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The E-M1 is a real surprise for a video.

For this review I decided to set myself a challenge with a musician friend, where we’d shoot a music video ‘Dogme 95′ style.

• Entirely handheld with the Olympus 5 axis stabliser
• Very basic lights (iPhone torch and a flame)
• Maximum of 2 shooting days

In the process I learned a lot about what makes the E-M1 such an effective camera for filmmakers.

With most cameras you add rigs for stabilisation, EVFs for monitoring, even external recorders to bump the quality up. With the E-M1 you don’t do any of that, you just pick a lens and shoot a video. I find this very liberating. With this camera you can get stuff done with alarming efficiency without so much as a tripod.

The video above was shot entirely handheld with a Nikon 50mm F1.4 AFD on the Metabones Speed Booster. This works out as a 35mm F1.0 and the look is similar to a 70mm F2.0 on full frame. With or without such a fast aperture, the E-M1 is an excellent performer in low light with very clean high ISOs in video mode up to 3200.

Film Convert Tip

Film Convert helps add a bit of authenticity to the video output of the E-M1. However if adding film grain you must make sure not to stress the codec you’re mastering the final project in. Do NOT use the ‘DSLR’ preset in Adobe Premiere for your timeline and do not let the timeline take the form of the E-M1′s H.264 video at just 24Mbit. Instead use ProRes 444 otherwise the image will break-up when Film Convert is applied.

The same applies to your export settings. Don’t choose H.264 for Vimeo if you want to maintain the fine noise grain. Choose the lowest bitrate flavour of ProRes (Proxy) instead. I’d have thought 44Mbit H.264 would have avoided any break-up but clearly the grain on the shot below was just too much for Adobe’s encoder. ProRes 422 Proxy gives a similar file size to H.264 at 44Mbit, which is on the large side for a short 3 minute music video at 600MB but it’s better to give Vimeo’s server a high quality source file than a broken one.

Above: Premiere’s H.264 encoder had issues with this Film Convert treated E-M1 1080/30p clip even at a high bitrate. The ProRes Proxy export was fine.

Olympus have a new codec on the E-M1 and have reduced moire and aliasing. The encoder is less muddy than before and the bitrate is up from 20Mbit to 24Mbit.

There’s also a few 5D Mark III raw shots in the video above, they intercut seamlessly with the E-M1. Obviously the 5D Mark III in expert raw guise is the more powerful but the E-M1 isn’t a mile off in the end result.

Olympus gets a half-clue

Last year Olympus gave what I thought to be a very strange reason for their video modes being a pale imitation of Panasonic’s.

Olympus don’t want to be too good at video, in-case their cameras become known for it. They want to be associated with photography professionals and not cat-video YouTube uploaders, just in case they might get popular with filmmakers and sell us lots of cameras.

I can really sympathise with Olympus, it must be a terrible prospect to have better image quality on your cameras and higher sales. Canon also recently became extremely worried that video might improve on their DSLRs (thanks to Magic Lantern) with terrible consequences. The nightmare scenario of offering their customers better video absolutely scared the life out of one rep who said the threat of better video would be dealt with by their lawyers!

Joking aside (or I am?!) why doesn’t Olympus want to be known for video? From the perspective of Olympus looking at the video features and their users, it might look like video users just sit around uploading clips of kittens to YouTube and editing in iMovie. (Maybe that’s true!?) But if we’re pointing the finger here, I’d say leave off the pop-art filter and HDR images, you photographers! There are as many casual stills shooters as there are video shooters and the 1500 euro E-M1 should not compromise one bit for any of them. Put the gimmicks in the lower end stuff instead.

Indeed on the E-M1 photographers get a raft of serious features and improvements like a 1/8000 shutter and weather sealing and video users get some new funky special effects for their 1500 euros. If you press the left button whilst recording video the image echoes and then returns to normal. If you press the down button the image ghosts and leaves a trail. Case closed.

Clearly photography is taken more seriously as an art-form than video?

30p all round!

The E-M1 only shoots at 30p. Hey you, come back! It’s not all bad! Yes 24p is the fabled film frame rate which apparently is good enough for Hollywood but not good enough for consumer’s holiday videos. Makes sense to me!? So the engineers have chosen to serve us a frame rate which isn’t as useful as 60p for slow-motion and not as good looking as 24p and not even a video standard in half the world due to PAL regions but actually maybe Olympus are not so stupid after all?

The smoother frame rate compliments handheld shots using the 5 axis stabiliser. This gives flow to handheld movement where 24p looks choppier. So it’s not the deal-breaking situation it could have been, at least not for me. I’ve shot stuff in 30p ages ago on the 5D Mark II before it had the 24p firmware update, and on the GH1 in MJPEG which was 422 at lovely high bitrates with the hack but in 30p only.

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Do I look back on these 30p-shot videos with distain? Not really. I think 30p can look just fine, but I don’t like to be backed into a corner… give us options. On the rest of the camera Olympus have packed in the options to a ridiculous degree. You can even choose if your automatic white balance maintains the warm hue of indoor lighting and set the warning level for a low battery. But no video options other than resolution? C’mon Olympus.

Don’t worry it gets better

Whether you’re a professional commercial shooter, single operator film artist or an enthusiastic amateur, the E-M1 is worth considering purely because of that stabiliser, small form factor and lovely EVF.

As for more casual users, you can do point and shoot video with the E-M1 better than most of the competition as well – again due to the stabilisation system.

Latest generation 5 axis stabiliser

Click here to view the embedded video.

The main reason this camera is so useful for video is that it’s the only interchangeable lens camera I’d consider for handheld shooting with zero rigging, completely bare-bones as if shooting stills. The in-body stabiliser is even better this time round. There’s not as large a crop effect with it enabled in video mode and effectiveness seems to have been turned up a notch.

I found IBIS indispensable on the old E-M5 and it was responsible for extending my use of the camera far beyond the point where other’s superseded it with a better image like the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera. When I wanted to test a lens or grab a camera and just shoot something experimental, the E-M5 was usually the one I chose.

It’s much better than the Sony A7R in low light

Despite having a full frame sensor, at ISO 3200 the A7R’s image is almost unusable in video mode. At this ISO there’s too much noise and smudging of detail, with a fizzing mosquito mask over the image. At ISO 3200 the OM-D E-M1 is perfectly usable and the grain texture is quite nice. The difference is quite remarkable.

Less banding than the hacked GH2

Another surprise, given the difference in bitrate and codec (the Olympus E-M1 clocks in at just 24Mbit) there’s less banding on smoothly shaded areas and skies than there is on the hacked GH2. The E-M1 has far less noise too, regardless of ISO. For example when the GH2 is shooting at a relatively safe ISO 800 the E-M1 is far smoother and yet still maintains a good amount of detail.

It has a crop mode which can be toggled during a shot

Click here to view the embedded video.

This feature is SO COOL for documentary and run & gun shooters. You get to instantly re-frame without interrupting the clip. If you want to move to an area of interest or emphasis whilst rolling simply press the Fn2 button and bam – a rolling crop mode.

This is very useful, though the feature isn’t quite perfect. The image is not as detailed as the 1:1 crop mode on the GH2 thanks to aggressive noise reduction and a weaker codec, and you have a 4 or 5 frame delay when toggling between the crop and full sensor, but it is perfectly usable and very creative.

None of my other cameras do it on the fly! Until now only 4K shooters would be able to do this and only in post, by cropping from the 4K master to 1080p and delivering the final footage in 1080p. Having the ability to do it live in the moment and recorded to card is pretty unique and other cameras should follow suit.

The ergonomics are lovely

Probably the biggest reason Olympus cameras are so popular with photographers are the way they handle. The EVF is every bit as good as the one on the A7R both that and the main LCD screen have been upgraded significantly over the OM-D E-M5. I prefer the Olympus ergonomics to to the way the Fuji X series handles as well.

Improved codec

The codec this time around is 24Mbit rather than 20Mbit. The other change is the picture profiles can be dialled truly flat.

The highlights look better and there’s less mud on motion blur compared to the previous model, the E-M5.

Moire & aliasing is reduced (slightly)

Not a massive change over the E-M5 but you do get slightly less moire and aliasing this time round. Just make sure you dial the sharpness back in digitally if you have sharpness turned down to -2, because when both cameras are dialled down flat the E-M1′s footage looks considerably softer than the E-M5. In actual fact when both are treated optimally in post they resolve roughly the same amount of resolution in 1080p. The image isn’t quite as clean as the 5D Mark III but it’s a good try.

There’s less coloured moire patterns on the E-M1 than on the A7R.

They finally added a mic socket!

