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As the owner of a Canon 700D, I'd suggest that it would barely be 720p! But it certainly is a nice example of what can be done with enough skill....

Hahaha.. I think that this is regarded as a bit of an outlier in terms of the demand placed on the colourist and post-production, but yes, being a professional colourist isn't top of my career choices either! I'm less familiar with the inner workings of how Steve works in post, although I get the impression that although he has very specific requirements, he's also much more hands on during that process, so it's less of a case of making specific requests of others, but once again, I haven't seen anything one way or the other. @noone I watched a great panel discussion between a few industry pros (I just had a look for it and unfortunately can't find it) debating resolution, and the pattern was completely obvious. The cinematographers wanted to shoot 2K, or as close to it as possible, because it makes their life easier and the films are all mastered in 2K anyway. The post-production reps wanted as much resolution as possible (8K or even more if possible) because it's really useful for tracking and VFX work, which they said is now pretty much a fixture of all productions these days. So in that sense, I think it's just about what kind of production you're shooting, and once again, being aware of what you're trying to accomplish and then using the right tools for the job. You can't make comparisons, discuss, criticise, or even comment on something you haven't watched. As someone who HAS watched it, more than once actually, I found that it worked methodically, building the logic one step at a time, taking the viewer through quite a complex analysis. I found it engaging and was surprised that it didn't seem to drag, and found that it covered all the variables, including all the nuance of various post-production image pipelines, including the upscaling downscaling and processing of VFX pipelines. Your criticisms are of things he didn't say. That's called a straw man argument - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man I'm not surprised that the criticisms you're raising aren't valid, as you've displayed a lack of critical thinking on many occasions, but what I am wondering is how you think you can criticise something you haven't watched? The only thing I can think of is that you don't understand how logic, or logical discourse actually works, which unfortunately makes having a reasonable discussion impossible. This whole thread is about a couple of videos that John has posted, and yet you're in here arguing with people about what is in them when you haven't watched them, let alone understood them. I find it baffling, but sadly, not out of character.

Any camera is a good camera if it fulfils your purpose. I think we get into trouble when either 1) people don't actually understand what impacts the end result (and therefore rely on rules of thumb that are often not true) or 2) people don't understand that your needs or goals or priorities aren't the same as theirs (and therefore just tell you that you should do X, and/or that you're wrong for choosing something other than their suggestion).

That makes sense. I'm always curious what people are seeing, what they're paying attention to, and what they prioritise. Much can be learned by understanding how other people see the world. I think you're right in that under more forgiving situations the differences between cameras are much less. I think it's unfortunate that most professionals shoot in controlled situations and demand high-quality outputs, so when you say that you're an amateur they assume you're still shooting in controlled conditions but expect a lower-quality output and therefore your camera demands are less, when actually it's the case that we're often shooting in uncontrolled situations so our requirements are (in some cases) actually more than for their shoots.

It looks quite interesting actually, if you're willing to shoot 1080p. I think in 1080p, you get: Internal RAW in 8/10/12 bit Downscaling from 8K Digital cropping from 1.0 to 5.0 which are all downscaled from the 8K That could mean you could make a tiny portable/pocketable setup, for example if you chose a 20mm lens you could use it like a 20-100mm. Could be interesting for tiny covert setups. I've been compiling a chart of DR tests and the FP seems like the cheapest and smallest way to get a high-DR camera.

Interesting observation. I'm curious what image characteristics you prefer from the Micro over the A7S3? I watched Potatojets video on the FX3 and was particularly impressed by the DR and handling of highlights in the sunset scene where he was backlit and had the sun in shot: Is that something to do with the S-Cinetone profile perhaps? I don't really speak "Sony" so not too sure if that contributes to this look? When I compare the Micro to the GH5 the things that I really feel stands out on the Micro is the DR and the lack of digital sharpness, which just make everything feel like a Hollywood film straight-out-of-camera. I've done comparisons where I shoot the same scene with both cameras and match the colours in post, but it's a pretty arduous task and would be pretty difficult to do unless I had shot every scene with the Micro, which kind of defeats the purpose! Anyway, back to the A7S3 image, it seems to be quite reminiscent of the Micro, at least compared to the GH5 anyway(!) so I'm curious what you're seeing.

