kye

There is. The Russians didn't just hang around drinking vodka during the Cold War http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?152436-Russian-Soviet-USSR-Lens-Survival-Guide and here are some samples from the set: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNtAbAeqHYSKyOnPbE-3AuIxzmeVFZCbWCspWF1jCuvHBihhbHbMULc5rMa1xtdBA?key=YWd5QW1tYm5OOERoeHpBSHg1TlJiUEptOGVKSmNB

Sounds about right being students. Sports is an exception, but everyone knows that the 'pro' bodies are bought by amateurs trying to get pro results, and the real pros use older/mid-tier equipment because they know what it is that makes pro images, and they know it's not having the latest tech

oh noes!!! no rush, it's cool ???

I agree. I see three different 'levels' of determinism in virtual worlds. The first is where you have no control because everything is pre-planned (like watching a film). The third is where the player has total control and whatever happens happens, and the world is generated completely by algorithms and probabilities. The second is a hybrid, like you're in a virtual world that has certain rules but at a specific point you will transition into a different phase with different rules, kind of like going through the acts in a film. Games typically exist in the second type where they have seasons, or specific items you have to find or monsters to conquer or whatever to drive the plot forwards. I'm just gearing up for VR development and am thinking about this stuff a lot recently. I think VR (and then AR) has a huge future and I want to be part of that. I've consistently been disappointed with what computers can do vs what developers actually build, so I'm basically going to try and create the things that I want someone else to do.

Anyone feel like taking our own advice and making a bunch of >1 minute films? It would support Zach, but it would also be a bit of fun. I'm in if others are.

Punchy! It really makes the subject and the writing pop. Nice What kind of film / genre / mood would you use such a grade for?

I had to read your post about three times because I have been having exactly the same thought and my brain was assuming that I'd written the above statement and you were somehow quoting me! In fact, the whole big lens shootout I just did was to get a 70-80mm equivalent lens on my GH5. I'd mostly gone a different way and was trying 35-40mm lenses without a SB, but one of my goals was low light performance and the 50-60+SB combination gives an extra stop of light without narrowing the DoF which is useful. In the end I went with the Konica 40mm f1.8 because it was fast, had good contrast and had very little distortion around the edges of the frame when wide open. I prefer it to the Helios+SB combination even though that is one stop brighter because the Helios has such soft/smeared edges wide open, and the SB makes it worse (because the Helios is sharp in the middle but gets worse towards the outer edges). To go brighter again would require the 50/1.4+SB combination you're chasing, and that combo would match the brightness of my 17.5mm f0.95 main lens which would be great. There are a ton of fast 50mm lenses. I don't know if you saw this link I posted earlier to a big 50mm comparison? http://hispan.hu/50mm-lens-test/ It's in Hungarian, but the pictures pretty much speak for themselves and it's a very comprehensive test. It's interesting you didn't like the revuenon, as that was one of the better performers in that test, especially at edge sharpness, although I didn't care for the "bubble" bokeh as I think it's too distracting for use except as a kind of special effects lens, or unless you can carefully control the background and eliminate any specular highlights or sharp edges. Good luck on your quest, your problem is the sheer number of options, which takes work but at least you will end up with something good at the end. There are worse problems to have! Keep us updated Interesting. I did wonder about that. IIRC you didn't used to be able to, so maybe they changed it. That's really cool.

I've gone to my usual spots and didn't find anything, except an entry saying that that lens is m42 mount, which the pictures in the ebay ad clearly show it is not. If you're dead set on that lens then maybe looking for an adapter to go to something else, that you can then adapt to EF? I couldn't find any info on that lens mount, so no idea on flange distances. Probably the better question is why choose an obscure lens mount to buy a 55/1.4 that isn't that cheap. Plenty more accessible lenses and lens mounts in the sea..

If you export 1080 stills they're a lot smaller That's definitely a node tree and a half! My grade was much simpler: Node 1 is contrast and Node 2 is CST from rec2100 to rec709. What I do is setup the conversion Node 2 and then reduce contrast in Node 1 using contrast/pivot until I get the whole DR into legal values. Node 3 adding Saturation Node 4 soft-edged window around guy increasing contrast Node 5 soft-edged window around whole frame decreasing Gain for a vignette I just did an A/B where instead of lowering contrast before the conversion I just use Luminance and Saturation mapping (which rolloff the extremes) and I tried removing the contrast after the conversion and it doesn't work, you end up with something that looks contrasty and flat at the same time in comparison. Interesting. I just love the DR of the GH5 and being able to push the image far enough to keep highlights but still expose mid-tones correctly without the codec breaking. I guess it gives me that high-DR cinema camera feel. I'm still learning the camera but that's a technique that I found early on and really liked.

