kidzrevil

The Panasonic cameras have solid 1080p too, as do the new Samsungs with the latest firmware. And don't forget the A7S and RX10/RX100 III, which produce excellent 1080p out of the box.

Nice! Would be great to see an head to head comparison with nx1, both with native 1080 and with 4k downsampled.

I'll shoot something for you tomorrow. 

I know you love it, as you should... It's a great camera. And I think your findings are probably right on... With that much resolution, modern lenses are probably more suited to the sensor. Honestly, I think the NX users should be thanking you for all the tests you're performing and for sharing the results.
From my experiences with the NX500, it seems like the NX line of lenses affords the best results... If you want a very clean, clinical look... I don't own an NX lens, but from what I have seen of them, in comparison with what I have tested with my vintage lenses. The Sigma 18-35, that Ricardo tested, looks beautiful. It's clean and sharp, yet still has some character.
The good thing about your current lens line up or your current options are they all are cross platform lenses. These lenses will work with any future camera purchase... Unless you go to Nikon or Canon in the future, then you will lose adaptability with your FD lenses. So, if you want to upgrade to the Zeiss or Sigma, selling off the FDs is smarter than selling the Nikkors.
Also keep in mind that a lot of people use the Sigma lenses, so the Zeiss may make more sense to differentiate yourself.
But you have such a great set of FD lenses that it may make more sense to sell the NX1 and move to Blackmagic. Zak Forsman recently stated in a post on another topic that he couldn't be happier using Raw instead of chasing resolution... I'm paraphrasing. As you know, the lenses can last for decades, where the camera will only last a couple years... Give or take. 

Its probably the sharpest f1.8 lens I've ever seen, even superior to F4 L glass from canon, for example. The only thing I didnt like was the weight (810 gr) and the focus ring is incredibly smooth, but heavy, compared to my samyang 24mm f1.4, which has the best focus ring i've ever tried, very very light and very very smooth.
Still, this made me sell some of my gear, and get it asap, its really an amazing lens and when I have it, ill def. put up some more test images, I only tested it at night, so theres still much more to test.

Right now is VIVID my best settings: 
Color: Red x0.95, Green x0.95. Blue x1.00, Saturation 0, Sharp. -10, Contrast -5, Hue -3°, MBL -8, 0-255 
Vivid is too much saturated and contrasty by default so I put contrast and MBL down to achieve better DR and keep colors correctly saturated without addional grading. 
Below is screen form video (just changed luminance from 0-255 to 0-235 in Premeire), no grading and RAW converted to jpg without any editing. I have to say I really like the result - by default is video much nicer that un-edited RAW. According my testing is DR similar to DynamicDR gamma but with better colors (BTW I think the pink on the face correspond with reality - it was really cold :-))
I will do more tests but I like so far... maybe I will play with hue and satuation a little and use color checker board.
 EDIT: I would now put hue to 0 as the result is probably too pinky

Actually I think the focus by wire of the 16-50S is quite amazing. It's very precise and adjustable, and the most important, it's "linear", which means I can even put it on the follow focus and it works perfectly and stops where I want. To be honest it's smoother than many canon L lense I've used. It's not the same as those bad focus by wire system many people are complaining about.
On the other hand, the focus by wire system of the sony E mount lenses is not "linear", if you turn the focus ring faster or slower, the step size of the lens focus changes, and you end up with a wrong scale on the follow focus and it's totally unusable. I'm not sure whether every E mount lenses are like this, but the ones I've used, they are. This variable manual focus step size makes the E lenses quite unusable for manual focus, because it's quite unpredictable.

@ kidzrevil ... I think the 16-50S is a fine lens and if you were only going to have one Samsung AF lens ... this would be it. It pretty superb in every way. As mentioned, I think it's perfect for run & gun street type stuff. AF is usually excellent and the VR is very good as well .. especially with DIS on. The manual focus isn't as nice as an AI-S lens but it's dampened nicely. Feels a million times better than Nikons range of 1.8 primes.

^Meant to send this to Ricardo**

This is absolutely gorgeous. I too would love to hear about your settings and grading walkthrough on this. Is it similar to the wedding you you posted a few weeks ago? Bravo man. This is incredible!

Unfortunately electronic feel, hard to get consistent pulls on it for feature, but good enough for doc. Incredible lens otherwise well worth $800.

I want it for run n' gun documentary work, the majority of what I do with the camera, not proper film making. 

