HockeyFan12

9 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Exactly. 

To be on Netflix in general there are no minimum requirements. 

You could shoot it on 8mm film! Or an iPhone! Or heck, even a Barbie Doll Camera! If you can make it work for your story. 

It is only for Netflix commissioned Nexflix Originals, which 99% of us on this forum are not going to be pulling the strings on with producing it at a high level. 

And *IF* you are in that situation, you'll also have provided a budget which is plenty large enough you don't have to instead go with whatever is the current hot EOSHD forum camera darling. 

 

 

The ARRI Alexa XT/SXT/Mini and Amira are fantastic cameras, and we stream plenty of content that was captured with these cameras. However, since these cameras do not have true 4K sensors, we cannot accept them for our 4K Original productions.
 

I wouldn't be so dismissive of Dan; if he's posting this here he's most likely in talks with someone at Netflix or is prepping a show to pitch to them that for some reason has a requirement for a smaller, more mobile camera, but he wants feedback from people using those cameras before talking with the suits. Otherwise this would just be a waste of time to discuss.

Even if they're paying a few million dollars an episode, that won't make a cinema camera as small as a GH5–and for some shots for some shows you need a smaller, more mobile camera. 

In my (limited) experience with Netflix they're surprisingly flexible. They'll accept B camera footage or stock footage that's not even 4k, though they prefer if it is, and I even worked on one show acquired as a Netflix original that was shot in 1080p with the caveat that when they produce the next season it will be 4k and they will choose the cameras. For the right content, they'll even make exceptions for Netflix originals. I think the ban on Alexas is arbitrary; other online content providers will accept 3.2k for 4k upscale and it still looks better than F55 or Red footage, but otherwise Netflix does not seem too strict to me and they do seem focused on content over spec.

So I'd emphasize the content. If it's a Blair Witch-style show or you need crash cams or something I'd talk with them about it directly and maybe see if you can shoot with an A cam that's on the list while still relying heavily on the smaller cameras. Look for something with all the necessary specs for the B cams; the GH5 comes closest. Read the portion about secondary cameras and camera tests and see if you can meet them halfway. 

What I wouldn't do is ask an opinionated community of enthusiasts their opinions.  

However far your series is in development, good luck and don't let something small like camera choice get in your way. I believe you can hire a crew out to shoot tests to prove your point, and I suspect that choosing the right A cam will give you a lot more flexibility with B cams so don't see it as all or nothing. I think the GH5 will be your best bet based on its specs, size, and internal recording ability. Maybe that and an EVA1? 

There's also the Venice, which has a special tether option for steadicam ops that's being used on the Avatar sequels. Clumsier than an Alexa mini, but it meets the specs and the footage looks AMAZING.

14 minutes ago, Luke Mason said:

Alexa is under 5ms, otherwise the highest framerate 200fps wouldn't be possible.

That sounds closer to what I experienced with it, but I never used it with very long lenses so I might be biased toward underestimating.

Perhaps it's 10-12ms at 24fps mode and 5ms at 200fps. But the rolling shutter seems negligible to me at 24fps except with camera flashes, or maybe different models are different. But if the GH5S is at the same level of rolling shutter the Alexa is... I might reconsider it over the C200 I'm planing to buy. ?

9 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

9ms sounds a bit optimistic and Cinema5Dracula have been wrong before on their rolling shutter tests.

Fuji themselves claim 17ms in the fastest sensor mode, 4K 60p.

The GH5S is similar, maybe a bit less around 14-15ms.

The Alexa is around 10-12ms.

I highly doubt 24p is 9ms when Fuji themselves claim 17ms for 60p!!

What model Alexa were you using that was 10-12ms? In my experience it seems like much less but I don't know the spec.

23 minutes ago, KnightsFan said:

That's a really cool idea! I wonder how hard it would be to sell to the general public, though? I think people would balk at the idea of carefully inserting a ~20mm long lens rear element into their camera every time you change lenses. But it would certainly be innovative and make Canon's mirrorless much more appealing for the vast swaths of people who own EF or EF-S glass. EF mount is so common I adapted all of my Nikon lenses to Canon just to put them on a NX-EF adapter! Makes it so much easier to quickly use them on borrowed or rented cameras.

 

On a more general note, while I'm excited to see what Canon has in store, I bet it will be another disappointment for me as my main hope is for H.265. The NX1's codec quality is all I need, and I don't want to double or triple my hard drive consumption for marginal returns on that front. Once the GH5 implemented it, I hoped the floodgates would open to H.265 in mainstream cameras, but we may have to wait a little while longer. Canon would have to pull off something truly spectacular for me to buy into it without H.265.

I agree it's unlikely. It looks like it's definitely not happening, actually:

https://www.canonrumors.com/news-flash-good-news-for-some-bad-news-for-others/

Looks like a whole new lens mount after all.

Wild guess: the mount could be a more extreme version of EF-S: same backward-compatible mount, but a special pin to prevent forward-compatibility. And then lenses with the RF mount are allowed to have a much deeper rear element, but it won't butt up against the mirror on a dSLR because it can't be mounted on one despite the superficially similar mount and forward-compatibility of the RF, due to the pin...

With the new lenses, the rear elements can go much deeper, so the rear element needs to be protected, so there's a deeper plastic ring extending around the rear element, and the lens caps are much deeper, too, to accommodate it. But otherwise it's the same basic shape of the EF mount. Telephoto lenses etc. will never be RF, because they don't need to be. Rear lens caps will not be interchangeable, but RF lens caps will mount on EF lenses, they'll just also extend too far.

