kye

Have a search on LiftGammaGain.com where the professional colourists hang out - I've seen lots of threads where they give their training recommendations.

I'd suggest that you get a course that helps you with the part of grading that you aren't strong in.

ie:

• what the dials and knobs do (eg, how to make qualifiers, use tracking, etc)
• what the aesthetic implications are for the various effects (eg, warmer colours are happier, etc)
• what aesthetics do for story and perception (eg, when to pop the colours and when not to)

You need all of these to be a good colourist.  No point knowing exactly how to make footage look happy but doing it on horror films.

There are three levels of background blur...

1. subject in front of in-focus background (less 3D appearance - use this when the background is part of the subject)
2. subject in front of slightly blurred but still discernible background (natural 3D appearance - use when background is relevant but not the subject)
3. subject in front of very blurred and obscured background (unnatural appearance - use when background is distracting or competes with the subject or when you want an unnatural aesthetic)

As @Mattias Burling says, very wider apertures are required to get slight background blur on subjects that are further away from the camera, or where the background is close to the subject.

On 10/25/2018 at 2:18 AM, katlis said:

I'm limited in resolution with the free version of Resolve, but I may just have to make the switch and get the full version!

I'd highly recommend it.

If nothing else, the ability to do localised adjustments as well as global adjustments is completely night and day with what results you can achieve.  The free version of Resolve is like Photoshop without layers.

Another great video - you are killing it!

Like last time, I'm not sure what to ask for except that if you talk about film-making and don't talk about camera settings then it'll be great

So, no more privately owned security cameras that can see public land?

I guess that's how you become invisible in the future - just cover yourself in brand content and be redacted from the official record!

If you stick with the concept that BM makes cinema cameras, then I can't think of any logical set of features that would fit the pricing gap in the lineup, unless it was to cannibalise the Ursa. As a small company with limited product development capabilities (and a serious expectation to support and improve the camera that people haven't even received yet) I'd say that they wouldn't be about to release anything else.

At the point they start committing to any type of spec for the next one:

1. They'd really want to understand what the raft of FF mirrorless cameras will do to the market
2. They'd want to understand how well BRAW is doing in the market
3. It would probably be 8K

As a company that makes cinema cameras, there isn't a logical unmet need in the middle of their range, but there is one above their range.  People talk about how BM colour science is right up there with ARRI, and if they really think big, then taking their industry knowledge they'd go really big.  Making an 8K BRAW Super URSA for mid-level cinema camera money would do for the top end what the BMPCC v1 and v2 did for 1080 RAW and 4K RAW.

I'm now sure how many people on here are that familiar with what the top of the industry looks like and how far into the stratosphere it goes?  For example, Resolve goes right to the state of the art with colour, and in that arena its competitors are things like Baselight, which I'm not sure I've heard anyone here even mention, so they're not just about bringing normal cinema tech down in price, they're also playing well above that.

7 hours ago, Danyyyel said:

This looks exactly like those Sony rumors that where floating around which proved to be ludicrous. You have to be brain dead to think that Panasonic would release a FF camera that would shoot raw between 3-4K. People are starting to believe that these corporation are Santa, they would render all there other camera line obsolete just for fun.

Yes, the company responsible for building the GH line of cameras, which is famous for pushing leading edge technology at this price point, couldn't possibly make a camera that has the RAW capabilities of a $1300 camera just released, for only three times the price.  That is completely beyond comprehension!

1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

Maybe the battery door falling off is actually to tell us that the battery is at 5% and really must be changed now, even though the meter is showing full

..and the power consumption of the magnetic lock on the battery door would explain the battery life!! ???

6 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

I am not too sure there will even be new m4/3 cameras in 5 years from now. Panasonic Knew they were going to build this S1 years ago. The trend is toward FF. Olympus is on thin ice money wise. Probably half the reason they didn't go in with Panny on the L mount, no money. They are losing money on every body they sell. So if they go belly up, and Panny keeps pushing FF who is going to keep m4/3 moving forward? m4/3 is Never going to catch up DoF wise, or DR wise. It is a loosing battle.

And now that you can buy FF cameras for 2000 bucks who is going to pay 2000 bucks for a m4/3 camera? Only a few, and that don't pay the bills.

