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lol.. the lens sub-forum should be relatively safe Remember to take crop factor into account, 85mm is pretty long to begin with. Unless the anamorphic adapter will make it wider? I'm not so sure how these things work

I agree that oversampling creates an IQ benefit, no doubt, and of course downscaling to 2K gives 4:4:4 colour whereas a 1080p sensor does not, so it's not a perfect simulation. However, my original point was that you can take a lower resolution and sharpen it a little and it's indistinguishable from a higher resolution with no sharpening. This test is a little different in that there's no processing to try and match them visually - this is just a "here's what they all look like" test, and we see what we see and make our own conclusions. I draw the conclusions that between 4K and 2K there is very little difference, and if we're comparing 8K with 2K there absolutely isn't a 16x difference!! That's my impression - without seeing them side-by-side you wouldn't really look at good quality (or RAW) 2K and be completely disappointed by it.

I don't think I saw this posted here yet... Lens test from Reduser.com Here's the thread on reduser.net with all the details: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?177346-The-Agony-Of-Choice-Vintage-Modern-Lens-Shootout

Ah! Sorry - my brain just caught up

Whose whole point? Between what and what? I'm curious what setups you guys are looking at this footage on? and which file were you looking at? I'm simply testing the theory that sub-4K resolution is a desirable factor that the people who like the 'filmic / cinematic / classic' look of the Alexa or 1080 BM cameras. If you guys are fans of the highest resolution image possible and are looking at these videos on huge displays then that makes sense. If I zoom in to 100% of the original in Resolve I don't see any significant difference, or a difference that I really care about. This is probably taste though.

I played with 10-bit vs 12-bit vs 14-bit on my Canon 700D with ML RAW and didn't see that much difference, so I just decided that 10-bit was enough. Not to say there wasn't any difference, because there was, but it was fairly slight I thought. Then again, not that much DR with Canon and I didn't shoot many actual videos with it, so a few caveats. You might already be doing this, but are you taking your final exports and creating LUTs to try in-camera? (your wording wasn't clear above, so not sure if that's what you say you're already doing..) You might also be able to take one of the standard LUTs, apply some additional corrections, and then export that as a LUT to use?

Posting frame grabs makes sense to me as they're far less compressed than posting a YT or Vimeo video. Posting stills is even better as it shows the capabilities of the lens in more detail. There are other aspects to lenses, but surely seeing what the image looks like through them is a pretty big part of a lenses performance? and if not, what else would you like to see that we're not talking about?

I'm an amateur that can't get it right in 8-bit.. That's why I shoot in 10-bit on my GH5 ???

In the absence of BM footage I was wondering how much the look the resolution plays, so I made this test (also posted to another thread for another reason). The method was I started with an 8K RAW clip from a RED Helium and exported it to Prores HQ at 4K, 3.2K, 2.5K, 2K, and 720p, then added the original and the exports back into a 4K timeline for comparison. Here's the export on YT: Here is the h.264 export download link: https://www.sugarsync.com/pf/D8480669_08693060_6462598 and here is the Prores LT export download link: https://www.sugarsync.com/pf/D8480669_08693060_6462579 I'm very curious to hear which resolution (if any) reminds you of the cinematic look of either an Alexa, or of the classic BM cameras?

Did this test to see how visible resolution differences are. The method was I started with an 8K RAW clip from a RED Helium and exported it to Prores HQ at 4K, 3.2K, 2.5K, 2K, and 720p, then added the original and the exports back into a 4K timeline for comparison. Here's the export on YT: Here is the h.264 export download link: https://www.sugarsync.com/pf/D8480669_08693060_6462598 and here is the Prores LT export download link: https://www.sugarsync.com/pf/D8480669_08693060_6462579 I'm not convinced there is much difference until you're approaching 2K or 2.5K.

Or, in my case, when the battery is getting lower and they start throttling the CPU. Then it's time to give it to one of the kids as a hand-me-down! ??? (also, at this point the camera will be a noticeable upgrade!) Mine has a slider called Tint, but it adjusts temperature (blue/orange), not tint (green/magenta). Has that changed?

