kye

8K is cancelled.
Just use AI to make it better...  IMAX does!
https://ymcinema.com/2023/10/02/imax-ceo-we-use-ai-to-blowup-images/?expand_article=1
From IMAX CEO, Richard Gelfond:
"we use it to blow up images. We use AI to make the images look better, we sharpen the edges, and we take the grain out. We have been using AI for supplements for a while." "However, the best reference for that utilization of the IMAX proprietary algorithm and AI tech, is the talked-about sci-fi project, The Creator. The movie was shot entirely on Sony FX3 which is not an IMAX-certified camera. Nevertheless, the ProRes RAW footage was undergone special treatment by IMAX AI technologies, in order to boost the imagery and make it capable enough to hold up against the huge canvas." Other streaming services only store feature films in 2K and upscale to 4K for people who stream in 4K, and now IMAX, the supposed best quality folks upscale using AI.
We all knew that streaming was a low-quality distribution, and now IMAX is too...
How can they get away with this????  
Maybe.... *gasp* ....because it's not visible?  I mean, you could say that AI is good enough for IMAX, but you could also say that visual perception is so low that you can't even tell that IMAX is upscaling with AI!  It works both ways!!
😂😂😂

I'm eagerly awaiting the Sony GX3  
 
 

8K is cancelled.
Just use AI to make it better...  IMAX does!
https://ymcinema.com/2023/10/02/imax-ceo-we-use-ai-to-blowup-images/?expand_article=1
From IMAX CEO, Richard Gelfond:
"we use it to blow up images. We use AI to make the images look better, we sharpen the edges, and we take the grain out. We have been using AI for supplements for a while." "However, the best reference for that utilization of the IMAX proprietary algorithm and AI tech, is the talked-about sci-fi project, The Creator. The movie was shot entirely on Sony FX3 which is not an IMAX-certified camera. Nevertheless, the ProRes RAW footage was undergone special treatment by IMAX AI technologies, in order to boost the imagery and make it capable enough to hold up against the huge canvas." Other streaming services only store feature films in 2K and upscale to 4K for people who stream in 4K, and now IMAX, the supposed best quality folks upscale using AI.
We all knew that streaming was a low-quality distribution, and now IMAX is too...
How can they get away with this????  
Maybe.... *gasp* ....because it's not visible?  I mean, you could say that AI is good enough for IMAX, but you could also say that visual perception is so low that you can't even tell that IMAX is upscaling with AI!  It works both ways!!
😂😂😂

Intensely helpful. Cant thank you enough for this guidance.
Had a free night last week while my girlfriend was out of town to test everything, plus it was a clear night! So I was able to be much more realistic in running through settings and talking. It takes a few runs, but actually talking to the camera as if it was a colleague interested in my hobbies. I need to work on diluting some of the more scientific terms down to a more digestible format. Explaining what a "calibration dataset" is is easy for me to explain to a fellow geek, but explaining it to a larger diverse audience will be a disaster. I'll lose them right there, no doubt. Hell, sometimes explaining it to myself I get twisted. 
Second. In doing this dry run (dry as in I have no real astronomical data to collect currently so I pretended ) 
1. I walk around, ALOT when doing the scope work. The shotgun mic was good, but clearly had some drawbacks with me moving around. Something like a Wireless ME from Rode might be good just to clip it on and walk around the area without worrying on audio coverage. Cheap too, my work sells them so I can get a major break on cost.
2. I tripped on my giant ass tripod 54 times. I almost threw it to the Sun!! Something I noticed during load-in, the camera tripod was the same size as my tracking mount tripod... which carries a 100lb sub-arc second accurate device... I dont need something equally large for a 4lb Fuji rig. I LOVED my monopod, but didnt trust it on its own un-attended. Travel video tripod here I come.
3. Low Light. This is major issue #1. I tossed about half of the footage because it was beyond what I would be comfortable releasing. Too dark, and when I pushed it, it was a bit gross looking. Something T1.2 or 1.4 I believe is needed here, along with a small LED battery powered fill light. Good music buddy has a couple PavoTubes and I borrowed one from him today for a test tonight. It can't just be the lens, I need more light too.
4. Major Issue #2. With the audio plug and USB power inserted, the floppy screen on the XT4 is useless. My vision isn't perfect either. The 1/8th and USB plug directly covers the audio meter, AF settings, and nearly half the frame. I owned, and sold, a Shinobi a couple years ago and I really am remembering why I bought it in the first place!! Thankfully, this time around I need something much less fancy. I need to confirm framing, audio level and a DC pass through would be super neat. Daytime performance isn't super critical, as I will be using this at night.
5. Power. It would be super neat to power both my monitor and camera off of the same battery on the monitor. Is that a wise idea? I see a ton of monitors with DC outs, and they do make W235 Dummy batteries.. might be a convenient solution
 
