John Matthews

It's so easy to fall into the trap of believing what popular figures define as what is "meaningful or beautiful" in art.

I don't watch most of those Canadians anymore. On Youtube, you really need to look for authenticity because you won't find it in almost any of the bigger channels. I've been watching for a long time now to see it go from authentic (and often normal) to shameless self/product promotion. 99% are simply infomercials, nothing more. You can still learn and laugh from them, but that is still the core of what they do. "Still Life - Art and the photographic image" by Justin Jones. He's a British guy who's into all forms of art and has 2.72K followers. He will never be known most likely, but his content is great. He's the type of YouTube I like. Here's a video:

In Britain, why is it possible to make jokes about babies on spikes, yet animals are off-limits? I don't get it.

I remember vividly this epic Canon marketing moment. It must have been so hard for those canon fanboys to accept their beloved camera specs didn't match reality. The potential of a timer and not a real heat sensor making decisions on whether a camera turns off or continues to operate was so unacceptable, even for fanboys. Canon wasn't even acknowledging the problem. The pent-up frustration had to be released. On top of that, Philip Bloom said: "hey look, this guy said something bad about Canon and my cats" - let's go after him! This is probably what it felt like for the king's messenger in the middle ages. Personally, I'm an animal lover and that includes humans too. It would appear some animal "lovers" exclude humans from their love. Instead, they run them over on purpose to make an example of them- Don't f*ck with cat lovers. Anyway, that's how I see it.

Performance is more important than dog-slow features IMO. A "feature" should work well out of the box, not in 10 years (the amount of time it takes for enough people to complain for them to improve it). You only use features that are worth using; otherwise, they're not features, just eternal frustrations. I hope Apple doesn't change now or ever. If they do, I'll be looking elsewhere.

It's important to remember that Adobe's making money hand over fist with their not-so-new business model. Time will tell if this model improves the quality of their software in any way shape or form. Arguably, it hasn't done anything for significant speed improvements (which is what most people want) before new features. It must be so frustrating for some people that pay for this. Personally, I just cannot bring myself to reward them for this model. Also, I'm sure they're looking for ways to "lock" you into it so they can perpetually receive monthly money (even after you're dead?). The seemingly harmless $10/month doesn't seem so harmless anymore. @Andrew Reid, maybe you could make a video on this too. What exactly has Adobe brought us in the past 5 years with this model?

I had a similar problem with a cheap usb-c power plug. All the sudden, buzzing noises. I switched to a usb type a and everything was fine or I could have used a battery with a usb-c PD. This happened on my Olympus e-m1 ii... super frustrating! Funny video. Liking the format.

What the hell is this video, @Andrew Reid? This is not at all how to make a Youtube video. Here's what's wrong: You need to start it with something like: "Hi guys, this is your boy Andrew here with EOSHD" You should have pink and teal background. X-mas lights at a minimum. Shallow depth of field? Everything's in focus! Where's the mic? You should be eating that thing! Think 25-30% of frame. Where's the obligatory Squarespace or Skillshare ad? If you can't get that, you should be at least pimping some software like "Cleanmymac". If you're going to talk trash about Canon, you should at the very least put some links to it on Amazon in case someone accidentally clicks on it. NEVER tell others what you actually think about product(s), certainly not after using them. You're just supposed shamelessly promote them or trash them, regardless of any usage. Focus on the specs primarily. Your thumbnail needs to have some super-inflammatory phrase (in yellow) with your mouth wide open. Here's an idea: "HASSELBLAD GETS DESTROYED? Plus, I lose my SH*T!" Finally, you look far too normal. Can't you shave your head or get a tattoo on your face? I'm sure there are more things wrong with this video. You've got to love Youtube nowadays.

Subscribed.

Cool. I'd also like that e-m5 iii, but it was just way too expensive when it came out. Really, that camera encompasses M43. I also have a GH2 that's exclusively used for live streaming... works great. Got it with a kit lens that is somehow worth more alone than the camera and the kit lens together. Go figure. A kit lens, Oly 45, and a Gh2 can accomplish a lot.

You're probably right @Andrew Reid. However, JIP has set aside money for investing in Olympus and it's still early days, but they don't need to do much in order to make them significantly better for video. Judging from past performance, they have had significant talent on their engineering team, but video wasn't their forte. The LOG they came up with was a bad omen for their video ventures. However, PDAF works really well in video and personally, I'd trade 10 bit or Prores for that... it was the FIRST thing I looked for in a potential GH5 successor. Sadly, PDAF probably won't be coming in a new GH5. Here's a question : what video feature would you trade in a GH5 for a E-M1 iii's PDAF? 10 bit? Seeing luma levels?