Ah!! I was thinking of filming where the camera had to be mobile, like skateboarding videos, skydiving videos, skiing and snowboarding videos, etc... I didn't think about the situations where the action is taking place right next to large tripods that don't have to move! ???

No reason you can't shoot in whatever you like and downscale - 8K RAW if you feel like it! I think it does, but maybe not during new camera season...

And for those who have a bit more to spend and want something truly special, there are things like the Jupiter-9 85mm f2 lens with its many (15?) aperture blades: and here's one of the early m39 versions that are supposed to have the better optical quality than the later m42 ones for US$129: https://www.ebay.com/itm/1965-Jupiter-9-85mm-f-2-M39-to-M42-SLR-lens-85-2-Canon-Pentax-GOOD/303104196284?hash=item46926afebc:g:if4AAOSwZmJclNiV Think about what modern lens you can buy for $129 - basically nothing worth having, so try to keep this in perspective for what you're getting!

A few thoughts: Make sure to search ebay.com as it includes auctions that will ship internationally that won't appear on other ebay sites There are lenses for all budgets, for example the Industar 50-2 50mm f3.5 is available in great condition for US$20 including free worldwide shipping https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=industar+m42&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&_sop=15 There are the classic Helios 58mm f2 lenses available from US$30 including free worldwide shipping If you want wider than a 50 (good for cropped sensors) then for US$34 the Industar-69 28mm f2.8 (with m39 to m42 adapter) might be a good choice [Edit: although apparently the flange distance is some odd Russian custom thing so you'll need to mod your adapter and it's also not FF - so maybe not for the newbies then!) https://www.ebay.com/itm/Industar-69-Soviet-lens-28-mm-f-2-8-adapter-M39-M42-USSR/253845769361?hash=item3b1a630c91:g:SpoAAOSwksBbaX4b Or you can get the mighty APOCHROMATIC Mir-1B 37mm f2.8 in open-box / as-new condition for US$45 plus shipping https://www.ebay.com/itm/MIR-1B-2-8-37mm-Wide-Angle-USSR-SLR-mir-1-v-lens-M42-Flektogon-copy-NEW/254293234460?hash=item3b350ed31c:g:wAMAAOSwOSVdJy3U There are heaps of cool and interesting lenses available!! I've placed (at least) one order ???

I watched the Werner Herzog course on Masterclass.com and it was fascinating. He's not short of an opinion, that's for sure! I'm not sure how many things I agree with him about, but two of them are definitely the importance of perseverance, and also the concept that you have to do something different to what you normally do. He does things differently to what most other people do (making up quotes, forging paperwork, etc) but he is remarkable because of his uniqueness, and we all have this potential for uniqueness, but it requires experimentation and persistence to find it.

I think that an aspect of all this is we don't talk about control and shooting ratios. Ultimately we only get judged on the final edit, so if you have complete control over what you're shooting, you could (in theory) only record a single take of each shot, and basically just edit-in-camera. You wouldn't want to do this in real-life, but you might only shoot 3:1 or so, especially if you really know what you're doing. In these situations, it would make sense to take time, set things up right, and nail the shot. In this sense it's much better to do one good take of the shot you use, instead of seven average takes. However, in low-control situations we don't know exactly what is going to happen, and we don't know where all the gems will occur, so in these situations it's better to sacrifice quality for quantity. This is because an average shot of the best moment is more valuable to the client than a great shot of an average moment. And the other aspect of this is that shooting at 5x the speed doesn't mean each shot is only 20% as good - it's probably 70% as good, so the tradeoff is worthwhile in many cases. It also comes down to style. Even in wedding films (for example) there are film-makers who have a very formal style, with shots being very geometric, locked-off or ultra-smooth slider shots, and typically with elegant music and a slower editing pace. On the other end of the spectrum is film-makers that capture weddings in a very informal sense, often having hand-held shots, free-flowing camera movement, getting close and even included in the events (like in the middle of the dancefloor) and potentially even having people look at or even address the camera. Combined with a much looser style of edit, this approach can create a very whimsical, fun, and exciting viewing experience. These differences exist in almost all types of film-making - high control / slower processes and low control / faster processes. These situations will of course be reflected in equipment choices. No-one would shoot action-sports with an ARRI and no-one should shoot set-based dramas with an action camera. They're just representative of different priorities. I'm going to repeat myself again - we often underestimate how different other people are to ourselves in terms of what they're shooting, the situation they're shooting in, and how they go about it.

