OT: Revenge Of The Great Camera Shootout

Zurück zum Post

Kommentare

paul_w schrieb am 16.08.2012 um 15:37 Uhr
Interesting article and i agree with most of it.

I think we all guessed how close these cameras could be 'made' to look. Its really about lighting time and then post grading time. How many layers does it need..
There were clues in parts 1 and 2 which hinted at this.
The GH2 guys gave it away for me, saying how much extra lighted they needed to get the shot compared to others. That was a signal that these cameras are not the same, not in terms of time needed to get the same shot as the Arri or F65.
But what i think this series does illustrate for us, given the extra time and effort, that even cheaper cameras like the iPhone 'can' be made to look this good. But its debatable whether this is a viable option or not. However, its a solution for total budget movie makers. one man and cam, he can spend as much time as he likes to get the shot and grade it. Asking a DP to shoot a feature on an iPhone or GH2 - they'd better allow for the extra time/money/effort it takes to get the shots looking good.
Its not an ideal world, most work in constraints of time and money. That makes the cheaper cams not cost efficient for real productions in the long run.
But can they look the same? - sure. It just takes way for time/money/effort in lighting and grading.

Paul.
Laurence schrieb am 16.08.2012 um 15:50 Uhr
>The GH2 guys gave it away for me, saying how much extra lighted they needed to get the shot compared to others. That was a signal that these cameras are not the same, not in terms of time needed to get the same shot as the Arri or F65.

To me that's the most important thing. To get good results in low light, you need fast glass and a camera that will fit it.
fausseplanete schrieb am 16.08.2012 um 22:09 Uhr
I felt let down by it at first - not only because I never imagined that such a degree of post would be permitted - such as Power Windows. Why not go the "whole hog" in that case and add artificial blur-DOF to the iPhone's footage...

But It's really good to get both perspectives: what the camer can do on its own and what can be done with an [i]overall process[i] including not only the camera.

For my corporates etc. I still use 1080i50 cameras (amongst others), motion-compensate-deint them to 25p or 50p, denoise using NeatVideo (overnight on 8-core) etc. so am not limited in such respects by the camera specs. It's more about "is the camera a good link in a chain", though admittedly some chains are easier than others.

The KineRaw S35 appears to have been designed with this philosophy in mind, processing having been shifted out of the camera and into post - where, given enough time, better quality can be achieved. Too laborious and delaying for news-shoots but right-on for controlled environments.

There's no "right" way of doing a comparison, but sure, it would have been far better if the test conditions had been stated more completely at the beginning.

Fine-print rules.
Serena schrieb am 19.08.2012 um 06:34 Uhr
Now that Art has mentioned that the emperor is naked, everybody sees that too! Unfortunately Zacuto adopted the reality TV approach for revealing their test results and most people didn't want to wade through 3 hours of "what makes a DP" in addition to the actual tests. The way the tests were presented also rendered audience remarks of little relevance because what they saw on the screen was at least as much due to the skills of the DPs and the colorist. Apparently Zacuto has said that it was a camera/DP shootoff, but obviously that was in one of the passages I skipped.

http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/aadams/story/cameras_the_zacuto_fallout_continues/

Geoff Boyle mentions his more relevant test of high-end cameras:
http://www.cinematography.net/HAnn2012.html
Serena schrieb am 20.08.2012 um 04:30 Uhr
Further: http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/aadams/story/cameras_some_more_thoughts_on_the_zacuto_shootout_as_posted_to_dvxuser/

Well, Art certainly hit a nerve with his comments (read the rebuffs by Steve Weiss against the original post: http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/aadams/story/cameras_why_zacutos_latest_camera_test_may_have_screwed_us_all/

I guess we all get defensive when someone gives our film a severe review, and while Steve has valid points supporting his documentary I don't believe Art has commented unfairly. Of course the result on the screen is what is important in any appreciation of a DP's abilities, and the Zacuto exercise was very interesting from that point of view. I've noticed that the term "pixel peeper" is a defensive bulwark favoured by those troubled by technical talk, the same people who mistakenly insist that engineers are not creative and obsessed with equipment!
farss schrieb am 20.08.2012 um 09:44 Uhr
"I don't believe Art has commented unfairly"

Me either and the proof lies in what I've heard people saying and it's no different to the Gizmodo headline.
Certainly the intention of these tests is probably very good. Where it falls down is it doesn't take into account the politics, as Art rightly says it's time consumming and tedious to get to the point where the intent is revealed and many seem to miss that message entirely. Steve Shaw is probably right, I don't have the background to say for certain but why run this tests and present the results in such a way that they will be so easily taken the wrong way and only add to the difficulty of fighting the good fight.

I'm also not happy about Steve Shaw's comment that people shouldn't be looking at frame grabs because they reveal noise and people don't notice noise so much the footage is played back at speed. The argument here is fine up to a point however footage is more often than not subject to a lot of compression and possibly even recompressed several times before it gets to the viewer. In that scenario noise has a major impact by eating up bandwidth and possibly creating other artifacts that will be obvious. Even worse it might be downscaled for SD transmission and then upscaled by a HDTV. I certainly don't need to look at my HDTV in "pixel peeping" mode to see a considerable difference between the footage originated on high end HD or SD cameras and the stuff shot only a few years ago.

Bob.