leslie

Turn this:

Into this!

I entered two terrible quality cameras in the $200 camera challenge and somehow didn't come last, so here's what I learned.  In case it's useful to someone
Shooting:
Low quality cameras have poor codecs and low bitrates, which typically have trouble with a lot of movement.  Therefore I used a tripod for every shot instead of hand-holding.  This also gives you more options for temporal NR in post too. Go for the 180 shutter by either using an ND or by simply filming in low light.  How can you tell if it's 180 shutter?  Wave your hand in front of it and see how streaky it is.  or alternatively, if your camera is very low resolution and subjects aren't moving too much, then the sheer size of the pixels will completely obscure whatever shutter angle you have!  Win!! In post:
Edit in your desired output resolution, not the one you shot in..  dodgy 4K image?  Output in 8K today! Think about converting to black and white.  This gives you 4 times the effective resolution!! Camera only shoots 30p?  Excellent - conform to 24p in post and get slow motion for free!!  Most NLEs can slow audio slightly too, so if it works for the vibe of your project then go with it. Digital compression is awful and a give-away you're not shooting RAW or film, so is over-sharpening that you can't turn off.  Therefore, blur the image in post.  You might want to consider blurring only the edges of things, and you should experiment with blur size and blur strength too.  I typically find a sharp diagonal line and blur until it looks like a straight line instead of a jaggy digital mess. Use noise reduction, both spatial and temporal.  It will make the image blurry, but that's also what you want because of above, so go nuts.  The image might look smooth, but we'll add grain later, so don't worry about it. My footage had a bunch of compression artefacts that flickered on and off on each alternate frame and was very distracting (and awful).  De-flicker plugins can work wonders.  Just play with the types and presets until it's gone. Colour will probably be awful, so either make it black and white (which also gets around the awful coloured fringing) or desaturate heavily.  You can also do heavy chroma NR to get rid of colour flickering.  Also feel free to use advanced colour controls such as Hue vs Hue to get rid of nasty colours, or use masks to selectively desaturate colours you don't like. Get rid of digital looking clipped highlights by controlling and artificial highlight rolloff via curves.  Someone complimented me on the highlight rolloff, which was totally created in post. Use music, pick your shots well, and try and distract from IQ by using content, composition, lighting, and other 'tricks' ??? Can't afford a nice vintage lens or camera has a fixed lens?  Add halation by masking only the brightest parts of the image, adding a big blur, then put over the top of the image at a low opacity. Add grain to finish it off.  Film has grain and film is awesome, so therefore....  plus, YT kills grain and will put heavy bands on smooth areas so you really should add some.  I recommend doing a grain test video with different strengths so you can see what YT does it various amounts of it.  It takes more than you think to show up in YT, a LOT more. Here is the curve that gives that highlight rolloff and deep shadows....

Here's another before/after image.


and here's my reveal post with the final and SOOC videos:
Hopefully that's useful to someone!  Feel free to ask questions  
and I still think I can make a P4K look like a BMMCC or BMPCCv1 so if you have both and can shoot something with both then let me know.....

android for me, not a fan of apple and the way they do things. seems to me if its not in their best interests its no good for you either, stuff that

i liked webrunner, i will miss him...  and no doubt  he had a lot of experience that he tried to or could have imparted to the forum. Having said that he was about as tactful as a sledgehammer and it was his way or the highway. Personally i don't think that cuts it in this day and age. Sometimes a line has to be drawn in the sand a point to which someone will go to but no further.  A camera forum is not a battlefield, and its not life or death either. if you cant distinguish between the two your probably missing the whole point of having a camera in the first place.  
mercer is american i believe I dont have hate for him ? in fact of the entire forum, he seems to be living the dream. We regularly get posts or updates on his progress what can you show us ?

