mrtreve

Doesn't the HDMI clamp stop the HDMI port on your cam from bending? It's possible that the mini to full adapter cable could go bad eventually if it's moving around in your bag, but just pack a spare.

The only thing I'd worry about is the HDMI out of the NINJA V that protrudes out the side.

I personally use a Smallrig Hawk-Lock quick release on my Shinobi and leave the HDMI cable clamped into the camera, so I just click the monitor on and insert the cable when I take it out of my bag.

I reckon this will be priced a fair amount higher than the Mini LF if it's the full version of this camera (i.e. it replaces the Alexa SXT, not just the Mini) and there demand will outstrip supply by quite a lot. Arri can only build so many cameras plus there's the chip shortage to contend with still.

Rental companies will be looking to replace their fleets of Minis (and SXTs) and they have deeper pockets than your typical owner operator, so I'm guessing the strategy would be to price-out most of this market to manage the demand somewhat.

As usual, it'll probably be hard to even rent one when they come out as they'll all go to high end features/tv/commercials.

At least the LUT salesmen have a new colour science to try and match the Pocket 4K to! Boomtime for the LUTboys.

This is a nice example of the camera used in a doc setting.

It looks like 100% tripod / Ronin-S so they avoid the IBIS limitation there. I think the oversampled image looks great even on Youtube.

Eh this camera is pretty amazing if you compare it to the things we used to get. A 5D MKIV from 2016 was £3599 vs £4499 for this... and that camera essentially didn't work for video.

The lack of IBIS genuinely stings a bit, but it's really tiny for an 8K 60P FF camera. 

I probably won't get one because my C70 does a similar job and for stills I'd prefer something even more compact like my Fuji, but I will probably recommend it to a companies I work with who want some kit to keep in-house.

On 11/23/2021 at 11:58 PM, Ty Harper said:

Appreciate the feedback and didn't realize noise was an issue with the C300 too, good to know, thx!

Yes, basically the sensor is showing its age a bit. Initially they implemented some temporal NR to clean up the shadows in C-log2 (I believe it was the first camera with that gamma curve) but this lead to some artifacting, so they added firmware to disable this (you set NR to a value of -1) at which point you could see the noise levels that existed there. I usually shot at 400 ISO to clean things up a bit.

Fair play to Canon though, as they did fix this on the C300 III with the DGO sensor. The fact that this sensor trickled down to the cheaper C70 is quite a nice thing. It makes it harder to justify the older C series cameras even if you can get a used deal.

The build quality of the C70 is not quite as good as others have mentioned. I haven't had a problem with my monitor but I only use the camera rarely. The rest of it is solid enough. The RF mount is nice and secure. 

However the tradeoff is worth it probably, as the C300 II is quite large and top-heavy with the clamshell monitor. The cold shoe always goes as well, so its common for the monitor to sag to the side (not be level).

I would personally forget about the prestige of a C300 line camera vs a C70 if that's influencing your choice, as a £5000 camera in 2021 is better than a £15,000 camera from 2015.

I had a C300 II for a while and I think it made a good image in 2k 10 bit. It was always a frustrating limitation that 4k and 2k 4444 are limited to 30 fps.

The raw output is over SDI and limited to 4k 30p. You can now do prores raw to a Ninja V Pro (SDI module) but this is pretty bulky solution and still no slow motion recording.

I would go for a C200 over either of those cameras though if you're interested in 60p. You get the 4k 60p 10bit Canon Raw Lite which I found had less artifacts than the X-AVC of the C300 II. A quick transcode to prores and you have a really capable camera system.

One downside of both the C300 II and 200 was noise in the shadows especially with C-log2. Canon fixed that with the DGO sensor, so it may ultimately be worth just getting a C70. You also get the flexibility of the RF mount which is a huge bonus.

I didn't ever use the 1DX II so can't compare. I think the images look decent if you're happy with shooting on a DSLR.

On 8/24/2021 at 7:11 PM, scotchtape said:

I use dual slot and shoot corporate video.

But you recorded something boring twice!

Do people aside from wedding shooters use dual recording in reality? It seems to be a non-issue with cinema cameras but a life-or-death thing for mirrorless. I know it's possible to hypothesise more situations where you might need it, but I'm asking if people actually do it for their work.

My question is how much of this is spec hunting rather than actual need. I have always bought good cards though, so perhaps a lot of it is people who have bought cheap cards in the past and had them fail.