 

Z9 FW4.0 has a ISO200 mode (Lo 2.0) that dramatically cleans up noise in N-Log:
Not sure why Z8 hasn't yet received this update (among other features)..

Yes, always base ISO (800). And I do not think that clip was underexposed overall and pushed up in post. Could be just as you say, small pixels necessary for high resolution.

In the meantime, somewhere in Japan...
https://www.43rumors.com/ft3-new-gh6-successor-with-phase-detection-af-is-in-the-works-and-will-be-named-gh7-and-not-gh6ii/
 

Yeah, when they see you walking in they start rubbing their hands and when you walk out with nothing they end up stroking their chins!
GH1 falls into that no man’s land of being too old for their customer’s to find appealing but still not yet old enough to be considered appealing as a retro purchase for them.
Basically it’s in the same ballpark as the base level Ford Sierra!
Hard Off have one in red with the 14-140 but it’s about £180 which is a bit steep I think.
Like I’ll have any money left anyway once the demands for twenty packs of Instax film a day situation kicks in tomorrow 

Live from Tokyo
She even wanted it in hipster brown with the retro case to match.
The man who served me in MapCamera knows me from all my previous visits of excess and was expecting me to ask for a Z9 so was a bit weirded out !
 

Things will change. The FX3 is still a far cry from an Alexa 35, but it isn't that far. A few cameras down the line and the different will be even less noticeable. 

Really their budget savings were in lighting. You can use really small lighting equipment when shooting at 12,800 iso. 

It feels gimmicky to me though. The movie was funded by Sony. Why didn't they use an FX6? Same sensor but you have SDI outputs and a more rig friendly body. Maybe because advertising the movie was shot with the more expensive FX6 won't sell as many camera bodies??

I am sure the FX3 was a nightmare for AC's to deal with.

I've just made a YouTube video 'Why I Am Switching' and it's because I am swapping the pig for a cow.
So I can make a moovie.

Exactly!
Many many DoPs might never have shot with a Canon camera since the era of the Canon C300mk1. 
I feel like even Blackmagic gets talked about more than Canon! As they're now the default go to for low/no budget filmmaking recommendations. 
 
Not just 16mm film, but consider how many productions got shot on a Sony PMW-EX3 or Panasonic AJ-HDC27 or Sony HDW-F900 Cameras. (or many other similar such cameras)
https://shotonwhat.com/cameras/sony-hdw-f900r-camera 
https://shotonwhat.com/cameras/sony-hdw-f900-camera 
https://shotonwhat.com/cameras/panasonic-aj-hdc27-varicam-camera
https://shotonwhat.com/cameras/sony-pmw-ex3-camera
And all of us have "better" cameras at home than those!
Keep in mind that Tangerine had easily at least $50K+ of sound gear being used. And probably easily double that in terms of lighting gear. 

This film is a 20th Century Studios > Disney production so Sony competitor. CGI is by ILM, Industrial Light & Magic, same owner.

If true, that would definitely explain it.  It sounds quite plausible too.

Ah, I just realised I mis-read your comment in my above reply as "the quality that the manufacturers keep in the drawer (through limiting their potential with too heavy-handed image processing and compression)".
You are right, of course, especially considering that the main reason people keep them in a drawer is because of their limited technical specifications, when realistically people have just gotten used to the latest technologies.  Most cameras we keep on shelves or in drawers are better than 16mm film, and that was what was used to shoot all but the highest budget TV shows and was used on a number of serious feature films too, like Black Swan (2010), Clerks (1994), El Mariachi (1992), The Hurt Locker (2008), Moonrise Kingdom (2012), The Wrestler (2008), etc etc..
I think the biggest problem is that people don't know how to colour grade, or don't know what is possible.  I mean, anyone with a Blackmagic camera that shoots RAW has enough image quality to make a feature.
Hell, if the movie Tangerine could be a success when shot on the iPhone 5S, then no-one has any excuses for not being able to write a movie that is within the creative limitations of their equipment.  Even a shitty webcam could be used to shoot a found-footage horror movie set in the days of analog camcorders!

