one that clips... and that, by definition, is middle grey.
However, this leaves very little room in the highlights. The DR of the 5D3 is around 11.5 stops. So there's three and a bit above middle grey, and around eight below. If you were to meter correctly, you would be very much in danger of blowing out highlights. To help combat this, it appears that most camera manufacturers use 12% grey as the basis for metering. The effect of this is to provide an extra stop or so of highlight headroom. And in fact, this is borne out by checking values in ACR, where actual 18% grey sits at around 185 and 12% grey sits at around 119 (the given RGB number for middle grey in a 2.2 gamma).
Anyway, that's all very interesting or very dull, depending on your point of view. But for some reason it inspired me to shoot on auto exposure on my walk. Even though I normally think of manual exposure control as being the absolute best, I was now considering that Canon have probably tested this a lot and perhaps auto isn't so bad. So I put the camera on aperture priority with auto ISO and started snapping. At first I was kind of worried as I could immediately see two things happening that I would have rectified straight away if I had been shooting manual:
Low contrast shots were looking a bit underexposed (I would normally ETTR in these situations to minimise noise) In high contrast scenes some sky was getting blown out (I would normally protect highlights as much as I can) However, I just went with it. When I got back to my computer I also did something that I never usually do and that was to click the "Auto" button on the ACR exposure tab. I was really surprised with how well everything turned out. ACR's best guess did a great job at expanding or contracting shadows and highlights automatically. All I had to do was tweak overall exposure, and sometimes highlights or blacks as well. Here are some of the results:

Are there clipped highlights and crushed blacks? Absolutely. But the pics still look good.
Now, I don't know if I would shoot this way for a client. However, I've got to say that it was such a blessed relief to not be constantly chimping the histogram and re-taking shots to get the ideal exposure. And it was also a very good feeling to get the processing done in two or three clicks. It made both shooting and processing a lot more fun.
Who knows, maybe I'm ready for auto white balance next!
 

Today I grabbed my DSLR and went for a short walk around the neighbourhood to take some pics. I wanted to get some shots to test a film look DCP profile I've been working on. As part of my research for this I discovered that most contemporary DSLRs deliberately underexpose when using in-camera metering. This is because for most sensors there aren't actually that many stops between middle grey and totally blown out. For example, my 5D3 will clip at around 3.3 stops above middle grey. I know this because if I shoot a white sheet of paper at 1/3 stop increments and examine the linear RAW values, the exposure that gives me 18% of the maximum RAW value is around 3.3 stops below the one that clips... and that, by definition, is middle grey.
However, this leaves very little room in the highlights. The DR of the 5D3 is around 11.5 stops. So there's three and a bit above middle grey, and around eight below. If you were to meter correctly, you would be very much in danger of blowing out highlights. To help combat this, it appears that most camera manufacturers use 12% grey as the basis for metering. The effect of this is to provide an extra stop or so of highlight headroom. And in fact, this is borne out by checking values in ACR, where actual 18% grey sits at around 185 and 12% grey sits at around 119 (the given RGB number for middle grey in a 2.2 gamma).
Anyway, that's all very interesting or very dull, depending on your point of view. But for some reason it inspired me to shoot on auto exposure on my walk. Even though I normally think of manual exposure control as being the absolute best, I was now considering that Canon have probably tested this a lot and perhaps auto isn't so bad. So I put the camera on aperture priority with auto ISO and started snapping. At first I was kind of worried as I could immediately see two things happening that I would have rectified straight away if I had been shooting manual:
Low contrast shots were looking a bit underexposed (I would normally ETTR in these situations to minimise noise) In high contrast scenes some sky was getting blown out (I would normally protect highlights as much as I can) However, I just went with it. When I got back to my computer I also did something that I never usually do and that was to click the "Auto" button on the ACR exposure tab. I was really surprised with how well everything turned out. ACR's best guess did a great job at expanding or contracting shadows and highlights automatically. All I had to do was tweak overall exposure, and sometimes highlights or blacks as well. Here are some of the results:

Are there clipped highlights and crushed blacks? Absolutely. But the pics still look good.
Now, I don't know if I would shoot this way for a client. However, I've got to say that it was such a blessed relief to not be constantly chimping the histogram and re-taking shots to get the ideal exposure. And it was also a very good feeling to get the processing done in two or three clicks. It made both shooting and processing a lot more fun.
Who knows, maybe I'm ready for auto white balance next!
 