Wild guess: RF stands for rangefinder, or something similar is implied.

Would be nice to see this mount on the FF 6k C300 Mk III when it's released in mid-September. (Another wild guess.)

Hoping that'll knock down the price of the C200. ? 

1 hour ago, Snowbro said:

Second to last img is mavic 2 pro. It produces a great "cinematic" 1080p image in 4k mode ?

I actually suspect you're right. Sorry if I came across as being pedantic, I forget other people have their own eyes sometimes.

53 minutes ago, 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.

Makes sense–I'm not that technical these days with so much information overload, so I just go with what I like visually, but that does make a lot of sense.

Thanks for posting the 400% crops. The zoom seems to have the most resolution and also the most sharpening. Seems like a really detailed image.

Weird behavior with the zone plates on the Mavic Pro 2, especially in HQ mode, though. Look kind of waxy. Never seen anything quite like that.

9 hours ago, Snowbro said:

I was really looking forward to the mavic pro 2; sold the air, as I thought this would be miles better. I haven't been impressed by footage I have seen so far. Unless everyone who has made a video on it so far has messed up, it looks very very soft. The massive sensor cropping or pixel binning hell, isn't really what I had in mind. The P4P quality looks so much better sadly, I really don't want to cart a drone that big around when I travel though. Maybe an unsharp mask can fix it enough, I guess time will tell. 

I feel the opposite way, the Mavic Pro 2 HQ clips with sharpening at 0 look better than any consumer drone footage I've seen by far. Whereas even the clips posted above with +1 sharpening look more like over-sharpened consumer drone video to me, but still very good. The unsharpened log clips look much more like a cinema camera to me, though (then again, most 4k cinema cameras are very soft per-pixel, except maybe the F65). Overall, I think the Mavic Pro 2 HQ mode looks way better than any previous Phantom or Mavic or consumer drone, with tonality that resembles the Inspire raw footage (but nowhere near as sharp). But it's just my opinion. I was hoping not to like the footage since I don't need a drone, but now I'm looking at how I can afford one...

I'm guessing the sharpening setting will be able to fix things for you to your liking,  though but I also think mosquito noise and aliasing look a lot like sharpness and this seems to have less of both. (Just like how the 5D Mark II looks sharper than the 5D Mark III because of aliasing and noise, and imo it does look better in some cases.) For a super sharp image, maybe this isn't the right drone, but you could buy another Mavic Air if that's the case. That said, it looks sharper than an Alexa Mini, and the Alexa Mini drone footage in the Revenant intercut with Alexa 65 fine and looked fine from the front row, so I'll take it. .

But yes, compared with the older consumer drones and Inspire, it looks softer to me, too, but with much better tonality, which should mean it can take more sharpening without falling apart. Just a matter of taste whether the sharpening is something you want. I suspect in-camera sharpening will help get toward the image quality you want, and/or sharpening in post, or just using a higher contrast grade. I wouldn't give up on it yet!

1 hour ago, Cliff Totten said:

I bought a Mavic 2-Zoom AND Mavic 2-Pro 30 seconds after it hit their web site..

I also own a Phantom 4 Pro+ V2.0 today. My goal was to sell my Phantom 4 Pro+ V2.0 and keep the Mavic II Pro as my main 1 inch aircraft. (Keep the Zoom too as backup) However, this issue with the Mavic II Pro's "HQ" mode and "FOV" mode has me concerned.

Questions:

Is the Phantom 4 Pro V2.0 doing a full 16x9 pixel readout and scaling to 4k? (it looks pretty damn good today)

Is the Mavic Pro-II now pixel binning or line skipping it it's "full" 16x9 readout? (NOT the same scan as the Phantom 4 Pro V2.0)

Is the Mavic Pro-II cropping and using a 1:1 readout and calling THIS mode "HQ"?? WTF?

IS the Phantom 4 Pro V2.0 actually using a higher quality full pixel read out than the Mavic-II Pro??

This is one topic that really does concern me. I might not sell my P4P-2.0 if it's sensor scan is better than the Mavic-II Pro!

DAMNIT!

Wish I could afford either. ?

There's some sample footage here:

https://www.tomstechtime.com/dronefootage

I already linked to the Mavic footage, but that link forwards to clips from the Phantom 4 and other cameras, too.

The Phantom 4 Pro looks much sharper than the Mavic Pro 2 footage but it has sharpening artifacts and thin tonality. Looks bad to me by comparison. I suspect it's not a full pixel readout/downscale, or if it is then it's a low quality one. But preferences vary.

To me, the Mavic looks dramatically better–like night and day. Difference between a (low end) cinema camera and dSLR as far as tonality and color are concerned. Still don't love the way green is rendered, too yellow, but it has a much better look to me overall, though preferences will vary.

1 hour ago, Cliff Totten said:

Yeah,.....but!  We get 100Mbp/s for 8bit H.264. We then add 40+ times more color overhead....and NOT add even ONE single megabit of bitrate to cover that overhead.

We can say, "Oh, but we are using H.265 HEVC and because it's more efficient, that will cover the bitrate loss."  Not really, their H.265 HEVC is a MAIN profile and not a HIGH profile, so it's only a "partial" H.265 HEVC implementation.

To make matters worse, there are videos out today that compare H.264 AVC at 100Mbp/s vs. H.265 HEVC at 100Mbp/s on the Phantom 4 Pro. It's being shown that the H.264 AVC shows LESS banding than HEVC when stretched.