There’s more good news for video shooters in the form of a 3.5mm mic socket. The E-M5 didn’t have one at all. Though there’s still no headphone output for monitoring and manual audio control is very basic with just 3 levels of gain.

The Micro Four Thirds lens range has come of age

Metabones Speed Booster is working wonders for me, I no longer wish I had a full frame sensor on me at all times. I can get nigh on the same results from my OM-D E-M1 as I can with my Sony A7R, by using a 50mm F1.4 and Speed booster on it. This lens becomes a 70mm F1.0 equivalent on a 1.4x crop sized sensor, which is actually larger than Super 35mm and so much closer to full frame.

A word of warning… If you’re using a zoom like the lovely Sigma 18-35mm on the E-M1, the stabiliser needs to know the focal length and of course it’s impractical to manually input the focal length every-time you adjust the zoom. To get around this I find putting in a value towards the wide end like 20mm gives stable results at both 18mm and 35mm.

****

The camera now has chunky grip and when I first saw it, I thought – woah – this is an ugly thing. Actually in the flesh the E-M1 is a very attractive looking camera, very advanced looking and a nice mix of classicism and modernism.

It is not a cheap camera – expect to pay an hefty 1500 euros for the body alone and £1300 outside of the US. The US pricing is much keener at $1299 – presumably because mirrorless sales need a bit of encouraging in that market and import duties are less.

On the stills side the faster AF is very welcome and it’s extremely good in this respect for a mirrorless camera. There are plenty of nice lenses optimised for AF and performance is well up there with DSLRs. That’s not the case with the Sony A7R which is slower for AF and doesn’t have the same lens range for when you need it. The Sony A7R for me has so far been a manual-only affair.

The E-M1 has faster AF with legacy Four Thirds lenses now too. The Panasonic-Leica 14-50mm F2.8-F3.5 is a nice one to get if you’re looking for an alternative to the rather expensive Olympus 12-40mm F2.8 kit lens.

WiFi allows the iPhone or other smart phone to act as a wireless monitor. Which could be useful for when the camera is mounted in a hard to reach place. It’s surprisingly responsive with little lag but unfortunately live-view detail is too low to manually focus accurately with it. Use an AF lens and set it to one-shot AF rather than continuous if shooting video, to avoid hunting and squirrel like behaviour.

The Olympus remote control app has a touch screen AF focus feature and you can take stills through it and then wirelessly transfer images to your phone over the network. You can select any folder of images but it will only show JPEGs not raws.

Conclusion

I wish there was a cinema camera with 5 axis sensor stabilisation. This system should be in everything from the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera to the Canon C300. It would just make rigging and handheld stuff so much easier. It beats all the optical image stabilisation on-lens systems for effectiveness in video mode.

The codec still isn’t perfect. There’s no 24p or high bitrate mode. However it’s much more robust than the E-M5′s implementation and grades reasonably well in Film Convert. I’m get the best results without using a flat picture profile. On a strong codec like ProRes a flat image can be made to look great in post. When you have a weak codec it’s better to bake in the colour and contrast at the time of shooting.

Some are put off spending big money on Micro Four Thirds cameras because of the sensor size, but the gap is now being bridged effectively by an extensive range of fast aperture lenses and the Metabones Speed Booster. The Speed Booster makes this camera just 1.4x crop over full frame – larger than APS-C and Super 35mm.

Seen in this light, the camera is a worthy competitor to the Sony A7R. Video performance is better overall, and that stabiliser is indispensable. The A7R lacks this altogether unless you’re using one of the 2 lenses Sony FE mount launch lenses that have OIS. I much prefer the ergonomics of the OM-D E-M1 to the A7R, with a better placed shutter release and video record button, nicer menus and more logically laid out controls – more like a Nikon DSLR than a mirrorless camera. Much better AF for stills and a wider range of glass.

The Sigma 18-35mm is a lovely fast wide with stabiliser on the OM-D E-M1 and you will struggle to find an alternative zoom with that aperture and stabilisation for any other system.

Summary of improvements over the E-M5

• Improved codec at 24Mbit to 20Mbit, better encoder engine, less mud (though still only 30p)
• Slightly reduced moire and aliasing
• Greatly improved screen and larger EVF, both very detailed
• Crop mode can be seamlessly toggled on and off while recording
• Focus peaking (though poorly implemented)
• Mic socket
• Improved stabilisation
• Better low light performance in video mode and less banding at very high ISOs in stills
• Weather proof body
• Larger grip and improved ergonomics
• Faster AF for stills
• Flicker reduction 50hz / 60hz for video (just sets shutter, it’s still 30p)
• WiFi

For me that is worth £700, because the E-M5 was already a nifty, convenient tool for professional handheld video shooting.

The new live crop mode during movie recording is unique.

But I’d have given my right arm to have a better codec, 24p and 60p.

A firmware update to introduce 24p, live HDMI output, a higher bitrate mode and 720/120fps slow-mo would catapult this camera into the hands of far more videographers.

Pros

• Unique 5 axis stabiliser
• Video mode capable of cinematic results, if shot at fast apertures and handled well in post
• Beautiful to handle, great ergonomics once you are accustomed to it
• Lots of small and welcome improvements over the E-M5 such as less moire & aliasing
• Very good EVF and LCD
• Crop mode can be activated during recording
• While not recording, can use the crop mode as an effective magnified focus assist
• Good low light performance for video especially with Metabones Speed Booster
• Excellent stills quality and improved low light performance over the E-M5
• Larger than APS-C 1.4x crop sensor if used with Metabones Speed Booster (2.0x crop as standard)
• Improved dial and button positioning compared to E-M5
• Very fast AF, improved over E-M5, is best in class for mirrorless and live-view
• Attractively styled and above average build quality
• Good battery life even in movie mode
• Pleasing mechanical shutter sound, far quieter than Sony A7R
• Micro Four Thirds mount offers wealth of options in terms of native mount lenses with AF, fast apertures, Speed Booster and adapters
• Mic socket added over E-M5
• Remote control with smart-phone via WiFi including remote monitor function
• Weather proof
• Responsive operation
• Very fast 10fps continuous shooting and large buffer
• Quick to write raw stills to card
• ‘Handheld starlight’ produces stunning JPEGs in low light
• Interesting multi-shot framing mode produces action collages in-camera

Cons

• Video quality not optimal – some moire, no 24p, no high bitrate codec
• Somewhat expensive especially in the UK and Europe
• 30p not suited to PAL regions (our standard is 25p) forcing user to use 1/50 shutter speed
• No live HDMI output
• Too many non-serious features like ghosting and trails in video mode and JPEG art filters
• Improvements to video mode do not go far enough in general, still treated as a toy feature – get serious!
• Useful crop mode disabled if toy movie effect icons disabled in main menu
• LCD displays toy movie effect icons in place of important shooting info like shutter speed
• Crop mode video quality softer than GH3
• Cannot change noise reduction level for video
• Lacks 60p or higher frame rates, no slow-mo mode
• Flat picture profiles do not make video output more gradable and better to look at
• No dedicated punch-in focus assist in movie mode, need to use crop mode
• Peaking badly implemented – jerky and switches off when you need it most (during video recording)
• Touch screen buttons too small to be useful
• Only 3 levels of manual audio gain control

The post Why the Olympus OM-D E-M1 is better than expected for video (Review) appeared first on EOSHD.com.

Based on a pre-production model

Since the GH1 I have been shooting with Panasonic’s mirrorless system for video. Without this series of affordable cameras my early work as a cinematographer and filmmaker simply wouldn’t be the same. The GH4 marks a much needed major leap for the line, the first to shoot 4K to an efficient internal codec AND output 10bit 4:2:2 1080p over HDMI to an affordable external recorder like the Atomos Ninja!

On a visit to Panasonic I got to see the camera, see 4K sample footage and give my feedback. Here’s an account of what I saw…

I have had in my hands the new GH4, the camera I’m most likely to be shooting most of my filmmaking work with in 4K this year. The pre-production model wasn’t yet final, but when the day comes I have some big things planned for it. I am going embrace 4K this year and I suggest you do to.

I think it’s a possible game-changer for stills as well as video, because it effectively gives you a continuous shooting rate of up to 30fps at 4096 x 2160. All photographers know how important the decisive moment is, needless to say at 30fps you’re not going to miss it. This resolution is more than enough for large prints and books. The need for this myself didn’t arise until relatively recently when I started planning a gallery event in Berlin of 1080p stills from my film work. I am moving to 4K as soon as possible because a large print at 1920 x 1080 just doesn’t have the same impact. With 4K whether it’s hung on your wall in canvas or TV form, small details leap off the wall. The GH4 also allows the storage of individual 8.8MP photos which can be triggered whilst recording 4K video.