I'm not so sure.  That interview with the Panasonic exec gave me the impression that they held of going to FF more because they were intimidated by CaNikon rather than it being technically superior in some fundamental way.  And even if they got into 4/3 because it wasn't what pros use, by cramming their m43 cameras with as much tech as possible over and over again, it attracted the lenses the system was missing, and now has an excellent reputation.

The lens lineup is still lacking the holy trinity of lenses (16-24, 24-70 and 70-200 F2.8 equivalent zooms) that pro photogs want, but for video with primes its got an excellent range, plus a decent size advantage with fast glass.

13 hours ago, DBounce said:

So rumor has it that the upcoming Panasonic S1R will be able to output raw. Additionally, the camera will sport a 168MP sensor.

This is shaping up to be one to watch.

Well thank f*ck for that...  I was wondering if I was EVER going to be able to record 16K time lapse videos!!

1 hour ago, SleepyWill said:

Hey guys - just a few things:

To clarify, I am not affiliated with any company or product mentioned (as should be painfully obvious), but I also recently got my second strike (and the worst part is, my first strike was because I used incompetech music, and Kevin McCloud himself emailed Vimeo to explain that I had fully complied with the terms of using his music, and that the claim had not come from him, the sole owner and writer of his music - but they left the strike on my account, because f me apparently)

But to get my video's off, I have been using an automatic video downloader, called "4kvideo downloader", it costs a small amount, is free from any malware that my antivirus (bitdefender) can find, and though it looks sketchy as anything, is in fact working for me. I can leave it overnight and it will plough through my entire account, maximising my efficiency at downloading them.

I've also been hearing a lot about floatplane as a youtube/vimeo alternative, and was wondering if anyone had any experience with them - I think they are new, but right now it seems to be pay to access, which obviously would be a problem. I tried steemit, and it just screams "scam" to me - and I can tell you now, the "money earned" under every video is grossly inaccurate, 100 times out and I cannot for the life of me find a way to work out how it is generated.

 

+1 for 4K video downloader.  Its the one with the green circle and a white cloud in it.

I've been using it for years to download videos so that I could watch them without getting constant interruptions (despite lightening fast internet).  I don't think you have to pay?  Although I think the free version has some restrictions like playlists can't be longer than a certain size, but you can copy/paste each video URL in there and DL them that way.

As clueless as companies may seem when users are feeling real pain like this, behind the scenes I suspect they know full well what is going on and how their users are being effected.  I suspect that they have been forced to take up these measures by the MPAA / RIAA / copyright holding thugs and aren't doing more to handle it better because they can't afford it and are likely fighting to keep the doors open.

The internet is the first time in human history that we've had to deal with a situation where someone gaining something didn't mean someone else losing something, and it just doesn't fit with any of our previous understanding of ownership.  "You wouldn't steal a car" simply isn't the same as copying something.  At the heart of this whole mess is the record labels who are basically a dying industry.  We still have content producers and content consumers and in the past you needed a middle-man to connect these two, and that was the entire system of record labels and record shops, and because they had a monopoly over the situation they basically took all the profit (artists in the top ten used to get less than $0.50 per album sale and that was considered a good deal, I have no idea what it is like now, and bands that weren't in the charts would have to gig to put food on the table) but now thanks to the internet and social media we simply don't need them anymore and they're fighting to stay alive and unfortunately they're fighting to keep the industry from changing instead of moving with the times and they're using their vast resources (that they basically stole from artists) to bully governments and people like Vimeo into complete submission.  They're even in danger of violating one of the basic tenets of civilised society by changing the law from innocent-until-proven-guilty into guilty-until-proven-innocent.  This is why companies like Vimeo are experiencing this kind of thing.

Had they focused on enforcement through supporting legitimate use then we would have some kind of system where you'd buy a license for a song, get a code, put it in your video upload, and everyone would know you were legit.  That kind of thing is dead-easy to implement.  Unfortunately, they think that everyone is their enemy and will basically fight until they're on top, even if that makes them emperor of the ashes.

It's a tough situation regardless of how you look at it.

4 hours ago, Sage said:

That's exactly right, that's what @Wild Ranger does often. That said, Main/Soft are almost always the best way to go, in my opinion (for Arri color), over the LogC route

Now I have a question!