So,..."IF" H.264 at 8bit, high profile is ALREADY better than H.265, main profile in 8bit.....what makes us think that H.265 HEVC will be any better after DJI throws 40+ times the color space at it???

DJI makes GREAT aircraft and gimbals...but I honestly dont believe that DJI has people that understand video compression very well.

 

CT

Did you check out the sample videos I posted a link to? There's a large overexposed blue sky area in one clip and there's next to no banding (the first frame has some macro blocking but otherwise pretty good). Imo the image looks great, impressively close to the Inspire. The readout obviously makes a difference. If those sample clips are real, this will be a fantastic drone in good light.

It is, however, pretty soft.

1 hour ago, Cliff Totten said:

There is a good chance this is a line skipping or pixel binning process. It's hard to say for sure though. We know that Sony has created a high tech "full pixel readout" for their fantastic scaling engines but DJI does not buy Sony SOC's. DJI buys Sony sensors and uses Ambarella image processors on Phantom and Mavics. 

The original Mavic Pro used a dinosaur Ambarella A9 processor that has the absolute worst temporal noise reduction algorithm. It SEVERELY scrubbed the life out of everything below middle grey it's temporal analysis artifacts caused a "pulse" every 15 frames. Shadows are 90% washed, scrubbed and flattened SEVERELY! (a lot of people blamed 60mbp/s h.264 when it was really that disgusting noise reduction circuit to blame)  Total junk chip that dates back to the GoPro 3. The Phantom 4 Pro uses the Ambarella H1 and it's pretty good. The Mavic Air used the Ambarella H1 and doesn't suffer that same noise reduction Hell that the Mavic Pro does and gives you 100mbp/s too.

Today we have the Ambarella H2, H22 and H3 chips which are far more powerful than the H1 now. It's going to be interesting to see what video processor that DJI used for these new Mavics. The Ambarella H3 can do 4k at 120fps and 8K at 30p!

It's very possible that DJI is making these motherboard designs usable for the new Phantom 5 too. This allows them to buy H3 or H2 chips, do all the programming work together and only activate features the need for each model and leave others hidden. This saves lots of programming man hours.

To see this HORRIBLE Ambarella A9 vs Ambarella H1 noise reduction lab analysis comparison, check out my video here. I think it will answer a lot of people's questions about DJI Mavic image quality problems. It's NOT 60mbps vs 100mbp/s like we have all though for years.

https://youtu.be/5WDc9PKCDm0?t=1m30s

CT

p.s....DJI is using H.265 HEVC but they are only using "main" profile and NOT "high" profile. This means it is only using a fraction of the HEVC tool sets and calculations that are available to the full HEVC/H.265 specification. So,...the "50% gains" over H.264/AVC are reduced even further. This is a "light" or "partial" HEVC profile designed to keep calculations per second lower and easier.

 

Very interesting! 

Forgive me if someone has already posted this, but if these are real, I think they're extremely impressive:

https://www.tomstechtime.com/mavicpro2

The FOV does look a little narrower than I'd expect, so the HQ full readout mode seems to be a crop to me. The image has the same tonality and lack of sharpening and mosquito noise that you'd see in cinema cameras and higher end drones, however there's apparently still some in-camera NR and accompanying loss of high frequency detail. Some might prefer this, though, and it doesn't seem too severe.

One thing that confuses me is the Mavic Pro 2 seems to shoot QHD up to 30p and the Phantom 4 Pro shoots cinema 4k up to 60p... that's a BIG difference in processing power in favor of the Phantom. 

I'm disappointed that there's no cinema 4k (4096X2160) mode, not just because it would cut well with cinema cameras at native resolution, but also because the wider FOV would be appreciated most in the instances where you're shooting 17X9: otherwise you're upscaling and then cropping even more. But based on the image above (if it's really from the Mavic Pro 2), I'd still take this over anything else. Just wish there were a cinema 4k 24p mode...   Maybe in a software update? Seems like an odd omission. 

55 minutes ago, BrunoLandMedia said:

I've never been compelled to get the 24-105 from all the reviews, and on a crop/s35, it just isn't great, but the constant f/4 still seems better than the 18-135, but maybe I'm wrong. 

18-135 USM with power zoom: I have it, haven't used it with the c100 yet, but not amazing with my 80d. It totally works, but I always get better overall quality from my other lenses, even if they don't fit the situation. I guess I'll just have to see the quality with the c100 once I use the combo. 

70-200 f/2.8 II: Definitely the best lens I have, but not wide enough for a lot of situations, and not great for run and gun (weight & focal length). 

24-70 f/4 IS: It's weird, I'm just not that impressed with this lens. I've had it for a while, and the IS works for video, but I still keep the 35 f/2 on my 6d or the 16-35 f/4 most of the time. It's just never fast enough inside and things just never look as good. 24-70 f/2.8 could just never work for me without the IS for handheld and monopod video. 

Primes: 35 f/2 IS is great for me, I might even buy a second. Works for both Crop and FF. I'm looking at the 85 f/1.4 IS but it's so expensive. I might just settle for the 100mm f/2.8L IS but there are not a lot of reviews on this lens for video. Any thoughts? I know a slower 85 f/1.8 would be good for tripod but seems like a waste if I can't handhold. 

I guess everyone has a need for a fast zoom with IS. 24-70, 16-80. Anything really, but nothing seems to exist there right now. 

Ok, those are my lens complaints/questions. 

I'd wait until you have the camera and try everything out for a few shoots with it. That way, you'll really know what you need and what you don't.

