thebrothersthre3

36 minutes ago, Kisaha said:

Ι paid a fairly experienced camera operator to do a little camera job for me of a traditional dance night, almost a 50 years old guy, with a steady camera on a tripod for the wide, and another on a monopod for closer looks, and the footage is terrible! He missed almost all the things he should capture. He started as a photographer, and turned to video after the 5DMKII revolution, and obviously never got it...

Changing framing way too fast. Moves were terrible and non usable. 

I have some experience now with music and live performanes, and I believe I am quite good (I am a trained musician anyway), but some things are just common sense, I mean, if the goddamn guitarist is soloing, just zoom in a little, don't go to the drummer! He missed stuff like that!

Some of those lives (especially with dance groups) I put 4-6 cameras. It is a nightmare after to edit of course, but it can be impressive, and it is a lot better and different than the usual stuff. I also charge a bit more, but not what I should.

Yeah I was talking about shooting at an Opera house, pretty high end venue. So no room for error. I'd imagine ideally someone who films bands has a good sense of music. I don't really haha but I can follow along pretty well. Like you said film whoever seems to be going at it. I filmed for a musician a few months.. We did one wide shot unmanned and then two cameras for close ups that me and my friend were on. It was like music plus poetry. It wasn't perfect but the artist was really happy with the footage. 

Shooting live stuff can definitely be a bit tricky if you are a one man operation, you definitely have to know your gear. Overheating is a bitch with live events, had to learn the hard way with a Fuji and Sony slr. I've realized camcorders were made for a reason haha. 

I am a fan of a camera that needs no additional stuff to use. It just doesn't really exist yet. The Pocket could actually be really really good if it had a much stronger internal battery 2.5x power at least, plus a 1000nit screen. But having to rig up DSLR's is the worst IMHO

27 minutes ago, Amro Othman said:

 

Ok nobody guessed and maybe I was being a d*ck by playing a guessing game- so the lens is a Zeiss Distagon ZE 35mm F2.0 ❤️

Very nice, how much did it run you? I have a PL modded Zeiss 25mm F4 coming in the mail but I am selling it straight away as I am getting rid of my PL mount camera.

1 hour ago, noone said:

 I am (I think) a reasonable photographer and my videos  pretty much consist of bands playing songs live and that is as simple as finding a spot, putting the camera on a tripod with mic facing the band, set camera to suit and hit record and turn off after the song.    From time to time a few very short videos experimenting with stuff as well.      The new little Sony vlogging RX1## camera would be great for me (not that i will get it) I would not use it for vlogging but to do the same as i do with my A7s for recording songs but in a tiny package that would make it even easier.

Those types of videos are fairly easy but even then you may have to deal with audio (maybe) which makes it more involved. It gets worse when you need a multi cam setup and say you are filming an orchestra. Then you need someone directing you through a head set on when to switch to what instrument. Still a lot easier than filmmaking but its way more involved than photography. 

16 minutes ago, FranciscoB said:

I think it would be usefull to separate the several areas of filmaking and not generalize. I did a few weddings during one summer and I hated it. People are unconfortable around cameras and just want to enjoy the wedding. As for photography, people have an instant gratification and can later post the pictures on social media, so the attittude is different towards photographers.

For commercials you have to deal with the client. Most of the times you have to compromise or do what your client wants, even when you know it's shit. There's less chance of creating "your" own commercial, as you're getting paid for a specific purpose. My stuff is low budget, so the hability to do something great is more difficult. What I've gotten from it is that I don't mind to get a little less money for more time. It's less stressfull and more enjoyable. But it's not always possible.

For corporate, my experience is that I had less people watching over my shoulder but people rely a lot on interviews. There's a formula that the client wants and that's it.  Normal people don't do so well on camera under pressure. So It's always a huge amount of time for people to be able to speak full sentences for the camera. I think I would behave the same way. And then you deal with terrible lighting and ugly ass interiors.

I watch this forum for a while now and it's mostly about gear talk. That's great but it's only a small part of the conversation. Some people work on the industry and some don't. There's a lot of cynicism towards the industry and some is valid. My recommendation is for people to lose the gear addiction and think of a theme that they would like to explore. In photography or video. Some ideas don't need a lot of money. Just time and dedication.

Completely agree. I think it just comes down to people don't want to talk about the difficult things. Gear is fun and stress free(mostly lol). 

I also agree on weddings. They can be a lot of fun (depending on the couple). The best wedding I did was where the family was just super comfortable with each other. They interacted so genuinely all the time, I was just capturing who they are. But like you said a lot of people freeze up in front of a camera. 

