M Carter

I've been really impressed with season two of "The Leftovers". Overall pretty impeccable filmed. They do a lot of handheld and occasionally miss a focus pull, but it works with the aesthetic.

However - night scenes with a fairly openDOF - you can really see the soft filters in the bokeh. Watch the birthday party scene early in season 1 - every party light has a grid of black dots. Stuff my mrs. doesn't notice, but man - really surprising to see something so odd. I've caught it in season two every here and there, but nothing like that party scene.

Regardless of what the pocket did to S16 prices, there's a pretty good wealth of knowledge out there of what lenses work well, which look great, what are the sleeps/keepers/and dogs. If Arri makes an S16, I imagine it wouldn't be a stretch for a lens manufacturer to do a cinema zoom for the thing - keep it in the price point of the camera and it could sell. Or at least a purpose-built speedbooster.

Anything goes for music videos for upstart bands; but my mortgage gets paid by business/corporate videos. So no PVC pipe rigs. I have a couple DIY HMIs but they look like commercial units. And I've had zero issues shooting with any DSLR, but I generally have it on rails with a matte box & FF. Several times a client has had to squeeze by the camera in a tight setup and say "I'm being careful, I know that cost more than my house!" Amazing what matte box flags can do… 

Funny, corporate clients - if they've seen your work and it's good - don't really care about the gear the same way getting hired by an agency or media group to operate or DP do. Even so, I've had situations where someone knowledgeable raised an eyebrow at, say, an APS-C Nikon with a Series-E 100 on it. I usually say "look through the VF" and the next thing, they're snapping off phone shots of the lens - "Less a hundred bucks??!? That's my next lens!!!"

I really like using my Kessler as sort of a "fluid tripod" so when all else fails, just rig that sucker up… until someone makes a cast plastic sleeve that fits over a DSLR with a big "Arri" logo on it...

Everything Tugela posts on this thread seems to say "kid with a 5 year old T2i who wishes someone would fund his zombie movie but his mom won't let him shoot in the back yard". Just ignore the guy. Anyone with this many pronouncements about what is and isn't a "professional" says "frustrated 14 year old kid" to me.

I am agonizing over which thread to reply to "why we should use color charts" or "why we should always use color charts" - you make things so hard!!!

I've been shooting for a living for over 2 decades, and one of the definitive signs that someone is an amateur is any statement like the above.

That's some massive insecurity you've got going on, man. Professionalism isn't about the gear.  

I think the camera you choose (from this list and similar models) is fairly meaningless. 

I could wake up tomorrow and find someone wanted me to shoot this exact gig. I wouldn't go out and buy a camera specifically for it. If this one project is all you'll ever do in your career, focus on the exterior setting and how you'll get good, clear shots of industrial work on a location. Do you need close-up gear? Overhead shots? Do you need audio? Do they want it to look sort of cool and stylized (jib, slider) or strictly informative/training style? How about scrims, reflectors, negative fill so your outdoor shots can be clear and not confusing?

If you want to shoot all kinds of commercial gigs over the next couple years, get something that can handle a variety of work.

There are only two really major differences in the tools for these gigs - a "video" camera (fixed power zoom, XLR jacks, viewfinder, built-in ND) which is good for more event and news-style shooting but (until you really spend some $$) has a more "video" look (which can be improved by a good operator)… or a more "pretty" camera - interchangeable lenses, control of DOF, larger sensor for a more "filmic" look than most "video" cams. DSLR, BMC, etc. And you need stills, so DSLR is likely the way to go for you. And you'll need a good tripod at the least, and possible good audio gear - field recorder, mic and blimp.

Your list is all over the place in sensor size - do you care about the look from the sensor? And a bigger question is do you (or will you soon) need 4K for reframing, keying, stabilizing. Either way, look into something you can build on and make money with for at least a couple years. Heck, a Nikon D7100 or 7200 would handle this gig fine. 

Oh, please. The only thing that's kept me from buying a BMC (original cinema camera) is sensor size, and I'll eventually find a used one with a speedbooster, they show up every week. That's a camera that excels at pretty-much one thing: really pretty footage that can be graded like mad, for projects that don't need extensive keying but beautiful IQ on a "let's try to avoid a bunch of rentals" budget. So you're saying a "professional" would, what, go hunting for wide primes with no distortion vs. adapting lenses they already own? I've seen speed boosted Zeiss and Nikkor AIS 28's on that sensor and it's lovely.