Above: Mr Uematsu-san presents the GH4

Let’s start with 1080p though and what monstrous 1080p it is on the GH4. Regardless of whether you think you need it or not, 4K video is as much about great 2K and 1080p as it is about even higher resolutions. A lot of people, as we see from the success of the Canon C300, just want the ‘perfect’ 1080p camera for now. With the GH4 they may well have it, but without the nuts price tag.

Much more powerful hardware centred around a new CMOS sensor and quad-core CPU has allowed Panasonic to bump up the spec of video across the board on the GH4. The readout speed of the new Panasonic sensor is now 50% faster than the GH3. This reduces rolling shutter skew.

But the big surprise is that uncompressed HDMI is 10bit / 8bit switchable.

Yes finally 10bit 4:2:2 on a consumer camera not called ‘Blackmagic’!

When 10bit is selected the encoder is bypassed altogether and you can record extremely nice 1080p in ProRes 10bit 4:2:2 on your external recorder from an actual 10bit 4:2:2 source signal. The camera cannot record to the SD card whilst set to 10bit over HDMI. The HDMI output is also 4K capable, though I’m not clear yet on whether this is in playback mode only, or whether it does a live / clean 4K output as well.

The internal codec for 1080p now goes to a huge 200Mbit ALL-I and Panasonic have introduced new SD cards which can sustain up to 30Mb/s as a bare minimum. These cards are good enough actually for 240Mbit/s 1080p.

This bitrate rivals ProRes and surpasses all the AVCHD pro cameras stuck at just 24Mbit like the Sony FS700 ($8000) and Canon C100 ($5000).

With the 4K mode you can of course oversample to produce extremely crisp 1080p masters in post, with the option to crop and re-frame as well.

4K on the GH4

Needless to say the whole filmmaking industry is moving in the direction of 4K and here Panasonic have come up with the goods at an alarmingly low price relative to the Canon 1D C.

The 4K internal recording is H.264 at 100Mbit/s (megabits per second). The H.264 codec is much more efficient than MJPEG on the Canon 1D C and to save Canon’s blushes we won’t mention the price! The 1D C uses a bitrate of 500Mbit/s just to keep the image quality up. The end result is that you can store just 20 minutes of 4K video per 64GB compact flash card on the 1D C but a much more practical 90 minutes of 4K on one 64GB SD card with the GH4.

Although all the GH4 internal codecs are 8bit 4:2:0, according to Mr Uematsu-san the internal signal processing is all 4:2:2 (the same as for JPEG stills). As we have seen with the hacked GH2 and Canon 1D C, beautiful image quality can be maintained in 8bit if you don’t excessively grade the image and for those who do want to heavily colour correct, there’s the 10bit 4:2:2 1080p HDMI output. Until now DSLRs have only done 8bit over HDMI (and in my mind doubtful whether this was true 4:2:2).

The external XLR / HD-SDI add-on for this camera allows for uncompressed 10bit 4K output over 3G HD-SDI – the kind of spec Canon currently charges $25,000 for.

The powerful add-on has no less than 4 HD-SDI ports (two of them 3G-HD-SDI), two XLR inputs with manual gain control dials and phantom power, a full sized HDMI port and a 12v power input. It is exactly what myself, Rudi and Rob (of Slashcam.de – GH4 hands-on in German here) suggested Panasonic make when we met a year ago.

Looking at some comments on the heavily leaked GH4 info out there, there seems to be some confusion about how this external box should be used. The form factor is not designed for handheld shooting or consumers. It isn’t an external recorder. It isn’t designed to be a battery grip. It isn’t “a vertical grip” as some even reported! It requires external power via a 12v tap, which should give you an idea of the kind of processing power it contains within.

Think about what would connect to this unit… A very high spec 4K recorder / monitor like the Odyssey 7Q, a V-lock battery and some chunky pro audio equipment via XLR. Is there any point shrinking this add-on down to the size of a consumer DSLR battery grip when you have all this hanging off it?

I appreciate it won’t be for everyone but the basic GH4 spec of 4K 8bit 4:2:0 at 100Mbit and 1080p in 10bit 4:2:2 via HDMI is to me very impressive and negates the need for most consumers to get the HD-SDI hardware.

I do think the ergonomics of ‘the brick’ could be, ahem – more refined! But it adds robustness and a leap in image quality that puts the GH4 firmly in professional territory – exactly what Panasonic needs. The box will also be indispensable for pros who find wobbly HDMI and single 3.5″ mic jack connections a major reliability worry.

It’s just a shame that the unit is designed only to fit directly under the camera. It should have been designed to fit pretty much anywhere, either under the camera or further back on your shoulder, indeed anywhere on the rig deemed convenient by the operator. It would have been great too for the unit to double as a recorder, reducing the extra hardware required to get that lovely uncompressed 10bit 4K. As of now, external 4K recorders are few and far between not to mention extremely expensive.

4K image quality (first look)

At the Panasonic presentation a prototype GH4 was hooked up to a large Panasonic 4K TV. Indeed the amount of detail this camera delivers with the internal 4K codec looks great with small details leaping off the screen. This TV was side by side with a 1080p display of approximately the same size and I could certainly tell the difference, although the gap does reduce as you step back further and further from the screen.

Dynamic range was also very impressive, not just on the video side. The new sensor has improved. We were showed a selection of stills that demonstrated much better highlight retention and roll off than the other cameras on display including the full frame Canon 6D and Nikon D610.

The 100Mbit IPB internal codec seems to hold up extremely well with 4K material, with no macro-blocking or mud visible. I couldn’t see any moire either but final judgement will be reserved until I’ve shot with it extensively.

4K internally is 24p in the academy aspect ratio of 1.85:1 – 4096 x 2160.

A full range of frame rates – 30p,25p and 24p are available in the 16:9 4K variety of 3840 x 2160.

It’s great that Panasonic have included both 4K standards in the camera. The slightly wider 1.85:1 aspect ratio 24p mode is clearly aimed at filmmakers, 16:9 at the broader video production industry.

There’s also a very useful new feature which allows you toggle which broadcast safe RGB luma range to use. Available options are 0-255 for the full range, 16-235 for the safe range and even 16-255 which is the range used by many Sony cameras like the FS700. This is fantastic as it solves the issue with gamma shifts and clipping of shadows / highlights when editing and displaying footage. It’s the first time I’ve seen this option to toggle luma range on a consumer camera!

Here’s a slide showing the full array of recording options and codecs on the GH4 (click to enlarge) -

96fps slow-mo

The GH4 has a new undercrank and overcrank mode with slow-mo frame rate of 96fps, when is conformed to a frame rate of choice in-camera. Conformed to 24p and you get a lovely 25% reduction in speed which is much more dramatic than the more common 50% reduction from 60p to 30p.

These slow-mo options are available in full 1080p resolution, no need to drop to 720p.

Although 96fps isn’t going to look like the FS700 at 200fps, 96fps with a little Twixtor and post-production magic on top will!

The slow-mo option is not available in 4K mode, understandable given the enormous processing requirements this would require.

More new features

• SMPTE / EBU / ARIB Color bars & 1KHz Test Tone
• Center Marker
• Synchro scan
• Cinelike Gamma
• Master Pedestal
• Zebra pattern
• Focus peaking

Panasonic have addressed one of the most common complaints about the GH3, the lack of focus peaking. The GH4 has it, along with a raft of other features (finally a proper zebra pattern!) and it’s PAL / NTSC switchable.

The file format for video is again Quicktime MOV (hurray!), MP4 or AVCHD (boo) for smaller file sizes, just like on the GH3.

A cinema gamma picture profile is back for this camera having disappeared somewhere between the GH2 and GH3. I’m told it isn’t a LOG profile, but designed to improve roll off to the highlights. Personally I’d rather see LOG or Technicolor CineStyle. How flat is it? The jury is out. I haven’t seen it in action yet but perhaps a clue is in the name. Much like CineStyle, Panasonic has branded it “CineLike”! It comes in two flavours – CineLike D and V. It remains to be seen whether iLike it.

Synchro Scan can be used to suppress flicker when shooting TV and PC screens or under certain lighting conditions. The feature has trickled down from professional Panasonic cameras and it works by fine tuning the shutter to precisely match the frequency or refresh rate of what you’re filming. I believe this would make shutter speeds like 1/24 and 1/48 possible but yet to confirm this.

Master Pedestal is used to lighten or darken shadow areas of the image based on black levels. It’s a feature I last saw in professional Canon video cameras like the XL2 and XH A1. None of the DSLRs to date have had this.

Both the main LCD and internal EVF displays have been bumped up to the state of the art. Not only are they extremely high resolution but the panels are OLED as well, so – best of both worlds.