I've heard the 24-70mm f2.8 VR Tamron is nice. Haven't tried it. I found the VR on their 17-50mm a little "sticky" though like it was locking on and jumping a bit. Or the 24-105mm might work for you after all if IS is important. But I find that I don't need IS when I have a cinema camera on a shoulder rig, or even when I use the EVF as a third point of contact, I need IS much less when the lens isn't too front-heavy. So I would try everything you have now and consider how the new ergonomics and low light improvement change your need for lenses, rather than buying everything at once.

Fwiw, the 100mm f2.8 IS is fantastic but imo not a material improvement over the 70-200mm imo unless you need macro specifically. Maybe at 8k or something it would be a little better, but the 70-200mm is already super sharp.

Gonna stop chiming in because I've already said just about all I know. Others will have more experience. I rarely shoot professionally anymore, so don't take my advice too seriously. I'm only back on the forum because I'm hoping to get back into shooting... just waiting for a price drop on the C200 lol. But my ideas are a bit old school; it was only recently I decided IS and AF for video wouldn't ruin everything completely... I still try to avoid them, which is probably stupid.

1 hour ago, BrunoLandMedia said:

You all have been great. One more question in regards to lenses. 

Ive seen a lot of talk of people using 24-105 f/4. Constant ap is Great but I thought f/4 was pretty slow still. Is it for the c100 or is the low light so good that f/4 can be as good as 2.8 on some dslrs?

my 70-200 2.8 and 35 f2 will be great but is there a go to zoom? 17-55 2.8? 24-105? Are those the only options? 

I have more experience with the Mk I than Mk II (a lot more) but the low light on the Mk I is outstanding and I understand it's much better on the Mk II (due to more in-camera NR). If you expose properly and boost your ISO rather than trying to underexpose and push the footage in post, which is a mess with AVCHD, you'll have a usable image up to 20,000 ISO and a great image up to 4000-5000 ISO. So I would say a massive improvement over a Canon dSLR, but still significantly worse than an A7S for low light (where I would consider an f4 zoom fast enough). The A7S is much cleaner at extreme ISOs but smudges color more so it's a bit subjective which is preferable in medium low light, but I think the A7S is pretty clearly the extreme low light king.

I think you could get by with the 24-105mm, but I never found the 24-105mm great (granted, I was using it on FF) and I find the 18-135mm USM with the rocker zoom a lot better for crop. Constant aperture is less of an advantage if there's no rocker zoom, AF is worse, and it's not parfocal, so I wouldn't dwell on the one-stop advantage on the long end. If you have access to the 18-135mm and to the 24-70mm f4 IS, you're more than good for slow zooms imo.

I had two 17-55mm f2.8 IS lenses, but sold both. They're very useful but a bit old, not optically up to the latest. We put one up against a $50k Angenieux zoom and the Angenieux was much much better, but by f4 it was close enough. I think the newer Canon zooms would compete better. But I still slightly preferred its image to the 24-105mm. The  24-70mm f2.8 is also good zoom range to complement the 70-200mm and adequately fast, but poor for small spaces and terrible for real estate; I used the version one on a C100 and I liked it, but it could have gone wider. For me the Sigma 18-35mm f1.8, a 50mm f1.8, and the 70-200 zoom make a great kit, but you have to be okay with swapping lenses. For documentary use or short form narrative I'd say that's an ideal kit, but for videography or news the 18-135mm Nano USM is far preferable. But imo the 24-105mm feels redundant with, and generally worse than, the superb 18-135mm Nano USM (I just sold one but I loved it while I had it, though I found the zoom rocker really cheap). 

If you have the money and don't need wide angle, the 24-70mm f2.8 Mk II is sick and might be the lens that spends the most time on your camera. Great image. Haven't used one myself but worked with someone who had one and was really impressed with the images and ergonomics. Can't vouch for the AF, though. Lack of IS is not a big deal with it since it doesn't go that long. I remember I rented out my 18-35mm Sigma as part of a kit and the DP refused to use it and went with the 24-70mm f2.8 II IS instead. I think the image is even better with the 24-70mm than with the Sigma, but both of those are outstanding lenses and the trade offs between them will depend on personal preference and brand loyalty. The Canon has better build quality, though, will last much longer imo.

I'd wait on a new lens until you're familiar with the camera. 

1 hour ago, webrunner5 said:

Well stated. I don't see enough real gain over the 80D, 6D mk II either to be honest. They both have DPAF, flippy screens, and 60p touch to focus. What is even the C100 mk II bringing to the table other than ND filters, and a bit sharper output?  And he is not going to need the ND filters for what I see he is shooting.

What lenses were you using with the C100? In my experience the output is dramatically sharper than any Canon dSLR, and sharper than downscaled 4k Red to 1080p or Alexa 1080p... (not as sharp as 3.2k or 4k when upscaled, though). Absolute night and day difference, same with dramatically better lack of aliasing, better color, incredible battery life, better low light (even than the 5D III raw, which is also much softer than the C100 with less DR) etc. Better sensor than the Red MX, imo, and a half stop better dynamic range, just a much worse codec. (Dragon sensor is another story–better than either except for low light.) I'm not trying to call your experience with it into question, but I'd make sure you were using good lens samples and exposing properly if you got those results since it's far from my experience with the camera. (And I've shot it extensively as a b camera next to the C300, F5, Red MX, BMCC, Amira, Alexa, new Varicam, etc. and a lot of that footage ended up on tv, including tier one cable and I think even Netflix, where it intercut seamlessly.)

