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Wed, 31 Dec 2014 07:53:44 +0000
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BMPCC aka BLACKMAGIC POCKET CINEMA CAMERA, a Super 16mm contender -pt2
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Tue, 30 Dec 2014 12:23:07 +0000
All right, here we go with the geek stuff. One word of caution before you go along and read this.
There is a lot of grief around the web on this camera, but you have to remember this is a Cinema Camera and not in the way Canon is marketing their own… bar the C500, which is the one and only that deserves the title.
Arguably the BMCC Pocket is the cheap miniaturization of an Arri Alexa. Funnily enough, highly regarded cameras like the RED and the Alexa have many of the same practicality problems of the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema. Fact is those do not even begin to cover the word ‘problem’ in typical cinema production scenarios, as it’s the job of the Cinematographer to control shooting conditions to prevent them.
There is no out-of-the-box professional tool out there, there is no magic wands when it comes to shooting video. The statement that pro results do require pro efforts checks, as people always have done when shooting on film.
I guess this is well all this wrath against BM stuff is springing from. Much of the DSLR lovers are amateurish shooting crowd, tending to utter frustration when things don’t shape up quickly. The pros don’t see the big deal. I recall reading this sentence, that I think summed up all of it. It went on something like that ‘amateurs get upset by the pros, thinking that the pros blame their skills while the camera should be blamed’. Well put.
Enough with the introduction, let’s get hands on.
Like many other CMOS based cameras, one issue is rolling shutter. Why is this so dreadful? Other than the skew and jello effect, rolling shutter can bring along additional artifacts like smear and exposure changes. The first two are pretty much unavoidable, the last two lesser present in my own experience.
Some people say that it’s not that big deal, as fast pans or whip pans are not every day’s cup of tea. I have to disagree, as when using the GH2 I had micro jitters that would turn the image to be unusable because of the resulting jello+skew combo poison.
Also I find that rolling shutter impacts motion overall. A couple of days ago I was doing a corporate shooting on a C100, locked on a slider, panning very smoothly to the right while moving forward as smoothly. Rolling shutter was there, the corner of the wall skewed when panning, I could not believe my eyes. Miles away from a whip pan, and I had to fix the shot with the Rolling Shutter by The Foundry plugin. For the records, the C100 is not the worst in the list when it comes to Rolling Shutter.
I have not measured RS myself on the BMPCC, but I am here crunching the figures that I found on peer websites. I do not feel the urge of re-doing the tests myself, as these folks are pretty capable of producing reliable result –or at least better than myself, they also seem to have used some hi fi equipment that I don’t happen to own.
I am reporting just some, this is non- exhaustive list
Arri Amira 2ms
Film: 4ms
F65: 14ms
Canon C300: 16ms
BMPCC: 18ms
Cameras with a lot of shooting modes (like the GH4, A7s, RED) shows a multitude of results in terms of RS performance much depending on the shooting mode, so I have just taken the ones that are clean cut.
Broadly speaking 4k has double the RS of a 2k mode, but the RED ONE for instance can keep that around 16ms in 4k.
Next up is dynamic range. This is where much debate goes on, also because the numbers often found in the specs do not make sense in a real shooting environment. The actual USABLE dynamic range is what matters the most, and that’s a fraction of the full dynamic range -normally in the region of 30-40% below the maximum latitude. This has to do with the fact that although the sensor is rated at a certain latitude, the shadows get really noisy and the highlights kind of wonky so that the specs do not make any more sense in a real shooting environment.
The theory then goes much further, because there is a relation between bits and latitude, but it gets pretty technical and beyond the purpose of this article.
Again, I won’t run tests myself but trust results from reliable sources. Samul Hurtado over at www.similaar.com has certainly done his homework, and these are his findings
These facts are pretty clear
A_ the BMPCC is rocking the charts
B_ the BMPCC delivers uniform DR when shooting RAW
The Canon Cinema Camera is absent from the test, but from other resources it does not appear to score much further from the 5dmk3 when shooting in Technicolor mode, which is akin to Canon’s very own LOG mode.
