Alexis Fontana

21 hours ago, markr041 said:

The discussion is a confused mess, with the usual tropes about 4K resolution, compression artifacts, etc. Almost nothing on the key advantage of HDR - extended dynamic range with 10bit color. That advantage can be seen at 480 bps or FullHD or 4K. It can be seen on most high-end phones, on m1 MacBook Pros and on most new TVs even at most-common internet bitrates.

Arguing for limited dynamic range is really stupid.

Yeah - no, then you didn’t read it or didn’t understand it. 

3 hours ago, SMGJohn said:

Wow, never seen such toxicity on this forum before, I think the OP is having some massive delusions trying to cram magic into a limited codec format that just wont happen and claiming everyone pointing it out are wrong LOL

HDR only looks good when your monitor/TV can achieve HDR-800+ otherwise its pointless, OLED really struggle to hit those 1000 nits requirements for perfect HDR.

 

I also suggest watching some video from this guy who is a professional TV and monitor calibrator who actually has a clue what he is on about when it comes to HDR viewer experience.

https://youtu.be/XPzM3NDGuSc

https://youtu.be/D83SXcguwBU

 

 

 

He literally sells televisions for a living.

1 hour ago, markr041 said:

You don't get it. This is NOT about what I produce or your career it is about the value of HDR. Just watch any HDR offering from Apple TV+, or Netflix or Prime Video. Properly.

It does not matter what you produce either, it is your claim that professionals don't produce for HDR that is ludicrous. And reveals more about you.

 

 

You’re a moron talking out of your ass.

Moderator - delete my account if you will, this place is a waste of time. 

15 hours ago, SRV1981 said:

If most photos are of athletes and friends and family (some motion but mostly static), could a user prioritize video in a camera and pull screen grabs for social media and a few prints ?

if so, what video centric cameras would be good for this? C70? S5? FX30? XH2S? 
 

Also, is AF accuracy less important if a hybrid shooter goes this route?

What shutter speed do you usually use when taking photographs? If beyond 1/50 I would get a black magic for video and a dedicated stills camera for photos. It’s all about trade offs and what you’re willing to accept, also it’s nice to be able to shoot in portrait mode. I like having two systems as I feel it’s two different ways of thinking about image capture. Good luck

1 hour ago, Owlgreen said:

Do me a favor and read the whole thread back. 

I asked a technical question specific to one specific mode of one specific camera.

Many people offer pertinent, useful information. I am very thankful to them, and they've helped me to mitigate the issue.

You and one other guy, both of whom have never shot with the camera, come in and offer no pertinent, useful information whatsoever. You just say a bunch of condescending shit, call me uninformed and unserious, brag awkwardly, and say I shouldn't use the camera in the specific mode I am interested in. 

I never asked if I should or shouldn't use the camera or that mode. I don't care what what you or anyone else thinks on that question. 

I like lots of cameras for different reasons. They all have their own peculiarities and charms. 

I think 8-bit cameras can be great.

I think the PXL2000 is gorgeous.

I love Super-8.

I adore the F35.

The GFX100 looks like a blast to shoot with.

The S1/S1H have a ~36x24mm mode. This is unusual and interesting. Charming. I want to be able to use it from time to time. Not for everything, but sometimes. 

You and the other guy made a big deal out of the colorsampling in that mode being 4:2:0 rather than 4:2:2. That only a fool would shoot something with 420 chroma. The 422 modes in this camera are 4k. That means a 6k 420 file has more color samples than any of the 422 modes. 

But that doesn't matter. You came in with zero pertinent information and zero respect, so I gave you none back. 

I asked a technical question and you and the other guy responded with patronizing opinions. AKA bullshit.

Your opinions are worthless to me, so keep them to yourself. 

To everyone else reading this, thank you for your advice and input. For a long time I've felt this board was a special place. One where massive egos don't dominate the way they often do in motion picture contexts, but rather information, knowledge and curiosity does. I still feel this way. 

 

I that case I have no interest in a conversation with you, I really don’t care about those kind of ridiculous technical obsessions. I know how to light and frame and do - you know - cinematography work.

To anyone interested in why HDR is a waste of time - go read this very informative Twitter thread.

I wouldn’t say they ruin the quality of the  light but they do indeed change the characteristics a bit. Consider this - when you’re looking into the source from a slight angle there will be less surface area visible witch leads to a “harder” feel of the light hitting your subject. Not always bad though, and I don’t see any hotspots (except what to expect from an harder light) only slightly more defined shadow areas. This is where makeup can help a lot of you want a look that’s a bit more punchy but stay out of trouble with shiny areas.

So - consider it’s a tool to both reduce spill in a quick and easy way with the slight change in characteristics and then use the knowledge to create the moods you’re aiming for. And like PPNS says - if you want to keep the softness use good old cutters and flags. Happy new year!

On 12/28/2022 at 8:13 PM, Owlgreen said:

My guy, I'm sure your mother is very proud of you. Sadly, she didn't teach you any manners. 

