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newfoundmass

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  1. Like
    newfoundmass reacted to ade towell in Panasonic S5 II (What does Panasonic have up their sleeve?)   
    Ok received the S5ii with 20-60mm and 50mm lens kit this morning, charged the battery had a very quick play and then took it with me on a shoot this afternoon - nothing too taxing or crazy, just filming speakers at a conference and took some photos in between.   
    Was able to use it instead of the Canon R6 until it ran out of battery (only had the one, lasted about as long as R6 battery does - couple of hours in 4k). Here are my thoughts so far...
    Some real positives over the R6 for this type of work -
    No 30 minute limit (one of the talks was 40 minutes) so was nice to capture it all
    Able to use my 7" monitor whilst having full access to the cameras touchscreen - this was lovely and so much more relaxing for my ageing eyes. Great to be able to put lut on monitor and also use full HDMI - even without a cage felt more reassuring than horrible micro
    No overheating whatsoever in 4k 10 bit 422 for 2 hours - priceless for peace of mind. Once the battery ran out had to use the R6 and overheating warning came on in the last hour so changed recording down to HD for the last speaker
    Comparing to the R6 they are very similar in size and weight - S5ii feels very solid, R6  a bit plasticy in comparison although slightly nicer grip in the hand (was marginal though and maybe dependent on hand size).  S5ii AF with the 20-60mm and 50mm 1.8 seemed to stick well once it locked onto a face. Nothing very taxing but did a good job I think - will need to check through all the footage but am pretty confident it worked as well as the R6 under these conditions
    Audio - used Sound Devices mix pre-d at line level 96khz 24 bit into the S5ii - seems to capture a clean sound, need to do some testing but think it is a step up from the R6 
    The 20-60mm lens is probably the best kit lenses I've used - well made, nicely dampened focus ring and zoom. Love that it's 20mm on the wide as opposed to standard 24mm, don't think I'll need any wider. Bit short on the long end but used it in apsc mode - quality seems a little sharper than the r6's crop mode but am only eyeballing off the screen
    The 50mm 1.8 is really nice, completely silent AF, nice size and lovely feel to the large focus ring, also quite pleasing bokeh from first impression, felt like a quality lens - obviously in a different price bracket to the Canon 50mm STM lens but yes a lot nicer to use 
    That's all for now, feel like it could be a good purchase though of course early days so time will tell, used vlog and am just trying some luts in Resolve now - looks pretty good for conference type lighting
  2. Like
    newfoundmass reacted to So Ros in Panasonic S5 II (What does Panasonic have up their sleeve?)   
    The same thing happens with Sony and canon autofocus.  You have to adjust, tap or go manually.  Plan accordingly when doing events, wedding’s, etc.. There are times you should use it and times you shouldn’t, it’s just a tool like anything else.
  3. Like
    newfoundmass got a reaction from zerocool22 in Panasonic S5 II (What does Panasonic have up their sleeve?)   
    You can go into the settings, I believe, and make it so that AF works even when not recording.
  4. Like
    newfoundmass got a reaction from kaylee in Premiere export settings -- color shift driving me crazy --help   
    So it looks like you're trying to export the file as HLG? Is the original footage HLG? The project doesn't look like it is (at least it doesn't mention it in the project settings.) Under "Basic Video Settings" hit more and see if you can change that.
    Also is there any reason you're using custom settings instead of one of the presets?
  5. Like
    newfoundmass reacted to Maxbrand in How we shot a 30-minute film for under $3000 while still maintaining high production value, a producer & cinematographer's perspective - Part 2   
    This post is available on my blog a little more nicely formatted: Link
    Trailer for the film
    The making of RE:ACTING
    Two weeks ago I wrote a post talking about how we shot our micro-budget short film. I talked about how we planned and shot one scene in the film.
    I got some questions about where exactly the $3000 budget went, so I'm going to start this post by breaking down our costs.
    Food & snacks for about 10-15 people per day (cooked in the evenings after the shoot) - $500
    Camera equipment was mostly lent to us for free, but in order to move quickly we also had to rent two zoom lenses for seven days - $450
    Props & costumes - $400
    Location costs (parking, location rent etc..) - $400
    Post-production - $1250
    Keeping the budget this low was only possible because we were able to borrow a lot of gear, being smart about planning and making deals with other companies.
    For example, we planned the shoot in June because that’s the month most Swedes are on vacation and we managed to get sponsored by a production company that did not have anything scheduled during the shoot, they would let us borrow most of the camera and lighting equipment for the whole production.
    Additionally, we managed to save costs on props by negotiating a deal with a company that rents out police gear for film, including cars. Usually this would cost a lot as police gear is highly regulated, but we were able to get what we needed for one day of shooting in exchange for doing a short production for the company.
    Another place where we had to get creative with costs was locations. As we wanted to shoot a total of 26 scenes in 13 different locations, we had to choose and plan our locations and scenes carefully. Not only did they have to come for free or at least very cheaply, we also had to get to three locations per day with a small crew.
    In the last post I talked about scene 3 in the film and how we shot it in about two hours from arriving at the location. After Scene 3 we drove about 20 minutes to the next location to shoot Scene 22 where we transformed an inconspicuous location into something that would work for the production in more ways than one.