As a side note it seems that the properties of a certain lens can impact the dynamic range, as somehow both the coating used (contrast) and the sharpness (color separation) can impact on the DR, especially when shooting with 8 bit cameras.
To conclude the DR talk with regards to the BMPCC, bear in mind that you want to shoot at 400ASA minimum, but try to nail as many shots as you can at 800ASA if you are in Prores land. If you were shooting RAW, ASA does not matter that much in terms of DR bar the noise level. The cleanest image you get from the camera is at iso 800, thus the BMPCC can be occasionally pushed to iso 1600 without exhibiting too much visible noise.
Now it’s the color science turn. As many of you surely know, Blackmagic made it big in the post production industry, via their Resolve software and hardware. The camera market has made them a popular choice among the crowds, other than the pro market.
This is to say that they should know one thing of two regarding color. This has been said many times over, so it’s understood that each camera has to be treated as a different film stock.
The BMPCC (like its siblings) is not ready to shoot out of the box, it needs to go through a hefty grading for its footage to come alive. This is a sort of ‘buyers beware’ because the low price tag attracts indeed a lot of potential buyers, but don’t expect to run’n’gun with it. This is no DSLR, and the workflow it’s much similar to pro cameras. I won’t describe the RAW workflow in details, such topic would just deserve its own space. However there are plenty of resources over the net, Google is your friend, this is just one of my personal liking
Shooting RAW does not mean that there isn’t any color science behind it. It just means you can tweak the footage a lot and it almost does not fall apart, but there is a king of imprint to it belonging to a certain manufacturer’s will. To my trained eye, this is where the Arri Alexa is the king, to the point that almost any TV series, medium to high budget commercial and Oscar candidate pictures are shot on the Alexa (and potentially, on Amira from now on).
This is how much color is of importance, the war is on resolution, but it’s just pure madness. People see colors more than pixels, and again… you want to fire 6k on a human oval? Resolution matters for CGI, landscapes, aerials, but other than that it’s a marketing gimmick. Sell more pixels, make people upgrade their computers, TVs and all but what makes the heart beat is how color is rendered. Arri had huge expertise from film, and I guess it taught them a great deal on digital, since the D21 at least.
The Blackmagic cameras color science is pretty distinctive, hard to put it into words. However it’s definitely a pleasant one, and found many enthusiasts around the globe. One thing you have to be aware of is how the sensor behaves under tungsten lighting though. This is very challenging for some cameras more than others, for instance the C100 seems to deliver uniformly across the light spectrum. This is a picture that explains the challenges when shooting under tungsten
And here is a valuable free resource to get started with your grading on BMPCC-powered footage
The last point is regarding sharpness. Again I will reference finding that are available on the web, on particular from a cinematographer I have been following, Corey Robson www.coreyrobson.com alongside the test from Samuel Hurtado.
The test conducted by Similaar shows that there is little if not any sharpness difference between the BMPCC in Prores or in RAW mode. You still want to go RAW because that’s where the DR is.
These are the charts for your own consultations, with embedded moire from the BMPCC
It is pretty astonishing to notice how similar the sharpness test are. I would happily conclude that although the BMPCC might not be as sharp as the C100 (or the C300 for the matter) as these machines downscale internally from a 4k sensor, certainly it is no slouch compared to the Arri Alexa !
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BMPC aka Blackmagic Pocket Cinema, a Super 16mm contender -pt1
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Fri, 26 Dec 2014 08:03:17 +0000
Could I miss to review the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera. I could not, as this sub $1000 technical achievement is something you have to talk about. There are tons of reviews on the net, but the point of view of each own of us brings some valuable discussion over the table. The BMPCC hasn’t yet been superseded by Blackmagic Design, so a mature evaluation can still be written up.
I did not jump straight into the BMCC mainly because I wanted to see how this camera performed first. After 6 months from its official release, it was rather apparent that the BMC was a serious contender, a baby Alexa some like to say. Still I was not (and I am not still) convinced about the sensor size, although with the Speedboosters & co. you can get very close to a Super35mm sensor size.