I agree that it's to keep people in the ecosystem. That's one of the reasons I like adapting manual lenses to mirrorless, it means that I'm not kept inside an ecosystem - specifically I have access to almost all of the gems from the past, and at greatly reduced pricing compared to what they cost when new. I don't think this is just about YouTubers. Think about it like this - if you can do something better than the tech (and have time and attention to do so) then it's better to do it manually, otherwise you're better letting the tech do it. Very few people would have been worse for focusing than the early CDAF systems, especially considering they'd completely ruin shots regularly, so this wasn't a real factor in film-making. However, now we have DPAF / PDAF combined with face-detect and eye-detect that can be adjusted to transition smoothly at a user-specified rate. The tech has developed so that it's now better at pulling focus than quite a lot of people, and many of those people are working pros who are just trying to get through each job smoothly to get a pay check and feed their family. Yes, in Hollywood there are DPs that can pull focus better than an "A to B in X seconds" AF mechanism, and with the budget to have a dedicated focus-puller you're better off with that, but this is by far the minority of productions. Most pros are working on lower budget docs, TV shows, or ENG, and having something be able to reliably acquire focus and keep it is good enough for them. Things like pulling focus from one object to another isn't that common a move, and most shots don't even need that to happen. YouTubers are very vocal about AF and flippy screens and all that stuff, but it matters to the majority of working pros too, and they're too busy out there making the majority of what we watch to come on these forums and talk about it, or to make videos about how many buttons their camera has and upload them on YT.

It's always interesting to see what they add or don't add. The biggest problem I've seen with consumer cameras, and the iPhone in general, is that it has no slider to adjust the green/magenta balance on a shot. What this means is that in nature the cameras auto-WB makes all the brown walking paths appear purple. If I'm getting an image where brown comes out as purple, why would I care that I can adjust almost anything else? It's like they're making a Ferrari that can only turn left.

I don't have memories of what film IQ was like from back then (it was before I started paying attention) but in terms of this challenge, I figured that the 480p delivery bitrate of YT would take care of seriously degrading the image quality of something!! I've tried to design the film challenges to encourage people to pay attention to some aspect of film-making or other, but in the middle of a bunch of 6K camera announcements / releases I think it might have been too optimistic to think people would be interested in exploring very low bitrate 0.8K video ???

It probably is only worth that much, but when you think about how much she likely paid for it, and how it still basically does the same job as before and we still have the same eyes, it must be a bitter pill to swallow. In terms of her next steps, I have no idea. I didn't ask too many questions about her business or budget or get into ROI or all of the million questions that I'd ask someone on here. She didn't seem technical and she had an accent I couldn't place, so her studio might be somewhere exotic where SD is still a going concern, or there might still be SD or HD-limited infrastructure around where she is. I recall John Brawley commenting that the network he was shooting for still only broadcast in 720p, and that's in the US which is pretty tech-forwards in comparison to many other countries on earth.

We used to do this, but we upgraded to a significantly larger TV, and it also does 4k, so naturally we now hire movies in HD instead of SD ?????

All I know was that it was my sister who was the poor film student who had to pay for her miniDV tapes, so it was her making the decisions. We were using the universities loan cameras so you can be sure that they weren't treated all that kindly either I would imagine!!

Check this out: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Industar-26m-2-8-50-52-lot-of-lensblocks-32-pcs/223606342665?hash=item340ffa0409:g:CFgAAOSwjBRdQVcR 32 x 50mm f2.8 lenses for US$25 + shipping. That's less than $1 each!!

yep.. I think this is going to be a good one!