seanzzxx

eh I think I'll just wait for Tupp to show up and say that it cannot have a dense image as long as it wasn't shot on Kodachrome(tm), seeing how that has been this thread for the last month or so.

Also just to be clear, your tone of voice during the comparison footage is an Epic Light Media impression, right?

I can change the timeline resolution on Davinci Resolve 16?

This is seriously great, thanks for sharing haha!

9 minutes ago, Django said:

So I finally got a chance to test drive the R5. The 8K & 4K HQ image quality is just stunning imo.

I'm now planning on acquiring the camera, despite the overheat issues (defeatable with the hack).

That said the 10-bit h265 log footage doesn't run on my 13" MBP, only on my iMac Pro.

Kind of a major bummer when I'm editing/grading on the go. What's the workaround? Any software to transcode h265 into h264?

You edit on Mac, why not just convert into ProRes 422 or use ProRes 422 proxies? That'll edit a lot better than h264.

There is no Ursa with a dual gain sensor by the way. Also all the people here touting the ML M50 as anything other than an interesting technical achievement (comparing it to an incredible workhorse camera) I just cannot comprehend. If anything I'd say the FS7 is the modem equivalent: super well priced for the time and an all around workhorse camera that is EVERYWHERE (and to be clear, I don't really like the image it produces, I'm just commenting on its position in the field right now).

Your terminology seems confused: image density refers to how well exposed a (film) image is. A well exposed negative will literally be denser/thicker than an underexposed one, which will be thin.

1 hour ago, IronFilm said:

The exceptions, not the norm. 

This is all anecdotal but in my experience the Pocket 4K is EVERYWHERE in the low budget circuit, with its entry price of 1400 dollars and great image.

4 hours ago, tupp said:

Or, it provides the argument that such comparisons should be conducted by someone who understands the fundamentals of what is necessary for such a test to be valid.

PLEASE point me to that test then, because I feel like whatever magic properties that should be inherent to sensor size should manifest in sóme way under a controlled test. So far you are just shooting down any test provided as not being rigorous enough (why on Earth would foreground unsharpness matter in any way when according to your last example provided the special properties of large format are abundantly clear in a shot that has just as much elements in front of the focus point, that is a nose, as in the examples provided by Yedlin), but if the differences were significant so as to be meaningful there should be a way to test for this relatively easily right? I

29 minutes ago, tupp said:

Thanks for the link!

 

I doubt that he is talking about this exact issue.  Like most other folks who do equivalency tests, he likely limits his attention to mathematical DOF, and his tests use wider angle lenses and there is no delineation of the front and rear DOF limits with a lot of other detail thrown away or ignored.

 

 

I don't have time right now to read the linked page, but if the images shown are the extent of his comparison, his tests are invalid.  He does not show how the limits of DOF are delineated.  He seems to be using wide angles focal lengths, and I can see a difference in one of the images with just a glance.

I feel like you are kind of moving the goalposts. This guy has a use case where he has shot hundreds of shots on cameras with all kinds of film backs (for camera comparisons), and somehow this does not count because his lenses are too wide? This is based on real-world experience with everything from an IMAX down to a super 35 camera. He even admits in the article that his matching is not perfect due to practical limitations (t-stops and f-stops not aligning, lenses not matching exactly to their equivalent counterparts, etc.), but his argument is that the likeness between shots is so convincing and consistent that the sensor size obviously does not play a role in the actual image, and that any perceived difference is due to bias or particular (non image circle-related) lens characteristics, not due to the size of the film back. In fact, where you have been previously arguing about recognizing a larger format due to increased lens blur (in your examples where you are circling a number of shots), the Alexa 65 actually seems to have slightly LESS lens blur in the examples provided by Steve Yedlin, likely due to my aforementioned reasons. This, again, seems to provide an argument that any perceived differences are more likely to be due to individual lens characteristiscs or other uncontrolled variables which are not related to the film back size.

EDIT: I hope this does not come off as argumentative, as I do appreciate -and enjoy- the discussion!

There is an interesting post from cinematographer Steve Yedlin talking about this exact issue. As far as he's concerned, there is no unique 'look' to larger formats unless using a different format somehow forces you to set up your camera differently. https://www.yedlin.net/NerdyFilmTechStuff/MatchLensBlur.html

He has some pretty rigorous testing to go with it.

10 hours ago, Resonance said:

Dear Andrew, because I got errors trying to post links here. I also got errors trying to post images. The system seems a bit clumsy, the error messages sometimes missing and otherwise not informative. Can you please remove my two negative ratings by Canon shill accounts seanzzxx and Coffe ?