Would these two workflows provide the same colour and gamut?

1. ARRI Alexa recording in LogC -> standard LogC to Rec709 conversion
2. GH5 in HLG -> HLG (Pre) LUT -> Main LUT

If so, then in theory these two would also be the same:

1. ARRI Alexa recording in LogC -> LogC to Rec709 conversion via a film conversion LUT in Resolve
2. GH5 in HLG -> HLG (Pre) LUT -> Main LUT -> Rec709 to LogC conversion -> LogC to Rec709 conversion via a film conversion LUT in Resolve

Or have a missed something?

There are a bunch of LUTs that expect a LogC input and this seems like the best way to get a LogC output while still maintaining the Alexa 'look'.

3 hours ago, BrunoLandMedia said:

Hey Everyone,

I hate to keep posting in this topic, but I don't want to start anything new as it seems this is where everything GH5 is. I've been asking and researching around for months trying to figure out what is best for me and I still had a few questions and wanted to get everyones take. 

1. I really need a camera with no recording limits and clean HDMI out for streaming to replace my old Canon XA10 camcorder. So after tons of research, it came down to c100 (I or II) or GH5.

2. I also currently use my canon 6d2 for my run and gun video and have lots of Canon Glass. (was planning on replacing with EOS R, but that's another story at the moment)

3. My initial thought was to get a c100 as the A cam for all event stuff and continue to use my 6d2/EOS R as run and gun.

4. Then I did 100 hours of research on GH5 thinking maybe it could replace BOTH cameras with the speedbooster (Metabones or other) for my canon glass to do events, interviews, etc, and get a native Panasonic 12-35 f/2.8 for the dual IS for run and gun. compact and easy package. 

5. My biggest issues and questions.

- Will I be disappointed in GH5 color vs Canon, regardless of functions. 
- Will the speedbooster work well enough with my glass, and which brand and multiplier?
- are the native Panasonic Lenses worth buying at all. is the 12-35 good and with Dual IS, or should I just use a canon 24-105 f/4
- Will the autofocus be as good as Canon for the run and gun. Not needed as much for events as I usually man focus for the stage. 

Notes. regardless. I will be keeping my Canon 80d at least for home photo/video use plan to keep most of my Canon glass. I won't shoot 4k 99% of the time due to fast and easy delivery of content.

My budget can handle a GH5, Speed booster and the 12-35, but that is about it without selling some other gear. 

Thanks so much. Just so nervous about using another system

I am not an expert, but the AF is the weak point of the GH5.  It depends on how you use it (Single AF is fine, it's the continuous AF that's not always reliable).

My understanding is that the colour science is fine, but this is something that is very subjective and you might be looking for something specific.  I'd look for yourself and make sure you're happy with it.

Having said that, I have both an XC10 (which shoots 8-bit 305Mbps C-Log) and a GH5, so if you want me to film something with both then I can send you a frame SOOC for you to grade and compare if you really want to examine the colour science yourself.

11 minutes ago, androidlad said:

I personally find that floaty ultra smooth movement kind of offputting.

GoPro Hero 7 Black essentially has a "SteadXP" like device built-in.

I agree, and you can definitely over-do things.

I shoot hand-held for my home and travel videos but the shots I tend to create in the edit are locked off shots, pans, tilts, or maybe a slider shot to reveal something or add movement.  Sometimes they are hand-held because I'm following a person or whatever, but I try and stick to the normal shots because I want the video to be about what I'm pointing the camera at, not the film-making techniques.

Stabilising things is great, but ultimately if it's wrong for your project then it's wrong, regardless of how technically impressive it is.

6 hours ago, tellure said:

Great tips and you're travel videos are very professional.  Would love to hear the video on how to get great portraits, although I feel that like photography it'll largely be about personality - how you can connect and make a rapport with people in a short amount of time.  Something many of us gear-heads are terrible at..

I'm with you - there's a reason I'm behind the camera!

5 hours ago, BopBill said:

That mini scenes advice I try to remember. Good one!

I watched a 10-hour BTS of a wedding videographer editing a wedding video (10 hours because it was start to finish) and he was just kind of talking through what he was doing, almost thinking out loud, and that mini-scene thing was one of the many nuggets that I got from that.