When it comes to non-standard sensor size (by standard I refer to S16 or S35 for the matter) I know you can just do the math and work out the DOF, but …. By the time I was kind of ready to hit the jump, the BMPCC got announced. Price was sick low, plus a true-ish S16mm sensor (actually 12.48mm x 7.02mm compared to Super 16 mm 12.52mmmx7.41mm) –which is established in the world of cinematography.
I got the second batch of the BMPCC after the white orb issue got ironed out, and almost into the firmware that enabled the RAW in camera recording. Blackmagic is actually to be taken with a pinch of salt, as all the 1st camera release seem to be pretty much far from trouble free.
I have been using the BMPCC for a while now, in different scenarios and alongside different cameras. I believe we are all agreed that digital film cameras have to be considered as different film stocks. Also depending on the job, its budget, its requirements you might opt on one or the other… at the end of the day it’s not always an artistic choice, not all the work we do is features.
I would like to get right down to the biggest disappointment of the BMPCC. In my view, I believe it to be moire. It showed many times and ruined the shots. On a feature films set you might have all the aids of a bigger crew and proper arrangements to work around the camera of choice limits, but in corporate videos/doco type of work this is not likely to be the scenario.
I guess that a big part of the issues leading to moire is due to the OLPF. I understand that the BMPCC has none, so here we are. Truth to be told, the BMPCC would not be the 1st camera without it, as some of the latest video enabled Nikons do not carry it as well –namely the D7100 and D5300 – but those do not have as much moire. What is it? Not entirely sure at this point, it must be the way the software down samples the pixels, but I am not much interested in getting into the tech details.
What I am sure of is that no post production workaround in the world can totally save your shot, unless you go the CGI way and rebuild the tainted part of the footage. Hollywood style, not my types of productions and not those for many like myself.
The interesting part is that there is some kind of workaround. It’s the one and only I could come across after many hours of research on the net a while back, but right now it comes on top of the Google results so the link must have been hit thoroughly. Here it is for your consideration, I have yet to try it myself, but it seems pretty effective
The Optical Low Pass Filter is a physical piece of glass that is meant to avoid the moire problem, that shows up in the form of rainbows and it’s typically triggered by fine patterns. I had cases of moire showing up on the glasses of some headshots during interviews, how bad that is. Same I had with the Nikon D600 that flew off the window due to a flawed video mode, joyful festival of moire and aliasing. For instance this is the D800 OPLF design, which we can all consider to be not successful as moire was visible on the D800 video too
At the end of the day, if very experienced camera makers like Arri or Canon are putting the OLPF in their products there must be a reason being. I know as a matter of fact that a lot of resources have to be poured into the design of the OLPF glass itself, because it is always a tradeoff between sharpness and moire. RED seemed to have run into some kind of issue themselves, and a post-Dragon release seemed to have addressed the problem –or at least give RED users a choice. The Canon 5DmkIII went all the opposite way, giving us a moire/aliasing free camera but with soft video. Perhaps what Graham Petty, as CEO of Blackmagic thought, was to a) save some money (R&D, parts) b)boost sharpness (the BMPCC is not as sharp as the Alexa or the C100 by default)
Whatever his and his team thinking was, the end results is that you have to be careful what you’re shooting at. I did not only had the issue with lenses as sharps as the Panasonic 12-35. I also had it with some Nikkors AI, although not they are rater sharp already at f4, I cannot say that due to a design 30 years old that they are as sharp as modern lenses when shooting below that f-stop.
Now on to the second fact regarding the BMPCC. This is not a downside, but it’s more due to the fact that it’s something you have to deal with, there are no ways around. It’s to do with the film mode in the BMPCC, as opposed to the video mode. You have to grade it pretty hard if you are willing to squeeze out the true potential of this camera. Your mileages might vary, really it’s down to your experience or whether you have a consolidated a grading workflow or not.