Yeah, if you can bypass whatever the camera is doing and get the RAW straight off the sensor then it should be a good image.  Sony know how to make sensors, and the FX3 shouldn't overheat....
From the Atomos page on the FX3: https://www.atomos.com/compatible-cameras/sony-fx3
I never hear people in the pro forums talking about Canon, only ARRI / RED / Venice.
Gotta shoot fast and get that IMAX image!
Absolutely.  It's one of the reasons I am so frustrated, especially as now they've "unlocked" this quality via bolting on an external recorder instead of just giving us better internal codecs.  I mean, for goodness sake, just give us an internal downscale to 2.8K Prores HQ with a LOG curve and no other processing!
Even the tiny smartphone sensors look great in RAW.  Scale that up to MFT or S35 and imagine the quality we'd be getting from every camera!
My favourite WanderingDP video explains everything...
 

Hi Kye,
Your work on analogising iPhone footage looks like just what the doctor ordered (I have a 14 Pro, which doesn't offer the Prores log option, which in turn suffers from crazy space requirements).
How did you do that powergrade? It looks great (albeit very strong as you point out – all the better for showing the effect as before/after and in combination with the Hawk V-Lite real world examples).

I just saw the film in a good theater. Not Imax but latest technology. 
I believe that, before continuing to puzzle over the whys and wherefores, one should see it 🙂
Long story short:
There is so much CGI that having Atlas Mercury and P+S Technik lenses AND a good DOP, the film could have been shot with a GH2 🙂
No Spoiler
The plot is not bad and the movie is not bad. IMHO if you like sci-fi, it deserves to be seen if only for not being yet another Marvel crap or third-hand Star Wars junk.
The script occasionally swerves but I can live with that.
There are scenes without CGI, of course but the cinematography is nothing much.
IMHO the real beauty are the CGI scenes and the worlds imagined by the designers. Some of the landscapes are really striking. The futuristic Nepalese Buddhist temples are outstanding. I haven't seen such fascinating landscapes since the second Blade Runner. They reminded me of some of the gems among the DUST channel shorts. By comparison, the sets of the various Star Wars spinoff series are South American soap operas.
Bottom line: perhaps we underestimate the quality that the cameras we keep in the drawer (in the right hands) can express.

16bit RAW -> ProRes RAW then? That is probably one of the main reasons it holds up so well with decent colour science as the RAW will pretty much bypass Sony's colour science in-camera.
Do you know if the FX3 supported open gate or 4:3 anamorphic mode (AFAIK they added anamorphic mode, desqueeze only later)
https://www.dpreview.com/news/2260102234/sony-adds-dci-4k-24-and-anamorphic-support-to-fx3-and-fx30
Yeah maybe, although Canon has plenty of traction in rental, broadcast and in videography they're not up there with Sony, ARRI and RED at the top end of filmmaking. C700 was a big failure.
 

I'm curious to hear how it holds up on an IMAX screen too - keep us informed.
The link that @ntblowz shared has lots of info:
"the filmmakers use the Atomos Ninja V+ as an onboard ProRes Raw recorder" "75mm Kowa 2x anamorphic lens with a prototype of the Atlas Mercury 42mm as a backup for the small spaces where the 75mm was too tight" TBH, the choice of the FX3 could have been as simple (and uninformed) as simply being that they are aware of ARRI, RED, and Sony (through the Venice) and looked at their cine lineups to find the smallest cinema camera, but never evaluated Panasonic or Fuji because they were simply unaware of them.  
Sometimes a lot of these industry heavyweights can be just as dogmatic about their favourite brand and just as naive / hoodwinked by rumours / misunderstandings / marketing as the worst camera fanboys/fangirls online.

