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Cool showreel, some nice shots in there. I'd suggest uploading it in 4K - the 1080p upload had glitches and stuff that I think are YT compression artefacts.

Ok. Andrew (who owns the forums) prefers that if people post links and videos that they also include other information as well, so that the forum is a place of discussions rather than just everyones bookmarks. What was it about this project that inspired you? How is this relevant to how you (or others here) might work? What things can we all learn from it?

Welcome to the forums! After almost a decade of trying to wrap my head around gammas, colour spaces, colour management, and Resolve, I think I am finally coming out the "other side" and have a semi-clear understanding on things. As you are starting out, I'd suggest the following: The overriding principle is "if it looks good, it is good". If you're getting good results then (to a reasonable extent) it doesn't matter how you did it. If you just want good results and whatever you did is working, then keep doing that and move onto other things and don't feel bad. Once I finally wrapped by head around Colour Management I realised that much / most of the online content about it is outright wrong, or potentially misleading. It was only once I had a professional colourist explain it that I realised that even the way that people talk about it is wrong. To this end, I recommend the video below - it is a step-by-step explanation of what colour management is, what it's for, and then how to go about it. It takes a bit of effort to sit through and learn things properly, but I find that it's the best strategy long-term if you want to grow your skills: In order to build your skills in colour grading (not just colour management) I recommend ignoring all colour grading content online, except for Cullen Kelly (the presenter in the above video) and Darryn Mostyn (link to his channel), who are not only both working professional colourists, but are also very good at outlining the concepts as well as the tools. If you're willing to pay for content then that's also a good way of getting high quality information. Once you're feeling really comfortable and have watched a lot of their content then you can start watching content from other colourists, because you'll see that what they're telling you might be only half the picture, might be bad advice, might be flat out wrong, or might not even make sense. When I started learning about colour grading and colour management, I read and watched a ton and I think it actively hurt my journey and just filled my head with a bunch of half-truths and confusing tips that I then had to un-learn once I realised how bad the information is. Good luck!

IIRC you have to have the camera in one of the auto modes, like aperture or shutter priority, then the ISO goes to auto and you are now allowed to set the ISO limit in the function menu.

Were you involved in this project?

Yeah, I still have it but don't use it. I should have used the absolutely excellent standard profile that was 709-like but had an extended highlight rolloff that contained the full dynamic range of the camera. The downside was that it wasn't a professional colour space and wasn't supported by colour management etc, so I would have needed to know how to grade the image manually, which isn't a problem now but certainly was then.

Well, if you're yet to see issues then let us delay no more! This is a post I made about the endless issues I had with the XC10 and its 300bps 4K 8-bit C-log files: While it's not banding, it's definitely problems related to 8-bit on decent bitrate 4K footage. In reality, the combination of 8-bit and log is the reason, but the blame is mine for not using the camera differently, or for buying it for this kind of work in the first place.

Interesting. I suspect that the two key aspects that make this even remotely possible to get a professional result with 8-bit at that low bitrate are: The DSP in the F3 The complete control on set - being able to change what is in-front of the camera to suit the camera makes an enormous difference to how well something will look in the final version Mostly now, the cameras people are shooting on that are limited to 8-bit will be consumer cameras that have completely rubbish DSP (certainly compared to the flagship cinema cameras of yesteryear) and the people that use them will be pointing them at mostly / completely uncontrolled scenes, perhaps with mixed temperature lighting, and many elements in the frame that do not look pleasing in the footage that is captured. Also, many of these cameras will be used to capture scenes with a lot of movement - either of movement of objects in the frame or movement of the whole camera due to being hand-held, which puts an incredible strain on a limited bitrate codec. I've said it many times but its worth repeating - the amateurs who shoot the real world need the best specs but are given the worst, and the professionals who shoot on sets with dozens or hundreds of people to massage every aspect of the scene to look good to the camera need the least specs but are given the best. I suspect that the missing piece in the above is the oversampling. 4k 8bit 4:2:0 should be inferior to 1080p 10bit 4:2:2 when put into a 1080p timeline because the potential banding and quantisation error of 8-bit aren't always overcome by the extra resolution, however making the statement that "shooting in 4k 8bit 4:2:0 > shooting in 1080p 10bit 4:2:2" is perhaps more accurate due to the lack of downsampling in most cameras. The 1080p from the GH5 is stunning, for example, and I think the downsampling is the main reason.

