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1 hour ago, kye said:

I co-produced a 5-min short with my sister a long time ago, and we estimated that all up it had 10,000 person-hours in it.

Not at all surprised - doing that is far more complex and creative than the simple documentary stuff I normally produce.

9 hours ago, kye said:

You might think that an hour sounds like a long time, but it's nothing compared to how long it will take you to edit something anyway.  Casey Neistat did his daily vlogs, which were usually between 5-10+ minutes each, and took 5-9 HOURS to edit.  This might sound like a lot, but he was an experienced editor even before he did his 800+ daily vlogs, and he also mostly knew what the film was about etc, so he wasn't filming without a plan.

Based on my own experience of putting together 10-20 minute YT videos, I'd agree with that. I don't usually do the whole editing process in one go - more often it's broken into 1-2 hour sessions and from start to finish it spans a week or more.

My usual process to create something for YT is:

• Decide on the topic/subject for the movie (based on what content I've already got, usually from an event or place I've visited, recently or in the past).
• Choose the clips that might be included.
• Decide on a 'flow' for the movie - is it going to be basically chronological or geographical?
• Put the clips that might fit into the flow into the editor media bin.
• Put the clips onto the timeline in the right order. There might be 30 or more.
• Do a very rough cut and play it. Delete or trim the clips to improve the flow and get the overall length within the target (it's almost always too long to start with). Repeat the cut & trim cycle until happy.
• Go through the timeline and adjust brightness/contrast/saturation/colour as necessary (this can be very time consuming!). If a clip is proving really awkward to adjust, decide if it's essential to the flow. If not, could it be discarded or replaced with different one?
• Do a similar adjustment process for the audio content (equally or more important as the picture content).
• For the wobbly clips (which for old content will be quite a lot of them!) try to stabilise them - another time consuming activity!
• Add titles to tell the viewer more about what they're looking at. This often involves some research to find the information.
• Add timeline markers and generate a list of YouTube chapter points from them.
• Render out the movie and play it through to review it. Fix the issues found (there will be some...).
• Render it out again and upload it to YT as a 'private' video.
• Add a description, the chapter list, a suitable thumbnail and the 'end screen' stuff in the YT 'Studio'.
• Check it plays and looks OK on YT.
• Make it 'public' on YT and hope al least a few people watch it for more than 10 seconds...

The above also needs cups of coffee and maybe wine too 😉

SRV1981 - next time you watch something on YT, just think about how much creative work and time has probably gone into it.

2 hours ago, Clark Nikolai said:

Interesting. I've been working in REC709 for the sole reason is that I'm just not ready to jump in to REC2020 and the learning curve that it might have. I also might need a new monitor or something. At some point I'll learn all about it as it seems to have huge advantages over REC709 and I want to have them. (Another thing that I want to one day learn about is ACES, another big scary thing.)

My D16 has a colour space that is like HLG called Bolex Wide Gamut. It keeps the full dynamic range of the image but isn't flat looking like Log would be so is watchable even before using a LUT or something. Here's a white paper about it.

https://digitalbolex.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Bolex_Log_Bolex_Gamut_TechSum.pdf

 

 

Below is an approximate comparison of transfer curve for various Log and Sony's three versions of HLG.

From the Bolex PDF above:

The three versions of HLG that Sony cameras support (from https://xtremestuff.net/sony-and-hybrid-log-gamma-hlg/ ) - HLG3 (upper curve) is the closest to the Rec. 2100 standard :

A chart of various Log formats from https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/64243940 (note the 3 EV spread in the high EV limit between the various curves). The highest DR curves look to be C-Log2, S-Log3 and V-Log - but of course they do that by being flatter in the important mid-range area i.e. fewer levels per EV, increasing the chance of banding if pushed too far in post. Note this chart is -10 to +10 EV vs. IRE 0 to 110%, the other two are -8 to +8 EV vs. 10-bit digital code values.

37 minutes ago, SRV1981 said:

Under very clear differences and Fuji and canon have a much more appealing image. That said I show the clips to family or friends and they always pick canon then Fuji 

But how much of that is due to relatively small differences in brightness, contrast and saturation (all of which can be adjusted in post and usually in-camera by tweaking the picture profiles)?

We are all used to colours changing due to natural lighting variation, and most people are drawn to bright, colourful, vibrant scenes - which is why the 'standard' profile on cameras is often relatively high in contrast and saturation to produce 'punchy' looking stills and video.

When comparing cameras (if I'm thinking about buying one), I'm much more concerned about unnatural image distortions, like aliasing, moire (especially the false-colour variety), compression artefacts (e.g. banding and blockiness) and noise - because those can be distracting and not as easily dealt with later.

