Matthew Hartman

I've been following this guy for a couple weeks. He strictly uses the NX1. Thought it might interest this group.

My guess it because they lack broad support from the community. The same can be said for both RED and Blackmagic when they initially started. It will take time for Kinefinity to gain brand recognition. I understand ppl's skepticism, I mean, I shoot with a discontinued camera after all, I've been around the block. But the alternative isn't all that great either, which is perpetually buying into overpriced systems from companies that care more about their shareholders than their customers. THIS is why the GH5s has very few improvements over the GH5, because ppl are more than willing to pay premium prices for small iterative updates which saves these huge corporations costs on components. This only changes when ppl are ready to take a risk in hopes of shaking up the industry. And trust me, this industry needs a little shaking up. It's this statement that holds the industry back. Why not? Why can't you make a "Hollywood" (more like Alantawood now) movie with it? The typical reasons you hear are based off manufacturer marketing backed by archaic thinking. Someone who spends there's client's budget renting 3 Arri Alexa's is the person that wants others to think you can't shoot a feature film on a Leica, or a GH5 or even a smartphone. That would mean they've been complicit in blowing their client's money. "Tangerine" was acclaimed. All shot on an iPhone. Look at the original "Blair Witch" film. Did rather well too. STORY IS KING. It's time for us to move on and start thinker broader now. A paradigm shift is just on the horizon, you want to be a part of it.

Nice body of work, although I would argue the look has more to do with lighting and the talent. For a complete setup the price is good: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1082942-REG/leica_18471_d_lux_109_digital_camera.html I watched a handful of videos online from the camera and to be completely honest I'm not a fan of the image, which looks to be a bit noisy and muddy even at 4K resolution. I think for a beginning filmmaker it's a great setup.

You're right it does. It just means I won't be able to "punch in" to the 1080 clips. Not the end of the world.

Damn, Vimeo is absolutely mangling this video. Are you uploading a excessively large file to combat this?

You're not going to get this from Sony and Panasonic, or Canon or Nikon for that matter. They're too big and ppl gladly throw money at their iterative shit so there's no incentive to grow or change. The "smaller" companies like Blackmagic are still hungry and have something to prove, for the time being. That was the position Samsung was at in 2014 as well. And we all know RED is outside the realm of affordability for 90% of us so they can continue to be a successful niche.

I have never been more disappointed in any other company for discontinuing a product line. We all know had Samsung stayed in the game they would have completely dominated the mirrorless market by now. To unseat long time competitors Sony and Panasonic in this space in such a short time is unheard of. Having been burned by big manufactures I'm looking deeper into the AXIOM APERTUS and Kinefinity Terra lines of cameras. https://www.apertus.org/axiom-beta http://www.kinefinity.com/terra/?lang=en A couple of ppl have remarked the the Leica SL (Typ 601) is the camera the NX2 would have been. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1192093-REG/leica_10850_sl_typ_601_mirrorless.html

I plead with all NX1 and NX500 owners to stop recording handheld footage in 4k. These cameras do not do well with rolling shutter in 4k, even with slighter movements in the X and even Y axis. Jello and even micro jello all over the place. This is my biggest gripe with the camera and can totally ruin a shot. If anyone has figured out the "Rolling Shutter Repair" plugin in After Effects or Premiere in relation to footage specifically from these cameras please share your settings. On default settings, I don't notice much repair at all.

3D LUT Creator Review

Lovely. Maybe add a music track? 2 NX1s and 1 tripod. ?

This is a exert taken from a Forbes article about an official statement from Samsung in relation to the upcoming release of their Galaxy S9 smartphone: "Meanwhile the Exynos 9810 is big on party tricks. 4K UHD can be recorded and stabilised at up to 120fps (twice the 60fps of the 2017 iPhones). There is also support for 10-bit HEVC and VP9 video formats offering a 64x wider colour pallette than the 8-bit colour support seen last year." I can't help but think the above could have very well been the evolution of the NX line of cameras, if not even better specs than this. They are putting this in a freaking smartphone! A freaking smartphone is going to shoot better slow motion than my NX1 with more color bit depth! Unbelievable in both a good and pissed off way. FY Samsung.

