Clark Nikolai

I read that the dark lighting on film noir films was for budget reasons initially. To cover up gaps in the budget in the sets by just not lighting some areas. Ah, yes, The HV20 (and HDV) revolution. I did some great stuff with my two matching HV20s. The image still holds up. (Some of the tapes haven't though. They're starting to develop drop outs.)

Interesting... I don't like it either. I suppose it was novel at one point but not now. I follow a YouTube channel located in the French Riviera. Shot with iPhones with the stupid "Portrait mode" which means the backgrounds have that artificial blur added to simulate low DOF. It bugs me because it's a place I've never been and one of the reasons to watch their channel is for the scenery and because of that I can't see the scenery. https://www.youtube.com/@MeandMonAmi/videos It's become like the difference that used to exist between video/television and movies. The super crisp sharp look is now associated with real time, documentary or "real" things and the "filmic" look is associated with fiction. Oh, don't get me started on it either. I was hoping that the Pyxis would be it, and while it looks like a good camera, it isn't a Digital Bolex successor. (It's more a successor to the Micro Cinema Camera.) In a way there are new cameras that have that look but they start at $20,000.

Interesting, so for me, somebody just needs to make an adaptor to go from HDMI and DC power to this USB-C EVF standard. One thing I would need though is that things like the focus assist and grid lines be part of the viewfinder and not be something the camera has to produce.

Yeah, probably. At this point I realize that there's no rush to get an EVF of my own. I have access to a Cineroid EVF I can borrow any time I want (though I don't like how big it is), it does work so I can take my time getting something. Ideally I think something like a Zacuto Gratical Eye would be great. I would need an HDMI to SDI convertor. The smallest I've found is an e2work brand one. It seems to not be available anywhere anymore. All the others are bigger physically. Another one that would probably be fine is a Kinotehnik LCDVFe, but seems to have been discontinued years ago. I know I'm being picky here but I really don't want it to be too big.

Interesting. When I felt it was time for me to go to a better camera I was seriously looking at the Ursa Mini Pro but the fixed pattern noise thing was a turn off. I also was looking at the BM Production Camera 4K, Digital Bolex, the Ursa non-mini even (which were like a full size VHS camcorder). I see the BM 4K Production Cameras now on Craigslist for only CAN$1100 which is pretty amazing for their image quality. I wasn't liking the poor audio quality part though. There are always trade offs with cameras. I ended up getting a deal on a Digital Bolex and loving it. It's not easy to shoot with but the results are worth it for certain types of shooting. I had a small group over for supper and a screening (projected) of my latest film shot with it and one of them, who's a layperson and not involved in film at all, said something like the image had a certain quality to it and wondered if I had a special camera or something. In the end I paid a lot but I'm super happy with what I ended up with. No FPN, good audio, amazing image quality, etc. It's also become a bit of a conversation piece when I've been out shooting. I've met a few interesting camera buffs that way. I think to compliment this would be something like a 4K camcorder with built in gimbal type stabilization. Sony, Canon and Panasonic all make similar models. I have an HD Sony (PJ650) that I love for its ease of use, stabilization and all that. We live in a golden age of so many camera choices and most of them are very good and much better than the few choices we had in the past. In fact we can even get super picky about minor details. It reminds me of coffee and craft beer. Thirty or more years ago it was all crap and now so much amazing beer and coffee is available we can look down upon very good coffee because we can choose super good coffee.

Now I want to put cameras in my shoes.

And of course I meant to type 24 (not 23) there. I find the projectionists can vary a lot in experience. They can range from the very experienced to volunteers. If you can make your file fool proof it'll hopefully look good.

Some TVs and media players interpolate frames. It can be turned off of course but if you're not around for that then it's up to whoever on the other end to do that and they might not even know about things like that. It's pretty simple, just in Final Cut (or any NLE), make a timeline at 30 or 60 FPS, then put the 23 FPS file in it. Make the settings such that the NLE doesn't interpolate but just duplicates frames, then output. The same with deinterlacing, it's better if I do the deinterlacing (and upscaling of SD videos). Then they receive an HD progressive file that technically at a high frame rate so any equipment down the pipe doesn't mess with it.

A trick if you're sending a video file to somewhere else for exhibition and therefore wouldn't have control over things like this is to put the 24 FPS file into a 30 or 60 FPS timeline, then output. This way you control how the 24 gets mapped into 30 or 60.

Right. I find it odd when the camera is in the subject line. Unless it's specifically a camera test, then it should be in the description along with the other information about the shoot.

Yeah, it makes total sense. Cameras got really good over ten years ago so anything made in the past decade will be fine for most things. The differences will be subtle and to do with ergonomics and convenience of shooting. I have a ten year old Sony HD camcorder that works great! I could've upgraded to the 4K version of it but there's never been a reason for that (and the 4K version is bigger.) It's not the only camera I have but the idea of letting go of it never crosses my mind. It's too useful mostly because you just flip the screen open and roll. I think anything goes nowadays.

Just watching this video: After 2m55s the guy from BM is asked if the viewfinder could be used on other manufacturer's cameras and he says that there's nothing preventing that. If another camera could output Display Port information and power through USB-C it would work. So this is very interesting. So for this to work on another camera, there might need to be a little converter box that brings in power and converts the HDMI or SDI to Display Port. What I'm also curious about is if things like focus assist and frame guides are done in the viewfinder or in the camera.