You have contributed nothing to this thread. Have you ever even shot with this camera? Based on your completely generic suggestions, I suspect not. Your condescenion is unwarranted. Please leave.

On 12/29/2022 at 11:58 AM, Owlgreen said:

😂 Jesus fucking Christ! Correct me if I'm wrong, but you have never even shot with this camera! 

What the fuck is with this gear-shaming, chroma-shaming, gamut shaming? 

You come across as a giant asshole.

I'm doing an experiment. I want to shoot open gate V-Log 6k on the S1 and I want to grade in ACES for PQ output. It has nothing to do with professional standards. You have no experience with the specifics of this premise, so your supposed advice offers nothing!

If I want to shoot full frame 16:9, I can and will shoot the fp.

Why not just jump into every thread and tell people to shoot an Alexa? Then they will be serious! 

Unfuckingreal.

On 12/29/2022 at 12:34 PM, Owlgreen said:

 

Again with the gear shaming! Can you read the name of this website? No one is forcing you to shoot video with a photo camera. My god, only peasants do that! Why are even here, since you think you are too good for this place? Neither is anyone forcing you to butt into threads you have knowledge about. Thanks for nothing Mr. Very Serious Cinematographer person! 👍

My last advice to you, I promise:

sell your camera and write a book on how to alienate people. You sad little man. 

4 hours ago, mercer said:

If it's a 4:20 vs. 4:22 issue, then you could desaturate the footage you already shot and the artifacts should disappear.

That’s kind of a big compromise - don’t you think? Mitigating a colour fidelity issue by removing colours is hardly optimal. 

23 hours ago, Owlgreen said:

👍 Cool story, bro. 

When did this place get so full of unhelpful trolls?

WTF?

Not trying to troll at all. I’m coming from a background of being a working cinematographer represented by a very decent agency, shooting commercials around the world and just had my first feature premiere at TriBeCa last year. I’m trying my best to understand why you feel it is a necessity and also hint in a non-demeaning way that you’re putting your focus in all the wrong places. But hey man - you do you. Looking forward to seeing your kitchen film👍

On 12/24/2022 at 1:53 PM, Owlgreen said:

If 

It's a matter of preference. If the sensor is there, I want to have the option to use it. For some things I like the 4:3 aspect ratio and don't want to be losing sensor and lens coverage on both axes. If I wanted to shoot something with the Sirui 50mm 1.6x anamorphic lens, the S1 open gate would yield a 2.4:1 aspect ratio instead of a 2.84:1 aspect ratio were I shooting 16:9. I prefer the former. Obviously cropping gives an endless number of alternative aspect ratios for any and every camera, but as a matter of principle I like to crop as little as necessary. My ideal sensor would probably be square.

No offence but that just sounds uninformed. You have an idea that one arbitrary format is better than another because of principles you haven’t explained and sounds to me like you’ve bought into the false idea of more K’s = better. What good is a perfect, no crop desqueezed anamorphic image when you can’t grade it without banding and cheap artefacts. I really don’t get where you’re coming from.

On 12/19/2022 at 2:16 PM, Owlgreen said:

Thanks, Alexis.

Trouble is, none of the external recorders allow open gate recording. Would be great if they did, but right now if one wants to shoot open gate, which I do, 420 long-GOP 200mbit/s HEVC is the only way. 

Why do you need to shoot Open Gate? 

Hey Mr. Owl

It would be helpful if you could send some framegrabs in addition to the photographs of you monitor/tv. I wouldn’t recommend grading for hdr from any 4:2:0 codec, since the larger colorspace and luminosity range will only show the limits of said codec even more pronounced.

In general - any large uniform area with subtle gradients will show banding and macroblocking when you’re recording in a highly compressed codec. My advice would be to record in at least ProRes 422hq - maybe you need an external recorder?

Nothing??

9 hours ago, kye said:

Fun thread!

I'm happy to dig up a few stills.  Did you want nice easy ones, or some more challenging ones?  🙂

Try me

Yes TIFF. No Luts 

8 hours ago, FHDcrew said:

Want some ungraded TIFFS from a Nikon Z6 shooting oversampled 1080p NLOG?  Also a dope lut made from Davinci resolve, that works worlds better than Nikon’s rec709 lut?  I can hook ya up

Yes and no

5 hours ago, MrSMW said:

I have a backlog of 12 client wedding films to edit from scratch if you are that bored? 😬

Mister read the freaking title! It's a color thing - not me trying to cut videos for free🤌 Good luck though and please send some framegrabs for me to color if you feel like it😘

Since nobody wants to share anything yet (I get it - this forum is mostly about fetichising equipment - which I totally dig - I was just trying to create, like a teambuilding exercise or bonding opportunity or whatever) I took the liberty to dig through the posts and go right at it.

Whatta ya' think?

And _please_ give me all the shit you feel like, as long as you post your best shot at it. Or not. It's the internet and I'm not easily offended.

I feel like this could be a fun little competition that doesn't have to involve the effort of leaving your (and my) mothers basement in order to participate😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨

Much love

I’m in the summerhouse and bored.