I tend to think of it like little stories joined up for bigger stories joined up to make one large story.

I'm not very good at it, but for one of my home travel videos of a family trip I might select the most interesting or photogenic places or activities that we did, then break each one down into the key parts of it (we arrived, we looked around, we climbed up to the lookout, we climbed down again, we discovered our shoes were all dirty..  or whatever!) then for each on of those I make sure that it tells a little story with a few shots.  Of course, I have the advantage that the story in my videos is about what happened and so I cut in basically the order that things happened in, whereas with a travel film about a place then you can mix and match shots and things get a lot more complicated in the edit room.

9 minutes ago, TurboRat said:

Thanks. Been looking at vintage lenses but I'm not really sure how best to adapt them to MFT. I'm also looking for a good Contax Zeiss but Im not really sure which Contax to MFT will work. With the price of the old Contax Zeiss lenses, I'm afraid to take a risk because it might damage the lenses

The adapters like the one I linked to are just a tube with two lens mounts on each end.  Maybe I'm missing something but I don't think that will damage the lens?

I have heard about the rear element in a lens hitting the lens element in a Speedbooster, so maybe that's what people are referring to, but I really don't know.  

I'm sure someone else here will have the answers

8 minutes ago, TurboRat said:

Did you use an M42 to MFT mount for the Helios? Looks great! I bought a Takumar 50mm myself but can't decide what adapter to use on the GH5

Thanks!

Yeah, I got a Fotga m42 to m43 adapter.  Like this one: https://www.ebay.com/itm/M42-Lens-to-Micro-4-3-M4-3-Adapter-EP1-EP3-EPL1-EPL2-EPL3-G1-GF1-GH1-M42-M43/251677877818?hash=item3a992ba63a:rk:1:pf:0

It's "dumb" and so doesn't have electrical contacts, and also doesn't have a glass element in it, so it crops into the lens making it seem longer.  Ie, a 50mm lens on the GH5 with that adapter would be the same as a 100mm lens on a FF camera.

I've got another one on order that has a focal reducer in it so we'll see how that works when it arrives.

1 minute ago, noone said:

Not soft to me but not high in contrast.      I THINK there is a seagull in one of those shots?

I had a Biotar 58 f2 not too dissimilar to that (18 blades and single coated on mine).

LOL, I should have started a new thread "spot the seagull"

I'm new to vintage glass and what effects it has, and definitely don't know the right words to describe what I see, but I know I like the look.  "Not soft but not high in contrast" seems like a perfect way to describe it!

My 28mm F2.8 with the front coating worn off is both soft and severely lacking in contrast but I'm glad I bought it anyway.  Apart from not costing much, it's given me a data-point about what effect that has, and also gave me some feedback about how soft and flar-ey is too much, both for me and my wife.  But also, I can play with the post-processing and adding blur or Glow type effects to match the look from sharper lenses, which means I learn more about image processing, what I like, and how to deconstruct things I see online, etc.

20 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

Well with m4/3 you do have to think really wide and fast to sort of even out the plying field. But fortunately since you can adopt anything and m4/3 stuff on average is cheap used because there is so much of it around after 10 years, not counting 4/3 stuff it can be accomplished somewhat easily.

Yep everyone has a different style, different needs. So m4/3 seems to cover more peoples needs than any format I think. I sort of miss it, but FF can be addictive. If I was doing Birding again, or into Sports I would be Back in a heartbeat, probably buy the Olympus EM1 mk II and the Panny 100-400mm..

Yeah, wide and fast is the challenge.  Thus why I went really wide but not fast (8mm F4) and then Medium but fast (17.5mm F0.95).

In terms of long, I just posted a bunch of images to the Lenses thread from the Helios 58mm F2, used without SB as a 116mm tele.  Great stuff IMHO.

https://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/6396-lenses/?do=findComment&comment=260336

In praise of the Helios 44m-4 ....

Put on a M43 sensor without a SB it becomes a 116mm FOV, and used sensibly (not trying to show off the bokeh) it can be a nice lens, soft but still detailed.  Some of the below might also be in ETC mode (162mm) but I can't remember which are and aren't.