It is an odd thing though. A big thing now is filming couple's reading the letters they wrote to each other prior to the wedding. Its such a private moment to film, kind of odd. If I get married I'll want the ceremony filmed but that is it. And I want the videographers to be all the way in the back and stay there haha. The whole flashy wedding video montages are bizarre to me. This is my life we are talking about not some social media event.

11 minutes ago, Kisaha said:

I would like to hear more from you, as you are a fairly young guy into the industry, more connected with the 20 something generation, and you seem to have a good and sensible approach of things.

This new mindset of "just do it", as you mention above, is what interests me more.

Education seems to be not only irrelevant, but a negative - and I heard that a lot - especially in the wedding scene, most of the people are "I didn't study anything relative, but that is a good thing, because I am free to create on my own terms", I heard that a lot. Then, if you study, or work your way up, is a huge minus, why to waste effort, sweat, time and money when you can go straight to the top?! 

Thanks for your honest comment, and I would like to hear more for the YOLO generation - as I call it.

I am a father myself, and there is not even one chance that my kids are not going to learn, or read, a lot in their lives!

I guess I am old school, but old school is good sometimes. Life is not easy, but if you try reasonably, it can be good fun!

 

Yeah if there was a clearer path to education I'd definitely take it. From what I have seen film schools are often kind of a joke. At least that is my opinion after having worked with multiple students from these schools. I will also say everyone of these students have been very talented people. I just don't think the schools have taught them much. I learned more on my own from simply making my own films, working with other people, reading books, and articles/youtube. I did take the time to actually buy books on lighting, cinematography, and sound early on though. I feel like reading is unheard of these days unless its an online article haha. 

Interestingly I've found that a lot of online information especially mainstream stuff is really poor. It seems to often be written or produced by people who know very little about the actual subject but rather are just good at marketing themselves. Most filmmaking stuff on youtube is so basic and generic. Most experienced people are busy actually working and have no time for YouTube. So rather we get these wannabe filmmakers who are really just youtubers and there experience doesn't really go beyond that. 

There are exceptions to this of course. 

As to the "just do it" attitude I think its complicated. A lot of it comes from YouTube guru's, motivators and entrepreneurs. The big thing with YouTube is you just need to convince people you are an expert so they will buy your classes. I just saw a youtube ad the other day and it was a 15 year old kid talking about marketing! The kid was wearing braces haha. He was saying how he learned from the best and wants to tell you what to do with your money. It was completely ridiculous. At least someone like Tai Lopez took the time to get a lambo and huge Cali house to convince people he was a finance genius. 

Its the idea that to achieve something you just need to jump into it and fail until you succeed. There is of course truth to that but people take it to the extreme. Claiming to be something you are not professionally is fraudulent. I have worked wedding jobs being the sole videographer with very little experience. I feel bad as I often did a not so great job(at least in my opinion). That said my employers never told me I did anything wrong and continued to hire me. They also hired me in the first place despite my inexperience so I blame it on them and actually have since quit working with them. They did give me the opportunity to learn by failing and I think I am decent at doing weddings now. That said I'd much rather have learned under someone's wing rather than the way I went through it. 

A big thing now is these wedding companies that contract videographers to shoot their weddings. They claim to have award winning weddings(whatever that means?), yet they don't actually have a specific group of videographers. They contract random people from all over the place so the product they deliver has no consistency. Maybe some of their weddings are shot by an industry professional but others are shot by someone who's doing it for the first time. Their means of vetting who they hire is also a joke. 

1 hour ago, Kisaha said:

VIDEO IS EASY

that is what they will tell you!

Interesting perspective.
The unreasonable client has always existed of course.

I believe the "video is easy" mindset comes from the easy and cheap access to fairly high end looking equipment that was never an option before. The entry into the industry is just so easy and cheap. People just don't know any better. Coupled with the new age mindset of "just do it" rather than maybe a traditional work your way up slowly from the bottom approach.

I reluctantly call myself a DP or Gaffer, but it depends who I am talking to lol. Its hard to gauge my own experience as I work in the really low end indie level where I am often the most experienced person on set. That said I've seen far less experienced people than me calling themselves a DP. But I am always honest about my experience level.

Its a lot easier to buy your way into the industry than it was before as equipment is way easier to use. Before digital being able to get decent wedding photos was so much more difficult. Not because of the price but you actually had to be pretty dang good at getting nice compositions and exposing properly. Now you can take 40 photos every minute and as long as you get 100 decent ones out of 5000 you are not doing so bad.

I do sometimes worry about the future of my job security. At the same time I've realized, like this thread points out, even with all the technology we have now, its still very very hard to make something that is watchable.
 

21 minutes ago, newfoundmass said:

A7sII

seconded

Shouldn't be too bad with H265 though. I am very hopeful Sony is going to drop something soon.

1 hour ago, Video Hummus said:

A lot of us can’t help it! It’s a human tendency to want the next best thing and never be happy with what we have.