After my little deep dive into the tiniest camera I could find, it does occur to me that the cameras that killed this market segment might soon be good enough to satisfy our requirements in this space: Action cameras and phones have had manual controls for several product generations now, and things like the BM iPhone app has better features than many MILCs (waveforms, zebras, view LUTs, false colour, etc etc etc) The limitation on action cameras has always been the fixed wide lens, however with the Insta360 Ace Pro and its 8K sensor on 16mm FOV lens, it now has the resolution to do 4K at 32mm, 3K at 43mm, 2K at 64mm Even if you ignored the crop modes on these cameras, a 100Mbps 16mm FOV cropped in post would still be 66Mbps at 24mm FOV which is better than some of the lesser cameras in this segment, and you can reframe and stabilise in post with that approach! The Insta360 RS had an interchangeable lens module, so future models might have more normal lenses or even a module with interchangeable mounts The trend for action cameras and phones is towards larger sensors, so it's not inconceivable that we'll get an MFT action camera / smartphone down the line iPhone 15 had a professional codec and professional colour space, way ahead of most cameras discussed in this thread, with better low-light and DR than some too In a sense these will be good outcomes for us, because with the death of this market segment we have been stuck with 8-bit cameras with relatively poor codecs, limited manual controls in video, and small sensors, but I think the gap is probably about to be filled. My vision of making super-8 style vignette videos just for fun is almost possible with the latest GoPro, because I could crop in post, grading the image to be soft and having the right colour / grain / jitter / etc, and the fixed focus lens means that my in-post lens emulation has perfect-AF and is parfocal!

My point was that there's creativity to all art, but maybe it's not obvious. Here's what a video process might look like if it had no creative decision making involved: Generate random GPS coordinates (applying some sort of criteria to ensure they're practical / accessible etc) Go to GPS coordinates, setup camera on tripod Select a lens at random from the selection - if it's a zoom select the zoom randomly Set the focus distance and aperture to random values Generate three random numbers between 0 and 365, orient the camera using these values as pan / tilt / roll Record for a random amount of time Repeat above sequence a random number of times, then proceed to editing Put all footage on the timeline in random order Generate a random percentage, then remove that number of clips from the edit at random For each remaining clip generate random start points and durations and make the edits For each cut apply a random transition effect Select a random number of pieces of music from all music ever created Cut random sized sections from these and add them to the timeline in random locations In the colour grade, randomise all the controls etc etc Obviously this would not be pleasant approach, and regardless of your views about "art" "creativity" etc, you wouldn't think this is a good way to make a film (with the exception of the experimentalists, but that's another discussion). ANY choice you make during the process that isn't random and isn't directed by some other factor (like "the cheapest one available") is a creative choice and will be based upon some sort of aesthetic preference. It's easy for people to get blind to the bigger picture and just narrow in on tiny details, which is what most disagreements stem from.