The GH4 has a new mechanical shutter which has an expanded life cycle rated for 200,000 actuations. The burst rate for stills is now 40fps in raw + JPEG at full resolution (compared to 20fps on the GH3 at a reduced resolution, JPEG only). The GH4 has a silent electronic shutter mode like the GX7 and GM1 – great for time-lapse or stop motion animation (for both of which there are dedicated modes), where you don’t want to wear out the mechanical shutter. The maximum recording length is 29 minutes 59 seconds on the European GH4 due to tax reasons but I believe the US model has no such limit and is PAL / NTSC switchable.

Above: a re-sculptured flash top plate and locking button the mode-dial distinguishes the otherwise similar body of the GH4 to the GH3

Editorial / market comments

This camera undoubtably smashes a price barrier for the specs on offer, whether we’re taking 4K or 1080p.

For me the GH4 has only one shortcoming and it’s something that raises a broader question about the compromises necessary to make a hybrid stills / video camera.

In order to get down to the 8.847MP of cinema 4K from the 4.6K full sensor (12MP in 16:9, 16MP in 4:3) the camera has to crop.

Cinema 4K mode video at 4096 x 2160 (1.85:1) is cut out of a 4680 x 2592 16:9 recording area (the full width of the sensor).

The crop factor in 4K mode therefore is not 2x as is standard for Micro Four Thirds but approximately 2.3x (similar to the Blackmagic Cinema Camera).

My feedback to Panasonic was to give us the full sensor 4.6K readout and let us scale it to 4K in post as the reduced sensor size is perhaps a little disappointing. I’m told Panasonic had much internal discussion over whether to take a 1:1 pixel readout of the sensor for 4K video, or to take the full sensor and scale (zoom) it down. The latter technique entails a drop of image quality because we’re back to pixel binning again. In the end they used the same technique as Canon on the 1D C – optimal image quality, reduced recording area – and it seems to pay off looking at the output.

With the current Metabones Speed Booster adapter you should get a Super-35-style 1.7x crop in 4K mode – close to the Canon APS-C 1.6x crop and only a 1.2x crop in cinematography terms. That for me is problem solved, but it’s a shame some of the wider native Micro Four Thirds lenses (at say 12mm) lose some of their appeal in 4K mode.

In terms of silicon for the money, the GH4 doesn’t disappoint. Outwardly it may look similar to the GH3, inwardly it’s completely new. The new Panasonic CMOS is perhaps the fastest running on any consumer camera and the new quad-core image processor also a cut above. It’s a miracle of modern engineering the GH4 doesn’t have a fan or huge battery.

Almost all the exciting leaps forward with the GH4 are on the video side rather than the stills side. Wow – this makes for a refreshing change!

But the issue of that slight sensor-crop in 4K mode does raise questions about the need to compromise stills and video for them to coexist.

For me the ideal stills camera would be full frame and 24MP+ and the ideal video camera would have a 16:9 Super 35mm sized sensor at a resolution of 8MP.

Panasonic’s compromise solution is elegant but the fact remains it’s a 16MP 2x crop sensor that needs to be cropped further in 4K mode. That’s not ideal for cinema when the standard is Super 35mm and in terms of stills, it isn’t full frame or 36MP like the current benchmark, the Sony A7R.

The whole ethos of the GH is “Hybrid” and I am behind that concept fully. However I think Panasonic should consider having two hybrid cameras, one with the emphasis on video and one with the emphasis on stills.

You could say Panasonic DO have a stills-orientated flagship model in the GX7 but I think they need to go even higher end than this to capture more market share. A GH4 is difficult to market to photographers when half the spec sheet is video. A GX7 is difficult when it lacks the 5 axis stabilisation of the Olympus E-M1 or a full frame sensor.

Some cameras, like the Fuji X100 are easier to market to photographers because the video mode is minimal enough to completely forget about if you’re so-minded to. Some photographers think the emphasis on video with the GH4 is at the expense of the stills (really nothing could be further from the truth) – in a market where not all customers are 100% knowledgable, perceptions (and marketing) count for a lot.

Design and handling

In my opinion Panasonic could have done more to differentiate the new body relative to the GH3 and not just in superficial ways. Like the GH3 small but significant design issues remain, for example a rear grip which doesn’t drop down near the rear-command wheel making it more awkward to turn than it should be. In general I’d have liked to have seen a few more changes here than just the re-sculptured flash and locking mode dial, welcome though these are.

I say lose the flash altogether and give us an extremely robust 5D Mark III style body and hot-shoe that can withstand anything. Let’s have a large HDMI port on the camera itself instead of the mini-one.

The GH4 is not a direct replacement for the GH3, instead that camera will now take a price drop and stay in the line-up.

Above: a transparent mock-up showing the internal structure of the GH4

Overall, the GH4 is still miles ahead of the average DSLR when it comes to ergonomics for video purposes. EVF, articulated screen, mirrorless mount, peaking, zebra, etc. and it has a much larger feature-set than the Blackmagic cameras.

And one final thing…

In future I’d love to see a tie-up with Arri in a similar way Panasonic have linked with Leica for stills. Arri could offer use of their brand in return for a licensing fee. A Panasonic-Arri GH4 would complete Arri’s non-existent lower-end!! Such a camera would gain far more ground in the film industry vs Cinema EOS and Sony. It would have an identity as strong as the technology underlying it. “Lumix-GH4″ does not have the same brand recognition with filmmakers (yet). Would never happen? Well if it works for Leica…

Arri accessories such as cages, grips and a follow focus could go a long way into integrating the very capable technology in the GH4 with the rest of the filmmaking establishment.

The price of the GH4 hasn’t yet been firmly set nor has the release date, but I’m told it will be circa 1999 euros for the body and perhaps the same again for the XLR / HD-SDI box. That’s a very appealing price for an interchangeable lens 4K cinema camera in 2014, especially one as well featured as this and with such great 2K as well.

As a stills camera, if you want good video as well, look no further.

Pros and cons are provisional.

Pros

• 4K from a nearly full pixel readout of the sensor, internal recording
• Uncompressed 10bit 4:2:2 1080p via HDMI
• 96fps slow-motion
• More than double the bitrate of the GH3 in 1080p with 200Mbit ALL-I and 100Mbit IPB
• 1036k pixel OLED screen and 2360k dot EVF
• Small form factor, lightweight
• Small price for the spec and accessible to broad range of artists and filmmakers, from consumers up to pros
• Choice of broadcast safe luma ranges or full range (0-255)
• XLR and HD-SDI (via external add-on)
• PL mount lens compatible (i.e. with Hot Rod Cameras adapter)
• Uncompressed 10bit 4K and 2K via external add-on
• Efficient H.264 compression of 4K compared to Canon 1D C MJPEG
• Reduced rolling shutter (50ms sensor readout compared to 100ms on GH3)
• Improved dynamic range
• Improved low light performance
• PAL / NTSC switchable (“world cam”)
• Zebras and focus peaking
• Time Code
• Synchro Scan
• Cinema-gamma mode
• Articulated screen
• Full manual audio control
• Convenient Quicktime MOV file format
• 1080/60p
• Very fast AF for stills (0.07 sec)
• Improved AF in low light
• New mechanical shutter with longer lifespan and 1/8000
• Very fast 40fps burst mode
• Silent electronic shutter at full resolution and in raw
• Timelapse and stop-motion animation modes
• Gradation curve (for in-camera adjustment of shadow and highlights)
• Responsive (quad core CPU based)
• Very good quality stills for a cinema camera (HAHA)
• Wireless control over WiFI
• Near Field Comms
• Weather sealed, even splash proof
• Extensive lens range
• Metabones Speed Booster compatible

Cons

• 4K video mode crops field of view compared to full sensor and 1080p mode
• Internal codec 8bit 4:2:0 from 4:2:2 source (why not 4:2:2 all the way?)
• Ergonomic design of external add-on “DMW-YAGHE” could be better
• External DMW-YAGHE has to attach to base of camera, cannot be more conveniently placed on your rig
• External DMW-YAGHE has a silly name
• No full sized HDMI connector on the camera itself
• No 4:3 mode for anamorphic lenses (BOOOO!)
• No internal ND filter solution (yet)
• Pre-production model does not have LOG picture profile
• Body design too similar to GH3 with existing ergonomic issues not addressed

Please note the pros and cons are based on my experience with the pre-production model and not on any extended shoot with the final camera – the proper review (and footage) is still to come.

The post Hands-on preview of the powerful 4K shooting Panasonic GH4! appeared first on EOSHD.com.

It’s an open secret that the Blackmagic Cinema Camera was based around a sCMOS sensor from Fairchild Imaging. Now the company has announced it’s successor, the sCMOS 2.0

sCMOS technology have powered Blackmagic’s cameras so far (aside from the 4K Production Camera which is expected to be based around a sensor from Belgian company CMOSIS).

