TheRenaissanceMan

AF performance differs radically based on lighting. A flatly lit face will track much better than a moodily lit one. Contrasty lighting bit me hard on a C700 shoot, and wasted 5 minutes of valuable setup time wrestling with AF settings. I'm sure it works well for many people and many projects; personally, I'm not ready to give up the level of control I have with a wireless puller.

The professional production world never stopped using MF. They just transitioned to wireless transmitters/follow focuses. 

4 hours ago, Geoff CB said:

Beach food shoot. Both with Nikon 24-70

Fabulous shots, Geoff! Those colors are TASTY. What was your lighting and grading process for these?

37 minutes ago, zerocool22 said:

Well its news media, they could shoot it with an iphone, it would make no difference to me. 

If universal studios would have an exclusive deal to only use sony cameras for example , that would have been huge. Allthough I am digging the sony venice.

Canon and Nikon were long seen as the only reliable options for professional photojournalism. 

This may not make a difference to you, but it is a HUGE shift in the market.

1 hour ago, BenEricson said:

That's not how IR pollution works though. Raw might help you slightly, but you'll spend hours applying masks to the effected areas. 

I'm not sure BM ever even officially announced the IR pollution issues with the bmpcc or bmmcc, even though the camera is basically unusable without one.

For what it's worth, I use the C300 Mk2s constantly and have never seen a trace of IR pollution. The baked in color profiles on a Canon C series camera are pretty damn close to "perfect color out of the box." 

I wasn't saying you should fix IR in post as a rule--just that this specific instance didn't seem to lose much. 

My experience with Canon has been mostly good, especially in regards to pleasing color.  However, the extended ND settings on the C200 invariably needed an IR cut to decontaminate the shadows. On the 2 commercial projects I've shot with newer Canons, I've run into issues with cycs lit by blue LEDs turning purple. Turns out I'm not the only one--there's a whole topic about it on DVX User (the answer from Canon: "the camera is operating within spec" lmao). And while rather pleasing at first glance, the color isn't what you'd call accurate. It took a ton of secondary work in post to get the company colors dead on without fucking up everything else. 

All I'm really driving at is that every camera (and brand) has its issues to mitigate, be it form factor, color accuracy, IR, codec, sensitivity, etc. In the scheme of things, considering what the 12K offers, remembering to use some IR cut is pretty damn manageable.

At least for my kind of work. Ymmv.

1 hour ago, newfoundmass said:

You're not wrong, I was just sharing my experience. 

Fair enough! Glad they came through for you. Hopefully, that bodes well for owner-ops/rental houses who embrace this new camera. 🙂

12 hours ago, Super8 said:

I know magenta cast or IR contamination can be removed. 

IR contamination shouldn't be in that 12K footage.   I'm sure @John Brawley should have seen it.  He wrote up that blog about it.  I'm sure BM has a few great colorist that should have caught it. Heck, the built in ND's are supposed to eliminate IR contamination. 

This is the reason ARRI, Canon and RED have clean color.   No company is perfect but these 3 companies seem to understand color science and working with the right sensor foundation. 

Black Magic seems to get the most out of sensors for lowest cost compared to any other camera company.   Instead of cutting corners they should just make sensors and cameras that get the best results at any cost. 

I'm begging to wonder if they have the engineers to pull of great color science. 

Take a look at the picture from BM website, someone thought that IR contamination was acceptable to showcase.

It's RAW. You don't lose any information pulling color casts out of shadows. That's the entire point of the format.

Alexa skews green out of the box. Canon has issues with blue-ish grass, inaccurate reds, and blue fringing around bright highlights (depending which matrix you use). RED has had heavily documented color issues since they've been around, including massive IR problems with all their pre-Dragon sensors.

"Perfect color out of the box" is a myth perpetuated by pretentious gearheads; every camera (and many a lens) has quirks that must be managed. Try using the heaviest internal ND settings on a C200 and not seeing IR pollution!

