Thomas Hill

By the way that Mandalorian article had other interesting parts pertaining to aesthetics and creation/use of custom film stock LUTs:
“Our desire for cinematic imagery drove every choice,” Idoine adds. And that included the incorporation of a LUT emulating Kodak’s short-lived 500T 5230 color negative, a favorite of Fraser’s. “I used that stock on Killing Them Softly[AC Oct. ’12] and Foxcatcher [AC Dec. ’14], and I just loved its creamy shadows and the slight magenta cast in the highlights,” says Fraser. “For Rogue One, ILM was able to develop a LUT that emulated it, and I’ve been using that LUT ever since.”
“Foxcatcher was the last film I shot on the stock, and then Kodak discontinued it,” continues Fraser. “At the time, we had some stock left over and I asked the production if we could donate it to an Australian film student and they said ‘yes,’ so we sent several boxes to Australia. When I was prepping Rogue One, I decided that was the look I wanted — this 5230 stock — but it was gone. On a long shot, I wrote an email to the film student to see if he had any stock left and, unbelievably, he had 50 feet in the bottom of his fridge. I had him send that directly to ILM and they created a LUT from it that I used on Rogue and now Mandalorian.”
And on a side note while the show is shot on AlexaLF, all the backdrops used in the virtual production were shot on Canon 5DIV & 5DS.
A 5D3 was even used in season one to do old-school first trilogy type stop motion sequences:

 
Who would have thought Canon DSLRs would be so prevalent in such a cutting-edge high budget show?!

A few people will create videos in a new genre with this...perhaps, but the vast majority of the billion or more phones being sold will be used to make cheesy rack focus tiktok memes.
Personally, the trend towards short social media content is disturbing. Spend 5 days straight swiping through instagram reels or tiktok and then step back. You will be less patient, dull, and be addicted to instant gratification.
Shits toxic.

Normally my wife and I normally make documentary films as our creative outlet.  We just produced and shot a narrative short film.  Man, that shit is hard to do.  God bless the intrepid.  That is all.
https://www.facebook.com/AGiftForAllAgesFilm/

I wondered about that, lol.
Great work on that super 8 look!

Wanted: a partner that loves me as much as Panasonic loves DFD.

Yesterday I unexpectedly shot quite a bit with my FP and 5inch Video Assist. Man, what a combo! It's so small, and lightweight. The person I was filming told me half the time, he didn't even notice I was rolling, and of course when I put it next to my Pocket4k footage, it grades exactly the same, or possibly better. Very easy to match.
I was thinking of selling the FP, because for the types of things I shoot, cDNG is just not viable (longform interviews). But then a deal for the VA12g came up, and I thought it'd give it a try. Now I'm completely sold. With this setup, I've turned a great camera that's was no fun for me to use, into a very fun, take anywhere cine-cam.
My shoot yesterday was very unexpected, but I happened to have the camera in my satchel with a 28mm f2.8 FD lens. It was a dream setup, that I'm basically going to take everywhere from now on.

 

Dude! This was awesome. I felt the same way about Mr. Undone. I thought it really hurt his credibility (at least, with me) that the Sigma FP L was such a disappointment to him. You hit the nail on the head in every way. Took the words right out of my mouth. Same thing goes for Bloom. I typically love these guys and what they offer but I agree with you that Sigma is doing something different and I appreciate such things. I can put the Fp together the way I want. Isn't that also the way you have to do RED? I was Panasonic for years with my DVX100 then Lumix GH4. Up to the release of the original Fp, I was looking to go Fuji but wanted to be full-frame. Then, Fuji drops the bomb with Medium Format moves. That will be my play at some point. But, when you drop full frame cinema into the mix the way Sigma is doing, you can put together your situation they way you want. Most cinema cameras force you to do manual focus, Fp does but also is ramping up the lens support where the lens provides stabilization. Not to mention, putting the4 Fp on a gimbal like the Weebill S. This is all good in my view and really puts in the throws of being a real filmmaker. That's the point for some of us.
 
Then, when you add the photo imaging part, this puts the Sigma Fp in it's own little power-packed space. I really appreciated Steve Huff's perspective on the Fp in this regard. This man is a serious Leica guru. Lenses and Cameras and he thought his experience with the Sigma fp was akin to his Leica SL. Yikes! I was like, "okay!". Now, we're talking.  He used his array of lenses on the Fp and the look was amazing. Color science and all. After reading your comments here, I recommend folks add Steve's YouTube review of the Fp. It's here: https://youtu.be/Q01kVaFtkvg 
So, kudos Andrew. I really appreciate your view and coupled with Steve Huff's view on this, I think it showed how powerful the Sigma Fp and Fp L is in the hands of those who love to be different and know how to put their systems together for their needs.