We all are my friend. Thats the beauty of life. ?

I'm finding with the NX1 that you have to use different settings for different scenes. When I used to set my settings to just one setup, it didn't work for everything. Casey's settings work really well when you're shooting in a controlled studio with plenty of lighting. So he sets his master black level to 0 because in that environment you dont have to pull up your darks that much or at all. You control shadows with actual lighting. But in darker or more unpredictable lighting situations, (run and gun) I really have to crank up the master blacks levels to get any latitude in the shadows. I usually set that between +6-10. I never go pass +10 as a rule of thumb because when you adjust black levels down in Premiere/Lumentri you get a lot of banding and artifacts. It's pretty bad actually. You have to work with this camera for a bit to discover it's weaknesses. Good image out of the box, but not very malleable. We're fortunate that Samsung's color science is generally good. I've seen some amazing results from this camera and I've seen some absolutely horrible results too. I believe the key is sutble grading and good controlled lighting that doesn't push extreme contrast values in the scene. Even low output practical lighting will blow out really quickly, which is a hallmark of limited DR. And if you underexpose to combat this, and try to lift the image in post you run the risk of bringing out the noise in the shadows. I'm sure Samsung would have addressed some of these issues with firmware updates that made better use of the amazing 6.5k, 14bit, 28.8MP sensor. But they left dishonorably and now we're stuck with what we have. I think the best we could hope for is a hacker comes along and lifts a lot of current restrictions on the clean out HDMI channel, so we can get more out of this sensor through an external recorder.

http://caseywilsondp.com/2016/03/24/samsung-nx1-free-lut-pack/ These custom NX LUTS are very nice. Also, there are sample image grabs on Casey's website. Enjoy!

UPDATED the petition to include some recent filmmakers using the NX1 for their productions. https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/samsung-keep-nx-alive

Definitely. Honestly, with such a cringe worthy and aggressive grade this could have been shot on a DSLR with the same destructive output. If this grade/look was the intention of the production/client, budgeting/using the Alexa Mini for this project was simply overkill. The distribution channel for this is probably Instagram and Facebook which ends up in a super compressed 8bit codec anyway. I've been down the road where I as the DP/cinematographer lose control over final vision of the project and the powers that be take over and just ruin the hell out of it. It really sucks. I feel your pain. The last time this happened to me the edit and grade looked absolutely horrid, I voiced my issues, and then was basically told to go back into my corner. I was so upset I ended up walking away from the project sighting "artistic differences". How I help combat this is I'm also and Editor. I actually approach my cinematography as an Editor and try to get in as package deal. I've also learned that being dipolmatic and having the director sit over my shoulder while I'm cutting sounds good spirited in theory but usually ends up in a situation where I basically become a technician to a backseat editor, rather than a storyteller crafting a story, if that makes sense? I dont find it fruitful. Since narrative filmmaking is my side passion seperate from my day job I can be selective about which clients I work with. I've kept this setup intentional. But I understand not everyone does it this way. Some have to work with what they have because it keeps the lights on. If I come across a client that basically is unwilling to trust me for what I bring to the table I dont bother working with them. Lots of ppl have a story to tell. They can hire someone else or shoot it themselves. No one who has talent or skill should be made to feel like a wrench monkey. On that note, if you find a client or director you have chemistry and a good working relationship with do whatever it takes to nurture that relationship and keep it flowing. This is why you'll often see the same Director/DP/Actor couplings across multiple films. This type of connection doesn't come along easily.

Colors look rich and the image clean. Can't wait to see the film.

I have a Helios 44 58mm coming in the mail from Russia and a m42 to nx adapter. From what I'm reading online the Helios makes a great taking lens. Any thoughts about this? Can you point me in a good direction for a good quality clamp, or whatever it's called that goes between the taking lens and the anamorphic lens? I think I'm starting to wrap my head around this anamorphic stuff. It took me a second. I didn't realize at first how it all worked. So basically the camera itself does not control or comm with the lens? You need this intermittent device from Aputure, which gives you electronic control externally? Though not the optimal solution as direct comm between camera and lens, and a bit pricey, it's an interesting workaround. I'm sure that took a lot of man hours on your part. When will this v.2 be ready for prime time? Ciao.

