solovetski

Am I the only one seeing a ninja in the cold shoe of the S9? I wonder if they meant that? I can't unsee it now.

As I have written about before, the best film-making advice I ever got was to try to the most contrast and saturation into my images.  Once you can push really far then it's easy to not push as far, so it's like doing altitude training, and you don't know the limits until you hit them.
As such, here's a very heavy grade of some night footage from the GX85 and 12-35mm F2.8 zoom.
This shows just how far 8-bit 709 footage can be taken.  It's not free from artefacts, but then again, I see grading issues semi-regularly on Netflix, so...
SOOC:

Grade:

In terms of how far this is pushed, lots of films get into this territory..




I concentrated a lot on matching tones across shots and it was pretty fiddly at times, but I was pushing things.  Realistically I think there's a bit more in the footage and the limitation is my grading.
It's worth pointing out that this was done in Resolve 18, so no Film Look Creator, and no third-party plugins so no FilmConvert, no Dehancer, etc, so some of the things I did might not be the best tools.  When Resolve 19 goes out of beta I'll be rocking the Film Look Creator and Colour Slicer etc, which I think will make this stuff so much easier.

4k/UHD video = 8MP stills which I think is perfectly fine even on a large screen at normal viewing distance.
One of my favourite photos (which other people have also liked) is only a 2MP JPEG, taken in 2015 with a Pana G6 while simultaneously recording FHD video. It's the light, shade and the sweep of the glinting rails that makes it work, not the resolution:

 

Gerald just put out an incredible video talking about YT camera reviews, reviewers, manufacturers, and how the whole thing works.
He talked about brands specifically and how they have treated him, including Panasonic punishing him for a YT title, Canon, Fuji, Sony, etc.  The good, the bad, and absolutely the ugly.
He also gave a pretty comprehensive and level-headed-sounding overview of how it works.  If all you want to do is complain about everything (which is most people online sadly) then you can skip the nuanced parts of his video and just get to the gossip about each brand (that's what it is after all...) but the whole thing seems well thought-out.  
 

Sorry, but if you shrink the body to be “portable” and don’t have small lenses to compliment it - waste of time. F8? It’s laughable. 
 
lack of audio monitoring features even for short clips? Get outta here. 
 
For this style of creation a pair of a pocket 3 and Ricoh GR 3x makes a tone more sense and despite being two devices is more usable and portable. 
 
software is the win here. Other brands need to jump on board with RD into onboarding LUT features for jpg and video. The x100 crowd would eat it up. 
 
if Panasonic had pancake lenses that hit 2.8-4 and an updated audio solution they’d have a killer combo. The image for video is better than Fuji or Sony at this compact level with Lut features.  No need for “velvia” if you’ve got out options. Fully frame and no need for a gimbal? Yea I’d buy one in a heartbeat. 

And I'd be remiss if I didn't post this video from a British filmmaker named Paul Cook. It was the video that made me buy my 5D3 and install ML Raw on it and never look back. After 7 years, I'm still chasing what he was able to capture in an afternoon...
 

Improbable predictions:
BMD will announce that they have been acquired by Ricoh/Pentax Resolve will be fully dropping support for BRAW and adopting ProRes RAW New DaVinci Resolve Nano Panel with only a single trackball and no sliders/knobs/buttons New DaVinci Resolve Pico Panel with just a single small button that can only order pizza from Dominos.  What flavor of pizza?  It'll be a surprise every time. Black Magic Cloud is merging with frame.io so that customers will only have to pay one subscription fee to share with people on either system Based on strong sales of the UM12K, there will now be a UM36K which uses a beam splitter and 3 copies of the UM12K sensor for each of the R, G, and B channels similar to 3-chip camcorders of the past New AI assist camera module that detects if you aren't recording in BM raw - and if not, a small robot version of Grant Petty jumps out and punches the user in the groin until the camera settings are updated

We all know that cameras produce (sometimes dramatically) different images and image quality, and yet we also know that within a given price range those same cameras typically use the same sensors from Sony and are recording to the same codecs in basically the same bitrates.  It's maddening!
So, WTF is going on?  
Well, I just came upon this talk below, which goes through and demonstrates some of the inner workings in greater detail than I had previously seen:
It's long, but here's my notes...
Firstly, how you de-mosaic / de-bayer the image really matters, with some algorithms being higher quality and require higher processing power:
(Click on the images to zoom in - quality isn't the best but the effects are visible)


If you're not shooting RAW then this will be done in-camera, and if your manufacturer skimped on the processor they put in there, this will be happening to your footage.
If the camera is scaling the image, then the quality of this matters too:

and if the scaling even gets done in the wrong colour space then it can really screw things up:

There's more discussions in there, especially around colour science which has been discussed to death, but I thought these might be illuminating as it's not something we get to see that much because it's buried in the camera and typically it's not something we can easily play with in the NLE.
All these add up to a fundamental principle that I have been gradually gravitating towards.
If you're shooting non-RAW then shoot in the highest resolution you can shoot in, and just un-sharpen (blur) the image in post.
Shooting in the highest resolution means that your camera will be doing the least downscaling (or none), and most glitches and bad processing will be at the pixel-level, which means that the higher the resolution the smaller those glitches and errors compared to the size of the image, and un-sharpening de-emphasises these in the footage.  
You might notice that all of these shortcomings make the footage sharper, not duller, so the errors have made your footage sharp but in a way that it never was - it's fictional sharpness.
Also, the more modern displays are also themselves becoming sharper, so it's no wonder that footage all now looks like those glitch websites from the late 90s that were trying to be cool but looked like a graphic designer threw up into them...