    Schedule for day 4 of the shoot
    Scene #22
    Scene 22 is a police interrogation with the main character Karl, where he finally gets the courage to act well and completes his character arc.
    The good thing about interrogation rooms is that when you really look at them and how they appear in films, they're just rooms with neutral-coloured walls and often a one-way mirror.
    We realised that all we needed for this location was a white wall and enough space to fit a table and chairs. I figured the common room in the basement of my apartment building would fit our needs, and we could rent it for just $30 a day.

    The corner where the bed is standing is where we shot this whole scene.
    Doesn’t look like much when you look at it like this, but just dress it up right and light it with intent and you can make anything work.

    Dressed up and lit.
    When I scouted this room there were several things that made me feel like this was going to make a good location:
    Few, small windows, making it easy to block out sunlight
    Big space, fitting the whole crew without problem
    Access to a bathroom and a kitchen so we could break for lunch here. (which we did)
    Bottom floor, so we could get our equipment in and out of the room quickly.
    We shot during the daytime, so we had to block out the light from the windows and ended up using just an Astera tube with grid for lighting as well as a floppy for some negative fill.

    Floor plan & lighting schematic I made ahead of the shoot
    For this scene we chose to shoot from a 90-degree angle to emphasise the movement when Karl leans forward and takes control of the situation.
    In contrast to the rest of the film which is shot around 28-35mm, we chose to use a tighter lens to make Karl appear more cramped up and put on the spot.

    Acting tough

    Being out-witted
    These are the two shots that run for most of this scene, and the third shot is of Karl's friend and dim-witted drug dealer Josef who is (poorly) trying to talk his way out of the situation.

    Josef, the drug dealer
    This shot we chose to do from head-on with the police in silhouette instead. This is both because Josef is acting as comedic relief in the middle of a tense scene and comedy genereally plays better in a wider shot, and also because we wanted to sell the feeling of it being an actual interrogation room more.
    Rounding up
    This interrogation room scene is a simple scene but I still think that many good principles were applied in its planning. We kept the lighting simple, we got a location that was close to the other two locations of the day, we didn’t have to do a lot of rigging, and in the end we shot it in a way that made it a lot more interesting than you’d expect when you saw the room for the first time.
    So, the next time you’re faced with a scene that you don’t have the budget for. Take a step back and consider what the essential parts of the scene are. Then try to be creative with lighting and blocking to enhance your location. If you do this you can often get away with shooting a scene that you thought was out of your budget.
    In the third part of this series I’ll give another example of how we got away with shooting a scene that on the surface seems impossible at this budget - an interior scene in a moving car during night time.

    Josef, shocked that we pulled it off.
    Again, feel free to reach out to me if you have any specific questions.
  6. Like
    newfoundmass reacted to hyalinejim in Panasonic S5 II (What does Panasonic have up their sleeve?)   
    Skintones are looking good to me using a LUT I made for the GH6:
     



    Over the weekend if I have time I'll try to shoot some charts with the GH6 and S5II to check how close or not the colour is.
  7. Like
    newfoundmass reacted to hyalinejim in Panasonic S5 II (What does Panasonic have up their sleeve?)   
    Because of the rolling shutter, or because of something else?
    I assume that RS will be improved in APSC mode, so there is that option if you know there's a train due any minute!
    I'm just having look at the footage now myself. Today was my first day using the camera properly, did a corporate job with it this morning. All good. Sometimes the AF got confused (you can see this in one of the seal shots I uploaded - Animal AF was on but it just lost it) in which case I just switched it off and used manual. Like, for people when there are 2 or 3 in the frame it sometimes hops back and forth between targets randomly, whereas I would prefer if it waited for me to select who to focus on. I had increased sensitivity to +3 so maybe that has something to do with it. But for standard interview shots it was a relief to just let the camera roll with the lens wide open and I could concentrate on other things besides focusing.
    One of the questions I was interested in looking at in the test footage I uploaded was: is the 3.1x crop in HD pixel-pixel mode usable? The answer, I think is yes but only by keeping noise low by exposing at base ISO and/or overexposing to keep noise at a minimum and also stopping down to wherever the lens is sharpest. In the clips I uploaded, the first few HD pixel-pixel shots were at 2.8 which is probably too soft. But this was at f8 and around 1.5 stops overexposed at base ISO and I I think I could just aboutt use it in a client vid if I didn't have time to change to a longer lens to get the shot:

     
    So that means that a 24-70 roughly becomes a 75-210. But you really need good light to do that to avoid noise and lens imperfections. Would be great for travel in sunny places, not like grey old Ireland!
     