It's like that only you can adjust every hue separately, so you can raise red and green but lower yellow. I had a play with it and it seems like you can't make something B&W and play with that curve before the B&W conversion with only one node, so I think you can't do it with the free version?

So get to it. I want a finished edit on my desk by Monday morning!!

Totally agree. In a sense it's like choosing between purified water or cordial. If I'm thirsty then I'd choose cordial because I like it and I might put it in a cake, but if I was baking bread or making soup then I wouldn't want the cordial in there at all! I've gone totally nuts into learning about lenses recently, vintage vs modern, organic vs sharp, fast vs slow, etc and one thing I stumbled upon was that people have a modern set and a 'character set' or 'vintage set' and they choose the right one for the particular project and the aesthetic they want. I have the Sigma 18-35 and it is a phenomenal lens - it is legendary for good reason. But the CY Zeiss lenses are also legendary, precisely because they don't look like the high end modern lenses. Modern lenses are great because they are purified water, and vintage lenses are great because they add flavour.

I totally agree - just make stuff. I am only aware of two ways to really succeed. Get absolutely great at it or get to know a bunch of people and be great to work with. Considering you're not physically around other people the second one is more challenging, but can still be done (youtibers collab all the time without meeting each other). In terms of the first one, getting great, you have to find your inner voice. The shortcut to doing this is to make lots and lots and lots of films. I know that's not a shortcut (ha ha) but the real shortcut is that they don't have to be long, they only have to be long enough. The person who makes a one minute film every week will learn truck-loads more than the person that makes a 52 minute film each year. I'm assuming you're young (because of college and no car) so assuming that's the case you'll also still be trying to figure out who you are. I'm over 40 and I figured out who I thought I was, but am now trying to get rid of some of those ideas, so I'm still at it. Finding yourself and your voice just takes work, but the upside is that it only takes work. If you make 100 short films then it's almost impossible not to learn a lot about yourself. Another shortcut is to try things that make you uncomfortable and you've never tried. Film yourself, make a musical, make a historical reenactment, make a documentary, make a mockumentary, make a fake news report, make a stop-go animation, make a film with planning and no editing, make a film with no planning and only editing, make a silent film, make a film with no music, make a film with only music, make a B&W film, make a film in hyper colour, make a film about a colour, make a film about someone you know, make a film about someone you don't know, make a film about you trying to make a film and failing, make a film about you making a film and succeeding, make a tutorial, make an abstract film about a lost sock, make a film about what it's like to be you, make a film about who you would have been if you had been someone else, make films for other people, make a film that you will never show to anyone else and have a premier with only you and then delete it afterwards, make a film for money, make a film about the people you care about and give it to them as a gift........... Learning is accidentally doing things that are great often enough to work out how to do them on purpose.

One thing you can try is the old B&W conversion trick is to adjust the brightness of the different channels underneath the B&W conversion. This can help to bring in more contrast, especially in the sky where the conversion loses a bit of punch. In Resolve, you'd play with the Hue vs Luminance curve.

Very nice video! Colour is done very nicely, but if you want to learn more then come over the to this colour grading thread... You've done well with the Helios - I don't think it matches my GH5 quite as well as it seems to match the P4K, but it might be that Melbourne overcast light that helps it along perhaps The audio is quite good. I didn't really miss a mic, which is great considering that audio was featured in the video. Of course, always pack a mic by default

Unprocessed image: My first attempt. Nothing drastic, just trying to make the footage look nice, but keep a semi-organic non-digital feel. Be nice

Welcome to the free peer-to-peer colour grading course! ??? The idea is that we all have things to learn from each other, so we all grade the same clip and then you explain what you did if someone is interested in your grade. These are the rules: No criticism. NO CRITICISM!! Seriously. If someone asks for constructive feedback then sure, give a few helpful pointers (and not an essay), but this thread is about learning from each others strengths, not pointing out each others weaknesses. We are here because we are not professional colourists, and some of us only do this for fun and aren't pros, so give us a break. If we criticise then no one will grade, and... If no-one grades, no-one learns anything. You don't have to grade to participate, but please do if you are able to. You can post multiple grades if you want. Try different looks, see what works and what other people might like. Grading is subjective. Anyone is free to post a clip/still to grade, BUT, You must post two grades of other clips before you post your clip for grading. Otherwise we'll have a thread full of clips and no grades. See rule #2. If you post a clip, please include what colour/gamma profile it was shot in. This helps to transform the colour space. Please post the file SOOC if possible (if it's not too large a file size) or at least a completely ungraded unprocessed clip from that file. Be sure to maintain bit-depth and resolution. Please post relatively nice clips, not ones that are impossible. Try to remember that we're trying to learn colour grading, not show off our troubleshooting skills. Don't be an asshole. Seriously, just play nice and get along I am serious about Rule #1. Posting your creative work is an act of courage - criticising others is an act of cowardice. If you are an asshole I will call you out, and I will not be polite about it. All that said, here's clip number one. Have at it! https://www.sugarsync.com/pf/D8480669_08693060_6029821 Clip shot with GH5 in 150Mbps 4K HLG, shot with sharpening turned all the way down. I have reason to believe that the HLG on the GH5 is neither rec.2100 nor rec.2020, but rec2100 is probably good enough to get a decent grade. I shoot auto-WB so it probably needs adjusting, and there's a bit of noise too, but it's not too far gone - I shoot in way worse conditions than this. The clip is from a tour of a traditional village temple in Nha Trang Vietnam.