I've been thinking about adjusting the black and contrast levels on a per scene basis. That would make the most sense, no need to squeeze the DR when not needed, and the same numbers will not be ideal for different DR situations anyways.
yes definitively. with a little noise and an 1080p delivery it is a non issue though. I personally plan to deliver everything in full HD with this cam anyways. 

it all depends on the scene. i made a super flat gammaDR profile and got some amazing results... but it only worked in scenes with no real gradients....once a gradient is introduced it falls apart quickly. i have not 100% made up my mind yet but I'm thinking I'll lose the 2-3 stops of DR that a flat profile gives on this camera for the sturdiness of the image when shot regularly. 

Thanks for this test, definitely shows me I don't need to invest in a high end recorder for this camera. I actually prefer the skin tone off the internal file.
Also I don't think the SHOGUN upload is working. It won't play after I have downloaded it and it is showing it as a smaller file compared to the internal one.

I used the nikon to e adapter on my a7s and it was top notch. might have added a bit of green, but it wasn't much and it was easy to correct in the grading process.
i'll do a test tomorrow of internal vs external. i dont think the gains will be significant though.

it's not actually clipped, it's just displayed beyond the range. 16-235 in camera squeezes that extra bit into range, but it's not actually capturing any more info, it's just displayed that way. if you want to display your 0-255 clips as though it were 16-235 (thus displaying everything in range) simply add a fast color corrector, then change your output to 16-235. or, if you plan on using any decent color grading software (speedgrade/davinci) you'll have access to all that information still, and you can adjust it into range as you desire.

If I underexpose slightly I get horrific artifact in the blacks at a certain point while grading. If you expose perfectly yes, but you won't have any leeway. Personal preference here, trying to find a flexible image without introducing to many artifacts. The perfect middle ground
KarimNassar Have you been using my settings on these recent tests? If so awesome!
Also great thing I discovered, while Speedgrade doesn't have native H265 support currently, you can force it by using this method posted by Sekhar Ravinutala on the adobe forums:
It works perfectly, and I'm getting some incredible results from it. It's extremely processor intensive though, cannot run playback in realtime in 4K even with quality at minimum. It plays back in real time in Premiere when I switch back with the grade on the clips.

We need to get to a point with the 16-235 vs 0-255 debate. I've been shooting 16-235 since Andrew advised to, but your post makes me feel bad :'( 

Rocky Mountain (Automatic) and Cliptoolz (Have to select the option) do the conversion for you. Editready on Mac does not, with that program it is better to shoot in 16-235.

Cliptoolz is the best for this, no fuss. Rocky mountain has good conversion, but cliptoolz is just as good and faster on my system, and has a wider range of options and codec settings. It also easily does the 444 with both UHD and 4K footage.

It's super easy, just make sure you download the right installer for your system.
Drag the footage into the window, choose your desired codec, resolution, etc. and let it run. I use it to transcode the NX1 4k H.265 to ProRes HQ 422 and it works really nice.

Honestly, the only reason I am thinking about keeping the nx500 is because the 4K downscaled to 1080 looks amazing in b&w and I may have a short in a month or two that it may be perfect for. It seems the over sharpness doesn't affect black and white footage as much... Either performed in camera or desaturated in post.
And yeah, those Nikkors are work horses. So cinematically simple. 

Yeah, the resolution of this cam makes for quite nice frame grabs. As far as latitude goes, I guess you could do more with a flatter image but FilmConvert over the top of it and tweaked a little seems to give some good looks. I like the Astia and Provia presets with the Arri Alexa Rec709 profile. The Red / Epic X / Redgamma profiles seems to work Ok as well but you need to dial down the film colour.  I'm just a hobbyist that enjoys learning video but I reckon this camera is not really designed for heavy grading. It seems to be at it's best looking natural or with just a light grade. 

“NX-1, GH4 or 5DMkII?”
The answer is yes.  Any of those cams will allow you to capture fine images and to an accomplished 1080p edit.  The quality on all will be fine.  The difference in how they render their image is a nuance that you'll have to decide on your own, preferably by doing tests.
In a way, it's like choosing a preferred film stock.
As we all know, any "drop dead gorgeous" images created on modern gear typically depends on the skill of the shooter and lighting, not the camera.
You're right to be more concerned about the post process and, depending if your a beginner or a skilled pro, figuring out the best workflow for your abilities.  And man, when I shoot a doc and end up with hundreds of hours of footage, I want postproduction firmly planted in the KISS realm.
If you know how the BMCC behaves and are pleased at what it delivers, why not stick with that?  ProResHQ and Raw, use either depending on need.

I vote NX1 because I love the image, and they are on fire sale right now. I personally love having a viewfinder on camera for doc work, so the GH4 and NX1 fit that bill. The 2.5K is great for narrative, and has some good used prices online, but I would hesitate using it for documentary work unless you rig it extensively.