I'm a "professional" - I make my living from pitching concepts, writing scripts, and shooting or animating commercial (IE, promotional vs. entertainment) projects for businesses, including some good sized brands. Sad to discover that owning a speedbooster for a specific purpose would make me an amateur.

Man, I still really like my little Marshall 5". You can get 'em for $250 used. Not the best power solution - 4xAA internal and they make some screw-on adapters; the newer model has replaceable back adapters for common DSLR batteries. But it has a 4v input if you're running a power setup. Peaking is so-so, but color is very nice. Full sized HDMI and blue-only for calibrating.

Ahh, the old stick-over-your-head-with-a-bungee-cord...

Sorry, for all I know those are great, they always look a little silly to me! (And I shoot the occasional event where that mess of stuff could be a problem). Seems like a vest could let you go for hours with a gimbal though.

Thank you sir.

Now, someone, please… a decent and affordable flip-up loupe for the VA. I've been looking for something I can use for HDMI, and as a VF for renting BMC cameras. 

Well, they just added zebras and peaking as I recall. So it ups the desirability a notch or two...

Just a question - a lot of gimbal discussions get into how bad bounce can be - anyone mounted a gimbal to a Steadicam vest & arm? Came makes a setup for well under $1k that's gotten some love at RedUser.

Y'know, the OP asked "does it also bypass the camera colourimetry too"...

With HDMI, you're getting whatever comes out of the HDMI input - so if your color profile is set to monochrome, you'll get a B&W image. It's not like a camera raw file.

Anyone know if the NX1 setup guide is current for the latest firmware?

As the 5300 price drops, it gets pretty attractive. You lose the AF screw drive, wired remote, I believe more precise ISO controls… but it is a pretty image and does 1080@60, the 7100 maxes at 30 (with 720-60).

The 7100 is a really, really great stills camera though, if you need both in one package.

1080 maxes out at 30p though, and many uses have had bad shadow noise. Mine was clean for a couple years of commercial shoots, suddenly has amazing, busy, horizontal noise in the shadows… some of the time...

Dual batteries are a pretty good idea for an external recorder, seeing how one of the benefits is being able to run for, say, an entire stage show or music set. These kind of devices are battery hungry, and being able to swap and not lose a single frame is worth a little extra space.

I do like my Marshall, which has a full-szied HDMI coming straight out the back. But angled cables and adapters have been around since we first started plugging HDMI into cameras.

Generally on-set monitors are calibrated with bars and blue-only; or when you get into LUTs it's another story. It doesn't seem to me that Spyders and so on are used on-set. Serious calibration is done in grading suites, but they're using very pricey monitors in those setups. Could be wrong, but it seems like a spyder-calibrated monitor is more of a gimmick than something that would be used in a normal shooting workflow.

Man, I shoot several theatre events a year - music shows, band gigs, concerts (from local guys to smaller indie stuff) and they're rarely situations I think of as "low light". The only times they're low light is a band playing the bottom-of-the-rung live clubs with no lights or no stage. If someone wants to **pay me** to shoot like that, I bring a DJ truss and a dozen 300 to 650 fresnels. 

D7100 frame grab, this camera had an old push-pull 80-200 2.8 on it (yeah, that's Emmylou, and yeah, at 68 she still gives you chills):

(EDIT: this was video not a still)
 

Then I shall call my Ac-160 my "Manny Panny"… and my 7100 my "hikon' Nikon"… and my RB my "Pooniya Mamiya"… I need to think up more rhymes and start labeling everything… this may take some time...

Is it just me that feels like we need a moratorium on using the phrase "nifty fifty"? For some reason, it makes my skin crawl a bit. Maybe because the OES 50 isn't all that nifty?

Keep in mind that with most of these "BMPCC sucks" "Nikon 750 is useless" posts - that's the entirety of the post. No examples or actual information. They both can make great images in good hands. I've seen some beautiful work from the pocket, once you get around that tiny sensor...

I'd like to get 16:9 frame guides in my Nikon's VF - someday I'll see if there's a place that can do that.