There are currently two sCMOS sensors and the Pocket camera used one, the BMCC the other.

The specs of the sensors were pretty much identical but the larger sensor clocked in at 2.5K. Model numbers are -

• Pocket Cinema Camera = CIS 1910F
• Blackmagic Cinema Camera = CIS 2521F

These sensors were capable of up to 100fps and dynamic range was 13 stops (88db). Of course 100fps was not implemented by Blackmagic as that would take a Red Epic like ASIC to handle and a considerable price bump.

Starting June 2014 Fairchild Imaging are rolling out sensors based on the new pixel design, sCMOS 2.0.

From a basic reading of the specs sheet there doesn’t seem to be any eye-catching improvements. Dynamic range seems identical (87db) as does the maximum frame rate but this is just one sensor and I’m expecting more designs to follow. The shutter remains a rolling one (not global). Here’s the press release from Fairchild Imaging…

The first product that incorporates sCMOS2.0 technology is the SCI2020. It is a large format, ultra-low noise CMOS image sensor intended for applications requiring high quality imaging under extremely challenging light conditions. Utilizing a four transistor (4T), 6.5um pixel architecture, the SCI2020 delivers >80% quantum efficiency and a 25 times reduction in blinking, or higher than mean pixel read noise. The sensor has two ADC channels per column enabling intra-scene high dynamic range of over 90dB and operates at 100fps at full sensor resolution.

 “We are very excited to introduce sCMOS2.0 technologies to the market,” stated Vern Klein, Director of Marketing for Fairchild Imaging. “The SCI2020 significantly improves upon the current industry leading CIS2020. This is our first chip based on sCMOS2.0 technologies that will improve light gathering capabilities as well as deliver advanced noise tail management technologies which are critical to the next generation of scientific cameras. This sensor can output 4.2 megapixel frames at 100 frames per second and still deliver very low read noise and exceptional dynamic range.”

sCMOS sensors utilize efficient light collection and sophisticated low noise circuits to deliver images in low light situations where other imagers cease to be useful. High intra-scene dynamic range, without the need for multiple shots over time, is made possible by an innovative dual digitizer approach combined with deep full well capacity. High frame rates, useful for monitoring dynamic events and performing inter-scene image processing, such as noise reduction and image stabilization, are generated by wide parallel processing and multiple high capacity ADCs.

The new sensor is 2K instead of 1080p (it’s actually square, at 2048 x 2048). Size is 13mm x 13mm.

From the information release so far I’m expecting an HDR mode with hardware support… by my reckoning, “intra-scene dynamic range” sounds similar to the way the Alexa sensor has a dual-gain output. The mention of dual digitizer in the press release would seem to point in that direction, as do twin analogue to digital converters (2x 11bit ADC). Maybe I’m wrong, as I’m not an engineer!

I’m not expecting 100fps slow-mo on the next Blackmagic cameras because this depends so much on the image processor. It’s difficult for Blackmagic to keep the price consumer if they are doing 100fps 10bit ProRes!

Big question is – will Fairchild Imaging go beyond the 2.5K sCMOS v1.0 with the new technology and give the scientific market a larger sized 4K sensor? That would be fantastic for Blackmagic.

Specs of the first new sCMOS 2.0 sensor:

• > 87 db intra-scene dynamic range
• 100fps at full resolution
• < 2e read noise
• 2048 x 2048 resolution
• 13 x 13mm sensor size (for reference GH4 is 17 x 13)
• 6.5 um pixel size
• Rolling shutter
• 22bit ADC (2x 11bit)
• Column level amp gain – High 30x or 10x. Low 2x or 1x.
• Power consumption < 1.5w at 100fps
• Dark current < 25 e-/pixel/sec (25 degrees c)
• Peak QE > 80%
• Full well capacity > 30,000 e-
• Data format 2 x 11bit

Perhaps these new sCMOS 2.0 chips have a feature I’ve missed? Calling all CMOS scientists to tell us what this may be…

The post Successor to Blackmagic Cinema Camera CMOS sensor announced with possible hardware HDR mode appeared first on EOSHD.com.

Already we have 2 affordable 4K interchangeable lens cinema cameras due and we’re only a month into 2014. Red shipped the first professional 4K cameras in 2007 but since then the rate of progress needed to commercialise such powerful hardware and sell it to consumers for $2000 in the case of the GH4 and $4000 for the Blackmagic Production Camera has been relatively speedy. Quicker than the time taken for full frame DSLRs to break the $2000 price barrier. Red never did succeed in making an affordable 4K cinema camera for the masses or a DSLR replacement.

Neither camera is entirely finished yet but I’ve seen footage from both the new cameras and shot with their predecessors for much of 2013. Here’s my opinion on how their strengths and weaknesses are going to work out…

Be sure to always put your needs and the needs of your specific shoot ahead of the outright spec sheet.

For example – do you need what raw video offers or not? Do you plan to do a lot of VFX and keying work which benefits from 4:2:2 colour sampling? How about the global shutter – do you have a lot of flash-bulb photography in the scene or a fast moving train going quickly through the frame at close proximity? If so then a global shutter hold bigger advantages for you than they would do otherwise.

If you’re shooting calm zen-like narrative scenes in low light, obviously the superior low light performance of the GH4 is going to be an advantage and the rolling shutter won’t pose any issues at all. The rolling shutter on the GH4 is 50% quicker than before so in league with a proper cinema camera like the Canon C500 rather than a DSLR but – as an example – no matter how fast a rolling shutter is, it can’t capture lightning properly. If you’re trying to capture lightning strikes, a global shutter will avoid banding and capture the full strike from the top of the sky to the horizon.

Another consideration is rigging. If you have a MoVi-like stabiliser or plan to do aerial shoots using a drone, the GH4 is currently the lightest interchangeable lens 4K camera in the world, smaller and much lighter even than the Canon 1D C. The Blackmagic 4K camera plus external battery is around 3x the weight of the GH4′s body and much larger.

Onboard audio recording is also a strong point of the GH4 compared to the Blackmagic Production Camera, especially if paired with the XLR add-on.

Sensor size

Using the cinema standard for sensor size rather than photographic full frame, the GH4 works out as a 1.5x crop over Super 35mm, increasing to 1.7x crop in 4K mode but decreasing to just 1.2x with the Metabones Speed Booster.

The Blackmagic Production Camera is a 1.0x crop as it has a Super 35mm sensor.

For those used to thinking in full frame terms (as I am) this is a 1.5x crop compared to the 5D Mark III like APS-C. However since both cameras are going to be used for cinematography here, we shouldn’t use that as the standard. It’s a bit like saying the 5D Mark III is a crop camera and medium format the 1.0x!

Sensor size and your choice of lens is indelibly linked – an important thing to consider therefore is the mount. The active EF mount on the Blackmagic is an advantage for users of Canon lenses while the GH4′s mirrorless mount is an advantage for everything else, and I mean literally everything! You can easily use PL mount cinema lenses on the GH4 with an adapter. Both cameras are capable of a very shallow depth of field but with 4K focus requires you to have a deeper depth of field to avoid slight focus errors becoming very visible at the higher resolution. Here the slightly smaller sensor on the GH4 actually has an advantage.

Dynamic range

Dynamic range looks close to 12 stops on both cameras (1 stop less than the 2.5K shooting Blackmagic Cinema Camera). The codec on the GH4 will bake the dynamic range into the shot as per in-camera picture controls and this cannot be adjusted by any large degree in post. The Blackmagic Production Camera will give you the raw sensor data to handle how you please later.

It’s important to think differently about dynamic range in post and dynamic range as captured by in the footage. GH4 footage is pre-graded. Essentially the colourist is the camera itself and it takes that raw sensor data and grades it for you according to the picture profile. When you then try and grade it AGAIN in DaVinci Resolve it will not respond as nicely as the original raw sensor data. The Blackmagic camera gives you access to that raw sensor data in DaVinci Resolve itself so you have all 12 stops of dynamic range to grade as you see fit. The GH4 still has the same amount of dynamic range but if a highlight is blown, no amount of post production trickery will bring it back. That said, because both cameras see the same 12 stops of dynamic range at the time of shooting, if a highlight is too bright for the GH4 it will also be too bright for the Blackmagic and will be blown in the raw sensor data.

4K raw on the Blackmagic Production Camera will give you the ability to make smoother changes to the exposure curve in post but only as long as you don’t reach the limits of the 12 stops. If a shadow is so dark it falls outside the 12 stops of dynamic range, raw won’t bring it back. Something else to consider is that the Blackmagic’s sensor is noisier in the shadows, which limits how much of that dynamic range you can actually use in post without it looking crap. If you’re lifting dark shadows by 2 stops because you exposed for a bright window for example, the Production Camera Footage is not going to hold up that well, raw or not.