Well, that went about as I predicted. In fact it went exactly as I predicted! I said: Then Tupp said that he didn't watch it, criticised it for doing things that it didn't actually do, then suggests that the testing methodology is false. What an idiot. Is there a block button? I think I might go look for it. I think my faith in humanity is being impacted by his uninformed drivel. I guess not everyone in the industry cares about how they appear online - I typically found the pros I've spoken to to be considered and only spoke from genuine knowledge, but that's definitely not the case here. There's irony everywhere, but I'm not sure what you're talking about specifically! 🙂 I'm not really sure who you think Steve Yedlin actually is? You're aware that he is a professional cinematographer right? I'd suggest you read his articles on colour science and image attributes - they speak to both what he's trying to achieve and you can get a sense of why he does what he does: http://www.yedlin.net/OnColorScience/index.html I agree, but I think it's worth stating a couple of caveats. Firstly, he shoots large productions that have time to be heavily processed in post, which obviously he does quite a bit of. Here's a video talking about the post-production process on Mindhunter, which also used heavy processing in post to create a look from a relatively neutral capture: That should give you a sense of how arduous that kind of thing can be. Which I think makes processing in post a luxury for most film-makers. Either you're shooting a project where people aren't being paid by the hour, such as a feature where you're doing most of the work in post yourself. This is a luxury because you will be able to spend more time than is economical for the project. Film-makers who don't have the expertise themselves and would have to pay someone, or more likely they would just try and get things right in-camera, and do whatever they can afford in post. The second aspect of this is knowing what you can do in post and what you can't do. Obviously you can adjust colour, and you can degrade certain elements as well, but we're a long way off being able to change the shape of bokeh, or alter depth of field, or completely perfectly emulate diffusion. So it's important to understand what you can and cannot do in post (both from a resourcing / skills perspective as well as from a physics perspective) and take that into account during pre-production. I completely agree with this. It certainly eliminates great proportions of the people online though. I suspect that the main contributor to this is that most people online are being heavily influenced by amateur stills photographers who seem to think that sharpness is the most important image attribute in a camera or lens. I think this tendency is a reaction to the fact that images from the film days struggled with sharpness (due to both the stocks and lenses), and also early digital struggled due to the relatively low number of MP at the start as well. I think this will eventually fade as the community gets a more balanced perspective. The film industry, on the other hand, still talks about sharpness but does so in a more balanced perspective, and does so in the context of balancing it against other factors to get the overall aesthetic they want, taking into account the post-process they're designing and the fact that distribution is limited to a ~2K perceptual resolution.

I've posted them quite a few times, but it seems like people aren't interested. They don't follow the links or read the content, and after repeating myths that Steve easily demonstrates to be false, the people go back to talking about if 6K is enough resolution to film a wedding or a CEO talking about quarterly returns, or if they should get the UMP 12K. I mentioned this in another thread recently, but it's been over a decade since the Alexa was first released and we have cameras that shoot RAW in 4, 9, and 16 times the resolution of the Alexa, but the Alexa still has obviously superior image quality, so I really wonder what the hell it is that we're even talking about here....

There was a recent reaction video that @Tito Ferradans posted, reacting to a video about anamorphic lenses that was published on another YT channel. Apart from fact-checking the other video, almost to death considering that it got a lot of information wrong about anamorphic lenses, Tito also mentioned that the other video had used shots from his video without permission, and that he went through the process to have it taken down as they used his content without his permission. So I think you're meant to get permission, regardless of the circumstances, and if you don't then you leave yourself open to take-down requests. I've heard instances where people had their own content taken-down by other people who claimed their content as their own, and the mechanisms seemed to be skewed towards taking the content down, instead of leaving it up by default. Also, considering I mentioned Tito and anamorphics, go watch his channel - it's awesome! https://www.youtube.com/user/tferradans

I think you make excellent points but disagree with this part of your post, as I think we've been concentrating on the wrong things in camera development. Specifically, we have way more pixels than we need, which you mentioned, but the missing link is dynamic range, which is still very immature in terms of development. Almost everyone can compare an Alexa frame with a sub$2500 digital camera frame on a big TV and see why the Alexa costs more. Under certain controlled situations this difference can be managed and the cheaper camera can come a lot closer, but in uncontrolled lighting and high DR situations it's quite obvious. This comparison still holds if you compare those images on a laptop screen, and even a phone screen in some situations. The fact that the Alexa looks better on a 2.5K laptop display, or a 720p phone screen, means that the image quality cannot be about resolution, as the resolution advantage of the cheaper camera will be eliminated by the downscaled image. What is left is colour science and dynamic range. We should be taking these 8K sensors, putting on the OLPF from a 4K sensor, and sending every fourth pixel to a different ADC pipeline with differing levels of gain, which are then digitally combined to get a very high dynamic range 4K image. The Alexa was released over 10 years ago, shot 2K, and had a dual-gain architecture. Here we are over a decade later and we have cameras that have 16 times as many pixels, but still don't match the DR, and still don't look as good. The real "progress" that has been achieved by the manufacturers is convincing people to buy more pixels despite the fact that they really wanted better pixels.