Another one, this time a shot from one of the Jason Bourne films, I think this was the second one, which was shot on Kodak Vision 3 and printed on Kodak 2383.
Reference image:

iPhone grade:

iPhone (ungraded):

I'm not so happy with that one, but the subject matter was a lot more different, with the reference shot being in full sun and the iPhone image being overcast and also containing a lot of different hues.  The road in the reference image is asphalt and is slightly blue in the image, whereas the "road" in the iPhone shot is actually tram tracks and concrete, not asphalt.  Still, there was something in the green/magenta/yellow hues that I couldn't quite nail.
Oh well.
That's those HDR images from the iPhone - you have no creative control over them.  If only Apple had given me a slider for saturation, sharpening, and other controls, those would have matched the look of S35mm film and Cooke lenses perfectly 😉 

A bit more playing around with what is possible from my HDR iPhone 12 images...
Reference image from the move Ava (2020):
iPhone grade:

iPhone (ungraded):

It's not perfect, but without having them next to each other it's not terrible.  I couldn't find what camera Ava was shot on, but I did find that it was shot with Panavision anamorphics.  No doubt that is a contributing factor to why my iPhone shot doesn't match the exact look of the movie lol.

Remember before when I said that colour grading knowledge is lacking?  This is a far deeper subject than I think you're aware of, and the comments from the guy in the video are so oversimplified that they're closer to being factually incorrect than they are to just being misleading.  
I've been studying the "video look" because I hate it and want to eliminate it as much as possible in my own work, and you're right that over processing images will contribute to this, however that's not what the guy was saying.  He said that shooting HDR gives you no "creative control over the image", which is patently false because you can get it in post.
When grading any footage, regardless of the camera, there are a number of standard operations you would apply to it, and you apply all the same treatments to LOG and HDR images.  I have a testing timeline where I am developing my own colour grading tools and techniques, and it contains everything from HDR iPhone footage to 709-style GX85 footage, to HLG GH5 footage to LOG XC10 footage to RAW and Prores footage from the OG BMPCC and BMMCC, to ARRI and RED RAW 8K footage.  
I apply a custom transform to each of them to convert them into my working colour space (which is Davinci's LOG space) and then I apply a single default node tree to all clips, regardless of which camera they came from, and then I grade all the clips in one sitting.  I have done this process dozens of times.  
The HDR profile from the iPhone is approximated pretty well by a rec2020 conversion.  In that sense, it's in a colour space just like any other footage.
Do I grade the iPhone footage "differently" to the other footage?  Yes, and no.  I still apply the same adjustments to each clip, adjusting things like:
White balance Exposure and contrast Saturation Black levels and white levels Specific adjustments to things like skin tones, colour of foliage and grass, etc Power windows to provide emphasis to the subject, usually lightening and adding contrast Removing troubled areas in the frame like anything that stands out and is distracting Texture adjustments like sharpening / softening / frequency separation Adding grain That stuff all sits underneath an overall look, which will be based on a CST or a LUT, as well as up to a dozen or so specific adjustments which are too complex to explain in this post.
Does the iPhone footage "feel" different when being graded?  Sure, but the XC10 and GH5 and OG BMPCC all feel more different to each other than the iPhone does.  TBH it feels more like in the middle than the other cameras, and similar to the GH5 and GX85.
Is it harder to grade because I'm having to overcome all the baked-in stuff?  It's probably not as difficult to grade as the XC10 footage, and that's shot in C-Log, which is a proper professional LOG profile.  The RAW stuff is easiest to grade.  What you might not be aware of is that all the different forms of RAW also feel different.  Different scenes feel different too, even from the same camera.
Can you make iPhone footage look as nice as ARRI footage?  No.  Definitely not.  But you won't be able to make the Apple LOG footage look like that either.
Can you have "creative control over the image".  Absolutely.  You have no idea how much control you can have over the image.  Apple LOG does give you more "creative control over the image", but compared to the creative control you have by even learning the basics of colour grading, the difference is minimal. 
The only people who have no "creative control over the image" are people that have no colour grading ability.
The ironic thing is that by applying a LUT designed by someone else, you have less effective creative control than you had before you applied it.
Going back to the "video" look that over processing the image gives, I have become very sensitive to it and see it online in almost all free content.  It is present even on videos shot on high-end cinema cameras.  The only places it is almost completely absent is on high-end productions on streaming services and in the cinema.  

Ah, now I understand...
He's a LUT peddler!   This is an AD!!
He doesn't want you to settle for the baked-in look from Apple that gives you no "creative control over the image" - he wants you to buy his LUT and the fact that it gives you no "creative control over the image" doesn't matter - he has money in his pocket so it's ok!
Designing LUTs is hard and lots of skills are required - if he can't grade HDR footage then he falls well short of any standard.