FHDcrew

I still use 2 GH2's for live 1080p 25fps stuff... English classes that I get paid for. Super happy with them and they seem good enough when used with an ATEM Mini. For personal stuff, I use the GH6 and a G100 for travel. I'll be selling my E-M1 ii this next week if I can get 400-ish Euros for it. The rest of my cameras are either film or just broken broken.

I am using a Nikon Z6 with either an Atomos Ninja V or an Atomos Ninja Star. Mostly shooting oversampled 1080p out of the HDMI port. By setting the rec setting to 4k and HDMI out to 1080p. I use the ninja v when I am doing interviews or lighting stuff so I can take advantage of LUT monitoring and waveforms, etc. For run-and-fun BROLL though I usually use the Ninja Star. Keeps the setup light and small. 
 
As for lenses, to be honest I currently only have a Tamron 45mm 1.8 F-mount lens using the Nikon FTZ adapter. Looking to explains, however, and am strongly considering the Viltrox 24mm 1.8Z. Or maybe I will go with an f-mount Nikon 16-35 f4 as a nice affordable autofocus-capable ultra wide. 
 
 

I'm curious to know what cameras people are actually using?
By reading the forums I get the impression that everyone is using the latest and (so called) greatest cameras, but I suspect that's not the case.  I haven't been posting lately because I've gotten the impression that no-one would be interested unless I was pixel-peeing a Z9 or whatever, and I've moved past that now.

I am using a Nikon Z6 with either an Atomos Ninja V or an Atomos Ninja Star. Mostly shooting oversampled 1080p out of the HDMI port. By setting the rec setting to 4k and HDMI out to 1080p. I use the ninja v when I am doing interviews or lighting stuff so I can take advantage of LUT monitoring and waveforms, etc. For run-and-fun BROLL though I usually use the Ninja Star. Keeps the setup light and small. 
 
As for lenses, to be honest I currently only have a Tamron 45mm 1.8 F-mount lens using the Nikon FTZ adapter. Looking to explains, however, and am strongly considering the Viltrox 24mm 1.8Z. Or maybe I will go with an f-mount Nikon 16-35 f4 as a nice affordable autofocus-capable ultra wide. 
 
 

Outstanding work man!  Love it!

Personally, I would never, ever in a million years add sharpening to a video clip.

Let’s share our work guys!  I’ll start. Here is an interview I shot and lit the other day, featuring a congresswoman from Indians!  One camera was a Nikon z6 recording into an Atomos ninja v.  With a Tamron 45mm 1.8.  The other was actually the ancient, cheap Canon 7D fitted with a Canon 85mm 1.2 shot at f/2.5!

im unemployed, check out my reel!
https://vimeo.com/797642822

Let’s share our work guys!  I’ll start. Here is an interview I shot and lit the other day, featuring a congresswoman from Indians!  One camera was a Nikon z6 recording into an Atomos ninja v.  With a Tamron 45mm 1.8.  The other was actually the ancient, cheap Canon 7D fitted with a Canon 85mm 1.2 shot at f/2.5!

Let’s share our work guys!  I’ll start. Here is an interview I shot and lit the other day, featuring a congresswoman from Indians!  One camera was a Nikon z6 recording into an Atomos ninja v.  With a Tamron 45mm 1.8.  The other was actually the ancient, cheap Canon 7D fitted with a Canon 85mm 1.2 shot at f/2.5!

Let’s share our work guys!  I’ll start. Here is an interview I shot and lit the other day, featuring a congresswoman from Indians!  One camera was a Nikon z6 recording into an Atomos ninja v.  With a Tamron 45mm 1.8.  The other was actually the ancient, cheap Canon 7D fitted with a Canon 85mm 1.2 shot at f/2.5!

Let’s share our work guys!  I’ll start. Here is an interview I shot and lit the other day, featuring a congresswoman from Indians!  One camera was a Nikon z6 recording into an Atomos ninja v.  With a Tamron 45mm 1.8.  The other was actually the ancient, cheap Canon 7D fitted with a Canon 85mm 1.2 shot at f/2.5!

Sony not offering firmware updates doesn’t bother me. I use Lumix cameras.
But being serious, I have never purchased a camera based on a promise of what it might or will be at some point in the future. I will buy it (or not) based on merit with what it comes with.
If something is updated with something I find useful, then that is a bonus, but not an expectation.
I’d be very happy with a pair of FX30’s plus a single A7V straight out of their boxes.