What my eyes can see is that that the film mode in indeed very flat, and you’ll benefit from a monitor with a log curve built I to focus. The recently released Atomos Shogun features this opportunity, as well as the Small HD line. Some other high end field monitors certainly offer the opportunity at a click, but they might be out of the price range of the majority of BMPCC users out there.
Also I find that the recorded footage has a strong magenta tint in Prores, and it takes some serious massage to kill it. I am aware of the existence of some off the shelf color correction software (like Film Convert) or pre-baked LUTs (like VisionColor Osiris, Koji Color or others) but I found the FilmConvert buggy and the second option more of a finishing aid than a magic bullet solution.
Increasing the saturation to 150/200 % with the Fast Color corrector in Premiere seemed a good starting point, but then you are on your own, and it will take quite time to come to a visually nice result.
When shooting RAW the matter is slightly different. Because you import the DNG into Lightroom (at least I would), the amount of controls over the image is enormous and it might be quicker to find your way out. Quicker in a way, meaning if you have a pretty good idea of what you want to achieve. Truth to be told there will be so many options available that if you do not exactly know what your goal is, you might end up tweaking sliders forever. Apart from this, the RAW workflow is very time consuming (and HDD space consuming too) that I am not sure if I’ll ever go down that path again unless the Client has the budget for it.
There also would be a 3rd fact about the BMPCC, more specifically the IR pollution. I put this in 3rd place because in all fairness it’s not BMPCC related at all, more later. Every time a sensor is engineered, makers account for a certain amount of IR filtration. The Canon C100 as well the entire Canon Cinema line seems to handle it damn well, some other cameras have issues with it past a certain point.
I experienced the issue myself, and you have to know how to tackle it before going into a shoot with the camera of choice. Unfortunately there seem to be no way of getting rid of IR pollution even in post, unless you want to find yourself tearing your hair looking up for some CGI wizardry. IR pollution manifest itself in shift of tones (namely hue and saturation) when using certain degree of ND filtration, and when that hits the skin tone then you’re done for good. It’s a shift mostly affecting the red channel, so that the blacks turn brownish and the whole color palette gets weird.
I use a variety of filter brands, but I am not particularly loyal to one as they all seems to have strength and weaknesses in their offerings. If we were to look at at a popular choice, Tiffen filters, looking up at their documentation it seems that a T1 filter (rays absorption) jointly used with a Hot Mirror (rays reflection) filter would save the shot. There are some IRND filters out there, but much like myself you might have already had the VND purchased so you’re looking to bolt something on.
Some other folks swear by the HOYA UV IR, Hoya is one of the major optical producers out there. I read somewhere that the work for 3rd parties like Canon.
However, I found this clip from Abelcine of particular interest and I posted you here as it might save you hours of crazy browsing
This has been brought up million times all over the internet. There are some other downsides to the BMPCC, but to me they are not that big deal at this price point. It is part of the compromise you sign up for when purchasing the camera. Yeah, battery sucks badly and the LCD screen is bollocks. Every time I go shoot I have a V-Mount battery and an external monitor with me, so I am not too fussed about the lack of these facilities in the camera. For solid work you have to rig it anyway, I am cool to add extras I have to have on every job.
The black orb issue has been fixed a while back, so well done Blackmagic for this one… now is the URSA your cat to skin. Well done for standardizing the firmware updates all across the product line, anf for continuing offering improved firmware. For last well done for shaking up the market so bad, and for empowering filmmakers with great tools. The part I do not like of this Company is the “you-test-it-first” attitude, all cameras up to now seem to be pretty flawed at launch, and get usable after 6 months. So at least in their initial life on the shelves, they can’t be considered any more than B or even C roll cameras; thus even after over 1.5 years from its initial release, no one was able to give the community 4:2:2 10-bits raw for peanuts.
I have a pt 2 of this article coming up next, which goes into the technical performances of the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera. Further down the lines , I plan to talk about the lens options out there, with some hands on pictures from my personal Cooke Kinetal collection.