I confess to not being a pro, but I still love the system. I tried FF, but just didn't see the value in it for me. If people want to sell their M43 stuff, I'm game. Slowly but surely, I'll be grabbing up all the "reject" M43 stuff until I have the best kit possible in the system. I'm loving all the talk of people moving away from it in hopes the prices will tank, but I doubt it will.

Maybe it'll be unto OM Digital to make a compelling M43 camera... not that I'm not happy enough with the current offering.

Do you know the word humility? Yedlin's not just any old dude on the internet... the guy's an industry insider with butt-loads of films to back it up. I think he might know something on the topic of resolution.

Yes, but I haven't dug deep enough into it, but I will. In particular, I'll probably post something about his color theories. I'm happy he shares so much!

I can try to upwrap this portion of the video for you. Regardless of how much compression was used, his point was to show that, even with a 4k or 8k image, compression plays a significant role in the final image. Just increasing the megapixels isn't enough and would decrease the quality, not increase it. Concretely, a 4k image compressed to 10mbps will not produce a better image than a 1080p image at 10mbps. His point was to show resolution doesn't necessarily mean a quality image; there are many factors, compression being one of them. IMO, the issue of Long GOP and ALL-I is mute with modern encoders, but, if looking for a formula, 50mbps long-gop is equal to 100mbps ALL-I. You'll get significant space savings and 99% the quality in most situations. I cannot comment on working with Raw... I'd never do that for my purposes.

Concerning my previous post, I do think that Rodney Charters and Steve Yedlin differ in their theories about acquisition of the image. It seems Charters looks for the camera that gives the best image where as Yedlin prefers the most neutral image as possible, then add character in the post pipeline.

I remember watching both of these. In a nutshell, up-resing tech was good enough for them in 2014, I imagine it's a little better in 2021. They'd much rather work like that and continue with a speedy 2k pipeline. And once again, audiences cannot tell the difference.

For me, he effectively demonstrates the insignificance of taking professionally prepared 4k+ content, downscaling it to 2k, and upscaling it to 4k again. The resulting images, even when compared A/B style, don't show any difference. I'd love for you to prove otherwise. I really didn't think of it like this until after watching him. Again, his point wasn't necessarily this though- it was to show there are many other considerations BEFORE pixel count that show significant importance as long as the detail threshold is met.

As almost no one consumes imagery in print form, the issue of megapixels is completely mute nowadays. Any camera is good enough and will satisfy any non-forensic based analysis. Your A7s should do a splendid job. You just can't crop the hell out of it without AI upresing it if you don't think it'll satisfy people. As I remember it, the only thing you need to "worry" about with that camera is highlight fidelity in jpeg's and video with its tendency to go cyan.

After watching the video, I was surprised how many localized edits were made, incredible amounts of finessing the image. The director doesn't like pink; so, we choose a color-space with less pink, but still has significant color saturation and separation. Of course, they shoot it HDR too, but Fincher doesn't that kind of look. "Arduous" was the right word. However, when I watch the Steve Yedlin video, I really don't get the same impression. However, not knowing the entire process, it might be the same. The video you linked makes me never want to be a colorist!

I'd recommend you watch the whole video. It was rather eye-opening for me. His point is to gather data without any imperfections if possible and add value to his content through a streamlined image processing pipeline, regardless the camera used to capture. I highly doubt any viewer would ever see a flaw with his strategy. I'm aware that sharpness is not detail... and he covers that in the video too. Another major point is that no manufacturer is making a new human retina; therefore, the maximum detail has already been hit (even with 1080p!). Any more efforts at showing more detail would require sitting much closer to the content at which point you'd find yourself moving your head around to see the scene, taking you pointlessly out of the story. No viewer wants that.

I'm fairly certain he primarily shoots with the Alexa in 3k as, according to him, it gives the best image regardless of being "only" 3k. When you look at the way he presents, it seems clear that he's right. In the video, he talks mainly about using a camera as a data collection device and wants ALL sensor/film imperfections to be absent if possible. This way, he can add the imperfections in post to give the look he wants (grain, color, halation, etc.) through a comprehensive editing pipeline. Resolution was the ONE criteria that he didn't need as it met the accepted threshold of detail, even in a camera comparison situation, let alone hidden within a story.

Yes, as he says in the video, people are just looking at that ONE number to make easy choice as to which camera is better. Maybe this is what separates a real cinematographer from wannabes. The image is what counts, not the megapixels (after you get to the "accepted" amount of detail threshold).

Sorry, typo in title. His last name's "Yedlin", not "Yeldin". Sorry to Steve. Too late to update.