  8. Like
    newfoundmass got a reaction from Emanuel in Panasonic S5 II (What does Panasonic have up their sleeve?)   
    Granted they're a retailer, but another test. Starting to think Panny (or Sigma) did something to make them work so well. 
     
  9. Thanks
    newfoundmass reacted to hyalinejim in Panasonic S5 II (What does Panasonic have up their sleeve?)   
    @Django and anyone else who's interested I've uploaded a bunch of very short clips here at different resolutions and crop factors to check out:
    https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/13zSYccjrhj1WXKDNMFioxTAoQbZyuP80?usp=share_link

  10. Like
    newfoundmass reacted to hyalinejim in Panasonic S5 II (What does Panasonic have up their sleeve?)   
    I didn't quite say that. I said it had "a half-assed curve", and go on to explain what I mean by that (a mild contrast curve with elevated blacks where middle grey is not at the correct value). It's an easy fix for anyone who knows how to use basic colour correction techniques, which I presume you do.
    Pannys colour conversion is basically sound, with the caveats that colour is not entirely accurate and that the same conversion is used for different models with different colour responses. But I'm sure that's true for Canon and Sony true.
    Likewise for the rest of the thread, which is a digression into exposure technique for log in general, not just V-Log.
    There's nothing particularly difficult about V-Log. I could pick the same or similar nits, I'm sure, for C and S-Log.
  11. Like
    newfoundmass got a reaction from hyalinejim in Panasonic S5 II (What does Panasonic have up their sleeve?)   
    All log profiles take some time to get used to, but I really don't think Vlog is any more difficult to work with than other log profiles. I don't mean to downplay anyone's opinion in that other thread, but they're just that: someone's opinion and there's only a couple of people giving them in there. You'll find tons of folks who have differing ones. 
  12. Like
    newfoundmass got a reaction from PannySVHS in Panasonic S5 II (What does Panasonic have up their sleeve?)   
    It's so hard to know if a camera will be "enough" to lure away users of other brands/lens mounts, but I DO think we'll see enough people switching that it WILL make a difference on Panasonic's bottom line, especially among "content creators" (I hate that term) and video pros that do marketing for companies.
    The ability to shoot in 3:2 is a big selling point for the people I know in that realm, because they're creating content for multiple platforms that all favor different aspect ratios and resolutions. For those types, the combination of that, the IBIS, and the autofocus, is a really compelling combination. And the thing about them is, a lot of them aren't heavily invested in lenses for the cameras they are currently using. A lot of them may only use two or three lenses. 
    My friend Josh is a A7s III shooter. He primarily uses a Tamron zoom and a few primes. He is considering jumping because he can get close to $3000 for the body alone, which would be more than enough for him to get the S5 and at least one lens, not to mention what he'd get for the E mount lenses. At the end of the day he'd probably end up with close to $4000 to work with after selling everything? In all likelihood he'd end up with more money in his pocket when all was said and done, plus have a camera that is better for his social media marketing work he does. He told me he'd miss not having 120 fps in 4K but that he also hardly ever uses it. It's one of those things he wanted badly, but in practice found he really didn't need 4x slow motion for non-profit marketing videos (shocker, I know!) and doesn't really use it much. 
    When it comes to M43, I'm a little more conflicted. I think that there probably are a significant number of M43 users that see the S5 ii and feel kind of burned if they'd just purchased the GH6 last year. People can make arguments for why they shouldn't, but there absolutely are people that do feel that way and, if they'd known, probably would've held off buying the GH6 in favor of finally switching to full frame and the S5 ii when it came out. Do I think though that the S5 ii will completely cannibalize the GH line or M43? No, because there are still a lot of people that are not interested in full frame, and are very, very partial to M43. If we're being honest, Panasonic put that user base on ice for several years. Those that stuck around are their most loyal users, and I'd argue the majority of them will continue using M43 for as long as companies support it. 
    I agree with @Andrew Reid though that the promise of M43 has kind of been lost. In many ways it was necessary to make the cameras bigger to support the advanced features that for a long time only M43 was capable of, but now everyone is on a pretty even playing field. To me, the way forward for M43 is to focus on making the cameras (and lenses, if possible) smaller while still maintaining the capabilities and the quality that we've come to expect. I just don't know that Panasonic sees value in that direction, given they've seemingly axed the GX line of cameras. Even today, if you could put all the capabilities of a GH5 but with updated color science and autofocus in the body of a GX camera I'd buy one. 
  13. Like
    newfoundmass reacted to hyalinejim in Panasonic S5 II (What does Panasonic have up their sleeve?)   
    Don't be put off by that! I would assume that the observations I make there regarding V-Log colour are the same for other flavours of log, ie: that different methods of gamut conversions (or non-conversions) will be more or less accurate to objective colour.
    I don't see how working with V-Log would be more difficult than C or S Log.
  14. Like
    newfoundmass reacted to hyalinejim in Panasonic S5 II (What does Panasonic have up their sleeve?)   
    Well, as you can imagine, I spent the afternoon running towards and away from the camera like a fool, trying to figure out if phase AF work for the EF lenses I own (it does). I would guess at this stage that every EF lens will work with the MC21 and, who knows, possibly with other adapters too. But the important variable is how noisy are they going to be.