i got a bit fixated on the losing camera bit, completely missed the fine print about entering just for the judges category. But thats life.
I'm a bit surprised with the amount of entries or lack thereof, as i bid on 3 or 4 cameras but was out bid on everything. I was sure you guys must have been buying everything up  for the competition. The old video camera segment  of ebay must be quite abit more active than one would have thought. Too cut a long story short i ended up using a logitech c920 webcam with a letus anamorphic adapter taped to the front. My reasoning for using the letus was to help differentiate my entry from the others. i figure if speedboosters were allowed if you already had them an anamorphic should be ok as well. Not sure if anyone else shot anamorphicaly. Considering i went to the trouble of using the letus i did forget to get any footage of the lens flaring which was kinda dumb. Since my entry has proved surprisingly unlikely to win the point is moot i guess.
I'm glad i entered i learned a whole bunch of things that i can apply to the next challenge. i am fairly confident i can increase my vote rate by at least a 100% next time round ?
So dan the man pm me your address if you need a webcam for  the odd late night online dalliance. Mind you, you can keep those tips,tricks and footage for your own personal gratuitousness ok ?
 

i got a bit fixated on the losing camera bit, completely missed the fine print about entering just for the judges category. But thats life.
I'm a bit surprised with the amount of entries or lack thereof, as i bid on 3 or 4 cameras but was out bid on everything. I was sure you guys must have been buying everything up  for the competition. The old video camera segment  of ebay must be quite abit more active than one would have thought. Too cut a long story short i ended up using a logitech c920 webcam with a letus anamorphic adapter taped to the front. My reasoning for using the letus was to help differentiate my entry from the others. i figure if speedboosters were allowed if you already had them an anamorphic should be ok as well. Not sure if anyone else shot anamorphicaly. Considering i went to the trouble of using the letus i did forget to get any footage of the lens flaring which was kinda dumb. Since my entry has proved surprisingly unlikely to win the point is moot i guess.
I'm glad i entered i learned a whole bunch of things that i can apply to the next challenge. i am fairly confident i can increase my vote rate by at least a 100% next time round ?
So dan the man pm me your address if you need a webcam for  the odd late night online dalliance. Mind you, you can keep those tips,tricks and footage for your own personal gratuitousness ok ?
 

i got a bit fixated on the losing camera bit, completely missed the fine print about entering just for the judges category. But thats life.
I'm a bit surprised with the amount of entries or lack thereof, as i bid on 3 or 4 cameras but was out bid on everything. I was sure you guys must have been buying everything up  for the competition. The old video camera segment  of ebay must be quite abit more active than one would have thought. Too cut a long story short i ended up using a logitech c920 webcam with a letus anamorphic adapter taped to the front. My reasoning for using the letus was to help differentiate my entry from the others. i figure if speedboosters were allowed if you already had them an anamorphic should be ok as well. Not sure if anyone else shot anamorphicaly. Considering i went to the trouble of using the letus i did forget to get any footage of the lens flaring which was kinda dumb. Since my entry has proved surprisingly unlikely to win the point is moot i guess.
I'm glad i entered i learned a whole bunch of things that i can apply to the next challenge. i am fairly confident i can increase my vote rate by at least a 100% next time round ?
So dan the man pm me your address if you need a webcam for  the odd late night online dalliance. Mind you, you can keep those tips,tricks and footage for your own personal gratuitousness ok ?
 

i got a bit fixated on the losing camera bit, completely missed the fine print about entering just for the judges category. But thats life.
I'm a bit surprised with the amount of entries or lack thereof, as i bid on 3 or 4 cameras but was out bid on everything. I was sure you guys must have been buying everything up  for the competition. The old video camera segment  of ebay must be quite abit more active than one would have thought. Too cut a long story short i ended up using a logitech c920 webcam with a letus anamorphic adapter taped to the front. My reasoning for using the letus was to help differentiate my entry from the others. i figure if speedboosters were allowed if you already had them an anamorphic should be ok as well. Not sure if anyone else shot anamorphicaly. Considering i went to the trouble of using the letus i did forget to get any footage of the lens flaring which was kinda dumb. Since my entry has proved surprisingly unlikely to win the point is moot i guess.
I'm glad i entered i learned a whole bunch of things that i can apply to the next challenge. i am fairly confident i can increase my vote rate by at least a 100% next time round ?
So dan the man pm me your address if you need a webcam for  the odd late night online dalliance. Mind you, you can keep those tips,tricks and footage for your own personal gratuitousness ok ?
 