7 hours ago, kye said:

I actually prefer HLG to a standard LOG profile.

The reason is that HLG has rec709 levels of saturation and the main part of the image (everything below about 50%) and so when turning the image back into a 709 image from HLG you're not stretching out tiny differences in a flat LOG profile.

The disadvantage of HLG in this sense would be the clipping of colours, but HLG retains the full DR of the camera so it will only clip on very very saturated colours and those will mostly be clipped due to being too hot (e.g. tail-lights) which would be clipped either way.

I should have qualified my comment to say that it only related to my personal preference using 10-bit HLG and OMLog400 from the OM-1 - I've never used HLG or Log from other cameras. I'd actually prefer to shoot in a modified version of one of the standard picture profiles on the OM-1, but they are not available in 10-bit mode - HLG or Log are the only choices.

It's interesting how different the log transfer curves can be on different brands and cameras (scroll down the pages to the step chart images) e.g.

OM-1 - https://www.optyczne.pl/59.3-Inne_testy-OM_System_OM-1_-_test_trybu_filmowego_Użytkowanie.html

GH6 - https://www.optyczne.pl/62.3-Inne_testy-Panasonic_Lumix_GH6_-_test_trybu_filmowego_Użytkowanie.html

A6700 - https://www.optyczne.pl/79.3-Inne_testy-Sony_A6700_-_test_trybu_filmowego_Użytkowanie.html

FX3 - https://www.optyczne.pl/46.3-Inne_testy-Sony_FX3_-_test_trybu_filmowego_Użytkowanie.html

R7 - https://www.optyczne.pl/65.3-Inne_testy-Canon_EOS_R7_-_test_trybu_filmowego_Użytkowanie.html

C70 - https://www.optyczne.pl/48.3-Inne_testy-Canon_EOS_C70_-_test_kamery_Użytkowanie.html

S5ii - https://www.optyczne.pl/70.3-Inne_testy-Panasonic_Lumix_S5_II_-_test_trybu_filmowego_Użytkowanie.html

XH2 - https://www.optyczne.pl/66.3-Inne_testy-Fujifilm_X-H2_-_test_trybu_filmowego_Użytkowanie.html

...or you could just create your own flat/pseudo log transfer characteristic in-camera by adjusting a standard picture profile (e.g. contrast, saturation, highlight/shadow curves) to give you a compromise SOOC/gradable format that fits your needs?

21 hours ago, SRV1981 said:

that said, I saw Dehancer has a plugin for FCP and that may do the trick and make camera brand less of an issues so long as a baseline DR is present and AF is good enough 

If you want useable SOOC video that looks reasonable when played directly, but which has high DR for grading if you want to, you could try shooting in 10-bit HLG?

It's a compromise format that is designed to provide decent looking video on non-HDR displays, and full HDR on HDR-capable displays - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_log–gamma . Note it uses Rec. 2020 colour space/gamut, so the colours will be distorted to some extent on a Rec. 709 display.

KnightsFan said: 

Quote

The XT3 was great, but if I recall correctly there were issues with FLog in Resolve for a while, so I almost always used HLG and was happy with it.

...and I've also tried grading HLG (from my OM-1) and found it OK.

I think Log is better for grading (than HLG), but Log is not very usable as SOOC video (unless you really like watching low-contrast/saturation video!).

54 minutes ago, SRV1981 said:

But filming not narrative stuff I’m not concerned about makeup 😆. 

But what kind of 'non narrative stuff'?

To try and help, we need an idea of what you often film and hence what sort of colours are the important ones to get right.

For example, if it's landscapes or wildlife then human skin tones are almost irrelevant, but correctly reproducing the range of greens, blues, browns, yellows and highly saturated, bright, flower colours etc. is important (and it isn't always easy to get a good overall colour balance/compromise in that situation).

4 hours ago, kye said:

If you're cutting between two cameras that were used to shoot the same scene but from different angles then you'd be surprised at how different they can be without the viewer noticing.

This is because:

• The lighting will be different from the different camera angles
• The contents of the frame will be different, either subtly or significantly
• The viewer might (and hold onto your hat here....) be watching the film and not comparing skintones

I agree - especially the last point.

SRV1981 - 'Content is King'.  Without decent, interesting content your audience is not going to care about image quality differences because they've stopped watching the movie. If the content is good, they won't be noticing the quality differences because they're engrossed in the story instead.