Beautiful!  Well done on filming the bees like this - I've tried and it's no easy task.
Also, don't apologise for posting your own stuff, assuming it's relevant to the conversation..  It separates you from the people here who don't shoot anything and just talk about film-making without actually doing it 🙂 

Just wanted to comment. this is probably one of the most honest article about the FPL. it is too expensive for me but I definitly see who would use such a beautiful camera. 
I moved last year from FUJI (that is just trying to milk its APSC users with 10year old overpriced lenses + new body designs that copy sony) to Sigma and got an FP with i-series, a 85 1.4 and a 35 1.2 and from day 1 where I shot some small videos with the FP and the 45 2.8 I knew I made the right decision.
 

They do have some quirks, and are much more minimalistic than other cameras, but that's what I wanted. Clean, simple, and small.
I didn't get the evf, and while it would be nice to have, the screen is great and I've had no problems outdoors. Might pick it up used one day. If you know which shutter speeds to use and which to avoid in artificial lighting you can get around banding pretty easy. The couple manual lenses I tried worked great. 
I can't say much about rolling shutter. In cinemaDNG it's apparent if you whip it around, but improves a little the tighter you crop. It's not an issue for me in normal shots, and there are modes to use if you need a shot with a lot of movement.
I didn't think I would utilize internal raw much, but after testing the 8bit UHD, it's impressive. When not needing maximum dynamic range, it is not a big step down from full 12bit. I do not have a v90 card, and even the highest capacity will give you only 10-20 minutes, but in the coming years I'm sure we'll get 512/1tb cards that will solve that. If you're fine with 1080p raw you will get longer record times and the ability to use cheaper v60 cards with 8/10/12bit available. The samsung t5 I use isn't too unwieldy though as I attach it directly to the grip. So it screws on in seconds.  
All in all a lot to like, despite the negativity it's received.

I've never owned a more inspiring camera than the OG FP. I bought a C70 to make work a little easier and tried out a Lumix S5 for a week to check out the advantages for anamorphic shooting but quickly returned it. Nothing has come close to the IQ I'm getting out of the FP.
 

In the YouTube comments “this was the smoothest bloodbath in a while”.
On social media slick ninja-like assassins strike again in the middle of the night, and the unfortunate victim always seems to be the Sigma Fp series.
In what’s a common theme the original Fp and now the Fp-L, I don’t think many of the social media glitterati get this camera.
In the case of Gerald, I don’t think he gave Sigma a fair crack of the whip in at all.
New blog post:
https://www.eoshd.com/news/why-gerald-undone-is-wrong-about-the-sigma-fp-l/

If it's worth saying, it's worth repeating, right?
also, if it's worth saying it's definitely worth repeating.  
I completely agree.
To put things into perspective, here's a video from the GH1 that I saw shared recently.  To my eyes, it look better than almost everything I see posted in the last couple of years.
1080p camera, 1080p upload, from a camera that is so old it doesn't change hands much anymore, but when it does it can be had for about $100.

Thanks for the compliments everyone! Means a lot from people on this forum as I know we are all pretty picky when it comes to this stuff. 😂😄
For the Z-cam I used a set of Rokinons 24, 34, 50, and 85 
Everything on the Panasonic was shot on a Rokinon 35mm 1.8
We also used a Sigma 14-24 2.8 for a few interior wide shots where we need that ultra wide FOV. 

I have a set of Canon FD lenses which I would have used had I owned them last year. The Rokinons do the job though. I really love Minolta lenses though they can't be adapted to EF so only some cameras can use them. 

I'll do a little breakdown for you if I can remember perfectly. 

0:05 Rokinon 35mm 1.4
0:12 Rokinon 85mm 1.4
0:15 Rokinon 50mm 1.4

0:18 Rokinon 50mm 1.4 (1.8 crop in post)

0:19 Rokinon 50mm 1.4

0:22 Rokinon 35mm 1.4

0:31-0:47 Minolta 35mm 1.8 (shot mostly wide open) 

0:50 Mavic 2 pro 

0:53-1:03 Minolta 35mm 1.8

0:52 Rokinon 24mm 1.4

1:06-1:20 Rokinon 35mm 1.4

well you get the idea at this point 

This looks great!

Shot mostly on the Zcam S6 with some Panasonic S1 in there too. I feel like the trailer was harder to make than the actual film. 😅

You're correct. I jumped back and forth, and should have clarified strictly video usage in that comparison to DSLRs. It will be no full fledged stills camera for sure. It does have it's uses. I just don't like the "useless" labeling it's been getting.