If you have a shot that you would like a look on then grab a still and post it here. Exr or tiff, and in LOG is nice. Please tell me what camera it’s shot on so I can make an accurate conversion.

Wide shots or close ups with skin tones (macro stuff of flowers and objects are less interesting 🫠)

And maybe someone wants to challenge me so we can make a nice little competition.

Hit me!

On 8/31/2021 at 9:40 PM, Video Hummus said:

I think film is a great exercise from digital photography and I enjoy the slower process and the space between time photo was taken to development and viewing.

I own three film cameras. For 135 film I use the Nikon FM2 with 50mm f1.4 lens. I vastly prefer the FM3a metering system but the prices are insane for a 35mm camera so I settled for the FM2.

My second two cameras are for 120 film. I have the 6x6 Yashica-Mat 124G TLR camera. Small and light as far as medium format cameras go and a unique square format and a solid, built-in Yashinon f3.5 lens.

Third, and my favorite medium format camera currently, is my Mamiya 645 Pro TL. Excellent meter, packed with features, 90s nostalgia design. For me, the perfect balance between size, weight, interchangeability and negative size for landscape photography. Love the 645 format: 2.5x larger than 35mm film, 4:3 aspect ratio, with a few more extra shots per roll (15 shots) for bracketing compared to 6x6 (12 shots) or 6x7 (10 shots).

Sekor C 45 & 80mm f/2.8. There is also a 80mm f/1.9 available which I hope to snag. I believe it is one of the fastest medium format lenses made.

That 645… 🤌🏻🤌🏻🤌🏻

Chef’s kiss!!!

super pricey at the moment - all fashion photographers are using it and with good reason.

holla if you wanna sell at some point

My observations:

(Always shooting log)

h264/265 has too much sharpening and macro blocking - the latter especially when trying to push a vibrant photochemical look with deep film like tones. Blue and red gives up before I’d like em to. Don’t like the idea that a tiny insufficient computer does heavy compression in camera. Especially noise reduction -  in camera noise reduction needs to fuck off and die  

On Red cameras I rarely go above 8:1

BRAW rarely above 5:1

On Arri cameras I mostly shoot Prores 444 - sometimes 444 XQ. Never ArriRAW as the file sizes are too large for the kind of jobs I do (also very close to diminishing returns)

Love the Sony Venice 16-bit X-OCN(compressed??), it’s just insane how much latitude it holds.

422 LT - I only think about it as a deliverable format, have no idea how it looks from a Fuji camera. I think the idea of shooting 8k on a s35/LF size sensor is ridiculous, the file sizes becomes too big and hence you need to accept more compressed codecs which defeats the purpose of the so called “high resolution”. Don’t really know much about the 12k ursa but it’s another kind of sensor so not comparable right?

I own a pocket 6k pro, love the camera but would prefer larger photosites and 4K.

Terrible.

When I lost a friend to suicide some years ago I found comfort and a way to grief in Sufjan Steven’s “Carrie and Lowell” album which is about him dealing with the loss of his mother. It gave me a space to confront the sorrow in a non-intellectualised way.

I’m not here to give you a solution or anything like that. But it helped me.

Hang in there. 

You’re paying for more than the sensor, brother. 

Woooops. Plz delete copies🥲

On 2/13/2022 at 4:55 AM, hyalinejim said:

Let's take one aspect of the LUT which is possibly its most important: hue, saturation and lightness of colour and let's leave the contrast constant and compare the film emulation (bottom) to Panasonic's own V-Log to Rec709 colour transform (top). You might agree with me that one of these looks better than the other in terms of luminance and hue of skintones:

Portra 400 is famous for its attractive skintone reproduction, offering slightly desaturated, even porcelain-like skin which skews more towards tan than pink in terms of hue.

I think this is closer to a photochemical look. 

On 2/13/2022 at 4:55 AM, hyalinejim said:

Let's take one aspect of the LUT which is possibly its most important: hue, saturation and lightness of colour and let's leave the contrast constant and compare the film emulation (bottom) to Panasonic's own V-Log to Rec709 colour transform (top). You might agree with me that one of these looks better than the other in terms of luminance and hue of skintones:

Portra 400 is famous for its attractive skintone reproduction, offering slightly desaturated, even porcelain-like skin which skews more towards tan than pink in terms of hue.

I think this is closer to a photochemical look. 

On 2/13/2022 at 4:55 AM, hyalinejim said:

Let's take one aspect of the LUT which is possibly its most important: hue, saturation and lightness of colour and let's leave the contrast constant and compare the film emulation (bottom) to Panasonic's own V-Log to Rec709 colour transform (top). You might agree with me that one of these looks better than the other in terms of luminance and hue of skintones:

Portra 400 is famous for its attractive skintone reproduction, offering slightly desaturated, even porcelain-like skin which skews more towards tan than pink in terms of hue.

I think this is closer to a photochemical look. 

It must mean that you bring your grey card and do an auto wb on a scene to scene basis. Having your images Colorbalance changing during a take is a showstopper.