Netflix buys non-4K stuff often, and even the stuff they commission is frequently shot on <4K cameras, including 2K Alexas. Think about image quality not pixel quantity. To paraphrase a quote from another industry: "If the pixels are sh*t, why would I be happy that there are 4 times more of them?".

lol pretty much covers it... of course, people around here might disagree - I asked the question and people thought that the sensors all look the same and you can use basically any camera to get any look: I went back to editing some BMMCC footage and just shook my head.

The reason I bring up which controls is that I've heard that controls are designed to work in a colour space (for example, LGG in rec709) so they won't scale things correctly. After a conversion to Linear, often the values are almost completely clipped, so I'm not sure what a control that's only meant to adjust things that are under (or close to) 100 IRE would do. I guess it's just a matter of knowing its an unknown and trying things if it doesn't look right. I've definitely struggled with doing WB in post on non-RAW footage before, so it's useful to me to learn more and to hear that BM is working on improving it. I just went back and found the reference to the WB mention in R17, and maybe I'm remembering it wrong, because maybe it's not more in-line with perception rather than just being purely mathematical, which is the next level again. Perhaps they operate in XYZ colour space, or something similar? Anyway, it's great that the ZCam OSX does the heavy lifting for you. I keep hearing great things about Zcam from professional users, and it seems like they might be on track to grow and really mature as a brand and product lineup.

And thus, ironically, making those cameras no longer cheap!

But whatever you do, just don't let Jessica Biel on set....

I haven't heard this talked about much, so a couple of follow-ups if I may: In Resolve, if someone does a CST to Linear, then adjusts WB, then CST back from Linear, which tool should be used for that WB adjustment? I'm guessing it should be Offset? The tools in Resolve all work in different gamma curves so I'm curious which one will work properly in Linear In Resolve 17, they have changed the way the Temp and Tint sliders work so they now work correctly. I saw this mentioned in passing in the middle of a colourists video, but the release notes don't say what they did, or why it's now correct, and no-one seems to be talking about it. The colourist suggested that they used to be wrong and created artefacts, and it sounded like they might now work in Linear without you having to do it manually. Any ideas?

In addition to what @mercer said, you should also get a few action cameras, put them in their waterproof housings, mount one as a helmet cam, one has a chest cam, and maybe one somewhere else, then just have everyone go nuts in shooting and run through the middle going from hiding place to hiding place. Film that in 120p and you'll have lots of close, slow-mo, wide angle "it feels like you're in the middle of it", shaky action footage. Shots like that can be great in the edit.

When protecting from impact damage, the goals are to spread out the impact force over time, and over a larger area. This is why cars now have "crumple zones" and airbags. Spreading it out over time means having thicker padding, and over a larger area also kind of comes with the thicker padding, but could also be done via some sections of thick cardboard placed over any particularly sensitive areas. Considering that weight is a consideration, either for the gimbal or just you having to carry it, I'd suggest some lightweight foam, with some thick cardboard over any more sensitive areas (like maybe the rear screen, etc) and put it all in the rain cover which will protect from any paint being splattered or dripping into the camera.

After deep reflection, I've concluded that I want my lenses to weigh almost nothing, and yet have diameters like saucers and be almost 100% full-by-volume with bulbous glass elements. If anyone has seen that then please let me know immediately.

I suspect a few things: People in quarantine taking up new hobbies and wanting a "cheaper older camera" People in quarantine / not able to travel getting nostalgic for older equipment they sold or used to lust after People who ravenously upgraded because of specs have discovered that quantity of pixels isn't a substitute for quality of pixels and are upgrading to older cameras

I went out and shot with it and missed focus on quite a few shots. The 4X digital zoom is ok for focusing, but the controls are a bit stiff in places and it's quite sensitive. I'm thinking I'll have to fabricate some a much longer pin / arm for the focus control to give me more leverage and fine control. Definitely more to come.

Thanks. I'm not sure how brave I'd be with a newer and more expensive action camera.. the fact this would be cheap to replace is what makes me feel ok to take these risks.