I've thought about this too, except in a slightly different approach. Entertain me for a second. I'm a fellow INTP. ? You know those macro extension tubes sold cheaply on line? Well, they actually maintain electronic control with native NX glass and could be a perfect candidate to retrofit a diffusion filter inside whilst gaining macro ability and keeping AF/Aperture communication intact. Thoughts? I would be very leary of putting any other material besides glass close to the image sensor. I think that's asking for trips to the camera repair shop for frequent sensor cleaning.

I work with devs who code on multiple platforms and as of late, Apple did something with the last two versions of iOS thats causing our apps a lot of issues. On the other hand Android has really opened up their platform. I can understand the slowdowns. No one wants to release a crap v1 app right out of the gate, so the wait is most likely worth it.

I use a customized Rec709 developed specifically for the NX1 by Casey Wilson/DP, who uses the NX1 sometimes for big brand name commericals. ( Yes the NX1 is used for top-level work, sssshh ) I would share them here but he gave these to me personally so I don't feel comfortable distributing them without his permmision/blessing. I will say that it's a less aggressive LUT than your typical Rec709 for other brands because even in gammaDR mode the NX1/500 produces a3 contrasty image like you already explained. Casey taught me that the NX1/500 already produces a good image in-camera and the secret is to grade lightly, which is certainly true for grading any 8bit compressed file. However, The NX1/500 needs a little extra care than other brands. Samsung took a heavy-handed Apple style, "we know whats best for you" approach, as this camera skates that consumer/prosumer line. You'll also see similar contrast ratios in their computer monitors and televisions. The thing is, your average person finds this type of image highly pleasing. Here's Casey's website: http://caseywilsondp.com

Well said man. We need more guys/gals like you being the voice of reason.

Sounds like an excellent plan you have there. I'm looking at a few options myself, trying to wrap my head around anamorphic right now. I think ultimately I'm just trying to up my game and maximize the output if the tools I already have, while weighing out pros and cons of going various directions. I might be taking on too much at once and just need to cool my jets and scale back. Of course, regardless of whatever direction I go in it's going to punch me in my wallet as anything relating to filmmaking is expensive. I should probably switch my information channels as ingest a lot of gear review channels and it just makes me thirst for shit I can't really afford right now. I always had a knack for getting more out of less and I probably just need to return to that and not worry so much about keeping up with the Jones. Thank you for your voice of reason, it's been helpful.

I think we're trying to apply the methodology of other brands, Panasonic, Sony, Canon to Samsung's color science and that's a wrong approach for this camera. I think a better approach would be adding a little flatness on top of getting your exposure as close to desired in-camera and then applying a less aggressive Rec709 LUT, and then adjusting from there in post. I think the key with Samsung HEVC footage is subtlety. When you get aggressive with the grade with this footage it does not hold up well. That being said, Samsung's in-camera color science already produces some damn good rich color and contrast. It's Samsung, not Sony. Let's not forget what flat profiles are for in the first place. If your image looks good, whether that's in-camera or in post, that is the final goal isn't it? Yes we all desire post control, but that's not always possible. I know we all want to avoid crushed blacks and clipped highlights. A lot of that can be helped with proper lighting techniques or avoiding scenes you know the camera doesn't preform well under. I give everyone permission to feel okay with that, because it is okay. Another option is using diffusion and low contrast filters, which offloads that process away from the sensor itself. I'm currently exploring this option myself and hope to achieve some viable results that I can share here. As suggested, the difference between normal and gamaDR is notable. It's Samsung's basic version of Log. I'm sure had Samsung continued with cameras a firmware update would have given us a proper Log, maybe even onscreen LUTS, waveforms, false color, etc. Make sure you have Smart Range + on under the movie tab of the menu. There's two "triggers" for that feature. One for photos, one for video and they are separated. The hack mainly helps with reducing macroblocking, not DR.

Amazon link goes to a removed page. I'm guessing the project went belly up?