I understand that you were unable to screw an IR filter on some BM cameras in the past, which bit you in post. That's unfortunate; however, the issue is easily managed with skilled workers who do their homework. 

12 minutes ago, newfoundmass said:

When I had issues with the OG Pocket I had to deal with them over email, but they were pretty quick to handle things. I sent them the camera, they said they couldn't fix it but would send me a new one, which arrived in 2 days. I don't think it took longer than 10 business days total, which for me wasn't bad at all though for high end clients they might need quicker turn around times. 

Repair/replacement is very different for a $500 camera versus a $10K camera

On 7/15/2020 at 12:00 PM, PannySVHS said:

I hope you´re doing very good and everything is fine! Thank you very much for uploading so much test footage. It is a parade of nerd heaven!:) Is this external 10bit 422? My harddrives are bursting from footage at the moment, so how much data are the files? @mercer Wha?t about some footage of your cat? You would give Mattias Burlings Gunpowder a good run for the money. What´s your cats name, for a start?:) cheers

Thanks Penny. Looks like I'm in the clear for now.

This footage is all ProRes 422 recorded through the BMVA 5". Mostly short clips, 30 seconds on average.

44 minutes ago, Geoff CB said:

My vote!

+1

48 minutes ago, BenEricson said:

I originally had a non 444 model and when I switched to the 444 model, the colors felt slightly off. I kind of thought I was imagining it, but my issue was due to the S-LOG out. You should try shooting some green grass with both profiles. The straight S-LOG out will look a bit more artificial looking. 

Here is a quote from a member on DVX user form 2017. 

 

"The camera has two kinds of output, which you select in the "Dual-Link & Gamma Select" menu.

One output mode is Video. In this mode you can customize the picture profile to set the gamma and color matrix.

The other output mode is S-Log. In this mode, picture profiles are unavailable. The gamma is locked to S-Log and the gamut to S-Gamut. I found the colors to be weird in this mode and I could find no way to compensate in post, even using a proper S-Log & S-Gamut transform. I believe Sony screwed up S-Gamut on this camera.

So I suggest you forget the S-Log output mode and just use the Video mode. In Video mode, the most useful gamma settings are STD5 R709, Cine1, and S-Log (I mean S-Log the picture profile gamma setting, not S-Log the Dual-Link & Gamma Select mode). S-Log gamma works fine in Video mode. Personally I think the most versatile gamma setting is Cine1, for reasons I explain here. Cine1 is easy to grade by hand with just a levels filter, and you can also use my Logarist LUTs for that. If you want output that doesn't need to be graded at all, set the gamma to STD5 R709.  

I found a matrix of Standard to give the most natural looking color."

I remember that topic! Didn't see a lot of difference between his samples though, so I dismissed it as a placebo effect. I'll have to add a couple picture profile clips to the folder for comparison.

EDIT: Clips 18-20, shot in Picture Profile SLOG, have been uploaded to the drive folder.

13 minutes ago, BenEricson said:

Yeah, you can grade F3 footage easily with just the Lift, Gamma, Gain in any grading tool and get nice results. No LUT needed. 

It is important to mention that there are two S-LOG settings on the F3. For best results, you want to set your camera to video out and enable S-LOG in the picture profile setting. If you do a standard, S-LOG out, the color is altered and harder to deal with in post. Specifically in the green channel.

Interesting...I've heard the opposite--that the picture profile version of SLOG is inferior and has "incorrect" color compared to the "proper" SLOG out. I've never noticed a big difference in my (admittedly brief) tests, so I use the latter option for the ability to toggle LUT on and off in the onboard monitor. 

The clips I posted above use the non-picture profile version of SLOG.

Hey y'all! Sorry I wasn't able to get footage up sooner. I've been feeling under the weather this week, which has been understandably stressful given COVID. Still waiting for my test results, but I'm improving steadily, so hopefully everything comes back negative. 