I do think you're right though that the XLR module for the R3 onwards is a good sign that Canon are accepting to the fact some people want a proper hybrid camera. If the R5C with a fan turns out to be real then I think that's a cool package for a compact full frame camera with and EVF and IBIS. I've got a C70 but I would probably never take it with me for non-work occasions.

Panasonic should shrink it down, go L Mount, give it prores and good on-board monitoring and it'd be worth a look.

If you hark back to the Mini DV days, the DVX100 was fun and neat. It had a sexier image and was smaller than the competition, so I think they should try replicate that again.

The S1H is nice on many fronts but they need a video camera with NDs and I/O with little to no rolling shutter.

Get the best camera you can possibly afford (C70/FX6) and ditch your employer as soon as possible. Having an industry standard cinema camera puts you in a good place to pick up jobs.

Your lenses will work fine on the C70. I have the C70 and even the cheap EF > RF adapter from Meike works perfectly well.

The X-AVC is easier to edit than the HEVC, but you can always transcode.

I say if you like Nikon, dump the money into Z lenses and wait for the camera to come along. They lenses will last your whole career and it can't be that long until all the major brands do great 8K cameras.

I think it's better to think long term like that, rather than switching systems multiple times for the current best camera and taking a loss every time you do it.

I saw your Promised Land Retreat video and I have to say that the video quality would not put me off buying a place like that if I had the means - the video was very effective. So I would say continue doing what you're doing, but update for the future.

The Canadians probably all do in-studio gear reviews because outside is frozen tundra for half the year. They are simply trying to stay warm.

If they work to teach you the architecture of the program then I say go for it. They won't teach you to art of being a colourist however... and I'll say that many paid, in person training falls well short of this too. 

I think once you learn the basics of how the program works, the best thing you can do is practice and find a community that shares knowledge. If you can, find someone better than you and sit next to them while they grade.

I personally think whatever certification they offer is worth diddly-squat. They're teaching product features not experience and skill. However, it's incredible that the program is free and these tutorials are probably a great way to get going.

On 5/13/2021 at 4:46 PM, fuzzynormal said:

Well, the card itself cost 60K...

Haha fair point. The upside is things tend to sail through postproduction because they look so nice.

It's no fun being in editing jail, that's for sure.

The DR of the Mini LF is definitely worthwhile. Because of the small size, these are used all the time on shoots with small-to-moderate crews. I used mine yesterday with nothing but 2 camera assistants. One occasionally jumped in with a poly board for fill, but mostly leaning on the DR to let me expose for the subject and letting the clouds etc roll of to where they may.

It's a real get out of jail free card if you are thrown into challenging settings where you still need to work quickly and come out with nice results.

The new smaller cameras are getting close though which is also great.

Well lets be honest, they really need to deliver something great to maintain the £10K+ market.

Very decent 4K+ is now the norm for under £5k.

In my view the footage simply has to look a level above the current generation to tempt people to upgrade.

It means they can't miss on codecs/dr/noise/sensor readout speed/colour. Everything now counts as the image on a 4th gen product has to be stellar.

The processors also need to deliver with no caveats on output capability. If it does X frame rate, then everything has to work. No dropping proxies at certain frame rates or limiting the outputs or assistance functions.

Canon really did make big improvements with the C300 III and C500 II, so I'm hopeful they can do it...

3 minutes ago, SteveV4D said:

A plus to the Pocket 6K Pro is that although an EVF isn't included, there is a dedicated unit that covers that function.  I will no doubt purchase this at some point and I wonder if something similar could be offered to the FX3. Making it an optional extra would be a better option than third party solutions, which I am using for the Pocket 4K.

Good point, it could be an add-on at some point. That would be great for people who need it. It's kind of rare that any hardware add-ons are ever released after the fact though. They're usually caught up in making the next product.

I agree, third party evfs never really work on cams this small.

You can see how this product came into existence. The internals of the A7S III gave a good framework for a more video-focused design, but all of the meaningful additions edged the price too close to the FX6, so it ended up being a tarted-up A7S III. 

There is something cool (but superficial) about having a fleet of the grey Cinema Line cameras... it sort of suggests they all play nicely together. Even though there's really no difference to the A7S III.

It's just a real shame they had to lose the EVF. It's one of the best things about the form factor.

29 minutes ago, pixelpreaching said:

Depends on how you expose. ISO 800 or 1000 will give you more highlight latitude and DR distribution closer to what Arri is at its native ISO.