There is one point I forgot to mention in the first post, which is the WHY of this whole situation. The point of looking at exposure and WB latitude isn't to correct these things in post. It is to understand how the camera reacts to colour grading. When we colour grade, we are taking the image and pushing things around. In a literal sense, we are just raising or lowering the value of the R/G/B channels in pixels based on a variety of factors, but it's just that - raising or lowering the value of each channel. So, if a camera falls apart when I try to make a tiny adjustment then I'll know that I can't colour grade it much. Assuming you get the exposure and WB relatively close in-camera then the changes should be relatively minor, but some changes are larger or smaller than others. As some examples, here are the operations that I would do across most shots in a grade of mine: Adjusting WB - this is raising or lowering the values of the RGB channels against each other Adjusting exposure - raising/lowering RGB channels together Adjusting contrast - raising/lowering RGB channels together but doing the shadows and highlights in opposite directions Adjusting saturation - raising/lowering RGB channels in a way that expands the differences between channel values Applying a subtractive saturation effect - lowering the RGB channels together based on the differences between channel values Brightening faces - raising the RGB channels in an area on and around the selected faces Massaging skintones - raising/lowering the RGB channels to subtly change the hue and saturation Cool shadows - lowering the RG channels in the shadows etc etc.. as you can see, all these things are just subtle changes to the RGB channels, which relies on the latitude of the files. Most of these changes will be adjusting values by 1 stop or less, and sometimes a LOT less (like skintones), but some might also be more (cooler shadows). I did an experiment on bit-depth and wrote a plugin that lowered bit-depth, and discovered that taking a final image down to 6-bits wasn't visible (and some were fine with 5-bits!) but if you tried to colour grade those 5-bit images then you'd discover pretty quickly that even very minor adjustments would annihilate the image entirely. The other thing that occurs to me is that there are things you can do to help the image keep from falling apart too, like adding noise etc. I should explore that in future tests.

Absolutely, if you can shoot 10-bit Vlog and are happy to grade it in post then there's no reason not to. The main motivation for me is really in dealing with the older or smaller cameras that don't have a log profile built in, and being able to realise as much of their potential as possible. The GX85 is my main camera now, simply because of size and form-factor, but as we have been reminded by @John Matthews in the "World's smallest DSLM that shoots 4k?" thread, there is still a lot of love for these small cameras.

I have contemplated setups that included multiple cameras before and my brain kept wondering if there was a way I could make some sort of Franken-rig that included both cameras, like how street photographers often make BTS videos my mounting a GoPro in the hot-shoe of their camera. I could never get a rig that seemed to work, but the Pocket 3 is so small and so flexible (if you configure it to always keep level / never tilt) then you might be able to add it to another setup, potentially even using using both at once? Maybe it's an ill-conceived fever-dream, but I feel like it might just be a killer idea that changes the game in some situations - if I could only find that situation! My Intel MBP is slowly approaching retirement and I'm definitely looking forward to Apple silicone. When I last looked at the benchmarks the different 'levels' of their chips sure made a difference too. It won't be before time either, yesterday my wife and I shot the first couple of talking-head promo videos for her new business and the export was sitting at 2fps in places!

Cool videos - I especially liked the last one with the pink skies, very nicely done! It's great to hear you're getting deep with the Digital Bolex, it is one of the oldest cameras that are still very relevant and create images as good, or better, than the megapixel behemoths of today. Your description of having a small setup that is ready to go reminded me of the way that documentary film-makers organise themselves when they're making a doco and that at any minute they might get a call from the main cast members that something is happening and they have to rush there to get coverage, so they have to own everything (no rental equipment) and it has to be ready to go at all times. Also wonderful that you're making real work and showing it. I think that anyone who upload a finished project deserves huge respect, but to get involved in a community and then have your work shown is next level. Congrats!

I mostly prefer locked down shots too - I just get them handheld using IBIS 🙂 With the Dual IS and a bit of stabilisation in post, you can easily get a shot where the framing is locked off. RS impacts movement of the frame (e.g. from being handheld) but also movement in the frame (e.g. movement of vehicles, movement of objects filmed from a moving vehicle, etc). Style is, of course, personal preference though, so however you want to tackle it is the right way 🙂

Link to files. The reference image is repeated so you can just go back and forth to compare. Enjoy! https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/vj7wthlzjc9ocqtphvclt/h?rlkey=ivcvcj3hmdrow1q0zsof0wc1p&dl=0