To be honest I had a itch to pull out my wallet and replace my GH5S...XT-4? S1H?... Then this global pandemic hit and quarantine happened. We also decided to move and sell our house so I naturally grabbed my camera and documented it.

To be honest the more I was creative with my camera the more I enjoyed using it to create something. The image with V-LogL is quite fantastic. I decided to use Buttery LUTs in an attempt to just shoot and focus my attention on exposure and white balance and not mess around too much in post (Some screenshots below).

 

I love that top shot of the bed!!
Most cameras these days are very capable. I don't love Pana colors but there are a lot of people doing amazing luts out there now that really negates the problem.

I've been thinking about purchasing the buttery LUT for my Fuji and BM Ursa Mini, maybe so I can get them to match easier. Unfortunately their LUT for Fuji is only for flog not HLG. Fuji Flog gives some nasty artifacts sometimes. I wish fuji would sort it out, almost considering selling off all my fuji gear because of it.

1 hour ago, HockeyFan12 said:

 

 but I fully expect the 4k Alexa to look worse than the current 2.8k model. 

Why do you think this?

1 hour ago, dgvro said:

Beautiful video, best stuff I've seen so far out of the XT4 (particularly handheld) really. His shots don't appear to make the IBIS issues (jumpiness is there) look so terrible.

 

I have the camera a few days now, I use it only with manual lenses. I've been pretty sickened with the IBIS issues, having come from a GH5, it's a lot worse. Very close to returning it and just saving money with an XT3 or XH1 but still undecided... I do own a gimbal (which makes the XT3 even more viable).

I think the best tactic I've found so far is to (avoid DIS at all costs), set the focal mount length to about x0.64 to x0.71 of the real focal length. The sticky, stepping, grabbiness of the IBIS is still there I guess but it's downscaled, mitigated to something pretty usable that, crucially, still is enough that it smooths out your actual UN-intentional hand shakiness. Its ugly little quantised steps in sensor movement are smaller, but there's still enough IBIS to look smoother than pure handheld without IBIS.

The huge catch here is that I guess Fuji doesn't allow you to set the focal mount length yourself when any lens is attached with electronic communication. So I don't know what the hell I'll be able to do then to improve the stabilisation stickiness. An EASY band-aid for the video IBIS imo would be to always allow the user to set a downscaled focal mount length like this to mitigate the over zealous IBIS.

 

Anyone else found similar stuff when testing the IBIS?

 

I know the DIS is bad (except for purely static 'tripod-like') shots, but I'm still unsure if IS Boost is helping or harming. Results seem to vary with it all the time.

Haven't used any OIS lenses with Fuji yet but I'm pretty sure I'm not really interested in them. For video the lens OIS always causes grabby stepping jitters imo and anyway it just reduces the glass options, so, so much.

The Fuji 18-55 ois is an amazing lens to have. The OIS really works well.

9 hours ago, Kisaha said:

there are a lot of stories about "Initializing" staying there for minutes. Very slow start up time. Restart the camera after a glitch, usually when one uses the pre-roll function. tha fans hit so hard that are soundmen nightmare e.t.c It is well know in the industry that is a "special" breed of cameras, and some cameramen call them "producers choice", not DPs or cameramen. 

That may be true though there are definitely many DP's who like RED, probably less though for camera OP's lol. RED's are definitely known to be quirky. 

If we want to hate on companies though Blackmagic has been plagued with issues.  Especially the older cameras though even with the 6k. Almost like they put their cameras out without any real testing. Uneven magenta tints that ruin your image, that were put in tons of cameras. I've never heard anything like that from RED. I guess it doesn't really matter with Blackmagic though as their cameras are so cheap. 

But in terms of data loss I've never heard any complaints particular to RED. I've recently heard a ton of data loss stories about the S1H. 

I mean any production where a lot of money is on the line there are going to be a many cameras on set. One camera going down isn't going to hinder a production. 

Arri is the standard for reliability which is definitely why its still the industry standard on high end productions. But not many have the cash to rent one and even less buy one. 

Yeah I am considering a RED simply for name brand recognition. Though I'd prefer Arri, though the mini is just stupid expensive. 

The C300 MK3 is very attractive for me though a RED Dragon Epic is still less expensive and the image is superb. 

I haven't heard anything about big productions being fucked up by RED's so I doubt that is really a real issue.

If you want to kit something out cheap you can. There are monitors for $150 out there, you could also throw on a cheap grip(though you'd not have a record button).
I know a guy who got an inexpensive Alexa and went cheap on all the accessories.  

16 bit RAW, with a legit 13 stops of dynamic range would be very compelling, especially if it can maintain that in Global shutter.