But, no, at base ISO it is not as capable as Arri. To be fair, I don't think any sensor is.

It'd still be like 2 stops shy of the Alexa if the Alexa is having a bad day. Blackmagic do great stuff, but it's not like it's a Jesus camera. It's a fairly standard sensor in a box with some decent codecs. Everyone selling Pocket to Alexa luts are snake oil salesmen who prey on this kind of wishful thinking.

43 minutes ago, pixelpreaching said:

The Pocket 6K does very well with overexposure (similar to Arri) vs. the C70 (and other Canons, like the C300 Mark III, C500 Mark II, and the RED Komodo) which handle underexposure better. I prefer the P6K/Arri approach but that's all it is, preference.

I think it's a bit overstated how good the highlight rolloff is on the P6K. I think the colour science is a bit Arri-like but the sensor is nowhere near as capable of holding bright highlights.

I will say that from my limited testing, the C70 is no slouch due to the DGO sensor. 

I can probably test it at some point if I rent a P6K. It'd be interesting to see where they all land.





 

I think the new features are nice. It's easy to nitpick on certain things but you have to remember how cheap it is.

The addition of better battery, screen and EVF show you that they really want people to start using these without extra rigging. I wonder how successful this will be. I suspect a lot of people over-rig the camera for fun as much as they do to to overcome practical problems.

The gradual bloating of this line shows that perhaps the design needs a rethink at some point. It was quite far from being a pocket camera with the 4K model and it's only gotten larger.

Perhaps if the cost of the 12K sensor comes down they could make an Ursa Micro with more of a square form factor (Mavo Edge?). They already make standalone monitors, so could easily break this away from the camera body and allow for repositioning for shoulder mount/gimbal/self-shooting. The shape of the camera is then totally up for grabs once they don't need to house the large monitor.

I went with the C70 for my compact camera. So far I think the image is better than the Pocket 6K. I had to recover some underexposed P6K footage (somebody else shot) and even in braw the shadow recovery is poor compared to the C70. When it's correctly exposed it's quite nice.

Pocket 6K is very accessible though and give you access to some great codecs at a low cost. If you're doing multicam stuff, you can almost get 3 P6K Pros for the cost of an FX6. So it's a bit of a bargain there.

I've got a C70 on order and might get an R5 for photos and occasional video. I'm going to try not to chop and change systems as much as I have in the past, just trying to keep things simple.

I've actually currently only got one cinema camera and one mirrorless camera, so I'm not doing too badly from a hoarding point of view.

I'd also quite like a new MBP with Apple Silicon when they release the larger ones.

That quite a lot to spend in all, but I suppose the theme is it's workhorse stuff and not exotic things like anamorphic lenses or buying 3 different mirrorless cameras on a whim (I have done this before).

Keycard all the way (take a picture of it and store it in the cloud / your email). That way you can activate on any computer if you need to.

I'm sure they also got bored of dealing with people who lost their dongles, so it's easier for everyone.

I've been enjoying using Resolve to edit in due to the performance and obvious superiority in colour grading. I still use Premiere for certain types of jobs (e.g. lots of graphics, lots of audio tracks, linked After Affects comps etc). I guess their argument is you use Fusion and Fairlight for that, but that's a real learning curve to face when you've got work to do.

It's much more streamlined, cutting and grading in the same app though. All the headaches/quirks you get from conforming edits are a thing of the past.

I don't really understand the Cut page, but it looks interesting combined with the Speed Editor.

I've got one on order as it ticks a lot of boxes for me.

I agree with everyone criticising the awkward form factor of the older Cinema EOS cameras. It felt like they had gotten better over the years and the C200 size and shape is quite reasonable, however this feels more like the final form of this line. If they can cut size and weight, they should. I used to travel a fair bit and breaking down a C300 or C200 into a carry-on Peli was always a squeeze.

It's funny how they tried everything out along the way, including the monstrous C700, in order to come back to something very similar to the 1DC. I think this time around it'll be very popular.

For my work, I've noticed 2 types of job - ones where they want it to look like a commercial (use Arri) or they just want it to look better than a phone (use this). 

Sweet. I've never made a product, but could the copper part be sent to a manufacturer as a prototype? I would happily use this mod - warranty be damned.

I probably wouldn't even bother with a fan as it'd likely cover my needs as a B-cam on its own.