While it's my absolute favorite camera for the money, I still basically agree that it's not going to offer much over the 80D for web shooters. Yes, you get a much much better image with far more dynamic range and better tonality, but for most clients, either image is good enough and for those clients who require something really good... most of them don't want AVCHD and do want timecode sync. And the external recorders are a PITA and the lack of timecode sync sucks. I had to use them then sync with plural eyes and I can't stand them and can't stand plural eyes, either. 

So I agree with your sentiment, but not your experience. I suspect the lenses you were using with the C100 were faulty (shoddy adapter resulting in incorrect focus marks or something) in some way if those were your experiences.

I do agree that the Mk II is too long in the tooth to command its current price, but I find the Mk 1 to be an absolute steal at $2k. Personally, I would look to the C200, except it lacks proper timecode sync, too, so maybe I'd look to the FS7, but by then you're getting a quite large camera and quite expensive. ?

Of course I disagree respectfully, just trying to offer my own experience. But I'm stumped re: your experience with sharpness and DR as it does not mirror my own at all. I also find the neutral NDs to be a godsend, even if the strongest one isn't strong enough. Never had any luck with ND faders (color shift and the cross polarization messes with skin specularity) and even IRNDs have color shift, so I'm a big fan of internal NDs. Same with the ergonomic improvements and video features (waveform monitor, focus peaking, etc.)–indispensable. 

But the EVF is unusable and lack of slow motion is very ten years ago. I agree there. I'm not saying it's the right camera for the OP, just that its sharpness is stellar and I didn't share any of your ergonomic complaints except the EVF.

I love the C100 Mk 1 and think it's a bargain, but...

Codec is too thin for tv. (usually not a problem for web but some clients may want a better codec if you're shooting for tv, better to get C300 or FS7)

No timecode sync. Deal killer for some.

No 60fps.

Terrible evf. LCD is not great, either.

No 4k (not a big deal for me but some clients demand it).

Highlight dynamic range worse than other cinema cameras (but as good as the best mirrorless cameras). On par with Red MX. Worse than F55 or Alexa or Varicam or Dragon.

I love the look and the 1080p is the sharpest I've seen (sharper in my experience than downsampled Red MX or Alexa!) and the ergonomics are great. I think the mk 1 is a steal. Definitely prefer the footage to AS7 and by a lot, though the A7S technically has a bit more DR and much better low light and 4k of course.

But as you can see from the responses here, not everyone who's used it loves it as much as I do. (I had low expectations but was very very impressed; others it seem weren't when they tried it.) So I'd rent and try it first since YMMV...

Personally I'm looking at the C200. Slow motion, 4k, 1 stop better highlight detail, better codec, etc. Waiting on a price drop but it might be a while... But seems worse for doc use in some ways. C300 Mk II seems like documentary king, or FS7 (or Amira if you're very rich).

I wouldn't get one used. I'd get the Mk 1 with DPAF new or save up for something else. The lack of 60p might be a real problem, and the Mk II doesn't seem like a great deal, so I wouldn't buy one without trying it out first (just imo).

But imo it's perfect for your needs if you don't need slow motion. 

46 minutes ago, mercer said:

Oh yeah, I’ve never used them so I forgot they existed. Good idea. 

They aren't as good as lights would be and if you use a heavy grade they look a bit like a Tony Scott movie (which can be really good if you want that look), but I find a 2 stop soft grad can really help with challenging exposures. Of course it doesn't help if you're doing a big tilt or something or have a very uneven horizon.

40 minutes ago, mercer said:

Those shots are so hard to expose. So you have no choice but to let the sky blow out. Pro DPs would light those trees, but I know I don’t have those kind of resources.

But we can afford ND grads, which aren't perfect but can do a pretty good job.

1 hour ago, Gregormannschaft said:

The C200 is strange in that manner. You're recording a CLOG2 signal, and yet, you can only monitor in CLOG3. Very odd. I've read CLOG2 should really be exposed around 2 stops over, whereas CLOG3 is around 1 stop over. The extra stops of dynamic range of CLOG2 is in the shadows, but from what I've read, and seen, there's a lot of noise down there. 

I'll have to wander out and do another test, as I'm pretty sure, despite trying to expose for the grey card, I was underexposing the whole time. 

Oh, and the monitor (the viewable screen space) is exactly 5cm X 9cm.

It looks very underexposed to me but I wasn't there. And I haven't seen the ungraded image so I can't say. I found my light meter correlates pretty well with the C100 and C300's internal meters in Canon Log 1, and produces results similar to what Canon's white papers would predict, but that does result in a significantly darker image than most people shoot, and I wasn't very scientific about things at all. Pro DPs have informed me my meter (758 cine) might as well be junk, and the pros either use Pentax digital spot meters or Spectras.

Regardless, it matched pretty well, but I found myself underexposing significantly more than online sample footage.

Looking at Canon's white papers:

https://learn.usa.canon.com/app/pdfs/white_papers/White_Paper_Clog_optoelectronic.pdf (page 6)

The original C300 has a 5.3/6.7 over/under at base ISO (850) in Canon Log. So 5.3 stops in the highlights, 6.7 in the shadows.

The C300 Mk II (and C200, presumably) has an over/under of 6.3/8.7 in Canon Log 2 (at ISO 800):

So it gains a stop in the highlights, and gains two stops in the shadows. Not sure I buy it. The C300 seemed to have 12 stops for real, but the C200 doesn't seem to have 15 stops for real...