Skin-tones are always the trickiest because we are much more sensitive to this area of the colour cube than any other. If I make a cameo then you'll get to enjoy the full range of tones - from pasty to gaunt and all the way to magenta and red. Lucky you! In terms of working with skin-tones "given 8-bit limitations" I don't think there are limitations, at least if we're working with 8-bit rec709 images. In broad terms, the danger of "breaking" the image comes from areas where the bits are too far apart and the associated artefacts become visible. The bits are broadly as far apart in 8-bit 709 as they are in 10-bit LOG as they are in 12-bit RAW. The difference that most people experience between those is likely to be the compression, considering that 8-bit 709 will mostly be 10-100Mbps, 10-bit log will mostly be 50-400Mbps, and 12-bit RAW will be uncompressed. Perhaps the worst combination is 8-bit log, which TBH, is so bad it should be against the Geneva convention on human rights. This is the worst combination because the bits in the final image are spread apart the most. This is why I shoot rec709 with normal amounts of saturation - it gives more information for colours than if you reduce the saturation in-camera and then boost it in post. It's also why the iPhone HDR implementation is so good - it is 10-bit but the levels of saturation in the files is close to 709 levels, so you have a really large amount of colour fidelity still retained in the files.

Also, if anyone can think of any other tests I should do then I'm all ears. Perhaps the one that might be useful is including skintones, so maybe I'll have to make a cameo in the test images. Realistically, the ability to recover skintones is probably the most important thing, and perhaps the most fragile.

Actually, for these I didn't use Colour Management (I know this will shock people!) and it was a bit of a surprise to me too, but the LLG controls just worked better. The fact they're designed for rec709 might have something to do with that, perhaps, maybe... ? 😆😆😆 I normally make my adjustments in real projects using Colour Management, and they're fine because they're not a torture test like this with huge adjustments, but maybe I'll keep this in mind and if I get difficult shots then maybe I'll change to rec709 for one node and do the adjustments in that. Cool, I'll work out the best way to post them. TBH I don't know what "more latitude" really means. For example it might be the amount you can shift something before clipping occurs, or before some level of visible undesirable aesthetic effect occurs, but this would be situation dependent and also user dependent. If you can think of a way to test this then I'd be happy to have a look. From memory, I think I set the blue image to a colour temp in the 6000s and the warm one to 3200, and neutral was in the middle somewhere. The magenta and green images were setting the in-camera adjustment to the maximum it would go in those directions. So, from that, these are very large WB errors to recover from, and (hopefully!!) much more than you'd ever encounter in real life.

+1 for the suggestion of getting an older camera for stills, for the following reasons: Older cameras are much less out-of-date for stills assuming they can shoot RAW stills (which is almost universal now) This will give you the ability to have one camera setup for stills and the other for video, with no fiddling around to change modes and adjust any settings that can't be recalled as part of a profile etc The concept of having a backup is a great one and one that I've implemented for my setup If you decide to shoot a second angle or BTS video or anything like that then you're set, even if you setup both on the same tripod and one shoots a wide and the other a close-up, there are so many uses You can shoot a Timelapse of a whole setup while also recording video of parts during the activity You can even do things like record with the FX30 from a distance and use the older one as a field audio recorder and have it close by with a lav running into it

Just created a new thread showing that the rec709 profiles in these cameras are more flexible in post than most people think: Posting this here for easy reference, and because these small cameras likely only have 8-bit rec709, but I think this isn't nearly the barrier to getting good images than most people believe it is. It's also why I shoot in auto-exposure and auto-WB.. making small changes to every shot is a very simple operation and a much better outcome than me setting this stuff manually and then forgetting to adjust it later and getting some shots horribly wrong! For those who think that adjusting exposure and WB in post is a sign of bad film-making, every colourist I've seen allows for making small exposure and WB changes as a first step in their grade and I've heard several say that it's something they apply routinely, even on professionally shot productions. Same as NR, which is routinely applied, completely contrary to YT wisdom which suggests that visible noise means the camera is defective. I hope this test will encourage people to look beyond the forum/YT "wisdom" and be free to get the most from their equipment.