Something that is quite interesting and I missed previously is the ‘pinch to zoom’ capability with no loss of quality giving a fixed focal length prime a 2.5x range.
That is pretty neat.
I think you have to come at this camera from another angle and that is what can it do instead of direct comparisons with anything else.

Yeah it is as if they thought, "well it comes like this so must be reviewed like this". What does he think the quarter inch thread is for? A beer holder? It takes about 10 seconds to attach the official Sigma grip. The box format is about the modular flexibility and they barely touch on it.
Would have been easy for Sigma just to do yet-another-clone of a Sony A7. Like Nikon are.
Props for having the guts and imagination to step outside the box.
Just shows up these YouTubers for how uncreative they are as artists that they can't even be bothered to attach a wooden hand grip.

But what's your point? Does anything that you've just posted somehow invalidate the idea that films generally reflect the cultures of their times? Does posting a poster of a movie set in the far future (then) with a female president, then a comedy about the problems caused by proscriptive gender roles - at the end of which the female president resigns when she gets pregnant - in any way counter an argument that all films are inherently political in that they either promote or condemn accepted cultural and political norms?
Or are you just doing that thing that climate-change deniers, anti-vaxxers, 911-truthers et al do, where they find one tiny portion of someone's argument that they can (kinda, sorta) 'disprove' as a way of discrediting that argument without having to expend the mental energy to actually engage with it and argue it on its merits?
Better to stick to microphones.

Well yeah, that really shows that I'm wrong when I say that films reflect the social mores of the societies that make them. Doesn't trade on sexist or heteronormative tropes in the slightest!

Certainly not denying any of that.  You can watch films from 70-90 years ago and notice the same thing.  "It's Wonderful Life" "Sullivan's Travels" "Modern Times" heck even "42nd Street."  And those are the films that have endured.  As I mentioned before, there were a lot of mediocre films from that era that never made it beyond the zeitgeist of their times.  Nothing special that.
On the other hand, the thing that's being challenged in these days by "woke" culture (which I'm not a big fan of, really, just observing) is less the championing of soft socialism, but the cultural entitlement of white dudes.  Thus, imo, a lot of said white dudes are upset they're suddenly being held accountable by new standards...or are seeing their cultural significance diminish...and they're bummed they're not being represented as much as they used to be.  Pretty tragic that, right? [sarcasm]. Can you imagine being pissed because some movie heroes aren't as white and male as you're used to --or want them to be?  
So, I don't know, out of all the problems in the world, being upset with that sort of narrscism seems silly to me.  Maybe some disagree with my assessment there, but that's how I see it.
But, yeah, it's "show business."  The market is simply expanding gender and race variety to attract the global masses.  That's what happens when corporations do things, appeal to as many as possible.  And in that global market melatonin doesn't really count for shit, does it?
Oh well. 

Here is my preliminary setup. This little setup here is amazingly powerful. 

Gotta say, I hope they all got fined for not wearing any masks. Pretty weird sight for 2020.

So I’ve bought the Z CAM-S6, hoping it would be useful for some upcoming projects. However, I planned to sell it after finishing those projects, unless I find myself in love with this camera. 
Anyway, I took the camera with some friends and shot a little video. We didn’t plan beforehand because this was meant to be more of a feeling out process and a camera test. I’ve tried very hard to make it a more coherent story, though I must admit it is still very confusing. 
1. Modular design is fantastic because you can build it up the way you wanted, however the cost adds up very quickly. 
2. Very well built, but the metal body makes it a little bit heavy, despite the size. 
3. A lot of codec and resolution options. It’s always nice to have internal ProRes recording and H265 is very efficient indeed. 
4. Image Quality is detailed and organic, and you can always shoot in 6K. 
5. Battery life is quite good, especially if you use a bigger battery.
6. Control needs time to get used to, and it’s still slower than a proper video camera like the C200 and FS5. 
7. CFast 2.0 Card is VERY EXPENSIVE. This forces me to use H265, which sometimes requires transcoding.  
8. AF is just as bad as, if not worse than, EVA1. Normally, this won’t be an issue but…
9. The HDMI Output is very soft, for some reason. Maybe this is due to user error. The image is so soft that even using a 6 inch monitor, it is still hard to judge focus sometimes. This is my biggest problem by far. 
10. Playback is in LOW resolution. Clients may not like feel confident about the footage you just captured.
The whole video is shot in 6K 2.4:1 mode, 23.976 FPS ,with Z-Log2 and in H265. All is shot handheld. I’ve mainly used the Sigma 18-35 1.8 and for one shot the Canon 85 1.4. 
Thank you.
PS. I'm not sure should I make a topic like this. I apologize first if it violates the rules.