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BEST NOTEBOOK OR LAPTOP FOR VIDEO EDITING
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Thu, 06 Jun 2013 12:29:59 +0000
I guess that some of you guys might be in my same shoes, looking like crazy to find the right mobile solution for editing. I can just hear some of you go “hey you, Mac does it”. I know that for sure, but I am a PC guy for many reasons and I want to stay in that land.
I found a solution that works beautifully, so read on to find out more.
It should be an easy task in 2013 to find the right notebook for your editing needs. It’s actually not, it took me quite a long time. If you are looking for sleek design, full HD monitor, SSD drive plus a 7200rpm HDD and a powerful NVIDIA card, you will soon realize that the task is harder to nail as you might have thought at first. Price is another thing to keep in mind; if you have money to burn, well, then this website might even not interest you that much.
In one way of another, most notebooks fail to deliver. The full HD (1920*1080) screen is quite tough to get, to date very few manufacturers do that, so the choices narrow down to a handful of notebooks. Also size in another important thing, I would consider 15” the absolute minimum for video work on a full hd screen. To be honest, 17” would be better, but weight (and price) will increase considerably.
In addition, it’s not all down to resolution and size. We are doing video work and we want to have truthful screen. A properly calibrated monitor would cost a fortune alone, like the HP DREAMCOLOR. Forget that kind of screen on a notebook (perhaps on a Cartier branded one) but panels do differ, and again you have to make choices here as you cannot have it all. I will be telling you more about this later on in the article.
Another hard thing these days is to find the right NVIDIA card. There are some great resources on the web that give you a good run down on how all this comes down to, and mostly you will understand that performances are not directly related to the common thinking ‘the more expensive, the better’. Instead of me going into details, take a look at this website and you will see how things work out .
The next stage will be the hard disk. Here again it’s frankly ridiculous how many laptops do have 5400rpm hard drives … and that does not suit video editing at all, you want to go for 7200 rpm. Now, SSD would be happy days here, as there are incredible benefits to edit on them. For starters you do not have to defrag, you tell me this alone is not worth it? The Dell hasn’t got the most spacious SSD, but here comes the good news. Because this notebook has been laid out to work with two hdds, one of those being a memory drive, well then you can replace it. At the end of the day, this computer comes with only 32GB worth of data room, I would go for 120GB at least. Remember that you need the msata SSDs, they are smaller than usual size, Samsung is a leader on those.
The procedure is not that complicated; there are plenty of videos on YouTube detailing the necessary operations. I guess you could find a suitable laptop ticking the most boxes and replace the crappy 5400 hdd if necessary, your call… I personally believed that in 2013 you have to have a 7200rpm drive with what you are paying for.
Another important thing is battery duration. I cannot say the Dell is a monster here, but it’s decent. It could have been battery, thus I mostly edit when plugged in as I like to run at full blast. I use the battery to browse the internet, rite docs and emails when on the move, on that I get around 2.00h with the new battery on a balanced mode (different to full power!). In a year or so, I know it won’t be the same, I know, that sucks.
The next thing would be connectivity. Sometimes it’s unevaluated, but you should not… on a mobile solution. You have to rely on external hdd for storage. In media work, you might have to connect to external resources, being that external video screens, card sticks, headphones etc. and the more the merrier. The Dell here is missing a Thunderbolt port, that would have been very nice, it has 2xUSB 3.0 ports but they are not as fast. With Thunderbolt you could actually have had the option to edit on an external hard drive, I doubt the results will be fully satisfactory on USB3.0, thus some recents test do disagree with this position and claim they are even…
I mentioned before that we would aim for a quality monitor when shopping for notebook or laptops. You can always connect an external hi quality monitor, but it’s nice to have the real deal packed in. This amazing website has done accurate reviews in terms of comparing different notebooks video panels, you can check the results here.
Now, I had a right deal with this Dell, and you might look into it as well. Being Dell one US established and leader IT player, they have refurbished stuff available. Mine is refurbished, and for love or money you cannot tell the difference. You cannot because there is no difference. I am not 100% sure on the path that leads to refurbished hardware, it could be RMAs or other stuff, but at the end of the day you save some cash and you have a brand new item. Just you have to take what is available, so you might opt for going to Dell’s website and build your own.
