robotfist

One of their resellers here in Los Angeles whispered to me that their next release will probably be the Nova (in May) and the 600D is looking more like early fall (maybe late August/September). Dang. Not as excited about another panel light on the market. There seems to be enough of those out there. I wish the 600D was the first on the list. I really think that light will become the industry standard for low to mid-range productions. They’re gonna sell like crazy. Pair two of them together and you almost have an M18, which is crazy. 

You’d think Aputure would have still announced it online around the time of NAB. The Forza 500 is a great deal right now. If I don’t hear from Aputure by the next month I’ll probably just pull the trigger on a Forza. The 600d is a little more powerful, and honestly, I’d prefer the Aputure since I already have a 300d II and a 120d. But they’ve gone a quite silent about this fixture since last September.

If it meant dropping the 6K resolution, I'd honestly prefer that the XT4 shoot 422 internally over 420. I love my XT3, but I really don't like the 420 color space, especially for grading. I have a Ninja V but I really dislike external recorders. Once you start throwing cages and external recorders onto cameras like these, I just don't see the point. If I'm going to do that, then I'd rather have a legitimate video camera then some awkward, Frankenstein rig with cables, adapters, clamps and mounts dangling off the body. So many failure points. So many things to jostle loose. It all just ends up being a huge pain in the ass. 

I think Fuji has absolutely beautiful color science and their lenses are amazing. I'm really looking forward to the XT4. I hope they include 422 on it! I'd take 4k 422 over 6k 420 any day. BETTER pixels over MORE pixels!
 

Ugh. I don’t like the Sony color science AT ALL but I am glad they are ovetaking Canon. I hope in the next few years the suits on Canon’s board get the message when their sales really start going down the tubes compared to their competitors’ numbers. They’ve been able to survive merely on people that are locked into their ecosystem. But that will get you only so far. These specs suck. There is no way to sugarcoat them. They suck, suck, suck. Intentionally crippling products may turn a profit in the present, but it will bite you in the ass in the long run. Steve Jobs himself famously said, “If you don’t cannibalize yourself, your competitors will do it for you.” Canon needs a big punch in the face. I’ve been holding onto their ecosystem like a desperate crack addict that’s run out of crack for years now and has resorted to turpentine and mouthwash to get my fix. This year I’m done with Canon’s turpentine products. They have until the end of 2018 and then I start offloading my EF lenses and bodies. I’m done with Canon’s subpar BS and piss poor video specs. Fuck ‘em. 

On 8/29/2018 at 5:23 PM, Cliff Totten said:

One thing about noise reduction and detail - Ambarella noise reduction is not our friend. It's usually poor quality and ALL noise reduction destroys detail at certain levels. It's just a side affect that we need to live with. Noise reduction is also a DESTRUCTIVE process. Once you apply high amounts of noise reduction, it cannot be recovered or removed in post. Once noise reduction destroys detail, there is no plugin on planet Earth that can undue it when you get home. Therefore it's better to limit the amount of noise reduction in camera and capture more detail and noise in your file and then soften and apply noise reduction in post editing. Softening and image is the easiest thing to do in a video editor. Plus, you can surgically clean noise FAR more efficiently when editing than any camera can do live on the fly.

Applying +1 sharpening tells Ambarella's processor to ease up on this crappy noise reduction allowing more detail to come through. This gives you WAY more accurate options to soften and clean an that image in your editor.

Guys,...this one is going to shock you. I fell outa my chair on testing these. This are 400%+ crops on a chart print out.

Which one is the:

Mavic-II Zoom 28mm

Mavic-II Pro FOV Full

Mavic-II Pro HQ crop sensor mode

Phantom 4 Pro V2.0

All camera's set at 100 ISO (0db) and sharpness at +1

Wow......This is part of a shootout video I'm releasing next week.

So which is which? The very top image seems to have much less noise, so there is either mor aggressive NR happening there or that sensor is actually cleaner.  

I think this camera looks great and the Touchscreen DPAF looks incredible. I can't wait to try shooting wide open with a gimbal. It opens up so many possibilities. I like running lean crews and the more independence there is for the camera operator, the better. And if I want 10bit 4:2:2, I'll just pick up a BlackMagic Video Assist. Everything I am asked to deliver is still in 1080 right now, so no big deal. Looking forward to trying out the Panasonic as well. Both look like fantastic cameras and I think both will do well. The gap between the $50k cinema cameras and the sub-$10k prosumer world just got a lot smaller. I'd say in 5 years that gap will be gone.  I mean, it almost is with the C200. It might not have mid-level broadcast codecs but it looks like it will hold its own against a Red Epic-W right now with it's 12 bit Raw at 60p (which is $30k). That's actually better than the Epic-W which can't even shoot 60fps with the full sensor, eats V-Mounts and has no NDs. The C200 is competing with every camera in Red's line but the Weapon Helium.  I simply can't wait for the day that the only differentiation between camera models will be a company's color science (a place where Arri and Red still really shine).  

Bring it on. I'm sure Sony will respond to all this with their FS5 MK II and their a7S III.  I imagine Black Magic is working on their new Pocket Cinema Camera as well as increasing the light sensitivity for their next Ursa sensor. Things are getting very interesting. The next 5 years is going to be incredible. 

Just saw this was already posted on another thread.  Oh well. Here it is again...

19 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Will say a lot more in the review...

I am very excited about your up-coming review. When can we expect it? For a camera that's been out since February, there really aren't that many full blown reviews of it.  There are plenty of photographer's reviews but there are barely any concerning the video aspects of the camera. Philip Bloom's review is okay, but it was kind of a quick once-over. I have a Canon 5D MK III and an original C300 that I have been waiting to ditch for a year now, but I have not seen the camera out there that I want just yet.  I have shot with the Sony FS7 and considered switching over to it but I just couldn't handle those awful menus and it's size. The A7S II is an option, but again, Sony's menus really make me hate using their cameras.  Plus I don't really like grading SLOG. The 1DX MK II doesn't look like it's a perfect camera by any means, but it looks better to me than any of the other options out there at the moment.  I will wait for your review before I decide to pull the trigger.  Hope to see it soon!