8-bit rec709 profiles are much more flexible in post than you might think. I'm not saying they're as good as an Alexa or whatever, but they're a million miles better than people give them credit for. Here's a latitude and WB torture test of the GX85, in the standard profile (8-bit rec709) customised to have reduced contrast but normal saturation. For each of the below, the left image is the properly exposed reference image, the middle one is the graded image, and the one on the right is the image SOOC. Exposure latitude test - +3 stops: Exposure latitude test - +2 stops: Exposure latitude test - +1 stops: Exposure latitude test - -1 stops: Exposure latitude test - -2 stops: Exposure latitude test - -3 stops: Exposure latitude test - -4 stops: Exposure latitude test - warm: Exposure latitude test - cool: Exposure latitude test - magenta: Exposure latitude test - green (as far as it would go!): Notes on the testing method: GX85 shot in manual mode on cloudy day Exposure varied by changing lens aperture WB varied by changing colour temp and tint Tools used in Resolve were mostly Lift/Gamma/Gain, saturation, and some had a bit of Shadows/Mids/Highlights Notes on the results: If it's clipped then it's clipped, there's no getting around that If you've shot a whole sequence in the wrong WB then shoot a test chart replicating the error, spend some time on the correction, then apply to all the shots... a bit of work but worth it to rescue a days shooting If you've shot on auto-exposure / auto-WB and want to correct the small errors then this is easily possible - it won't have gotten it nearly as wrong as what I have shown above Most cameras shooting in rec709 will do funky stuff to colours depending on their luma value as part of the look of the profile, so when you over/under expose and then pull things back the hues and saturation levels will have shifted around in odd ways compared to a normal exposure, but if it's a real shoot then you most likely won't have many dominant hues in the image and you only have to correct the ones that are in the frame and distracting, so the above is far more work than normal shooting would be The days of needing RAW or even LOG to change exposure or WB in post are gone, and although the rec709 profiles often have lower DR than log profiles, they're much better than you think. If anyone wants me to post full-sized versions with titles so you can flick back and forth then just let me know. Happy shooting!

Agreed, but I'd go one step further. To be perfectly honest, I read/watch half the online stuff about film-making and just shake my head - it's like vast sections of the people discussing this online have forgotten what cinema actually looks like..... if they'd ever even been! Almost any YT search for a camera or lens-related phrase will instantly deliver an endless stream of videos that were shot with kit lists that rival the price of a new car, and yet somehow look more like home videos than my actual home videos. Of course, the biggest issue is that almost no-one in the whole online film-making community actually make films, they're mostly professional or amateur videographers and have clients that want a high-end video look. As a dad that makes home videos, if I think your stuff looks awful then you're in real trouble, and that's how I think most stuff looks these days - until I see something from actual film-makers!

I've been thinking about my own strengths and weaknesses too, and have started a project designed to let me focus on something that I'm quite weak at with the goal of improving in that aspect. I think that focusing on something in particular and just practicing that might be a good way to build that specific skill. I'm reminded that in sports the coach will have players run drills of the same thing again and again, presumably so they can focus on that one thing without being distracted by the chaos of a normal situation. I imagine the situation is the same with film-making - trying to work on one aspect while also doing all the rest probably doesn't help much in comparison to just focusing on that one thing.

I assume you're talking about delivery via streaming service? If so, yeah, yes, it's a real weakness. However, there is a huge difference between the quality of a 50Mbps file coming from a camera vs the ones coming from the streaming platforms. I've done a lot of testing of codecs and streaming compression and one thing I noticed is that the quality of the image you create in the edit really carries through the entire streaming pipeline. Just take a look at the camera demo reels from ARRI and RED on their YT channel from 10+ years ago. The image quality speaks for itself.