If RED can deliver a good product with the Komodo, I don’t think they’ll have a problem. RED got a bad rep, although they still have no lack of fanboys, from putting out proprietary products with no actual advantage. This could change it. 

5 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

H265 is more taxing usually on the editing system

Yeah but that doesn’t have anything to do with IQ

24 minutes ago, androidlad said:

BMD's 12bit log encoded RAW is simply a container format, the sensor readout on the Pocket 6K is 12bit linear, it does not become thicker when put into a different container.

While ARRI's 12bit log encoded RAW is derived from 14bit linear readout, now that's real thick.

Ah shit I thought the 6k used the same dual gain feature as the Ursa mini, my bad. I guess it just comes down to full frame vs S35. Roger Deakins has commented how he thinks the larger format Alexa 65 is richer than Arris S35 cameras. 

3 hours ago, Mike Mgee said:

@thebrothersthre3 The S1H uses noise reduction in 6k, which is illustrated when they compared the S1H Raw vs Internal codec. The S1H vs BMPCC6K is 12.7 vs 11.9 stops. You can see the difference in the highlight rolloff and the "thickness" of the image. You can also tell if you zoom in to around 200%....but that's lame.

The S1H in 6k H265 200mbps was measured at 12.7 stops. A measurement should be taken using prores RAW. I am sure highlights clip at the same point as indicated in that article. However Prores RAW is going to have nosier shadows then H265 internal. That is going to mean a drop in the dynamic range measurement. 

Highlight roll off isn't really an issue with RAW as you can make the highlights roll off anyway you want. I'd think you'll see a much thicker image coming out of the Pocket 6k as its using 12 bit log which is closer to 16 bit unlike Panasonic's linear 12 bit prores RAW. 

On 5/19/2020 at 5:50 AM, FranciscoB said:

What's the Dr of the helium sensor? I saw one article claiming 15.2 but cmon... Close to Alexa then? So around 13 stops for the komodo? 

Helium isn't far off from the Alexa probably a stop difference. 

I imagine the Komodo will be around 12.5-13 

The S1H only does 12.7 stops in 6k, and 6k has been shown to have some really heavy NR going on, so once that is cleaned up I am guessing it'll drop back down to 12.3 stops which is what the 4k mode has. Just my guess though. 

The C300 MK3 was rated at 12.9 stops and the C500 MK2 was rated at 13.1 

The S1H has amazing dynamic range either way though. The Pocket 6k even though its rated as less seems to have amazing dynamic range as well, maybe its just the flexibility of RAW that makes it seem higher?

I don’t see why H265 would make a difference over h264. You can use h264 8 bit on the Fuji which looks identical. 

This guy finds the 33mm 1.4 optically superior to the classic Fuji 35mm 1.4, which is impressive. 

58 minutes ago, neosushi said:

Definitely agree with that. The X-T4 is not fun to use. But it's a powerhouse in many aspects. Its image in 4K 10 bit, I wish I could get this out of the Z6. It really feels like a couple of cameras seem "unfinished". But I guess we have been spoiled with so many toys lately ! Right now I don't know how much I am willing to invest in the Fuji, I would like to get the 35mm f1.4 but I'm very worried about the AF.... And f2.0 on APS-C feels a bit "meh".  I'll probably keep playing with it, getting used to it and come back in a couple of weeks, read my comments and go : "I was so stupid !" 

Or Nikon makes a big announcement tomorrow about a Z6 mark II and I get to buy all the Z lenses out there !
#indecisive 


 

What about the 33mm 1.4 by viltrox? From reviews its actually sharper and has less vignetting at 1.4 than then Fuji's very own 35mm 1.4, plus the bokeh is actually nicer(no onion rings)

17 minutes ago, Super8 said:

I didn't really have the S1 on my radar but this threads go my attention. 

Not to be out of line but how dose the S1 compare to the S1H in terms of data rate and dynamic range?  How close is the S1 to the S1H in terms of image quality?

Cinema 5d measured the S1H having more dynamic range in 6k. Overall they seem to be the same sensor and same performance. The S1 is limited to 150mbps Long gop while the S1H can do 400mbps all-i. I personally never noticed a difference between 150 and 400 on the GH5 but can’t comment on the S1 vs S1H. If you want to get the S1H for the 6k keep in mind you can’t monitor externally when shooting 6k.

53 minutes ago, Super8 said:

The S1 seems like the better camera in it's class for sure.  If anyone has a good link that showcases the S1 please post it.

Gerald Undone did some good tests against the A73. Though I think the A7 is a fine camera though plagued by really heavy noise reduction. The z6, s1, and a73 do share the same sensor or a variant. There is quite a bit of S1H footage online, same image. Not so much the S1 but the image is the same mostly other then the higher bitrate option on the S1H and anti aliasing filter.