As an example, I recently posted a video on my (niche, railfan orientated) YT channel using content I recorded 20-25 years ago on 720x576, 50i DV tape-based camcorders. The picture quality is terrible by today's standards (it's noisy, low resolution, has bad colour bleed, poor DR etc.). But the historical content, getting the most out of the ambient sound and keeping the editing reasonably fast-paced seems to have been popular and it's had over 500 views in 4 weeks. Which is pretty good for my channel. I've got other videos on the channel that I thought looked pretty good and were shot in 4k but have only had 60 views in a year...

Below is a still from the editor timeline - note the burnt-out sky, the purple fringing along edge of the canopy, the over-saturated orange patch turning into red, the jaggies on the diagonals and the lack of resolution (and typical western Ireland wet weather!). No pixel-peeping needed to spot the technical defects 🙂

12 hours ago, kye said:

There's a thing where at the first production meeting of a movie there's a moment when someone asks what they're shooting on, and if the answer is ARRI / Alexa then everyone in the room relaxes.

A film-making version of the 'No-one ever got fired for buying IBM' (computers) situation 🙂

12 hours ago, kye said:

One thing I think that might not be well known is that a lot of folks in the "industry" have complete contempt and even hatred of the consumer brands and the entire DSLR revolution.  There's a very famous colourist who openly says that putting video into stills cameras was a mistake and they should take it out (yes, he maintains that the manufacturers should all REMOVE the video functions of all these consumer cameras!).

I do wonder if some of that is driven by fear of jobs disappearing (despite the availability of much lower cost tools - e.g. cameras and editing software - having hugely expanded the overall 'moving image' production market).

6 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Well I guess Sony is already doing that with Sony RX10, RX100 and even the RX0 have slog!!

Yes (and in the ZV-1 series), but it's only 8-bit S-Log2/S-Log3/HLG, not the 10-bit version available in the newer and higher end cameras.

1 hour ago, EduPortas said:

I agree that Red has brand recognition, but only with a very specific subset of the imaging crowd.

Nikon has A LOT more recognition from almost everybody, from the absolure noob to the hard-core pro.

And, let's be honest, Nikon was already hitting home runs with their new lenses and video features with pro-photogs. Now they WILL go full-hog with the video guys. That's the new slice of the imaging pie.

Integrate, fortify the brand (Nikon) and capitalize on a new growing market.

I think from a branding perspective, Nikon might use the RED name in the way Panasonic uses Leica and Sony uses Zeiss branding to 'elevate' the higher-end products a bit. And of course DJI have apparently owned the majority of Hasselblad for some years (but don't seem to have made much use of the branding potential of it).

15 hours ago, Davide DB said:

I was looking for market share data on cinema cameras but only found financial data.
Instead I would be curious to know what percentage Arri, Red, Canon, Sony, Pana share of film productions.
Some time ago I had seen a similar statistic restricted to Oscar films but I can't find it again.
 

There's some statistics up to 2019 here - https://stephenfollows.com/digital-vs-film-on-hollywood-movies/

5 minutes ago, BTM_Pix said:

I doubt it will last beyond the next product launch though.

Me too - big companies rarely buy much smaller ones and then leave them alone, especially one that's been losing market share to it's competitors.

1 hour ago, BTM_Pix said:

Well, the takeover is officially complete now and no executive roles for Jannard or Land so, with that, hopes fade for the release of the Nikon BASTARD or Nikon CRUSHER

Jannard (now 74) retired from RED five years ago - https://h4vuser.net/t/everything-changes/10600 - so I very much doubt he'd want an executive role anyway.

I suspect that Nikon saying that Jannard and Land are now 'close advisors' is mostly about trying to reassure RED users that the RED philosophy isn't going to change overnight.

On 4/11/2024 at 10:21 AM, Tim Sewell said:

So an update, if anyone's interested. I shot the first scene, which was made up of 5 distinct shots. They came out OK. They were... competent, but only that. The lighting was good - nice contrast, nice colours, well-motivated, but that's all.

Can you tell I'm dissatisfied?

I was so focussed on getting everything 'right' that I didn't pay enough attention to getting it good or interesting.

So I'm going to reshoot and one of the things I'm going to do is lean in to the limitations I have - first among which is that I'm doing this almost completely alone. I am both crew and talent! The biggest limitation caused by that is that camera movement while I'm on screen is not going to happen, which means that to create interest I need to make my angles and composition more interesting.

I've never acted myself, but I used to be heavily involved doing backstage work for amateur drama groups (lighting, sound, scenery building etc.) so I've seen a lot of amateur acting go both well and badly.

I think acting to an inanimate camera is probably quite difficult - the interaction and extra adrenalin provided by an audience often really helps. I've been at dress rehearsals where at the end you think 'Oh dear...it's miles off being ready', but the first night performance with an audience is 200% better.