The only reason I downvoted you is because I intensely dislike your post-truth, conspiratorial worldview: I think it stands in the way of productive discussion. You calling me (a yearlong, very inactive member who has basically only posted about Blackmagic and RED during his time here) a Canon shill, instead of applying even a modicum of Occam's Razor and just assuming I'm someone in disagreement with your tone and ideas, really goes to prove my point. Anyhow.

I have taken to throwing a bunch of Aputure spacelights (lantern type diffusers) that I already own and throwing them over the LED panels when necessary. They fold up so compact that I can take them anywhere and the result is quite neat.

People who confidently claim to immediately spot the difference but don't provide examples, please feel free to prove your case.

I really hope this and the Ursa 12K drive the prices of the Ursa g2's down to be honest.

I realize that, you were the one bringing up his court case. With some exceptions, all this video is doing is putting legal text next to a dictionary definition which is INCREDIBLY bad practice. Legal texts  are defined in court, often in very particular and sometimes counter-intuitive ways. I'm not saying that REDs user agreement is good or even legally enforceable, I'm saying this video tells you very little about the legality despite explicitly pretending to do so. You can give a legal argument that is aimed at laymen, however that is not what he is doing.

His court case has nothing to do with his YouTube video on REDs user agreements.

I'm sorry, but as someone who actually has a legal background, you can't just pull up the law and guess at what it means. And trust me, while he attempts to sound very authoritative that is all that he is doing if you don't show your work. Show me precedent or other substantiated legal arguments otherwise this is just a complete joke. And this is coming from someone who doesn't like REDs aggressive litigative practices.

I just shot for 6 hours on an open plain of bare white sand at 25 to 33 degrees Celsius/91 degrees Fahrenheit, which I would consider a pretty worst case scenario, with the Pocket 4k. That's a 1300 dollar camera. It was so hot people could not touch the sand and external monitors turned purple at the edges. The pocket its fan became very loud but it kept going until we got all the shots. I really don't understand how Canon doesn't manage this.

I second the XT-3 or XT-30, those cameras are GREAT allrounders.

3 hours ago, JordanWright said:

The 6k has a larger sensor (1.55x to the 4k's 1.89x) but a speed booster gives the 4k a much wider FOV (1.22x using the Metabones XL). However, I've found that speed boosters mess with the image too much. I personally wouldn't recommend one. Ive picked up a new sigma 18-35mm as my standard zoom. It would also work very well as a standard zoom for the 4k (non-speedbooster). The sigma isn't my favourite lens, but you can't beat the range and the speed and performance for the price.  My Tok 28-70 was way too telephoto for the 6k (it was on the edge for the 4k XL). On a side note, the sigma Is MUCH contraster and sharper than the Tokina. I might try out a low-con style filter. Recommendations welcome!

I use the 1/8 Black Promist filter on that exact lens A LOT, and I highly recommend it. Subtle, but great.

On 6/23/2020 at 9:04 AM, Yurolov said:

Need to give us more details regarding setup (lighting and camera movement) and color grading so we know what you are working with and what can be realistically improved. 

Hey Yurolov, sorry for the late reply - I completely missed this comment! First of all, thank you for the interest, and you are completely right that I could have provided a bit more detail.

So the atmosphere we were going for was that of a daydream, except for the scenes with the lead actress just by herself. The aesthetic of that daydream was heavily inspired by old music videos, both from the seventies and early 2000's. So all the studio shots (the seventies aesthetic) were shot with actual stage lighting equipment, using mostly old seventies lights with fresnels and so on, except for one or two LEDs that originally were used for providing some extra color but ended up creeping in the shots. The camera was a very light one (Pocket 4K), but it was operated as if it was much heavier to emulate the feel of those videos: the tripod had a lot of resistance on it, the camera was on sticks and rails, and we mostly shot on long lenses (50 and 85mm Sigma Arts that were heavily Pro-Misted with stacked 1/8 and 1/4s), at a minimum of 28mm (except again for one time when I cheated to have a two-shot with the bass-player and the keyboardist) around f4-f5.6. Then the hotel scenes (the early 2000s) were shot much more modernly, with a lot of LED lighting (120D to provide enough light generally, with cheap Yongnuo LED panels for overhead and backlighting). A wide-angle lens was used almost exclusively (a Tokina 11-16) shot at f.2.8 or around there, and everything except for one shot was handheld.

Both scenes made extensive use of rim-lighting, because that just feels old-fashioned to me. The lights were either all tungsten or gelled to be tungsten, (with the exception of the backlight in the hotel, for a bit more 'kick'), to give the color rendition of tungsten lighting.