Interesting. I've been working in REC709 for the sole reason is that I'm just not ready to jump in to REC2020 and the learning curve that it might have. I also might need a new monitor or something. At some point I'll learn all about it as it seems to have huge advantages over REC709 and I want to have them. (Another thing that I want to one day learn about is ACES, another big scary thing.) My D16 has a colour space that is like HLG called Bolex Wide Gamut. It keeps the full dynamic range of the image but isn't flat looking like Log would be so is watchable even before using a LUT or something. Here's a white paper about it. https://digitalbolex.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Bolex_Log_Bolex_Gamut_TechSum.pdf

You're right I was. I'll clarify better what I mean. While they're all a little monitor with a loupe some are an approximately 3" LCD with a loupe (meaning the whole thing is big) and some are an approximately 1" OLED with a loupe and the whole thing is smaller. I see they exist as part of DSLRs and such but I'm wanting to get something like that separately so my whole rigged camera package isn't so big. The ZCam EVF could work I suppose. For my purposes there's no rush on this. (Still need to figure out a small shoulder rig anyway.) I've tried a Cineroid and it's way too big for my taste.

Yeah likely some type of Thunderbolt protocol likely to have both power and video signals through it. Just a guess. The Z-Cam one and most of the Portrays EVFs are just small LCD monitors with loupes. The Oeye-Red EVF is more like what I'm thinking.

The Pyxis looks good. No mention of global shutter so probably has rolling shutter of some amount. The thing I'm intrigued by is the USB-C EVF. I find out now this has already been out but I wasn't aware of it. Can it be hacked so it can accept HDMI and used on other cameras?

I had another thought. Since the patent (if I understand right), is for 4K and above compressed raw recorded internally, then a camera could be made that recorded internally to 3.99K compressed raw and so not violate the patent. Many people only shoot 4K to stabilize in post and to punch in and deliver in HD.

At some point both costs of SSDs will be so low and data transfer rates will be so high (Thunderbolt 4, etc.) that it won't matter much in practical terms if raw files are not compressed. I could see new cameras saving internally in uncompressed raw, (ProResRaw or uncompressed BRaw) which would not be subject to the patent. At one time shooting HD was super expensive, now it's super cheap, the same with 4K and other things. If the cost of media is within the budget of a production, and the transfer times for copying the cards is short enough for the shooting schedule, then it doesn't matter.

What would be useful is if a camera manufacturer designed the cameras to be switchable. I don't know how it all works but I get the impression that with CMOS sensors there's a trade-off between global shutter and dynamic range. If that's really the case then it would be good if a cinema camera was able to switch from one to the other. One setting would be global shutter but lower DR, the other would be higher DR but with rolling shutter. Then it would depend on the scene being shot, (and the lighting) which one you would choose for any given set up.

It looks cute. I think it might be mostly a fashion accessory (but it also takes pictures). I like how it's small. It's kind of wild that a camera "for kids" is 44 Megapixel. Odd that there's no bluetooth to transfer to your smart phone or tablet. I'm an adult and I would consider this for some situations like travelling and my photos aren't so important.

It's a great camera. Now, imagine it with global shutter and raw recording.

What I'd like to see is a tiny OLED viewfinder that would connect with HDMI and 12volt DC. There are a few nice EVFs that connect to proprietary hot shoes such as the Canon EVF-DC2, FUJIFILM EVF-GFX, Sigma EVF-11, Sony FDA-EVM1K, etc. however they aren't able to be used with other cameras. I'd like to see something like this, or an adaptor from the hot shoe connectors to HDMI and D-tap. Then if you have a cinema camera you're not left with only huge EVFs (which are really just small monitors with a loupe.) The one that seems to have this potential is the Sigma EVF-11. In pictures it shows what looks like a USB-C plug, two pins, then what might be a micro-HDMI. It might be possible for there to be an adaptor to use this.

Oh, I'm dreaming of even more. I'm thinking of internal raw recording in a camcorder. (It would likely have to be uncompressed raw because of Red's patent but if I'm dreaming here it would be ProResRaw and/or BRaw.) I'm thinking of the type of narrative filmmaking where you have actors and all but the filming situation is such that you don't have much control over the setting (or much time with the location). You need to set up fast and get the shots and move on. A camcorder is perfect for that. It would need some type of timecode jam sync for any external audio recorder(s).

I agree. There's an ergonomic thing with camcorders that I'd like to see done again but with raw or something. I still shoot with an eight year old Sony HD camcorder because it's so easy to use and produces beautiful results. 5-axis image stabilization, 20x zoom lens, 5.1 stereo mic, etc. The only drawback to it is that it records to H.264 only. I had a wish that they would make the same thing but that it would record in some type of raw format. Storage is so cheap nowadays that they could put in a 1 or 2TB SSD and it would still be affordable and hold a lot of footage. I would not hesitate to shoot a feature narrative on such a thing if it existed.

I've taken almost a month to respond to this. I wanted to get it right. Now I'm just doing it even if it isn't. I find this website sometimes is the only one that has some careful thought anymore. I appreciate what many of you write here. I like that I can contribute.