For instance I had to stick to i5 CPU, and I would have loved to have i7. Thus I thought that i5 2.86 ghz was good enough to do for the most part of it, and I do not regret its performances. There is always going to be something better and faster, you just need to find a worthy balance.
I am happy with this laptop, it has a slim design and performances. You check the full rundown of its specs here. Downfalls might be not the best keyboard in the world (better that the Asus I had though, it liked to bend on normal use) and some limitations on connectivity and hardware, but 90% bearable when compared to other market offers. Not to forget the price, we are looking at a Macbook Pro clone at half the price.
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Nikon D5200, D7100 and Panasonic GH3
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Sun, 05 May 2013 16:13:51 +0000
I am hired as a Director here at Pattaya Chanel, www.pattayachannel.com, a TV station in that country often called “Amazing Thailand“. One of first things I had to do once on duty was to take care of the equipment. The quality of the footage was not top notch, and they wanted me to take it to the next level. What a great chance to give a go to what I have learned so far, and put it into practice.
So, the equipment on board was a mixed bag of camcorders and DSLRs. They were shooting on Sony PWM-EX1R, Sony PWM-EX3 and Canon DSLRs, as in Canon 60D, 550D, 600D and 7D. To get the footage to match was a real challenge, and quality output has been an ongoing problem.
The channel shoots regularly commercials, shows and events. As you might know, I have a DSLR background so that is where I feel I am pretty strong at. I decided to opt for both Panasonic and Nikon, namely GH2, GH3, D5200 and D7200.
I have chosen the GH line for its superb sharpness and the “real” feeling that comes with it. On the other side the new Nikon were chosen for their “filmic” quality, great dynamic range and color. Both the GH3 and the D7200 had to come on board because of their audio output monitoring facilities, crucial during regular TV work; else I would have opted for the cheapest sisters, the GH2 and the D5200.
As far as the lenses go, I went for the Panasonic X lenses, meaning both the 12-35 f2.8 and the 35-100 f2.8. Mounted on a proper rig they deliver a great deal in terms of auto-focus speed and image stabilization. A bit overpriced for what they are, but definitely the best choice in the current Panasonic line. For the Nikon, I have also ordered the purchase of the 28-70mm f2.8D AF-S Zoom; you can find great second hand deals and this zoom is as fast as you can get at constant aperture. The new Toshiba sensor employed by Nikon for the D5200 and the D7100 does a great job up to ISO 3200, so the f2.8 aperture would be OK for night stuff. A faster lens would be even better, say f1.8 or so, but there are none in the current Nikon line.
I feel that the built of Nikon Zooms are no match to the Panasonic X line, but these are lighter and have in lens O.I.S image stabilization. Nikon has some V.R. lenses too, same concept, thus it’s difficult to get a 2nd hand deal on those. Also, the great stuff about this Nikon zoom is that it can be operated both in manual mode and in auto mode… and it covers full frame, so it’s a worthy investment for any future set-up!
Other lenses on board were the always worthy Nikon Ai, the Zeiss Contax G and the Mamiya 645. These give me a great degree of choice when it comes to commercial shooting, or particular studio shows. Each lens has its strength, the Nikon Ai are very filmic and work well under controlled lighting, not so well on run and gun settings because of their poor coating. The Contax G are just stunning lenses,and a references for all lenses when it comes to sharpness corner to corner and resolution. The Mamiya are sharp as hell, and really help out against the softness of the D5200 and D7100, albeit more generous in contrast than the other lenses in the race…. but super nice focus throw being medium format, and faster than Hasselblad’s.
The Leica Elmarit would be among my favorites, but they comes at a premium price, and for the money I rather have more sets than just stick to one.
Further down the road I might opt for the purchase of proper video cameras. Perhaps the Canon C100 comes in mind first, it’s a bit too expensive for what it is…. like all the Canon stuff, but it’s a great little camera. Although you can rig your DSLR, there is no true substitute for the real deal when it comes to fast TV work. One thing for all, the built in ND and the camera balance, in more than one occasion they come in super handy. Also there is no fiddling with menus and sub-menus on video camera, just quick button levers, click…. and when you are running and gunning, that is just want you want !
