Tim Sewell

I used to work in the world of obscure international trade shows and magazines, first as an ad/space salesman, later on the operational side. The magazines - with enticing titles like 'World Plastics and Rubber Technology', 'Railway Interiors' and 'Automotive Testing International' were 100% advertiser-led. They had editorial staff, who called themselves journalists - but in reality they were employed to put the words of the advertisers and the exhibitors into a form that looked like journalism but was, in fact, thinly disguised advertorial. There was absolutely no way in the world that any of those magazines would have criticised any advertiser, exhibitor, or potential client of the future - the companies in those industries could have caused the immolation of a small country and the only news about them in our mags would have been about their latest widget. This became especially pernicious once the publishers all jumped on the (far more lucrative) expo business as potential exhibitors would be offered puff pieces in the magazines as an incentive to book stand space.

That, I'm afraid, is the end game in non-news journalism once it becomes advertiser led. In fact, it even happens in pure news as well - witness the ongoing reluctance, for instance, of the Daily Telegraph to publish articles critical of China in the light of its regular, highly profitable, supplements sponsored by that country.

Personally I stopped taking much notice of DPR once Amazon bought it as, having the experience outlined above, I couldn't see how a website owned by one of the largest camera retailers could maintain integrity in the long term. Whether or not they actually have started to water down adverse opinions of cameras or their manufacturers, the fact is that I can no longer be sure that they don't. And that's the pity of it.

I don't make my living with cameras any more - it's a fun hobby, but an incredibly expensive one (well it isn't actually - I've got friends who are into cars and motorbikes who will happily spend tens of thousands of pounds on their passions and no-one really bats an eyelid - I spend £3K on a camera and people think I'm insane) so I need to know that the sources of information I use to guide my purchases are going to give me the bad news as well as the good. I no longer bother with any of the 'magazine' style sites at all - I research potential purchases here and on DVX User and get opinions, in the round, that I can trust.

The logical answer would be to employ the LUT you'll be applying in post, and failing that simply a Rec709 LUT. I know that Deakins, for instance, uses his own specially designed look LUT for monitoring to give him a good approximation of how the final images will look.

So here's a thing - I can't justify an Adobe CC subscription just for Photoshop (I use FCPX and/or Resolve for video) as I wouldn't use it enough, but thought there was no other software that would allow me to utilise my large-ish LUTs collection for stills. Just discovered that Affinity Photo (https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/) - that's not too shabby as an editor - allows just this - for just GBP29.99! Very happy and looking forward to a lot of processing over Christmas.

Whatever hosting option you choose, if you're looking to keep your costs so low, you'll have to embed your videos rather than host them yourself - $20/year doesn't buy a whole load of bandwidth (and you should avoid hosts who tell you that it will).

I got a set of Ianiro redheads (the original redheads!) for under £150 on ebay - 3 lights, stands, scrims etc. Got a 300W Arri fresnel plus stand for around £30. Nearly a full Lowell kit - Omni, Tilta and the other one whose name escapes me, in separate ebay deals for a total of around £100. A bunch of good stands for £20. A boom and stand for a tenner. You can definitely put together a lighting package for little money if you're prepared to take it slowly and look out for deals. The only instruments I've bought full price have been a few different LEDs - there doesn't seem to be the same kind of bargain-rich secondhand market in them yet. Plus, I should mention, Lee gels are, for what they are, really cheap!

I should add, @Dustin, that I don't know where you're based, but the UK used cinema lighting market is like a tiny gnat compared to the big buffalo of the US one.

Personally I like to set ISO/SA(180)/f5.6/8 and ride the ND using a combination of zebras and waveform (@Stanley - the SLR Magic one is ace!). When I'm using my Shogun Flame I'm almost confident enough to do it by eyeball - I said almost.

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Someone with your limited experience/skill level should hang back and learn for awhile, instead of jumping in and opining in a thread to which you've got nothing helpful to add.

Dunno who made you thread boss, Jon, but you seem to have issues that might be better off kept private.

Will upgrading your car earn you any extra money in the short or mid-term? The camera will, even if it takes a while.

Sorry for the delay - here's that 'filmic' FS700 stuff.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/archive/index.php/t-325537.html

A couple that I thought were stand-out were 

- not even done with a recorder, just OOC AVCHD.

And:

Which is raw with an Odyssey.

No doubt everyone's aware of this, but Cooke Optics' YouTube channel is yet another department of the free film school: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-Ya9gBlwOhRwtloTn1hvbA

The Atomos (Shogun series) will go to 30p 4K Sony raw to ProRes. CDNG to the same framerate & resolution is supposed to arrive via firmware update. I'm not aware of any monitor-less recorder other than the ridiculously expensive Sony one that can achieve the same with this camera.

I certainly regard the FS700's image (via the Atomos) as having a cinematic feel to it more reminiscent of the cinema cameras you mention. I viewed quite a few videos before buying it that made me feel this way and later, when I'm on my own laptop, I'll post a link to a handy listing of them. It has to be said, however, that the F3 has more of a reputation as the 'poor man's Alexa'.