    Up to now, I had been using an old Sigma EF 70-200 2.8 as my main interview lens for corporate/promotional vide. The phase AF works very well on the S5II but the noise of the motor is too loud and distracting to be usable for my work. My other workhorse lens, the Tamron EF 24-70 2.8 is not too noisy, and in APSC mode gives me roughly the field of view that I Iike for interviews. The Canon 24-105 is not too noisy, but I don't really like it (low light transmission and weird non-constant aperture behaviour when stopped down). My only other EF AF lens is a nifty 50 which we already knew works fine from Kai or somebody.

    This was my motivation to get the S5 II. I had noticed that occasionally I missed focus in interviews if the subject moved a little and I felt that wasn't good enough. Now I don't need to hover near the lens quite so much, sweating bricks if the subject leans forward or takes a half step back.
    The other thing I began to have a look at was  if it would change how I shoot B roll. I was fairly happy with how I pull focus manually previously. Nevertheless, I now have the option use human tracking when shooting B roll of people, and normal tracking when shooting objects.
    I'm also looking forward to putting phase AF through its paces in trying to nab some shallow DOF shots of my kids running around the place.
  15. Like
    newfoundmass reacted to hyalinejim in Panasonic S5 II (What does Panasonic have up their sleeve?)   
    I'm just on the way home now and look what I've got in my bag 🙂

    For me, the clincher was that phase AF works with my old EF lenses with the MC21
  16. Like
    newfoundmass got a reaction from kaylee in Premiere export settings -- color shift driving me crazy --help   
    Can you give us some info on your workflow? Are you working with log footage? What are your project settings? What export settings are you using? 
  17. Like
    newfoundmass got a reaction from bjohn in 1 Lens Challenge (primes only)   
    On full frame I think I'd have to go 35mm. The ability to switch from FF to APSC would give me the ability to use it as a 35mm and a 50mm, and those are two of my most common focal lengths. A 50mm would come close, since then I'd have some telephoto capabilities but I think the 35 would win out.
  18. Like
    newfoundmass reacted to hyalinejim in Premiere export settings -- color shift driving me crazy --help   
    Post screengrabs of your export settings
  19. Like
    newfoundmass got a reaction from John Matthews in Panasonic S5 II (What does Panasonic have up their sleeve?)   
    Not really. It's pretty much out of their hands at this point. They COULD release firmware updates for lenses, but it'd be pointless and they'd never actually do it. Why bother when hardly anyone would actually install the updates? At this point the only thing that'll impact compatibility is the adapters and cameras themselves. 
  20. Like
    newfoundmass got a reaction from Emanuel in Panasonic S5 II (What does Panasonic have up their sleeve?)   
    Not really. It's pretty much out of their hands at this point. They COULD release firmware updates for lenses, but it'd be pointless and they'd never actually do it. Why bother when hardly anyone would actually install the updates? At this point the only thing that'll impact compatibility is the adapters and cameras themselves. 
  21. Like
    newfoundmass got a reaction from Emanuel in Top 5 mirrorless for video IBIS?   
    Olympus/OMD might technically have the best IBIS but lacks the video features of the others. The GH6 and the S5ii both are probably at the top of the pack. Really, no one else other than Olympus comes close. 
  22. Like
    newfoundmass got a reaction from John Matthews in Panasonic S5 II (What does Panasonic have up their sleeve?)   
    More tests with EF lenses.
     
     
  23. Like
    newfoundmass got a reaction from ntblowz in Panasonic S5 II (What does Panasonic have up their sleeve?)   
    More tests with EF lenses.
     
     
  24. Like
    newfoundmass got a reaction from FHDcrew in Apple Unveils M2 Pro & M2 Max Chips in Updated MacBook Pro & Mac mini   
    The M1 Macs will be an even better value once they start slashing the prices on them. 
  25. Like
    newfoundmass got a reaction from Rinad Amir in 1 Lens Challenge (primes only)   
    On full frame I think I'd have to go 35mm. The ability to switch from FF to APSC would give me the ability to use it as a 35mm and a 50mm, and those are two of my most common focal lengths. A 50mm would come close, since then I'd have some telephoto capabilities but I think the 35 would win out.
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