Now I guess you might be wondering what feeling I had regarding the new cameras. Well, I will not do a full review because there are heaps of websites better than my blog at it. Here it’s more a chat between friends, we want to share experiences, emotions, thoughts and not photos of one dollar bills used to pixel peep. Although I have used them to test these cameras
First of all, what I think of the Nikon D5200 and its bigger brother the Nikon D7100. They both have the same sensor that delivers indeed filmic images, and score better than the GHs in low light. Please check the photos below, they are straight out of camera, Standard picture profile:
The images coming out from these cameras are softer than the GH2, but they sharp very well in post, more than any camera I had the pleasure to work with so far. The problem of this sensor, as pointed out many times in different forums, is its fixed pattern noise (sometimes called FPN). That is rather annoying, and as I write Nikon has not sorted out the problem. Will they ever provide a fix? I do not know. It’s there even at ISO 100, on underexposed areas… and it’s not as pleasant as film-like grain. The good news is that Neat Video plug-in ( I use AE and Premiere version) is capable of getting rid of it almost entirely, but as you might know this is also CPU intensive work… and time.
I had a chance to play with the D800, it’s definitely a better camera overall, but it’s twice the price. What can I say of the Nikons? Well, first thing, for video work, I do not see super strong reasons to go for the D7100, unless you need an audio out. You might not need it at all if you are using an external video recorder and are willing to sync in post. For film work this is really no brainier, for TV work I would opt for the fastest and easiest workflow.
I found the D7100 to be sharper than the D5200, by how much I cannot really point my finger at, but the removal of the low pass filter was beneficial resolution-wise. The good news is that I could not see added moiré, aliasing or other issues. It looks pretty neat to me. Motion is filmic as well and the codec does a hell of a job for the low bit-rate the camera is working on. The D7100 has a better LCD screen, but it’s fixed… so no swivel as the D5200, and that is very useful for video work. It is a better build camera, feels nicer in hand but it’s a bit hard to motivate the price difference for bare video work. The D5200 is a bargain at the $700 price point, period. Also I found the D7100 more complicated to use, I had to open the manual and read on and on (it’s not the most user friendly manual too), and I never do that! Dear Nikon, if you hear me, I say too much non-sense.
My overall feeling for the Nikon is that I like them but I do not love them. I definitely love the aesthetics of a Super 35mm sensor, but that is totally another topic. I loved the GH2 and I know what it feels like to fall in love for a camera. The fact that you cannot change the aperture in live view, cannot meter exposure or have the histogram on the display it’s such a big disappointment. Never mind the touch screen of the GH2, let’s not even go there. It’s like Nikon is not thinking straight, they can do indeed great cameras but what are they thinking?? So many missed opportunities!! Shame when you look at the frame grabs I took here, to check the skin tones, again these picture is just a flat jpg:
Now, let’s talk of the GH3. It’s difficult to source one for starters; it took me three weeks before it came through the door. Better built than the GH2, not at Nikon D7100 level (note: remember that they run for the same money, around $1300 at the time of writing) but nicer than its predecessor in terms of design and materials. Some buttons do not feel entirely spot-on when pressed, but nothing major to report. Well, the Nikon are more in Canon’s style, the Panasonic have they own design; they tend to be more vintage looking if you see what I mean.
The GH3 is definitely an improvement in many areas over the GH2, the battery lasts longer, the hack is pretty much implemented, the LCD and the EVF are nicer, the body is weather sealed and the low light performances are improved (thus not at Nikon’s level). Resolution wise you can check the numerous test, to cut the long story short the hacked GH2 holds its own in terms of sharpness. Shame the GH3 has go no way to tweak the color curves, the Nikon go log-like just by turning the contrast all the way down. A bit stupid as well that the GH3 sensor is no longer 1.86x but 2.0x in 35mm format.