FilmLight (who make BaseLight which is the Resolve competitor that costs as much as a house) seem to be on a mission to get deeper into the image and bring along the industry on that journey, and I'm really appreciative of their efforts as they're providing more insight into things we can do to get better images and get more value from our limited budgets.

There’s talk in the camera industry of introducing a subscription model for firmware updates, with Sony being one of the companies believed to be considering this as an option for larger updates in the future. Currently, Sony is planning an A7S III update in the coming weeks with DCI 4K and content authenticity ID, but major updates have been few and far between for a camera released nearly 4 years ago.
https://www.eoshd.com/news/firmware-updates-could-become-subscription-model-under-new-plans/

Patents expire after 20 years.
The basic "internal compressed RAW" patent expires in april 2028. Or the end of the same year, I'm not sure.
In any case "the patent" only has four years to go.
https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/to?msg=RED.com RAW patents expire&p0=840&ud=2&year=2028&month=4&day=11&hour=0&min=0&sec=0&fromtheme=party

I’m not sure as a hardcore fan of any sport how you could be lukewarm about systematic cheating as, well, it doesn’t seem very, erm, “sporting”.
From my personal point of view as a pro sports photographer covering Tour de France in that era though I’m far from lukewarm about having sat in press conferences being lied to  by him and watching him ridicule and soil the reputation of David Walsh and Paul Kimmage.
Or Emma O’Reilly.
I’m also sore that in Armstrong’s case, unlike all the other ones I’ve covered, that I get zero residuals from my “winner of stage x” or “winner of TdF x”  images 🙂
I might be being old fashioned here but I’d give it to the highest placed cyclist that wasn’t using PEDs.
I have some sympathy with the “well they were all at it” aspect so, fine, let everyone do it and have a special event.
Just don’t call it sport when it’s only being used by some of the field.

FYI, I've started a GitHub project to create a repository for sensor readout speeds of all cameras, for both stills and video, using a standardized measurement method that involves a $17 USD Arduino board.
The project's homepage is:
https://github.com/horshack-dpreview/RollingShutter
The project has a link to the current database, a primer about rolling shutter artifacts, source code, and collection details for those who would like to contribute their camera's images to be measured and added to the database.
Direct link to current results:
https://horshack-dpreview.github.io/RollingShutter/
 

The final line up for the 2024 season. 
From left to right…
S1H with battery grip, 70-200 f4 (not shown, Rode WG2) permanently on tripod shooting static full length ceremony & speeches, manual focus, 4k 25p.
Z6ii + adapted Tamron 70-180 f2.8 (not shown battery grip arriving tomorrow) with option Tamron 20-40 f2.8, stills only but can do video in an emergency. Sling on shoulder.
S5ii + cage + Sigma 28-70 f2.8 + Rode Micro as my all day run & gun, gimbal ready, 4k 50p unit (so 42-105mm equivalent). Right hip.
Zf + 40mm f2 candid stills but can also do video in an emergency. Left hip.
Single backpack with all lighting, all other audio, all spare batts, cards, power bank, chargers, gimbal etc, but actually lives in my cart along with the 2 big light stands, 40m extension reel and 500W portable power bank.

We hope it happens on page 24.

Not this again...
You were the one that made the case against 24p, so you provide the proof that it's inferior.
We understand, from your posts, that you are most likely a teenager or young adult, and maybe nobody has ever told you how the real world works but your claims, statements and wishes aren't proof that 24p is inferior...

Just created a new thread showing that the rec709 profiles in these cameras are more flexible in post than most people think:
Posting this here for easy reference, and because these small cameras likely only have 8-bit rec709, but I think this isn't nearly the barrier to getting good images than most people believe it is.
It's also why I shoot in auto-exposure and auto-WB..  making small changes to every shot is a very simple operation and a much better outcome than me setting this stuff manually and then forgetting to adjust it later and getting some shots horribly wrong!
For those who think that adjusting exposure and WB in post is a sign of bad film-making, every colourist I've seen allows for making small exposure and WB changes as a first step in their grade and I've heard several say that it's something they apply routinely, even on professionally shot productions.  Same as NR, which is routinely applied, completely contrary to YT wisdom which suggests that visible noise means the camera is defective.
I hope this test will encourage people to look beyond the forum/YT "wisdom" and be free to get the most from their equipment.