The scenes in the apartment with the lead actress (the ones in 16:9) were lit very differently, with much softer lighting (using the same 120d and led panels, but much farther away and diffused at 5600k), only meant to accentuate the light that was already there: the lights were supposed to be invisible. We also really dialed back on the promists (using only a subtle 1/8) until the band shows up, at which point the pro-mists went back to 1/8+1/4 (also the fake grain returns) to illustrate the daydream blending into her reality.

As for the grade: I used a custom grade, with a bit warmer greens/yellows/oranges, and more saturated blues. Also a lot of fake grain was added and some balancing was done, and the scenes at blue hour (with the guitarist) were graded to have the shots were the sun had not yet set match. Also in the blue hour scenes the skin tones were warmed up, to make everything look a bit more pleasant. Aside from that almost no local or 'stylized' color grading was done, because I think very stylized grading would have detracted from the old feel of the clip.

Hope that provides some more info: any and all feedback is welcome!

Hey folks, a bit late but I wanted to pop in to say thanks for the feedback, I very much appreciate it still!

Hey man, let me say firstly that I really appreciate the thoughtful reply and comments, thanks a lot - really.

The frontman of the 'band' (it's actually a solo act officially, but the guys behind him do most of the instrumentals on his tracks) is an old acquaintance, who also acted in some older videos we did (I'm talking more than five years back at this point). I would rate the experience highly, the band was very cooperative and set-ups went smoothly and as planned mostly, except for a last-minute cancellation on the hotel room. I think the new hotel room looks kinda plain, but we did as much as we could to spice things up with the lighting on the walls (something which was planned but which we now really relied on for atmosphere).

My biggest lesson was that having lip-syncing in your video really limits how you can cut: I really found out I had to use certain takes or let them run longer than I intended or otherwise it would look jarring, which meant I had to cut other planned (and shot) footage (there was waaaayyyy more footage of the female lead dancing, which explains perhaps why what was left of her dancing felt a bit out of place!). Big lessons and it meant that we could have actually shot less than I ended up doing and take the time to finesse a few shots more.

Case in point: the opening shot is actually one of my least favorite shots (other ones are in the hotel room, where I think sometimes my framing and directing of the actor led to some less-than-exciting shots, although overall I like the segment), but I did not shoot other wide coverage of her on the sofa so I basically 'had to' lead with that one. Ah well.

You're right about the shots of the female lead dancing using a higher shutter: good eye! It effectively uses a 90-degree shutter, because the footage was shot in 50 frames at 180-degrees and then sped up to 25 frames. This was a deliberate choice; originally the segment was supposed to have a few slow-motion cut-aways (that ended up being cut) and I wanted to have the normal-speed footage at a higher shutter anyway, to make the movement look a bit more tight and 'crisp'. I still personally like the effect, although I see where you are coming from on disliking it. I also agree on the focal length being a bit too wide, I shot this at 12mm (whereas everything else is between 35 and 85 millimiters, with a large portion at 50 and 85), so the difference is a tad too big, not just relative to the other focal lengths but also for the framing I ended up going with. I think in a perfect world I would re-shoot this at 18mm, but in practice I think I would have gone for a 16mm, because my 16mm-lens is half the weight of the 18mm I own, and we were shooting a lot of set-ups of her dancing on the steadicam and I think my arm would not have taken it.

There's actually shots of her coming from the couch to start dancing, but I did not like the performance and my framing, so it's wholly on me that I did not get useable footage to more naturally transition into that dancing. I actually deliberated for a long time about taking the whole dancing segment out (it's only two shots after all), but I really liked the performance and so did the artist, and I think overall it fitted in enough with the 'good vibes' of the whole video to justify staying.

As for crew: I directed and shot the thing, and I had two guys helping me with moving and lighting. Now, these guys were actually not gaffers but theater-stagehands: so they mostly did the lighting set-up (and controlling) in the studio and the neon lighting in the hotelroom, but they were at other times also invaluable for quickly adjusting lights on set and just helping move from location to location: I was really glad to have them there - these guys are hard workers! We shot on two roughly twelve-hour days (this included moving from location to location which ate up some time) and we had a half-day beforehand setting up all the lighting in the studio for the band-segment.
 

Hey folks, this is the first music video I ever shot. While I am decently happy with the results, I am very much looking for feedback and impressions, any at all. If you have any questions feel free to ask, of course!

The music video tried to capture a few different aesthetics, so were the stage parts all on long lenses, locked off on a tripod and shot mostly with old stage lighting, in order to emulate that 'Earth, Wind, and Fire' aesthetic, while the hotel room parts were shot much more modern, using LEDs and a floating, quickly moving camera. However also here the aesthetic was meant to evoke a feeling of an older video (notably with the heavy use of a rim light), because the general feeling is that of a daydream.

https://vimeo.com/429361546 password: mogimikevideoclip