People seeing the performance/movie for the first time don't know the script or the movements, so as long as you stay 'in character' when things go wrong you can often ad-lib your way out of mistakes. But dropping out of character immediately says 'I've messed up'. I've worked on shows where sizeable chunks of the script have been skipped by an actor but the cast have held it together and got away with it.

Remind yourself you're doing it for fun (I assume), so relax - it'll come out better if you're not worrying about every detail while you're performing.

1 hour ago, SRV1981 said:

Insightful posts and ideas. I just think if you look at the videos you’ll see a pattern that’s much simpler - the sensor for fx30 and a6700 appears to be darker or have a less pleasing look compared to FF. But it could also be the glass etc. seems easier to achieve a desirable look on a7iv/fx3 sensor than fx30/a6700. 

If you prefer the 'look' from a particular camera, then I guess you should buy that one...

But as soon as you take it outdoors under a broken cloudy sky and press the record button, the angle, intensity and colour of the ambient light will be constantly changing, giving you an ever changing palette of 'looks' that you didn't ask for... which as Kye suggested above you'll have to adjust for in post anyway to get a cohesive 'look'.

(I was once on the top of a mountain pass, looking down a wide valley, in the aftermath of a storm the day before. The fast moving thick clouds meant it would change from bright sunshine to deep shadow every few seconds. It produced very dramatic lighting - and some nice stills and video - but setting camera exposure settings was almost a lottery...)

9 hours ago, kye said:

Tony Northrup did a video, probably over a decade ago now, comparing ISO between cameras and found that in the same exact situation different cameras give different exposures at the same ISO, up to almost a stop.  IIRC his test was meticulous using the same lens etc and he was shooting RAW, so there was no in-camera processing etc.

His conclusion?

It doesn't matter...  because of all the reasons people have posted above.

Something that people tend to forget is that products will have a performance tolerance range (nothing is perfect) so if you tested say 100 nominally identical cameras there would be performance and 'calibration' differences between them. I suspect that at the low-price end of things, per-unit testing doesn't go much beyond functional tests with a few basic performance tests and adjustments, with more detailed performance testing only done on a random sample basis (to check/ensure ongoing production quality). As chip datasheets often say about some spec parameters - 'performance guaranteed by design' i.e. we don't production test this performance parameter, or 'not 100% tested' i.e. we only do random sample testing of this. The 'analog' performance of image sensors, in terms of things like noise levels will vary - so you might be lucky and get a camera with a better than average sensor or unlucky and get a worse one - but most will be close to average.

Consumer/Prosumer cameras are not intended to be calibrated scientific instruments (and supplied with 'traceable' calibration certificates as a consequence), so it doesn't surprise me that the same nominal exposure settings can produce different results on different cameras (especially between brands). Lenses can also have noticeable performance differences between samples of the same lens (de-centering is a common problem) - Lensrentals have highlighted this in some of the articles on their website.

As an electronics design engineer who has spent a large a proportion of my career designing video processing and transmission equipment, I find it almost unbelievable how bad the video image processing can be in some hybrid cameras sometimes. For example, look at the amount of false colour and aliasing there is in the FHD from the Sony A6600 versus the (four year older) Pana GX8 in the image below (grabbed from this DPReview video test chart )

Sony has much improved the false colour situation in the recent A6700, but aliasing is still an issue (full test chart ) :

I well understand the issues of heat and power consumption in small battery powered devices, but e.g. Fuji and Panasonic can do it much better than Sony in comparable size cameras...

6 hours ago, SRV1981 said:

I’ve seen this in a few videos, but when compared - the fx30 sensor seems dark, less DR? Maybe, like a washout look. 

Any thoughts? 

I agree with the comments from Kye and bjohn.

I think you're getting a bit obsessive about small differences in DR, which in real world usage are unlikely to be significant (or that you'd notice after editing the footage).

The two cameras are a bit chalk vs cheese anyway - one is hybrid-targeted, with a higher res sensor, mechanical shutter, a viewfinder, and more control wheels. The other is much more a dedicated video camera with (in theory) better on-board audio, fewer control dials, no viewfinder etc.

When you are using a camera, I think things like how comfortable is to hold, how easy it is to operate the controls, how good the stabilisation is, can you customise the operation of the buttons and dials to suit your way of doing things etc., are far more important than small differences in performance. As an example, I held an A6700 in my hands a few days ago, and found it quite awkward to reach the 'record' button without moving my right hand from (for me) it's natural position on the grip. On my G9 and OM-1 I have the record function programmed to one of the front custom buttons (between the grip and the lens mount), which are under my fingertips when I've got my right hand around the grip.