Shots below taken with GH5 in HLG 4K 150Mbps and processed in Resolve.

Considering the low cost for the lens and a non-SB adapter, it's a complete steal really.

It's probably too soft for most peoples tastes, but click on the crane shot above to see in full-res before you dismiss it as lacking detail.

When I look at the images I stop thinking about camera stuff and start thinking about what is in the frame.

EDIT...   actually, I just realised these all had a slight blur applied in post.  Here's the crane shot without it for resolution.

25 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

The Bokeh is just too crazy for me most of the time on a Helios 44M-4. If you need it is the cats ass, but when you Don't need it it looks like the Cats butt-hole. ?

Yeah, I can understand that.  At the moment I'm using it without a SB so I'm only getting the middle quarter of the image, which doesn't have the crazy parts of the bokeh.

But, if you don't go wide open and just use it to soften the background a bit for some depth then it looks quite nice.

I think people see a fast lens and think they have to use it wide open or somehow it won't have been worth it or something.  A fast lens should be used to make the right images for the project, not to show off the lens.  Watching too many equipment tests on YT makes you forget that equipment can be used with subtlety and care, rather than being bludgeoned to death with stress-tests of every feature regardless of the aesthetic implications.

11 hours ago, mirekti said:

Thanks. Once this is set I simply apply Lemmings LUT i.e. there is no some kind of collision between the these two actions (ColorSpace setting and Lemming LUT)?

The best way to think about these things is in terms of colour spaces.

If you film in HLG then apply a LUT that is expecting HLG then the LUT will work as designed.  If you film in HLG and apply a LUT that is expecting VLog then it will not work as designed and the picture will go all strange.

You can use the Colour Space Transform or Input settings to change colour spaces if you like.

For example, you could film in HLG, transform to VLog using the GHa Pre LUT from @Sage, then apply a Colour Space Transform to go from VLog to LogC, then apply a film emulation LUT that is expecting LogC footage and the results will be fine (I've done exactly that).

I highly recommend Juan Melaras YT channel to understand how pros use Resolve - it's completely different to all the other YT colourists.  He's the only YouTuber that I've watched the videos over and over again, studying them to understand what he's doing and how it all works.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqi6295cdFJI9VUPzIN4NXQ

It is a very effective product.  I do a lot of stabilisation in post from hand-held shooting and SteadXP absolutely creams most of the post-processing stabilisers.

This would actually be a very good match for the BMPCC4K, depending on the technical aspects of the workflow.  If you're going to shoot and do significant post-processing like this then shooting RAW at 4K would be the best place to start from in order to get the best results once you've rotated and cropped the image.

The best way to help is to add some mass to the camera so it doesn't shake so much in the first place.  OIS is good for this, as well as any kind of rig.

It is a bit of a funny proposition in the marketplace though, OIS can smooth the small jitters, IBIS can smooth small and medium jitters, gimbals can smooth large, medium and maybe small jitters (depending on intensity) and post-processing stabilisers an do large and some medium jitters, so there isn't that much of a gap in the stabilisation options as there used to be when they designed it.  I use IBIS and post-production stabilisers and that mostly gets the job done.

It is killer for action cameras and tiny cameras like RX100 though.

29 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

I don't see how you are going to beat the Voigtlander Nokton 10.5mm f/0.95 for DoF on a m4/3 camera.

There is this one if you use a Speedbooster. But it is not very wide on m4/3. And I see you don't like Heavy, sooo.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1162797-REG/sigma_24_35mm_f_2_dg_hsm.html

Yeah, that was kind of my logic, a faster lens can always be stopped down (and considering how fast and how soft the 17.5mm is at 0.95 it probably will be stopped down most of the time) but slower lenses can't be stopped-up

I'm sacrificing the flexibility of a zoom, so I want to get something in return.  Andrews comment about the Voigt and Super Takumar lenses on the BMPCC4K vs C200 video having a less clinical look is also very encouraging as I like the rendering of detail on the Helios 44M-4 quite a lot!

I have no idea..  which is probably your point!

I'm assuming this is a photo.  If you have access to an external recorder of some kind, then I'd suggest playing this game with a frame captured from a video file.  I suspect you'll be able to rustle up a nice image from an old or obscure camera for us to drool over