I know that you might ask yourself if it’s worth to do the upgrade. Well, again, it depends on how many of the following answers you are ticking positively. If you need audio output, yes. If you need a camera with built-in higher bit rates, yes. If you need a weather sealed camera, yes. If the underexposed area mosquito noise of the Gh2 bothered you, yes. If the rolling shutter of the GH2 was getting to your nerves when handheld, yes again. Dynamic range and low light performances are not that much improved, but better. So…. it is worth the money? Your call.
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Story of a Producer
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Sun, 21 Apr 2013 18:24:48 +0000
Here I come again writing, it took so long it’s unbelievable. I missed it, very much. I have been travelling hell of a lot, to China, Africa, India, Dubai, Thailand, Indonesia, Italy and Hong Kong. I mostly have been alongside Director Mauro Salesi, www.maurosalesi.com; he is a top commercial director and he has 25+ years worth of experience, starting as an editor and moving his way up.
You certainly know what a commercial advert is about, but you probably do not know much about the making of, so let’s have me telling you more about it.
A client wants to make an advert, and goes to an Agency like Havas, Ogilvy, Leo Burnett and the likes. They come up with an idea that suits the client’s purposes, most likely a storyboard and a brief, less likely an animatic. Then they need a production house (PH from here on) to make the idea come alive, so they start to get some quotes in. Any PH has directors they like to work with, or they might be in a need to find one tailored for the job. In this case there are other agencies holding a portfolio of directors they represent.
However, as a director you are bidding with a PH for a project; once you get shortlisted because the client is ok with both the budget and your reel, you have to treat the project.
For the most part you will be selected because you have already shot something similar, no matter whether you have tons of experience. Funny, I know; you have shot the world for twenty years and all of a sudden that counts….. little!
However, should you be shortlisted, you have to produce paperwork. The doc you are requested to pull out, it is called by the name of ‘treatment’.
In such document you impose your vision as a director, meaning photography, lighting, wardrobe, casting, location, product and the actual film. The client (and the agency) will then decide if you will be the very one. Sometimes it’s not a clean cut process, there is a lot of going back and forth, and uncertainty and all can go belly up until you are sitting on a plane! Yes, that hard and, again, no matter who you are and how much of expertise you have. If all goes fine, you will be landing somewhere and someone will be waiting for you, holding a board in your name. After a night in some 5 star hotels, the fun begins.
First you meet the team at the PH; they will be your partners all along. After some meetings with regards to the forthcoming shootings, you are required to attend a meeting with the agency. They need to approve all directors’ choices before seeing the client. It makes go smooth or a bumpy, the creative directors are here the most challenge… the ad is mainly their baby and you have to handle it with lots of care. Past this, you face the pre-production meeting, with the client or his key people and both the PH and the agency. Client needs approving the shooting, and signs it off. Again this is a gamble, the more charismatic you are, the higher your chances to succeed with little or no collateral damage.
Right then, now it’s all Okayed but you, as a director, cannot fail to deliver. These days most shootings are one or two days. Bigger projects can be up to five, but because of global recession there are only a few and you had to fight hard for them to happen.
Now, time is always an issue and a director is required to wrap the shooting as scheduled by the 1st assistand director..
Things are normally well organized so a full troupe will be of assistance, and the director would just be looking at one monitor, approve the cut or if not happy command the DP/cinematographer and actors for optimal results. It requires a lot of concentration, expertise, skills and drive. The director is holding all together, the client and the agency and right there watching all steps. If they are not happy, they will go talk to the producer, who in turn will try its best to convey the necessary changes to the director.
All right, once it’s all over, either the director cuts it or an editor. Then it’s ShowTime again, to all parts involved. However, it’s pretty clear that the client has the last word on it. If approved, post production will take place, and that might take quite some time before the final version comes to life. The director has to follow all the post and contribute to all alterations requested to complete his own vision.
Overall you will be out of the country for 15 days minimum for one day shooting.
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Ultimate still lenses choices for DSLR FILM-MAKERS
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Sun, 25 Nov 2012 21:25:48 +0000