Absolutely - that same vid looked good on my phone but on my monitor the magenta skin is undeniable.

That would be an understatement! I Almost bought a one new when I got Tired of waiting for Red to ship their, at the time, Vaporware. Wow sometimes waiting is a good thing!
And this is why Red could not deliver Anything new!
"In February 2013, Red filed for an injunction against Sony, claiming that several of its new CineAlta products, particularly the 4K-capable F65, infringed on patents the company held. They requested that Sony not only be forced to stop selling the cameras, but that they be destroyed as well.[23] Sony filed a counter suit against Red in April 2013, alleging that Red's entire product line infringed on Sony patents. In July 2013, both parties filed jointly for dismissal, and as of July 20, 2013, the case is closed."
Of course did Jim Jannard tell anybody about this, Hell No! I guess he thought he was going to be a Billionaire.
After this being the second big delay from Red on promised products, I just gave up on them. I waited over 2 years on the Original Red. Nada, nothing. So I said the hell with it and took my money and bought a Porsche LoL. A used one mind you, I wasn't that rich.  Best decision of my life.  I have had a bunch of them. Daily fun.
Cine cameras are way too expensive anyways, not that Porsche's aren't either...

My short documentary The Cloud of Unknowing, shot on 5D3 Magic Lantern, has been nominated for "Best British / Irish Short Film" by the London Film Critics' Circle. The awards ceremony is on January 28th... so fingers crossed for that!

Here is a short extract from the film with some info about it:


And here are some more details on the award nomination.

http://www.iftn.ie/news/?act1=record&only=1&aid=73&rid=4291381&tpl=archnews&force=1

Thanks Magic Lantern! 

GH5 at a friend's wedding. A little bit of grain, vignetting, lens blur and digital diffusion... plus a colour treatment based on my experiments with matching colour and contrast with Ektar 100 film.

Next time I’m standing out in -30 filming the aurora borealis at ISO 25000 I’ll console myself with the knowledge that I’m impoverished... 
There are times when a high ISO makes a genuine difference - I’m not interested in the GH5s until Sony have confirmed what they might do with the A7s3 (or I persuade myself that I can afford a C200).

I've collected a few gems from Facebook:

Quote from the video comparison with the a7S:
 

I've been saying this for a long time that is the downside of the a7S, what good is insanely lowlight if your shallow DoF is impractical??

With the GH5S you can shoot both in low light *and* a DoF that makes sense for the shot. 

When I'm using LUTs that don't use the full range on output I feed in a maxed out white or black image and then tweak after the lut so that whites are white and blacks are black and use this as a basis for grading.

Where Netflix has invested billions in content, YouTube is happy to leave it up to Logan Paul.
Read the full article

@PannySVHS I think think what you're noticing is more a change in the type of projects you're finding on Vimeo over anything which reflects the cameras themselves. Everything you mentioned in your original post is to do with behind the camera or in front of the camera, not the camera's actual capabilities.
The GH5 is obviously a vastly superior camera in virtually every aspect. However it has become more common to shoot and upload short, no budget, aimless camera tests / home movies these days than it was in the days of the GH2. I know because I do it myself.
I also think it's very hard to judge a camera based on what you find on Youtube or Vimeo. The projects where the camera is used most professionally are probably commercial or professional productions for brands which don't put 'GH5' in the tags. Again I know this from experience. None of the higher level professional work I do goes on my own channels, and the last thing big brands are concerned about is tagging the make of the camera it was shot with.
Speaking for myself, if you do this for a job, 5 days a week, what goes on your personal Vimeo channel tends to be a bit more slapdash and aimless because you're doing it to experiment and relax, rather than produce your best work.
Having said that, I was looking at some old GH2 footage the other day and was struck by how natural and beautiful the colour was straight out of the camera.

This video proves that GH5 "S" is not only a low light camera, but a lowlight sea MONSTER. It also works underwater, as the scene gives us obvious clues to this feature.
Also the use of boats suggest that it will be shipping soon.