Some of the AI tracking features are actually very interesting, like the auto framing lock on center. I could see some really good use for that for product shooting. But as Dan mentions in his above review, all these AI features crop heavily in the cam so its a bewilderment why they chose the A7S3 sensor which does 1:1 4K and seriously degrades the IQ when punching in. These AI features would have been so much more useful on an oversampled 4K sensor. 
I can't help but feel that this ZV camera would have made much more sense as an APS-C one with the 6K oversampled FX30 sensor at half the price ($1100 / 1350€) and hence with little to no overheating. I don't even think most Vloggers and content creators care that much about FF. Its really an odd decision.

ohhhh.... I like a good conspiracy theory! And this one has some legs. Let's see how quick the firmware update comes out. 

Canon WideDR profile is supposed to be precisely this. You could also look into cameras that allow you to bake in LUTs.
However, something like WideDR is like a halfway house between log and a standard profile. It's probably not quite contrasty enough so you're going to end up grading anyway. And as @TomTheDP says, grading log is not difficult if you have a good LUT.
The only way you're not going to be grading is if you're shooting with an absolutely lovely profile or baked in LUT and you nail exposure and WB every time. With log you can relax a bit while you're shooting.

That is a ridiculous argument. A7s3 is photo camera now? Is this a joke? Everyone know its a video-first camera. Now I think Sony have moved from S series to FX now, but that doesnt mean that A7S3 suddenly became obsolete. 

Interesting is if you use it for external HDMI it can still overheat
I guess it is really for vlogging camera.

“cinematic mode” (built in black bars feature)

2699€

I analyzed the raw data in the DNG converted from ProRes RAW and now I know exactly how it's messed up.
I adjusted my tool and I think I have a working fix now. It fixes the raw data itself, so the result will be perfect in every software that reads DNG.
Before (see the broken line in the middle):

After:

 
I'm still testing my tool, it can read 12/16bit DNG, uncompressed, or lossless compressed, the lossy formats are not supported. It uses multiple threads, on my recent i7 laptop it converts with 25-35fps.
It's a pain to convert twice but at least I got it working, and learned a bit of C++ on the way.
If only I could fix the framerate issue as well, but no chance for that.

1080p raw video with 12ish stops of DR is hardly an obsession in IQ.
Isn't the goal to get more DR, more bitrate, more color information? I, believe, @TomTheDP 's point in this post is that a group of part time coders were able to unlock, and write, a fairly stable firmware which opened a zeitgeist of cinema settings and 14bit raw video on a prosumer camera, so surely official firmware from one of the manufacturers could easily match their efforts from 11 years ago
12bit video can display up to 68 billion shades of color, 14bit can display up to 4 trillion. Surely, those numbers will be closer when the image goes through the pipeline to an eventual rec709 delivery, but to say it will have zero effect on the final image just isn't true.
If it doesn't matter to you... cool! It doesn't mean it isn't important to someone else.
That said, I agree that story is king. But as you suggested, any aspect that supports the story and the director's vision is a worthy goal.

Blind tests aren't of much use. The zakuto blind tests says that a GH1 and 35mm film are equal. So why didn't camera development stop there? It would indicate 10 bit log, 4k, high bitrate, and anything beyond 8 stops of dynamic range, doesn't really matter. Cameras aren't developed or sold on blind tests. I don't think any professional is choosing a camera based on blind tests either. They have certainly offered no use to me.

You can argue IQ has nothing to do with making a pleasing looking image. That is definitely true in many ways. But it has nothing to do with marketing. You can say that marketing is all bullshit. I'd agree with that. 8k is useless for 99% of people yet it is a great buzzword for marketing. You are saying though that 14 bit recording is useless and blind tests somehow prove this.

If you are simply trying to say that 14 bit isn't marketable, that could be true. I am not a marketing specialist.  But camera companies don't use blind tests to market or else they would all be out of business.

In my experience when you actually use a camera on production and work with it through post, then you see a difference. There isn't really much debate there. Can a film look good that isn't shot on a cinema camera? Yes of course. But cameras like ARRI and RED are industry favored by pretty much any DP you would ask.

To me DP's are usually the last people to fall for marketing hype. These people see images constantly from production all the way to the finished product. ARRI isn't favored because of internet blind tests, they are favored because they actually make production and post workflow much easier. I'd love it if my S1 could give me the same image as an Alexa. But from my experience it just doesn't.

If you want a good test of a camera shoot 100 different scenes in all different scenarios, time restraints, lighting conditions, different sized crews, and then color correct and grade all of the shots and scenes. Do that with 5 different cameras and than compare them all. Well that couldn't be put in a little 5 minute youtube video. Stuff that is actually helpful can't be compressed into a little youtube video. Experience gotten from months of shooting and in post gives one a good idea of what matters.

Anyways 14 bit plus capture, even if it is just the readout is the way forward to better IQ imo. The Alexa shooting in 422 is still using a 14 bit readout. That is partially why it looks way better than cameras that are shooting 12 bit linear raw, which is a marketing scam.  12 bit linear raw really doesn't give you any more information to work with than a good 10 bit ALL-I. The advantage is it sometimes gets around the horrid internal processing many cameras do to their 10 bit options for some reason. But it also often reveals how shitty consumer sensors are in the shadows, bad colored noise and banding that is normally hidden by heavy noise reduction.