+1 for the FS700 - and if you don't need high frame rates in 10 bit or raw you can go Atomos for the recorder and save a fair bit. I was certainly able to get this combination earlier this year (s/h FS700) at roughly £3700 including a couple of SSDs and a few spare batteries. An even cheaper camera option that ticks quite a few boxes would be the Sony F3 with the relevant upgrades.

Filmstro (https://www.filmstro.com/) take a different approach. They have 'themes' - loads of them - that you can match to your footage and then alter things like momentum, power, volume, depth etc. You pay $9.99 - $49.99 (depending on the kind of usage) a month for unlimited use and tracks. They seem to add lots of new music every month too. It's all instrumental, as far as I can see, and I think 1080p support is upcoming (but you can get around that by arranging the track, then exporting just the music track and adding it in your NLE). It's not for everyone, but I imagine for personal project use, corporates, weddings etc it could be ideal.

The Amaran isn't at all powerful. You could do worse than look at Lume Cubes. They are tiny, have good battery life, waterproof up to 100 feet and have 10 brightness settings. You can't change the colour temperature, but they're easy enough to gel. Plus you can control a bunch of em from your smartphone.

https://www.lumecube.com/

Probably could use a bit more work - especially the score - but I quite like the 'thrillery' feel. Cinema EOS standard, HD, colour and contrast balanced then FilmConvert-ed to Fuji Velvia. Soundtrack done in Filmstro.

Off-topic, but the service being advertised fits in with a description I recently heard of today's web service industry - guys in the Valley coming up with apps to do the stuff their mums no longer do for them.

Bear in mind that without the consumer market to give a ROI your GH7 is going to cost you eight grand.

39 minutes ago, ThomHaig said:

Hey Don, thanks for getting back to me on this.

aha... I never considered that the physical aperture size of the metabones would have a limit as to how much light it could let in. Good to know.

I was also looking at Nikon and old Olympus Zuiko lenses, some of which have f1.2 offerings - do you know I were to adapt them to EF and use the metabones, would that run into the same problem?

Thanks

I've successfully used OM Zuiko manual lenses adapted to EF with the thin adapter, mounted via a Metabones XL EF to M4/3 on my GH4. They're rather lovely lenses. Have done it with the 28 2.8, 50 1.2 and a few third-party OM fit lenses.

fs700

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anyway please send my dollar to:

Kaylee Fabian

1234 Anystreet

Cario Egypt 11311

Western Union?

6 hours ago, BenEricson said:

My xc10 came in the mail yesterday. This camera has a really nice image and is really fun to shoot with. The image stabilizer seems to work very well, I also dig the touch screen, works fine in bright light as well. 

The biggest negative for me would be the lack of ND filters. It's impossible to properly expose 24p in bright sunlight when shooting 1/48. 

A lot of positives, currently on a 3 day trip in oregon. I'll post some stuff when I get back. Thanks everyone contributing to this topic, been a nice resource. 

Im assuming zebras at 75 is the norm? Any other tips/tricks I should know about? 

My vari-ND lives on the cam when using log. However, after reading @kidzrevil's posts I've recently been playing with EOS Cinema Standard, where the problem doesn't really occur much as you can shoot as low as 160 ISO - the results are actually really nice (and FilmConvert has the correct profile) - I'm starting to think that log should really only be used in the situations where that extra DR is needed. There's supposed to be a firmware update coming that will add Canon Log 2 & 3, so I guess we'll see what happens then!

My only other tip would be that if you're shooting scenes with lots of movement it's generally best to use push-to-focus in manual focus mode, as the focus tends to wander in auto as the camera picks up faces.

On a more serious level - here in the UK we are already seeing considerable price rises on equipment due to the falling pound. Trump has indicated that he wishes to pursue policies on trade that could quite easily lead to a trade war with China. Given the nature of global supply chains in the camera business that would not bode well for prices stateside.

3 hours ago, kidzrevil said:

yes just like how canon log raises the black point.

you can find the Canon white paper here http://www.learn.usa.canon.com/resources/articles/2012/cinemaeos_white_papers.shtml

I did a low light test with the XC10 and Canon Log 

 

 

Those are, to me, very cinematic images. What ISO were you shooting at?

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Assuming this is indeed the problem then in theory we can reduce it by capturing a flat but brightly lit image (reducing contrast but also pushing more of the pixel values towards the mid-point exposure value), running at a higher shutter speed and keeping camera nodal movement to a minimum (to reduce spatial aliasing). I'll also try some tests to see if I'm correct - at least in part ;-)

Unfortunately, this is a camera marketed for handheld use in unpredictable shooting situations - so let's hope for a firmware solution!

Typo, more like, probably used 1s instead of Is in the blog post.

Get saving!

http://www.hdwarrior.co.uk/2016/11/06/new-sony-fs7-11-no-price-yet/