To that end, here's the explanation about resolution vs bit-depth. You can downscale a higher-resolution image to a lower resolution and get some/all of the benefits associated with an increased bit-depth, but only in certain circumstances. The critical factor is the noise / detail in the image. If there is a decent amount of noise then this technique works, but if there isn't any noise or detail then it won't work. You also need to be aware that this detail or noise has to be present at the point where the downsample happens. For example, if you are downsampling in post, perhaps by putting 4K files on a 1080 timeline, then the detail and noise needs to be present in the files coming out of the camera. Therefore, any noise-reduction that happens in camera will limit or eliminate this effect. Any flattening of areas of the image due to compression will limit or eliminate this effect. This is why banding in skies or banding in out-of-focus areas is not fixed by this process, and needs to be captured in 10-bit or higher in the first place. It matters for each pixel in the image and what the surrounding pixels are doing, so you might get varying levels of this effect in different parts of the same frame, depending on the values of that group of pixels. This is one of the reasons why RAW is so good, it gives a really good bit-depth (which is colour depth!) and it also doesn't eliminate the noise in the image, which can benefit the processing in post even further. Some examples: If you're shooting something with a lot of detail or texture, and it is sharply in-focus, then the variation in colour between adjacent pixels will enable this effect. For example, skin tones sharply in focus can get this benefit. If there is noise in the image above a certain amount then everything that has this level of noise will benefit, such as out-of-focus areas and skies etc. Skies from a camera with a poor bitrate and/or noise reduction will not be saved by this method. Skin-tones from a camera with a poor bitrate and/or noise reduction will not be saved by this method either. Details that are out-of-focu from a camera with a poor bitrate and/or noise reduction will not be saved by this method. This is why I really shake my head when I see all the Sony 4K 8-bit 100Mbps S-Log cameras. 100Mbps is a very low bitrate for 4K (for comparison 4K Prores HQ is 707Mbps and even 1080p Prores HQ is 176Mbps - almost double for quarter the pixels!) and combined with the 8-bit, the very low contrast S-Log curves, and the low-noise of Sony cameras it really means they're susceptible to banding and 8-bit artefacts which will not be saved by this method. What can you do to improve this, if for example you are buying a budget 8-bit camera with 4K so that you can get better 1080p images? Well, beyond making sure you're choosing the highest bit-rate and bit-depth the camera offers, then assuming the camera has manual settings, you can try and use a higher ISO. Seriously. Find something where there is some smooth colour gradients, a blue sky does great, or even inside if you point a light at a wall then the wall will have a gradual falloff away from the light, then shoot the same exposure across all the ISO settings available. You may need to expose using SS for this test, which is fine. If the walls are too busy, set the lens to be as out-of-focus as possible and set to the largest aperture to get the biggest blurs. Blurs are smooth graduations. Then bring the files into post, put them onto the lower resolution timeline and compare the smoothness of the blurs and any colour banding. Maybe your camera will be fine at base ISO, which is great, but maybe you have to raise it up some, but it should at some point get noisy enough to eliminate the banding. If you've eliminated the banding then it will mean that the bit-depth increase will work in all situations as banding is the hardest artefact to eliminate with this method. Be aware that by raising the ISO you're probably also lowering DR and lowering colour performance, so it's definitely a trade-off. Hopefully that's useful, and hopefully it's now obvious why "4K has more colour depth" is a misleading oversimplification.

I'm sensing things here too, but it's not irony. Ah, now we've changed the game. You're saying that the resulting downscaled image will have the same reduced colour depth as the original image. This is not what you have been saying up until this point. You said that "4K has 4 times the color depth (and 4 times the bit rate) of full HD" which implies that I can film a 4K 8-bit image and get greater colour depth than FHD 8-bit, but now you're saying that the resulting downscale to FHD will have the same limitations to colour depth, which completely disagrees with your original statement. Correct. Which is why "4K has 4 times the color depth (and 4 times the bit rate) of full HD" is a fundamentally incorrect statement. I shoot with 8-bit, I get colour banding. I shoot with 10-bit, I don't get colour banding. Seems like it has everything to do with the colour depth of the resulting image. Please provide links to any articles or definitions (or anything at all) that talks about how colour depth is different to bit depth, because I have looked and I can't find a single reference where someone has made the distinction except you, who it seems suspiciously like you're changing the definition just to avoid being called out for posting BS online. Then explain it simply. I have asked you lots of times to do so. The really sad thing is that there is some basis to this (and thus why Andrew and others have reported on it) and there are some situations where downscaling does in fact have a similar effect to having shot in an increased bit-depth, but you are not explaining how to tell when these situations are and when they are not likely. Making assertions that resolution can increase bit-depth but then saying that banding will still occur is simply disagreeing with yourself. For those having to read this, firstly, I'm sorry that discussions like this happen and that it is so difficult to call someone out on them posting BS misleading generic statements. The reason I do this is because as I've learned more about film-making and the tech behind it, the more I've realised that so many of the things people say on forums like these is just factually incorrect. This would be fine, and I'm not someone who is fact-checking 4chan or anything, but people make decisions and spend their limited funds on the basis of BS like this, so I feel that we should do our best to call it out when we see it, so that people are better off, rather than worse off after reading these things.

You're really not getting this.... Let's revisit your original statement: So, if 4K has 4 times the colour depth, then downscaled to FHD it should be equivalent to FHD 10-bit. When I shoot a 4K 8-bit image and get banding in it, and downscale it to FHD, why does the banding remain? If I took the same shot in FHD 10-bit, there is no banding, so why doesn't the banding get eliminated like you've claimed in your original statement?