The Alexa has a 14 bit readout regardless of if you shoot 422 or 444 or RAW.

Anyways I am just expressing my disappointment in camera development. I would extend that disappointment to the high end cameras as well. RED is partially to blame in my opinion. They pushed the whole high resolution band wagon that consumer cameras jumped on. 10 years later and the best camera in the world the Alexa 35 only shoots 4k, while RED releases cameras for 1/2 what they did their previous line-up, with sensors that can't even match ARRI's 5 year old cameras. 13 years ago the Alexa came onto the market, the camera that replaced film essentially. 13 years later it's still the best sensor on the market, only surpassed by ARRI's own Alexa 35.

It's unfortunate resolution got put on the forefront of development instead of color depth, which also leads to increased dynamic range.

Am I saying the 5D MK3 is the pinnacle of image quality? No I am not. But it was capable of giving you a high bitrate 14 bit 1080p image. That was 11 years ago. Why can't we have 14 bit RAW 3K-4K in a small prosumer camera 11 years later. We get the same releases with a MK2 slapped onto it, with micro improvements. Very annoying.

Now you can tell me these are first world problems and I will gladly agree. I am in between projects right now and don't have any kids, so I have the time. And if this forum is not the place to vent about the BS that camera companies do than maybe I am just very confused.

 

guys, just grab an R7 and go outside and shoot already!

@Attila Bakos - Yes latest Danne build. I don't see improvements in bit rate, mostly in stability. Don't see from where this improvement in bit rate will come. 2-4 years ago ML team managed to overclock SD cards improving writing speed from 25-30Mb to 65Mb. Bit rate on  5D Mark III is now 80-85Gb with a good CF card + 65 Gb from SD card = 150Gb/s Didn't heard of any major development that would break this mark. As said we have this speed for at least 2-3 years.
Yes at 1080p resolution RAW video, camera is quite nice to work with,  not at 1.6 or closer to this crop modes. Tried hard to solve the framing problem using external optical viewfinder or even a smartphone as a second camera/screen. It was always pain in the neck. 10 years ago Canon ML RAW video hack was a breakthrough, now when we have blackmagic pocket 4K and 6K, can't find any reason to shoot with Canon 5K Mark III in crop mode. Blackmagic cameras have better dynamic range and they keep it trough all ISO range, very good rolling shutter,much easier to use, better monitoring capabilities, reliability. Kept 5D as a memory of the DSLR era and possibly some personal projects at 1080p but so far didn't shot any.
Don't want to put down ML team, they did and still do a great job, I am grateful for their time and work, but have to admit and live to reality.
What I've found in my personal experience happens for all video/film productions. Camera cost is only a small and often not a major part of film/video production budget. If one camera is few hundred bucks less expensive than another one but you spend much more time and efforts in post production or when shooting, at the end the less expensive camera will cost you much more. This is even more evident in mid to high end movie/video productions. It is then well understandable why TV series are shot on Alexa but at ProRes 4:2:2. At the end nobody other than probably few professionals will ever notice the small difference in image quality.
Again we tend to overestimate value of image quality while in reality nobody from the non pro large audience will notice it. If for you Canon 5D Mark III RAW video image looks good, great use it, just do not kid yourself it is somehow superior to the rest of modern cameras, while in measurable parameters like dynamic range and rolling shutter it is clearly inferior and for the large audience it really doesn't matter.
@TomTheDP - I wouldn't say slim, the Magic Lantern community was pretty large
It is. Just check how many times is downloaded latest Danne's build or MLV App. 2-3 thousands. And 90% to 95% of  the people will shoot a few test clips and that's it. Few will use it for small and personal projects as Zeek, and even less for commercial / production projects. Compare this to how many BM, Canon, Panasonic, Sony cameras are sold and used each year.
Unless somebody can prove in blind test even among relatively small circle of professionals that 14bit is better compared to 12 bit or even correctly recognized will consider it purely subjective. All tests that I've seen and even participated in indicate the opposite. A local shop did a test with Sony A7 series cameras in their early days. They've shot 10 pictures with different subjects and lighting conditions with Canon, Nikon and Sony A7 12bit compressed format. All 3 cameras were full frame. On screen and on print Canon and Nikon owners were not able to distinguish or guess which pictures were shot with their beloved cameras which they will passionately claim in forums have superior 14bit or whatever colors 🙂 It was completely random. We had some 11-12 years ago Great Zakuto shootout, this one here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZjIz8sB2vg) and so on 🙂