Arri Log has a 7.4/6.6 over/under, at 800 ISO on the Alexa Classic:

I don't trust that either. The Alexa Mini in my experience has FAR more highlight and shadow detail than that would indicate, and Arri's newer charts show 7.8 stops over at 800 ISO (and internally but not publicly Arri rate the Alexa Mini's sensor at 15+ stops, not 14+ stops–even 15+ seems conservative to me.) I'd guess 7.8/8+ for the Alexa Mini based on my experience with it, and with a more aesthetically clean noise pattern than the C200. That said, the Alexa has very noisy shadows, much like the C200, and much noisier than non-cinema cameras with noise reduction or highly compressed codecs like dSLRs, and possibly noisier than would be acceptable to most on this forum, especially at 3200K.

Based on what I've seen online (tests at CML), the C200 at base appears to have 1.5 stops less highlight detail than the Alexa Mini at base, but shadow detail is similar, which correlates with the numbers above. And based on my own experience shooting with the Alexa Classic and C300, this seems pretty consistent with that.

What I'm getting at, is when you rate the C200 two stops slower to get cleaner shadows, you might get more shadow detail but you're moving your over/under to 4.3/10.7. That's 3.5 stops less highlight detail than the Alexa Mini, which is the gold standard, and which still has far less highlight detail than 5219.

I know this is all complicated/unscientific since I'm trying to dig up random figures online from sources that get them in different ways and I also think Arri is super conservative on their shadow detail numbers, so I'm throwing my own bias into it. But for me, a 4.3 over seems about accurate for the C200 overexposed two stops or shot at 200 ISO and for me it's unacceptable. I know there are DPs who can light their way around this limitation, and many on this board do all the time, but I'm not one of them. I mostly work in post, for me this is hard!

I think it's also a matter of taste. Online, it seems there's a big aversion to digital noise. Whereas with film, grain was an aesthetic choice, and it doesn't really bother me, and it seems to be less of a concern on the tv shows and features I've worked on because those are being viewed in theaters or on tv, not being pixel-peeped. I'm a bit old school and come from a film background so for me I would probably just rate at 800 ISO or 640 ISO rather than ETTR, and embrace the noisy shadows, while realizing the C200's image is too noisy for most at base ISO. And definitely noisier than I wish it were.

Pick your poison I guess. For me, I'll take highlight detail over clean shadows, and I can't think of anything else other than the EVA1 maybe that would work for me.

That said, what you posted looks much more underexposed than I'd expect. I wish my meter were better calibrated and my lenses had t-stops rather than f-stops so I could investigate this myself in a way that might be useful to others, but I don't want to spread any misinformation online if I can avoid it. So while I plan to get my hands on a C200 and see how it works when I meter it with my 758cine, I'd rather not draw conclusions for others based on that experience, as I am biased and my equipment improperly calibrated for meaningful tests.

But you've inspired me to run my own tests to figure out how I'll meter in the future, since it's all internally consistent within my inconsistent ecosystem at least.  

Thanks for the measurements on the screen. Looks like the Kinotehnik loupes will be a bit too small.  The Hoodman loupes are much worse but their 4" riser might work and still be cheap.

55 minutes ago, Gregormannschaft said:

Cheers for the input, I'll measure the C200 monitor in an hour or so and post results back here. 

On the exposure, I used a pop up 18% grey card and used the waveform monitor + spot feature of the camera – it basically highlights an object you select on the waveform monitor, which in this case was the grey card. I've found it to be really useful but felt like I was underexposing most images from the other night. I was being careful not to clip highlights with zebras at 100%, but feel like that was really throwing my shadows under the bus.

I've looked around and there are a bunch of great tests done by Clockroom Media and they reckon that 5000 ISO is the max ISO you'd want to shoot at with the camera – so I was probably underestimating the camera. Although they did an interview shot at 32,000 and used Neat Video to produce great results.

Either way, haven't shot much CLOG and feel like I'm still very much learning it's limitations.

Thanks, very interesting. In theory that should work almost exactly as an incident meter would (though with the limitation that whatever's facing the camera is lit by whatever source is hitting it frontally, so a bit trickier to meter for some lighting set ups that aren't front-lit, but if anything that would likely promote overexposure).

Are there zebras or false color for RAW clipping or just for CLOG3? I supposed the clipping point might overlap, so maybe either way would work. I wouldn't need a spot meter at all if I had false color, but I'm not talented enough to light without an incident meter.

I would personally expect a much brighter image than what you posted if the footage were exposed with an incident meter at key (or a gray card at key, same result), so perhaps overexposing a bit is a good idea. I do remember from my days shooting slide film I'd try to get the darkest part of the sky at 18% gray to get a vivid sunset, in which case everything else would be a black silhouette in lighting similar to what you posted. But I also noticed with the Sony F5 that 2000 ISO base was really more like 1000-1200 ISO and if you exposed that way you had a ton of DR, double what slide film had at least; the A7S also benefits from a stop or two pull (imo). I'm not a big ETTR fan because I think it changes the color of some objects and can cause banding with some codecs, but it does seem like a good idea with digital cameras to overexpose a bit, and the more experienced members of this forum all advocate ETTR.

5000 ISO maximum would be similar to the C500. I do think the C200 appears to have very noisy shadows, likely noisier than the C500 and certainly with a different (imo worse) texture.

Can someone who owns a C200 measure the diagonal (or the length and width) of the image on the LCD?

The screen is 4" but it looks like the viewable area is smaller. Just wondering if I can get away with using an old loupe and maybe cutting off a few pixels, rather than buying the $600 Zacuto.