Colour and colour correction

Essentially with the GH4 you are grading using the in-camera picture profiles and on the Blackmagic you can grade to just as large a degree in post. But there’s also a difference in outright performance and image quality with regards to colour. 10bit colour depth on the Blackmagic Production Camera does give smoother colour gradients where there’s a gradual transition from one shade to another. 4:2:2 as well helps avoid aliasing and stair-stepping on bright red, blue or green edges. Green foliage and rich blue skies will likely look better on the Production Camera.

10bit colour and 4:2:2 sampling are great features the Blackmagic offers internally and the GH4 needs an external recorder for.

GH4 4:2:0 can cause a bit of moire and pixilation if you look closely at the 4K footage.

However on the early Blackmagic 4K footage there is some aliasing visible there too, just in different parts of the image.

In terms of colour correction and grading it’s a big win for the Blackmagic and the superb software it comes bundled with, Resolve 10. You can’t beat raw Cinema DNG for flexibility in post. ProRes too – very nice. The GH4′s 4K output looks great but the look is baked in. You will need to get your exposure and ISO right at the time of shooting and also the white balance. You will need to figure out which picture profile suits the look you’re going for, and which one plays best with Film Convert if you’re using that to grade with.

That said the Blackmagic Production Camera’s raw is not an excuse for sloppy exposure or shooting. 4K simply doesn’t reward a sloppy shooter. It punishes even the tiniest errors. You will have to take care with either camera to get it right on the day. Especially when it comes to focus, if your intended focus plane is even just slightly off the error will be very noticeable.

Low light performance

Here a clear advantage to the GH4 because the global shutter circuitry on the Blackmagic Production Camera takes up room on the sensor otherwise used for capturing light. The GH4 goes up to ISO 6400 in 4K and the Blackmagic has a native ISO of around only 400. The image is quite clean at ISO 400 so it can be lifted by the image processor and gained up in post from the raw image data to around ISO 800 before it starts to become too noisy at around ISO 1600. I’m expecting a 2 stop advantage here for the GH4.

Ergonomics

The Blackmagic is certainly the heavier of the two, especially when you add the external battery necessary for practical shooting. The camera is taller and wider, which gives it a higher centre of gravity. The GH4 is much smaller and lighter, so for drones and aerial shoots it’s the better choice. The Blackmagic has a simplicity of operation which is quite admirable – very good touch screen design – but I it’s not a great handheld form factor. It lacks a built in EVF and grip so these are other additions you may need. The screen on the Blackmagic is larger but of lower quality in terms of contrast, colour and resolution. The GH4 has an OLED panel which can be angled when the camera is on a tripod to save your back. The Blackmagic’s screen is angled upwards slightly but this cannot be adjusted. The screen is mainly a control interface and it’s designed to be used with an external monitor.

Audio

Sorry but the fact is the Blackmagic really does suck when it comes to audio. The quality of the internal audio circuits is dismal and there’s not even any way to monitor it using on-screen levels. The GH4 only has a basic 3.5mm mic jack and headphone jack but you have the option to add 2 proper balanced XLR jacks with phantom power via the external add-on. It also has on-screen audio meters on the LCD and physical gain control dials (on the XLR add-on).

File sizes

8bit 4:2:0 4K takes up less space than 10bit 4:4:4 or 4:2:2 4K at the same bitrate. Just look at the size difference between ProRes 444 and 422 for example.

The reason 4:2:2 is left out of the compressed internal recording on the GH4, is to maintain manageable file sizes in 4K and 1080p.

The GH4 also has a lower overall bitrate at 100Mbit compared to around 250Mbit on the Blackmagic Production Camera in ProRes. Raw on the Blackmagic is compressed 2:1 but the file sizes are still humongous. I’ve shot uncompressed raw for around a year now and it’s not so much the added expense of storage space that bothers me (prices have come so low) but how to organise all the damn data. Having so much data spread across so many hard drives is a bit of a headache. You can of course delete the raw files and keep the compressed versions or ProRes. In practice I find it very hard to delete the master files. It just doesn’t feel “right”, especially if it was an artistic endeavour. It’s a bit like photocopying your painting and throwing away the original.

Conclusion

The internet tends to polarise our arguments and unique, specific uses of a camera get buried under the headlines. The message here is clear – both cameras offer a great deal to filmmakers, whether it’s the flexibility of a raw workflow and great software like Resolve 10, global shutter’s ability to capture extremely fast movement as the eye sees it, or the GH4′s amazing all-round feature-set and convenience factor.

Price wise the Blackmagic is expected to be launched at around 3700 euros and $3995. That’s considerably more than the mooted launch price of under $1999 for the GH4. Add to the Blackmagic your SSD drives to store all that raw and ProRes, plus external battery and articulated EVF or monitor and you have a much more expensive piece of kit.

The GH4 has a lower point to entry but to get 10bit 4:2:2 and ProRes from an uncompressed 4K feed you will need the add-on box. This will put the camera in the same price bracket as the Blackmagic Production Camera and ideally require the same outlay on SSDs and monitors. At least you get two tasty XLR inputs thrown into the bargain and a full sized HDMI port.

Overall the GH4 is the most appealing for me, but your needs may differ and GH4 users without an external recorder may look on jealously towards the 10bit colour of the Blackmagic camera come the shipping date.

The post Which 4K camera for the masses? GH4 vs Blackmagic Production Camera appeared first on EOSHD.com.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Above: interview with Illya Friedman of Hot Rod Cameras, by Dan Chung

The GH4 is a consumer camera but one which has the most pro-camera leanings I’ve ever seen from a consumer or even prosumer model.

Because of that many professional shooters are considering the GH4.

Here then are some of the remaining questions from pros on the EOSHD forum answered…

1. Does the GH4 output 4K over the micro-HDMI port?

When the camera is set to record in 4K internally the onboard HDMI output is down-converted automatically to 1080p. In playback mode the HDMI output is 4K capable (relaying the 8bit 4:2:0 footage from SD card). Only the DMW-YAGH add-on base can output 4K (uncompressed, 10bit 4:2:2) from the GH4. However the micro-HDMI port is 8bit / 10bit switchable and can deliver impressive 1080p in 10bit 4:2:2 format, uncompressed to an external recorder.

2. How would you recommend rigging the YAGH external box?

The two screw threads on the front of the box according to Panasonic are there to add rails and support for PL mount lenses. The box has to sit under the camera in its current guise so you won’t be able to mount it anywhere on the rig on the end of a cable. The add-on is not heavy but it does raise the centre of gravity of the camera and lens a little bit. HD-SDI, XLR and power connectors exit on the right of the box, so that’s a positive as the cables face outwards from your shoulder and not inwards towards your neck when the camera is on a shoulder rig. The full size HDMI port and fan outlet is on the left of the box. The rear of the box needs to be unobstructed if you want to use the XLR audio controls. The GH4′s articled screen cannot be fully flipped out and rotated while the box is attached.

3. Many broadcasters require 4:2:2 colour sampling as a minimum standard, what’s the best way of doing this with the GH4?

The GH4 does not shoot 4:2:2 internally as it’s likely to be a compatibility issue for consumers. Some computer software players, TVs and set top boxes are only designed to decode 4:2:0 video. The Convergent Deisgn Odyssey 7Q and Atomos Samurai Blade will support 4K and 1080p 10bit 4:2:2 recording with the GH4.

Note the Samurai Blade is HD-SDI only and does not have an HDMI input for 1080p 4:2:2 (10bit) direct from the GH4 so you will have to add the cost of the YAGH and an external battery to the price. A cheapest solutions for 1080p 4:2:2 (10bit) are the Atomos Ninja 2 and Odyssey 7 – I recommend the Odyssey 7 because it has the better screen but it’s double the price. Neither of the cheaper models can record 4K.

If you need to record 1080/60p or 50p, only the Odyssey recorders will allow this. Atomos recorders do not support higher than 30p… yet.

4. Which external recorders and monitors are suitable for 4K recording?

Only the Odyssey 7Q and Ki Pro Quad but wait until NAB 2014 – there will be many more options by April.

5. Which field monitors are suitable for 4K monitoring?

The Atomos Ninja 2 and older Samurai (non-Blade) have lower resolution 840 x 480 LCDs. At this resolution slight focus shifts in 4K are invisible.

If you’re recording 4K in any guise I recommend avoiding the lower resolution monitors. Focus in 4K is very critical and this is where the higher resolution 720p HD displays come in useful.

The Odyssey 7, 7Q, Atomos Samurai Blade and dedicated field monitors like the Small DP6 / AC7 all have 1280 x 720 displays.