Totally agree @kaylee I think this is a go. Now to find a nice clip to kick things off. Unless anyone has one they're happy to share?

You may do things that are great just because you're not seeing them in the same way. It's not a critiquing session where we talk about what doesn't work, it's about gathering the bits that do Resolve is wonderful, and I'm probably much more guilty than the next guy of making fun of the other platforms for not having as extensive a toolset, however the secret is that a great colourist will be able to make very good colour grades with only a few tools. Think about photo editing when photoshop only had the basic adjustment tools like curves - magazines were still full of stunning images. A good grade should be useful to everyone as a reference. Knowing that the person applied a conversion LUT, then custom contrast curves, then desaturated the shadows, etc etc should be useful information to everyone. Sure, if someone goes nuts in Resolve it might be difficult to replicate in PP/FCPX but I don't think that killer grades rely on these fancy tools very often. The point is to replicate the grade and figure out how it works so you understand it. Otherwise it just becomes another preset and you may as well have just bought a LUT pack. In terms of who participates, it's whoever has time and energy

Nice stills. I'm confused as to why in the first place anyone would have thought that RAW 12MP stills wouldn't be any good. I mean, we regularly see great looking compressed 4K stills, or even 1080 stills.

The big review I posted yesterday had the Revuenon 55/1.4 in it and it was sharp across the frame, but the bokeh was very hard and kind of distracting for me, so I'm curious to see how you find the 1.2. Of course, I have read that Chinon, Revuenon, Rikenon, Mamiya-Sekor may all be the same lens or had some kind of rebranding going on, so they might have completely different heritages

In case anyone wants to DIY their own lens.... This channel is great - he does all kinds of fun things. It's also a great example of content vs cameras - who cares what he shoots with, it's interesting

Here's my idea for a free perr-to-peer colour grading course for all of us. We have a bunch of people with skills here, so I imagine we can learn a lot from each other. Idea: Someone films one or two short clips and uploads the files SOOC People have a go at grading them and upload results We comment on what we like about people's work (someone might be good at tone, others at colour, others at something else) The people who did the grading share what they did so the rest of us can learn from it Repeat I'm happy to record some nice clips to get it started. It would need people to actively participate though. If only a couple of people actually grade anything then it won't work because they won't have other work to learn anything from. Who would be interested in actively participating by grading and sharing their results?

I have travelled with the XC10 which was 24-240mm equivalent and also the APS-C Canon 18-55 and 55-250 but found that I don't do a lot of long zoom shots, or if I do they don't tend to make it to the final edit. My films are really about where we are and what we're doing, rather than the people waaaaay over there Just an individual style thing I guess. All those lenses are normal adapters, so 2x equivalent. I saw that Zeiss 35-70mm 3.4 and tried to work out how I'd use it but it's just too slow for me. I film in natural / environmental lighting and a lot at night so need all the light-gathering I can get. People are critical of having super-fast lenses because shallow DOF is so yesterday and Hollywood only uses 2.8 and they're difficult to focus and blah blah blah, but I've been really happy that my 17.5 goes to F0.95 because it takes the ISO down and reduces noise and brings the colours to life. I also understand that there's an aperture dial and I can set it to something other than wide open ? If I could afford it I'd probably have all 0.95 MFT lenses, or go 1.4 FF + 0.64x SB for the same effect. Yeah, my 40/1.8 Konica Hexanon is 80mm equivalent so I'm looking forward to that. I previously only travelled with 35mm and 116mm equivalents, so I haven't used an 80mm equivalent in real life yet. TBH I'll be happy to get past thinking about lenses and actually learning the ones I have decided on. All your contributions of 28mm lenses has kind of put 'learning a focal length' onto my radar - I think I knew it was a thing but hadn't really thought about it seriously.

I haven't really tested it, but there was a comparison pic here by @jase: The 5K isn't All-I, but if you're shooting anamorphic there's a 3.3K 4:3 10-bit 422 10-bit 400Mbps All-I mode that might be of interest, and it supports HLG too, and remember that it's 400mbps h265 so may be better than h264. Long-GOP h265 gets about 2x efficiency compared to h264 but I'm not sure about All-I. 3.3K might even match the Alexa better than the normal 4K mode. I should do a comparison video.