53 minutes ago, mercer said:

How and when did ISO 1600 become a limitation in any cinema camera?

What lens did you use? With Raw, you need a fast lens for so many shots. I’ve ended up shooting mostly with one or two fast primes just in case I am shooting a high contrast scene with a lot of shadows... or shooting way into magic hour like this shot. 

YMMV. While I wouldn't rate the Alexa over 1600 ISO (or the Red MX or Dragon over 800 ISO without noise reduction), I once saw a DP shoot with the Alexa at 1600-3200 ISO to get an intentional "film grain" effect and it looked really good. But he was using a ton of light to be fair (about a dozen HMIs, including a 12k). Furthermore, the C500 was the best low light cinema camera of its generation, useable up to 3200-4000 ISO, and for those of us who can't afford to rent super speed lenses, the extra stop matters even more. So I could see 1600 ISO being a limitation for some lower-budget DPs, and for some documentary use, and a disappointment for those who are shooting doc or need the extra stop to carry a lower budget further and who are used to the C500.

But I think the better question is total light available, not ISO. Because we're assuming perfect metering.

For instance, this video looks fine up to 25,600 ISO:

https://vimeo.com/220223129

But if there were NDs to keep the exposure consistent, it would look terrible at 25,600 ISO.

The above screen grab at sunset has massive scene dynamic range, and will challenge any sensor that's noisy in the shadows. I think that's a limitation of the camera's dynamic range more than a limitation of low light.

@Gregormannschaft, you mention placing 18% gray at 38 IRE, but what part of the image above did you meter at 18% gray? I'm assuming you used an external light meter, but did you use a spot meter or an incident meter? If you used a spot meter, which area did you meter at 18% gray? If incident, how many stops underexposed is the shot? The sky looks significantly brighter than 18% typically would, though who can guess after post-processing, and the foreground looks much much darker. If I'm exposing with a spot meter (which I usually reserve for slide film, I use an incident meter for video since I'm a bit of a hack), I typically expose the darkest part of blue sky, dark grass, lighter than average bark, or red brick walls around 18% gray, since those values are typically fairly similar to a gray card. In the image you've posted, the sky seems a bit overexposed and the foreground/shadows very very underexposed. I'd consider than an issue with dynamic range more than low light. But I agree the shadows are noisy, and also agree that if you're forced to shoot in such poor light, that's about the best exposure you can expect but something like the Alexa would serve you better.

15 hours ago, Gregormannschaft said:

Stoked to have bought the camera last week. Everything brand new in the box for around 5,500€ which I feel was a pretty good price. Bought a couple of Komputerbay CFAST cards which seem to be working out well so far. I've heard they can be hit and miss but didn't feel like paying 2x that price for the Sandisk.

The camera is a dream to operate, but I'm kind of surprised how tricky it is to shoot RAW at first. My first tests had a ton of noise, and the post-production workflow in FCPX makes things a little complicated by automatically applying a Canon CLOG 2 viewing LUT. Started grading the RAW footage first and then applying a standard Alexa Log LUT from IMPULZ and have been seeing some great results. The 4K 10bit 60fps is really beautiful and produces really smooth, rich results. Will be testing it out over the coming fortnight and will hopefully edit something together to show some results.

Oh, one thing. FCPX is magic. I'm on a maxed out 2014 Macbook Pro (yes, 2014) and I can smoothly playback and grade the RAW before transcoding. Which is insane. After creating proxies and throwing a little more footage on the timeline I've had hardly any issues at all.

Also, if anyone has used the C200 and the Sigma 18-35, could they share their experiences? I'm looking into grabbing that but not sure how it would be to operate handheld without lens IS. 

Where'd you get such a good price? $6k US is about my cutoff so I would have jumped on that, too.

And Jeez... I might switch to FCPX. How good is its integration with After Effects and Resolve? I don't use dynamic link (I export to After Effects manually) so dynamic link isn't an advantage to me, but I'd want to be able to render out/export 4k 444 ProRes in Canon Log 2 without a LUT and then ingest that into a timeline that's otherwise raw light and edit online in raw light. Amazed to hear it's real time on an older machine... maybe I won't need to upgrade after all.  

Then again I don't even really need 4k, but the extra highlight dynamic range on this and 60p seem nice...

Or how is the online/offline workflow in FCPX?

I've used the 18-35mm on a C100 and a C300 and I noticed that, compared with the 17-55mm f2.8 IS (of which I think I had two copies) the image is shakier when using the viewfinder, and significantly. But if you rig up a shoulder rig (I love the Shape offset rig, not the standard one, but the offset one, though you need a loupe for the viewfinder imo) and balance it okay.... I think the 18-35mm is great handheld and even lenses up to 135mm are fine without IS. Most ops I know prefer not to use any IS at all and instead rely on shoulder rigs, but I have to admit the 55-250mm STM for instance is magic and rarely glitches out or misbehaves enough to ruin a shot, while being stable enough to use without any rig at all (not the case without IS).

5 hours ago, Z_Cunningham said:

Thanks, 

No, I wasn't the DP. My homie Jeremy Brockman was the DP (Instagram @brockfeb). We shot entirely at 800 but either exposed right on the nose or underexposed about quarter to a half stop give or take. He definitely intended to do that. After production he did say that when he looked back at the raw stills (since raw has no noise reduction) that he probably would've tweaked that in some shots. 

Also, our colorist said that he made the right choice because the highlights can clips pretty harshly on this camera even when shooting raw. I asked him how many stops of dynamic range he thought the camera had, and he said probably around 12. 