6. What do the external recording solutions cost?

• Ki Pro Quad – $3995 (4K recording, 320×240 control display, not to be used for monitoring)
• Odyssey 7Q – $2295 (4K recording with extra codec licenses* on top of the base price, 720p OLED monitor)
• Atomos Samurai Blade – $1295 (1080p recording, 720p IPS-LCD monitor) **
• Atomos Samurai – $995 (1080p recording, 720p monitor) **
• Atomos Ninja 2 – $695 (1080p recording, 480p monitor) **

* It’s not yet confirmed how much the Odyssey 7Q license(s) will cost for the GH4′s uncompressed 4K output.
** The Atomos solutions record on cheaper non-proprietary SSDs from any electronics retailer.

6. Does the YAGH external box output raw over 3G-HD-SDI like the FS700?

No, the output is uncompressed and doesn’t come ‘direct from the sensor’ as many manufacturers claim. Only raw is a direct tap on the sensor. With raw, the data comes straight from the sensor to the memory buffer, where it written to the media by the recorder. With uncompressed video the raw sensor data is internally processed by the camera first (debayered) so aspects like white balance and the exposure curve are baked-into the image.

7. What frame rates can 96fps slow-motion be conformed to by the GH4?

30p, 25p, 24p and 23.98p.

8. What format is the HDMI output when shooting slow-mo?

Unknown. When this question is answered I’ll update the FAQ.

Slow-mo is recorded in 1080p, there’s no 4K slow-mo mode.

9. What are the SD memory card options for 4K?

4K on the GH4 requires at least 30MB/s sustained write speeds. Cards using the new UHS I class III standard are suitable. Panasonic and Kingston (just announced – see 43rumors) will definitely have SD cards available in this spec. As for SanDisk, According to Eduardo Angel who is shooting with a prototype GH4, their current top end consumer card (Sandisk Extreme 95Mb/s) didn’t take the 4K. It isn’t clear whether this was an issue with the card or prototype. Eduardo took no chances and used SanDisk Pro cards (rated an enormous 280Mb/s) to record 4K with. Panasonic P2 media is likely to be a robust option too, though expensive.

10. When is the release date?

It is currently expected to ship in April, though nothing official has yet been confirmed. Some retailers say pre-orders will open in March. When NAB begins in early April 2014 (5th-10th) I’m expecting the camera to be in its final state and ship shortly after.

11. What’s the dynamic range?

No controlled tests have been done yet but for 4K we’re talking DSLR photo standard here rather than video camera. Take a crop of a JPEG from a top of the range APS-C camera as the benchmark for 4K video on the GH4. For reference the Canon 5D Mark III full frame sensor has 11.5 stops dynamic range.

The only major difference between the internal 4K video and 4.6K JPEG aside from the crop factor is that the JPEG uses 4:2:2 colour sampling and video 4:2:0, but that increases to 10bit 4:2:2 with the YAGH and a suitable external recorder.

Click here to view the embedded video.

12. Is it a suitable replacement for a 1D X as a “behind the scenes” stills camera on set?

Yes because it has something the DSLRs-lack – an entirely silent electronic shutter at full 16MP resolution delivering raw and JPEG stills, with no shutter actuation sound. On a film set you can snap away and nobody will notice.

13. Can the zoomed focus assist be activated while recording?

No, but I really want Panasonic will enable this in the final firmware as well as an instant-on crop mode in 1080p (like the Olympus OM-D E-M1). Peaking remains active while recording and is said to perform well.

14. Is low light performance improved from the GH3.

I’ve shot with the GM1 which features a similar Panasonic sensor to the GH4. This showed a marked increase in low light performance over the GH3 with a much cleaner image at ISO 3200. Reducing 4K to 1080p in post and applying light noise reduction will also greatly improve low light performance. So – TBC – but it bodes well.

Click here to view the embedded video.

15. Can I edit GH4 4K material off a laptop?

A MacBook Pro or PC laptop with at least an Intel 2.4ghz i7 (quad-core) has been proven to work with 4K footage from the GH4 (editing in Adobe Premiere, with 16GB RAM). The iMac at 3.2ghz i7 or above is also suitable. You may however need to edit from a fast drive. Suitable drives are internal SSDs (though limited capacities), latest generation 7200RPM hard drives, external RAID storage devices via Thunderbolt (i.e. G-Tech).

16. Is the onboard HDMI port full sized, micro or mini?

The GH3 had mini-HDMI port like on most video capable DSLRs but this standard has been superseded by an even smaller and wimpier connector. On the GH4 it’s a micro-HDMI port, similar to the one found on the Sony A7R. The YAGH offers a full sized HDMI port.

16. Does it have a robot arm that extends into the kitchen to do the dishes?

No.

Any more questions? Pitch them to me on the forum and I’ll update the FAQ.

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Blackmagic have today announced a $1000 price drop on the BMPC 4K.

I am quite surprised how quickly 4K has dropped into consumer electronics territory. You can buy a 4K TV for around $3k, edit 4K on a $1000 laptop and the cameras have not just recently broken the $4k barrier but smashed it to pieces.

What’s Canon’s consumer 4K strategy? Are they going to capitalise on this like Sony, Panasonic and Blackmagic? Or will they leave 4K as a high end professional Cinema EOS thing? This is a key question and I expect their consumer camcorder division to answer it WAY before their consumer photographic cameras do. Canon don’t have a small chip consumer camcorder like the Sony AX100 that shoots 4K yet. They will need one to compete, so expect this to change in the coming months.

The new Blackmagic price applies to all existing pre-orders made at the higher price.

The camera is aimed at the video and TV production market rather than at the cinema crowd although I am sure a lot of filmmakers will want to use it as well. It does however lack the digital cinema standard of 4K at 4096 x 2160, something the GH4 has. The BMPC 4K clocks in at the Ultra HD standard of 3840 x 2160 in 16:9.

Blackmagic touts the camera as being great for “high resolution music videos, episodic television productions, television commercials, sport and documentaries”. The camera ships with a full license dongle and CD for DaVinci Resolve 10.

Key Features

• Ultra HD 3840 x 2160 resolution (note – no DCI 4096 x 2160 cinema standard like the GH4)
• ProRes 422 (HQ)™ recording (raw is to be added later in firmware update)
• Super 35 sensor
• Global shutter
• EF and ZE compatible lens mount
• Built-in SSD recorder
• 5” LCD touchscreen
• Metadata entry
• 6G-SDI output for 10-bit HD and Ultra HD

John Brawley’s Red One comparison

DP and regular Blackmagic test shooter John Brawley had this to say about the image we can expect from the 4K Blackmagic.

“I would say they both have a similar base ISO. I have always rated RED / MX and even EPIC at 320, despite the rumours that they’re all 800 ISO. I would say 640 is a sweet spot for the 4K, but that ISO doesn’t exist yet

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the RED has a slight edge in DR. RED has a very bottom heavy exposure spread. It’s like it only has a couple of stops from middle grey in over exposure and 7 stops of useable shadow exposure. Blackmagic’s cameras tend to be a lot more centred so you initially find have a lot more headroom. I think people might get a little surprised at how fast it runs out of shadow room though. But like I said, only if you’re used the current high DR generation of cameras.

“Every month there’s a “why is my picture so noisy / what are these vertical lines / what’s this horizontal split line” thread from users underexposing the camera and then lifting it to try and make a useable picture. With even less DR, you’re going to run into those “sensor” level issues more often.”

Clearly it will be best to expose to the right slightly, with the way Blackmagic have optimised dynamic range on the new 4K sensor.

I am really looking forward to the Production Camera. It’s the only affordable 4K camera to date that can do 10bit internal recording. That said I am a bit reluctant at this point to lay down money for one. Why? There’s a LOT of new stuff in the pipeline this year and a lot of it will be here rather soon at NAB in April. The GH4 looks more attractive for me and the 4K image looks stunning despite being 8bit 4:2:0 internal. I think it will need the active Micro Four Thirds mount, PL mount compatibility and better low light performance offered by the GH4 more than the Super 35mm sensor and global shutter in the Production Camera, but let’s see how it turns out once I’ve used both.

Source: Blackmagic Press Release

The post Blackmagic Production Camera 4K price drops to $3k and ships appeared first on EOSHD.com.

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Above: beautiful new film from Seb Farges shot with the SLR Magic Anamorphot on the Sony A7 and Olympus E-M5.

SLR Magic have officially announced the Anamorphot developed with feedback and technical assistance from EOSHD and the anamorphic community.

To order: there is currently a pre-order offer for people who follow the Twitter handle @anamorphot and email a screen grab of it to support@slrmagic.com by Feb 14th (GMT +8).