If you're at the stage where you are seriously considering buying the A6700, FX30 or ZV-E1, either try and get to a store where you can hold them in your hands, or make sure you buy from a place where you can return it without a problem - you might really like it when it arrives, or the opposite....

48 minutes ago, SRV1981 said:

that said i just worry that the units being sold may be more prone to overheating than a new unit.

If you are really worried about that, buy it and stress-test it quickly so that you can return ASAP it if you're not happy.

But if long recording times in hot environments are important to you, then you should be looking at a camera with a fan anyway (so you don't get distracted from the enjoyable creative stuff by worrying about overheating). Otherwise avoid leaving the camera out in hot direct sun/put a sunshade over it/put a white or reflective cloth over it. And turn it off when not using it, so it's not already hot before you press the record button.

If you want to minimise the risk buying used, buy the body from a major dealer who will provide a decent length warranty and allow you to return it if you're not happy with it e.g. in the UK, Wex offer a 45-day return period and provide 12-month warranties on used gear. MPB offer 6-month used warranties, as do some of the other major UK dealers.

If you want long warranties, buy new and then buy an extended warranty from the manufacturer, or wait until the manufacturer offers a free extended warranty as a sales promotion on new bodies.

5 hours ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

I'd add "Don't make yourself miserable by hauling around a boat anchor on a strap around your neck all day and night."

Yes, very much agree - it's why I don't own any huge/heavy long telephoto lenses even though I shoot some wildlife stills and video.

300mm on micro43 is close to the usable limit for handheld/leaning-on-something video even with Oly/OMDS levels of stabilisation, and you can get that with a relatively modest size and weight lens e.g. the Pana 100-300 F4-F5.6 is only 520g and 126mm long.

10 hours ago, kye said:

Here's the table of the 14-140mm lens.  The "Mid DoF" column is the DoF of a mid portrait shot (chest and up) and the "Close DoF" is just top of shoulders and up:

It's not constant DoF but it's pretty close.  

I then realised that for my environmental portraits, where I want the subject in focus but the background should at least be recognisable, I didn't want something that just had the subject floating in a sea of mush.  Also, nailing focus is more important to me than shallower DoF, and if the focus isn't going to get it perfect every time, and also pick the right focus subject each time, or if there are two people next to each other but slightly different distances from the camera because I'm not standing exactly 90-degrees to the line between them, then I'd rather the DoF be a few meters rather than the shot be missed.

(My bold) I agree - I'm often taking video of moving vehicles where I also want the background reasonably in focus to provide context for the image, so shallow DOF just doesn't work for me/isn't the 'look' I want.

(I also often shoot wildlife stills and video - the inevitable shallow DOF due to long lenses is a real pain to deal with when you might only have a few seconds to get the shot and there are tree branches/twigs in the way - which the AF prefers to focus on of course...)

One reason I often prefer the Pana 14-140 F3.5-F5.6 over the 12-60 F3.5-F5.6 (which I also own) is that the aperture drop off with focal length is slower over the wide to mid range - though the 12-60 is a bit smaller and lighter and much cheaper used.

5 hours ago, kye said:

The TLDR of it is that:

• I think the theory works - the GX85 + 12-35mm at F2.8 is good enough for "well-lit" places at night
• Most of the places I wanted to shoot were ISO 400-1600 and the noise is OK from the GX85 at those levels
• The DR is a challenge at night, which is something I hadn't considered - by the time that you don't clip the highlights you're making the shadows a lot darker than they appear in real life

Here's some shots SOOC.  Where there are two shots, it's because it wanted to expose in a way that clipped a bunch of stuff and so the darker shot is me reducing the exposure with Exposure Compensation to the point that the highlights aren't clipped.  
As these are frame grabs from VLC, the highlights might be more clipped than they would be in the grade because the GX85 clips at 105% so VLC might be cutting off that top 5%.

For me, out of the first two shots, artistically the upper/brighter shot is the better one - the 'bright lights' are properly bright (even if some are a bit burnt out) and the people are visible enough to add more interest to the scene. The lower/darker shot personally I think looks too dull (and less attractive as a result), even though I suspect it's a more accurate representation of the scene.

As ever, it depends on how 'accurate' or how 'attractive' you want the shots to be (after they've been tweaked/graded/edited) i.e. the artistic choices...

16 hours ago, John Matthews said:

I think I might go with the 17mm f/1.8 for indoor stuff/low-light.

I'm thinking about replacing my old Pana 20mm F1.7 (with slow and noisy AF) with the Oly 17mm F1.8. I find I commonly use around 18mm as a focal length on zoom lenses, so having a fast (and quiet) prime at that length makes sense for me.