Thanks. I like how the skin tones look. 

48 minutes ago, Z_Cunningham said:

Thanks! Here are some of the ungraded tiffs. 

REEL_A006.00_01_21_22.Still002.tif

REEL_A011.00_18_57_03.Still014.tif

REEL_A014.00_00_41_23.Still002.tif

Nice work.

Were you also the DP? I noticed these are very noisy, but that's not a surprise with a Canon. 

They seem to be exposed traditionally, as film would usually be exposed, rather than exposed to the right as digital often is. The most experienced shooters on this forum usually prefer ETTR with digital (and it's proven to work well with the Red Dragon, which is also very noisy), but I'm stuck in my old ways.

I was curious how you or your DP exposed these. What ISO in camera, what ISO he rated the camera at. 800/800? Exposed through the camera's meter? Or with an incident meter (generally how I still work)? They look good, but are also exposed differently from most C200 clips I've seen, which usually look overexposed, so I wanted to ask. Thanks.

Just waiting on a price drop and I think I'm going to buy one of these cameras. 

6 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

The real villian is Mike Cernovich.

Charged for (real-life) rape in 2003... The year of his marriage.

Nice guy.

Divorced 2011, and he claims the marriage was ruined by "feminist indoctrination".

Regular collaborator with Alex Jones.

Claims "white genocide is real" in relation to South Africa.

Thinks the chemical attack in Syria was a hoax funded by the US.

Advocates IQ-testing for all immigrants.

Has full support of Disney

Disney is a corporation. If they think it'll help their shareholders to fire someone with negative PR, they're compelled to fire someone with negative PR. Guardians of the Galaxy is a kids' movie and they don't want edgy content associated with that brand. How could they not fire Gunn?

YouTube is a corporation. If they think it'll help their shareholders to "shadowban" neonazis, they're compelled to "shadowban" neonazis. YouTube is an advertising company and they don't want advertisers associated with neonazis. How could they not demonetize holocaust denial videos?

(I'm not drawing any equivalency between the two, just examining two distinct and understandable phenomena that are eliciting similar outrage from opposite ends of the political spectrum.)

The govt protects free speech in the US, but Disney and YouTube/Google have no duty whatsoever to protect what their vendors say or do. They're private corporations. It's Disney and Google's free speech being protected when they're allowed to jettison whomever they want at a moment's notice. This is the system working well.

Imo (and this is purely subjective because a lot of people are very happy with the direction the country's taking) what's broken is the culture. It's the culture that gets politicians elected and it's the culture that dictates what's considered a fireable offense in a corporate environment. It's the culture that leads to most YouTube personalities being trolls and sociopaths in the first place (which is maybe why Alex Jones doesn't even seem that bad as online content goes), and why more and more politicians and political surrogates are taking similar tactics. It's the culture that leads to CNN broadcasting 24/7 negative Trump coverage. That's what gets ratings. Ratings make money. (Trump at least understands this.) It's the culture that leads Colbert's ratings to go way up when he starts viciously attacking the right. It's the culture that feeds Alex Jones millions when he starts demonizing the left.

The political and corporate machines are functioning. (I have some strong complaints here but unrelated to that article and specifically relating to policy.) Culture isn't. The solution isn't complaining about the "other side" from one side of the aisle; they're doing the same thing about you from their own echo chamber. It's the same mechanics at play that lead to stupid arguments about gear, ironically. Sony echo chamber. Canon echo chamber... with very few movies being made by those whose primary medium is online outrage...

The solution isn't complaining about what's wrong; it's doing what's right. If enough people want to actually boycott Marvel that Disney is forced to re-hire James Gunn, maybe they'll re-hire James Gunn. But until that number of people is larger than the number of people who are grossed out by his comments, they will have made the right choice as a private corporation in firing him and the govt will have maintained the right choice in protecting Disney's right to fire him.

Fwiw, I do think we're at a cultural nadir. Most blockbusters are terrible. This wasn't true 15 years ago. But it's up to the market to determine what gets made and what doesn't. Who gets fired and who doesn't. Disney fired Gunn because they were afraid to offend people (on the right). That alienates some filmmakers and some progressives. PC culture exists to prevent offending people (on the left). That alienates some conservatives. It's a fear of being offended that's driving this cultural divide. Free speech is not under attack on either side; our threshold for offense is just pathetically weak. That's the scary part: we actually do have the power to fix things and we aren't. 

I personally disagree with Disney's actions. I don't blame Disney... it's making them money.

I personally disagree even more strongly with Cernovich. I do blame him for his rhetoric, while also understanding it's making him a ton of money, too. But everything he's said and done (except for any criminal charges against him, I haven't researched those) are within his right to say and to do. And demonizing him for his politics is just going to have the same kind divisive and polarizing result criticizing Gunn's tweets will... it will feed him. Same as the Russia investigation is increasing loyalty among Trump supporters because it makes him look like a victim of the "deep state" or whatever. The other side isn't the problem. The divide between us is.

On 7/16/2018 at 12:48 PM, wolf33d said:

Also worth mentioning, the new MBP are really fast. The high end model as better single core CPU performance than the best IMAC PRO. 
The overall performance jump both in CPU and GPU vs 2017 models is enormous. 

How big a jump is there from the Radeon 460 to Radeon 560X? 

I'd love to sell my gaming PC and just have one laptop. I bought the gaming PC to have entry-level VR specs (RX 480) but with asynchronous timewarp it's possible the 560X could hang, even though I assume it's at best about half as fast.