But enough about me--let's get to the fun part.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1nYFylo03zFn2W-P5OtZ08xvZEuQrscGh?usp=sharing

These shots are just casual off-the-cuff clips taken around my apartment complex, but hopefully they still prove useful to those interested in how the F3 grades. I tried to get a variety of lighting scenarios, shot sizes, and color temps. The cookbook shot is ISO 1600, and the one under the bed is maxed out at 6400. Everything else is at the F3's base ISO of 800. 

At @mercer's request, I've included some cats this time. 😁

Keep in mind that I sometimes adjusted/bracketed focus or exposure during shots, so be sure and scrub through to find the most useful frames. 

Let me know if y'all have any other questions! 
 

I prefer the SLR Magic APOs for overall look, but this is an AMAZING deal for technically excellent (if sterile) cinema lenses

On 7/2/2020 at 8:09 PM, PannySVHS said:

That would be awesome. Loved Geoffs beautiful colours in his shots. It is a bulky beast. If people buy them they must be very serious shooters. Would be fun to see an armada of them filming the heck out of them.

It's not as heavy as it looks. Besides, between the top handle and the side grip it's infinitely more comfortable to handhold than a DSLR/mirrorless imo. 

I'm tied up this weekend, but Monday or Tuesday I'll try and get some Protest HQ test clips up for y'all to mess with. 

3 hours ago, Antoin e said:

Someone already had the 3alty technica body armour ? Definitely looks cool and makes it more flexible i guess but i can't seem to find one.

I already have a top plate on mine so i don't know if its worth it but would depend on the price.

 

Also, dummy question : How do you transport these type of cameras for a shoot ? I can put in my pelican 1510 when everything is detached but it does take some time to put it together so i guess maybe just put the F3 already build up in the car with a seatbelt and put the lenses/accessories in the case.

I use a Sachtler "Doctor Bag" for mine.

15 hours ago, Emanuel said:

Is it available anywhere online for a screening, in motion? Movie trailer?

Unfortunately, those stills are from a project I no longer have access to--just the raw clips I'm grading for my reel. 

If anyone wants some ungraded stills/clips, I can post a few for y'all to play with.

The P6K handles noise reduction in the shadows much better than the UM46, which struggles with patterns and ugly color shift even after generous NR. 

10 minutes ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

A Fuji XT30 or XT3 would be a good option, quite a bit cheaper than the A73. An A6300 might be a better match color wise though. 

A6300 battery life would necessitate re-balancing the gimbal every half hour to 45 minutes, which makes it suboptimal as a dedicated gimbal cam imo. Are the Fujis neutral enough to match the F3, or would you have to grade down the F3 to match?

If you're on a budget, definitely consider getting a smaller camera for glidecam/gimbal shots. I use an A7III for that on smaller jobs, and it cuts pretty well after a quick tweak in Resolve. The Pocket 4K is a better match for dynamic range and grade-ability, but tougher to match in skin tones and much clumsier as a camera body. The 6K is a GREAT match, but at that point you're spending twice as much as you did on the F3 and may as well make the 6K your A-cam.

Haven't used all the newer DSLR/mirrorless bodies to know how well they'd line up, but all of them will take some secondary work to cut in a 2-camera setup. 

17-40 is totally okay on a budget, especially at the current used prices. Very useful set of focal lengths in a car! Versatile for run and gun/handheld work, too. It's just slow and optically middling. 

Color-wise, I like to shoot in SLOG2 and SGamut3.cine, then use the color space transform tool on my second node in Resolve to translate that into r.709. Grade normally from there. Using the second node is key, because you can do all your white balance and highlight/shadow recovery on the first node, pre-transform, without clipping any data or creating tricky color balance issues. 

For a 2K/1080 deliver, I like to shoot 4K. For a 4k delivery, 5-6k is ideal. 

Yes, in an ideal world all your shots are rock solid, noise-free, and perfectly framed, but in the real world, having room to crop (or safety area around your frame), stabilize, and downscale to kill noise really helps. Besides, having more options in post is good.

I'm experienced, but that's not gonna stop me from covering my ass.