i got a bit fixated on the losing camera bit, completely missed the fine print about entering just for the judges category. But thats life.
I'm a bit surprised with the amount of entries or lack thereof, as i bid on 3 or 4 cameras but was out bid on everything. I was sure you guys must have been buying everything up  for the competition. The old video camera segment  of ebay must be quite abit more active than one would have thought. Too cut a long story short i ended up using a logitech c920 webcam with a letus anamorphic adapter taped to the front. My reasoning for using the letus was to help differentiate my entry from the others. i figure if speedboosters were allowed if you already had them an anamorphic should be ok as well. Not sure if anyone else shot anamorphicaly. Considering i went to the trouble of using the letus i did forget to get any footage of the lens flaring which was kinda dumb. Since my entry has proved surprisingly unlikely to win the point is moot i guess.
I'm glad i entered i learned a whole bunch of things that i can apply to the next challenge. i am fairly confident i can increase my vote rate by at least a 100% next time round ?
So dan the man pm me your address if you need a webcam for  the odd late night online dalliance. Mind you, you can keep those tips,tricks and footage for your own personal gratuitousness ok ?
 

i got a bit fixated on the losing camera bit, completely missed the fine print about entering just for the judges category. But thats life.
I'm a bit surprised with the amount of entries or lack thereof, as i bid on 3 or 4 cameras but was out bid on everything. I was sure you guys must have been buying everything up  for the competition. The old video camera segment  of ebay must be quite abit more active than one would have thought. Too cut a long story short i ended up using a logitech c920 webcam with a letus anamorphic adapter taped to the front. My reasoning for using the letus was to help differentiate my entry from the others. i figure if speedboosters were allowed if you already had them an anamorphic should be ok as well. Not sure if anyone else shot anamorphicaly. Considering i went to the trouble of using the letus i did forget to get any footage of the lens flaring which was kinda dumb. Since my entry has proved surprisingly unlikely to win the point is moot i guess.
I'm glad i entered i learned a whole bunch of things that i can apply to the next challenge. i am fairly confident i can increase my vote rate by at least a 100% next time round ?
So dan the man pm me your address if you need a webcam for  the odd late night online dalliance. Mind you, you can keep those tips,tricks and footage for your own personal gratuitousness ok ?
 

hey i'm still learning but i might save that for next time
your a braver man than me. i like my 60d too much to have chanced it in a comp. which turned out to be the right decision for me in hindsight

you killed it !! how much more technical can you be ? ? by the way was it a silver or black you sacrificed  ?
However you did get an honorable mention so i guess thats ok ?

i got a bit fixated on the losing camera bit, completely missed the fine print about entering just for the judges category. But thats life.
I'm a bit surprised with the amount of entries or lack thereof, as i bid on 3 or 4 cameras but was out bid on everything. I was sure you guys must have been buying everything up  for the competition. The old video camera segment  of ebay must be quite abit more active than one would have thought. Too cut a long story short i ended up using a logitech c920 webcam with a letus anamorphic adapter taped to the front. My reasoning for using the letus was to help differentiate my entry from the others. i figure if speedboosters were allowed if you already had them an anamorphic should be ok as well. Not sure if anyone else shot anamorphicaly. Considering i went to the trouble of using the letus i did forget to get any footage of the lens flaring which was kinda dumb. Since my entry has proved surprisingly unlikely to win the point is moot i guess.
I'm glad i entered i learned a whole bunch of things that i can apply to the next challenge. i am fairly confident i can increase my vote rate by at least a 100% next time round ?
So dan the man pm me your address if you need a webcam for  the odd late night online dalliance. Mind you, you can keep those tips,tricks and footage for your own personal gratuitousness ok ?
 

i got a bit fixated on the losing camera bit, completely missed the fine print about entering just for the judges category. But thats life.
I'm a bit surprised with the amount of entries or lack thereof, as i bid on 3 or 4 cameras but was out bid on everything. I was sure you guys must have been buying everything up  for the competition. The old video camera segment  of ebay must be quite abit more active than one would have thought. Too cut a long story short i ended up using a logitech c920 webcam with a letus anamorphic adapter taped to the front. My reasoning for using the letus was to help differentiate my entry from the others. i figure if speedboosters were allowed if you already had them an anamorphic should be ok as well. Not sure if anyone else shot anamorphicaly. Considering i went to the trouble of using the letus i did forget to get any footage of the lens flaring which was kinda dumb. Since my entry has proved surprisingly unlikely to win the point is moot i guess.
I'm glad i entered i learned a whole bunch of things that i can apply to the next challenge. i am fairly confident i can increase my vote rate by at least a 100% next time round ?
So dan the man pm me your address if you need a webcam for  the odd late night online dalliance. Mind you, you can keep those tips,tricks and footage for your own personal gratuitousness ok ?
 