2/3" crop/sensor estate is not too shabby at 2.8. If you watch Harisson Krafts videos you might possibly not feel so sure about the RX100 3 to V being the winner in the image quality department. @John Matthews The lens looks magical at this aperature on the LX15 throughout all focal lengths. It sports the same sensor as the RX10 1,2,3 afaik. Crop in 4K mode did not hinder me to film some of my best personal footage ever with it. The cake is in the pudding of the lens. Processing in 4K is just as good as on the GX85.
I still need to experiment with profile settings a bit more, but I would leave saturation untouched, noise reduction and sharpness all the way down though. I have started to treat it like a S16 F4 camera. I got two of them but only with one battery for around 120 Euro from a youtuber. Heck of a two camera deal. 🙂 At 200 Euro used price I would still consider it a good purchase for image tinkerers. One needs to massage the image in Davinci a bit and save some presets and secret sauce for best effect. But that´s half the fun of it.
 
 

Today we had an early xmas lunch (to avoid the conflicting invitations on the 25th) and I shot it with the GX85 and 12-35mm F2.8.  Shooting was really fast and not under ideal conditions (massive window which is often backlighting people) but it did a great job.
Here are a few random stills, SOOC - zero editing.  




Standard colour profile, with -5 Contrast / Sharpening / NR and 0 Saturation.  People often lower saturation in-camera but I  push my grades to have lots of saturation so I prefer to have the camera do the 8-bit conversion and compression on stronger saturated colours so that I'm not boosting up a weak colour signal in-post.
When I grade it I'll be softening it up, fine-tuning the colours and adding some colour grading secret-sauce but for a someone shooting a family gathering with an 8-bit camera while also being part of the festivities, the images really speak for themselves.

This was tonights project.  Just for fun...  
 

Love this!  I am coming to the same conclusion as I shoot in 8-bit rec709 more and more.  And I find that having a color managed workflow helps a lot; the image is quite flexible when conformed to Davinci Wide Gamut; responds a lot like LOG does.  And if my exposure and white balance aren't too off, the grading experience is great.

8-bit rec709 profiles are much more flexible in post than you might think.  I'm not saying they're as good as an Alexa or whatever, but they're a million miles better than people give them credit for.
Here's a latitude and WB torture test of the GX85, in the standard profile (8-bit rec709) customised to have reduced contrast but normal saturation.  
For each of the below, the left image is the properly exposed reference image, the middle one is the graded image, and the one on the right is the image SOOC.
Exposure latitude test - +3 stops:

Exposure latitude test - +2 stops:

Exposure latitude test - +1 stops:

Exposure latitude test - -1 stops:

Exposure latitude test - -2 stops:

Exposure latitude test - -3 stops:

Exposure latitude test - -4 stops:

Exposure latitude test - warm:

Exposure latitude test - cool:

Exposure latitude test - magenta:

Exposure latitude test - green (as far as it would go!):

Notes on the testing method:
GX85 shot in manual mode on cloudy day Exposure varied by changing lens aperture WB varied by changing colour temp and tint Tools used in Resolve were mostly Lift/Gamma/Gain, saturation, and some had a bit of Shadows/Mids/Highlights Notes on the results:
If it's clipped then it's clipped, there's no getting around that If you've shot a whole sequence in the wrong WB then shoot a test chart replicating the error, spend some time on the correction, then apply to all the shots... a bit of work but worth it to rescue a days shooting If you've shot on auto-exposure / auto-WB and want to correct the small errors then this is easily possible - it won't have gotten it nearly as wrong as what I have shown above Most cameras shooting in rec709 will do funky stuff to colours depending on their luma value as part of the look of the profile, so when you over/under expose and then pull things back the hues and saturation levels will have shifted around in odd ways compared to a normal exposure, but if it's a real shoot then you most likely won't have many dominant hues in the image and you only have to correct the ones that are in the frame and distracting, so the above is far more work than normal shooting would be  The days of needing RAW or even LOG to change exposure or WB in post are gone, and although the rec709 profiles often have lower DR than log profiles, they're much better than you think.
If anyone wants me to post full-sized versions with titles so you can flick back and forth then just let me know.
Happy shooting!

As I'm quite interested in getting a 4K laser projector, that Sony VPL-GTZ380 mentioned earlier piqued my interest so I might have a look into that as it could.....hang on...let me google it.....christ on a fucking bike.
I mean, seriously, genuinely well played for being able to afford to buy that but christ on a fucking bike.
 

I will be using the Sony VPL-GTZ380 in the presentation when pleading my case to the wife regarding the €2100 LG Cinebeam that I've got my eye on.
"Listen, it could be a lot worse love".

Are you sure?  I'm going to have to think about that for a couple of weeks and I'll get back to you then.

Do you know what else is outdated? Manual focus. It's so slow, man, it drives me nuts! This is 2023, not 1923! My iPhone can focus faster than any ALEXA, so what's up with that? Autofocus is true cinema and anyone telling you otherwise is just trying to keep their job as a focus puller or living in the past. Engineers are with me, let's go!