so after the reveal whats next  ?    what are the odds of making it a monthly or bimonthly challenge.  to give the users of the forum something to aim for, or aspire too perhaps ?
cause we all do  a lot of talking, something to keep us learning the craft would be really constructive as well.?

android for me, not a fan of apple and the way they do things. seems to me if its not in their best interests its no good for you either, stuff that

i liked webrunner, i will miss him...  and no doubt  he had a lot of experience that he tried to or could have imparted to the forum. Having said that he was about as tactful as a sledgehammer and it was his way or the highway. Personally i don't think that cuts it in this day and age. Sometimes a line has to be drawn in the sand a point to which someone will go to but no further.  A camera forum is not a battlefield, and its not life or death either. if you cant distinguish between the two your probably missing the whole point of having a camera in the first place.  
mercer is american i believe I dont have hate for him ? in fact of the entire forum, he seems to be living the dream. We regularly get posts or updates on his progress what can you show us ?

if i could have found a gopro 3 or 4 black i would have bought it for the $200 challenge as well. Something to be aware of is the colour shift that happens with the gopros when you change lenses with the 3's and four's doesn't happen with the 5 well i thought it didn't happen with the 5 but this site says it does. basically you will get pink edges the only way to fix it is to  a $50  (or used to be $50 download, its now $25, business must have slowed alot) to change the lens profile somehow.
https://www.peauproductions.com/products/service-remove-gopro-lens-profile-no-pink-corners
 

welcome to the club ?
edit ..it would be interesting to see what the summer/winter ring and dull haze rings do. You might have found an intriguing in camera effect.
since we are naming and shaming, i bought a carl zeiss for a bargain price expecting great things. In reality it was a lot less lens than i anticipated lol. that will teach me to do more research. I'm not sure what to do with it either. Thats a 63mm nikon enlarger lens beside it
 

Soon I'll put the link to the vote on the front page of the blog to drum up some more people to take part and vote.
Then let's close the poll around Saturday-ish and do the big reveal of gear. Get some photos of the gear and post it. I'll do the same and reveal what I shot. I made two videos with two different cameras.
Then the winner of the public vote gets the last place person's camera If he wants to give it him. We're not going to force it out of his hands  This is supposed to be a bit of fun really.
Then I'll choose a winner of the judge's prize, who will get one of my cameras.

Can't speak for Ed but I'm fine thanks mate, just been a bit busy writing some code to contribute further.

welll duh..... the 6k is nearly double the price you would expect it to better.
pretty sure the p4k can capture it... you must be doing something wrong.
technically the only thing being vocal is you!! I would bet most of us p4k owners are happy chappies, but perhaps not everyone. Not sure what your game is, and honestly i dont care.
I guess 4k isnt enough for you. 6k should compensate for whatever it  is your lacking. ?

indeed, if there was a mountain range in the background we'd have to start calling you ansel ?

is there another Leslie ? or have you been partaking from the dregs of btm_ alcohol fueled lens tests again ?
because i'm confused. i'm pretty confident  i couldnt really do a 8,10,12 log discussion much justice at all. although i am pretty happy with what the p4k sends my way ?

gopros have a small lens however that picture gets wide very quickly  which makes it pretty easy to get a finger stuck in the picture somewhere. Dont ask how i know this .The lens would be less than an inch or 25 mm wide so it may fit between your grate. whether the lens protudes down through the grate enough not to block your fov is the question.  the gopro  fov is about 170 degrees however you can also change that fov from superview to wide and linear modes which are kind of like a crop.  the other thing i could suggest is rage cam and one other company can mod your gopro with alternative lenses  which would give you a narrower fov as well which may help in your situation.

so after the reveal whats next  ?    what are the odds of making it a monthly or bimonthly challenge.  to give the users of the forum something to aim for, or aspire too perhaps ?
cause we all do  a lot of talking, something to keep us learning the craft would be really constructive as well.?