I have now received a set of the first diopters to ship, which SLR Magic have developed especially for the lens for very close focus, in addition to the close focus mechanism built into the lens.

I’ll be covering these soon on EOSHD, using them on the Anamorphot as well as my Iscoramas to see how they perform vs the popular Tokina diopters much adored by the anamorphic community. These Tokina diopters were adored so much we created another hellish price bubble for them. Suffice to say the SLR Magic ones are half the price – you can buy the pair for $299.

I highly recommend the Anamorphot for anyone currently using an older LA7200 anamorphic or vintage dual-focus anamorphic. This lens is superior in my opinion. The anamorphic lens by itself costs just $899. Advanced users can buy it in a complete Special Edition kit with the diopters, stepping rings and SLR Magic 35mm T1.4 for $1899, a saving on buying the individual pieces separately.

I am lucky and own several Iscoramas but these are priced in the region of $3000. The Anamorphot does not quite give you the same vintage anamorphic feel as the Iscorama but it is 1/3rd of the price and has a unique style of its own.

Here’s the press release from SLR Magic -

Hong Kong, China (Feb 10, 2014) – SLR Magic is proud to announce the SLR Magic Anamorphot 1,33x – 50 for indie filmmakers.

In the past, many indie filmmakers who wanted to shoot anamorphic had to depend on rare vintage lenses, which was not always reliable. In hopes to provide a reliable and available solution for indie anamorphic shooters, we had active feedback Personal-View forum users as well as technical assistance from http://www.eoshd.com for the past two years.

To achieve the much loved 2.35:1 scope aspect ratio, which gives a very pleasant, epic effect, filmmakers must crop off the top and bottom of standard 16:9 footage when using spherical lenses with modern digital cameras. As a result, 25% of sensor/negative information is discarded.

As a commitment to the film industry, SLR Magic developed this 1,33x anamorphic adapter to help filmmakers maximize their image quality by preventing this loss of vertical resolution. The unique 1,33x squeeze factor uses the entire 16:9 sensor/negative area to achieve the desired 2.35:1 aspect ratio. The Anamorphot 1.33x – 50 does this by compressing a 33% wider field of view to fit the width of the 16:9 sensor/negative without compressing image height.

Modern professional cinema cameras have large sensors capable of capturing an image in the 2.35:1 format directly, using spherical lenses, but film makers still desire the anamorphic “look” which often limits them to using rare vintage lenses. These present a number of difficulties in practice such as size, weight, lack of close focus, availability, and high price. We sought to overcome such issues with the SLR Magic Anamorphot.

The SLR Magic Anamorphot 1,33x – 50 create a unique “artifact” such as horizontal lens flare, commonly referred to as anamorphic streaks, and may create slightly elongated bokeh when achromatic diopters are used. Over the history of cinema, these same stylish effects have contributed to the cinematic “look” of epic motion picture photography. Characteristics that shape this anamorphic “look” come from “front-mounted” anamorphic adapter designs such as the SLR Magic Anamorphot while “rear-mounted” anamorphic designs have more suppressed anamorphic characteristics.

We will offer The SLR Magic Anamorphot 1,33x – 50 in two editions. The standard edition may have slight cosmetic imperfections such as small dust motes which has no observable impact on image quality. It usually takes a lot of imperfections to perceptibly degrade the image quality of a lens. Feedback from the “Most wanted ANAMORPHIC lens” forum topic showed many indie filmmakers wanted an affordable anamorphic lens option over rare vintage anamorphic lenses to use as “tools” for filmmaking. Cosmetic perfections lead to long labor hours in making an anamorphic lens and it is the main reason for high cost of new anamorphic lenses. It was a practical decision we made to offer two different editions to cater for these two consumer needs. The standard edition will have no material or optical compromises over the the SPECIAL EDITION. The SPECIAL EDITION will be sold in Hong Kong only and it is the same as the standard edition in terms of the materials used and optical image quality but extra effort would be put into the assembly process where it would be free of any dust motes (at the time of purchase only). The SPECIAL EDITION would be made “by order” basis.

The SLR Magic Anamorphot 1,33x – 50 and SLR Magic 77mm Achromatic Diopter Set (+0.33, +1.3) will be available from authorised SLR Magic resellers by March, 2014.

There is currently a pre-order offer for people who follow our twitter handle @anamorphot and email it to support@slrmagic.com by Feb 14th (GMT +8).

The Anamorphot will be available for viewing at the CP+ show in Yokohama Japan from Feb 13-16 in the Video Area for Professionals at the “Digital-hobby” booth.

The SLR Magic Anamorphot 1,33x – 50 and SLR Magic 77mm Achromatic Diopter Set (+0.33, +1.3)

Technical Data:

SLR Magic Anamorphot 1,33x – 50
Lens Type: Anamorphic adapter
Compatible Cameras: All micro four thirds mount cameras
Magnification: 12-36x
Objective front filter thread: Φ77
Objective rear filter thread: Φ62, Φ58, Φ52, Φ49
Lens Coating: Multi Coated
Close Focus: dependant on taking lens compatibility
Weight (oz./g): 13.4/380
Optional accessories: SLR Magic 77mm Achromatic Diopter Set (+0.33, +1.3)

Suggested taking lens based on sensor size:

17-85mm focal length can be used for S16 sensor.
20-85mm focal length can be used for mFT sensor.
35-85mm focal length can be used for S35 and APS-C sensor.
40-85mm focal length can be used for Full Frame sensor.

Taking lens compatibility

Lenses with non-rotating front filter threads must be used. The front element of the taking lens should be as close to the rear element of the SLR Magic Anamorphot 1,33x – 50 as possible without making contact. It isn’t necessary for the taking lens to have an internal focusing mechanism. Trial and error will be involved but, in general, the SLR Magic Anamorphot is best paired with a prime lens whose front element (not to be confused with its filter thread) is smaller than 50mm in diameter.

MSRP : $1,899 for SLR Magic Anamorphot SPECIAL EDITION 1,33x – 50
: $899 for SLR Magic Anamorphot 1,33x – 50
: $299 for SLR Magic 77mm Achromatic Diopter Set (+0.33, +1.3)

Samples by testers and volunteer users using the standard edition of the SLR Magic Anamorphot 1,33x – 50:

by EOSHD
Anamorphic sample footage shot with the SLR Magic Anamorphot – and which lenses go best with it?

by Eyepatch Entertainment
SLR Magic 1.33x Anamorphic Adapter 35mm T1.4 Tutorial Video
SLR Magic 1.33x Anamorphic – Tip for near focus mode
SLR Magic Anamorphic vs LA7200 Flare and Resolution comparison
SLR Magic 1.33x Anamorphic – Sunset BMCC RAW

by Seb Farges
One Week with SLR Magic anamorphot (OM-D & Sony A7)
http://vimeo.com/85849379

by Ed Arnaud
SLR Magic 1.33X Anamorphot Test 1
http://vimeo.com/85588187
SLR Magic 1.33X Anamorphot Lens Flare Test
http://vimeo.com/85066650

by Brad Proudlove
SLR Magic Anamorphot Demo

by P13 Digital Media
Kascarade – The Long Kiss Goodbye – Acoustic version
http://vimeo.com/85010380
Bradford at night – Anamorphic – SLR Magic Anamorphot 1.33 x 50 – F2.8
https://vimeo.com/85206248

by Edwin Lee
Dark Side (SLR Magic anamorphic)
http://vimeo.com/83319046

by Peter Prevec
Frozen
http://vimeo.com/86176821

by 3d-kraft.com
Anamorphic Project – First Tests of the final SLR Magic Anamorphot 1.33x – 50, Part 1
http://3d-kraft.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=152&catid=40&Itemid=2

by Orlando Benedicto
Chinese New Years 2014 – SLR Magic Anamorphot + Canon 5D mkIII RAW – Night Extended Footage
http://vimeo.com/85808761

by Jordan Levy
SLR MAGIC ANAMORPHIC ADAPTER TEST

The post SLR Magic Anamorphot-50 officially announced appeared first on EOSHD.com.

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The media presentation for the GH4 by Panasonic mentions a “Canon 7D successor” along with detailed specs.

• 20MP sensor
• ISO 100-12,800 (25600 extended)
• 1/8000 shutter
• Quiet shutter mode
• Phase detect AF, 19 area
• 8fps continuous shooting
• Buffer size – 15 raw, 126 JPEG
• 3.0″ 1040k dot LCD (touch screen) – not articulated
• Weather sealed (as original 7D)
• 910g weight

Oddly the camera is mentioned as needing an optional transmitter for WiFi. That’s something I’m expecting Canon to build into the 7D Mark II itself like on the 6D. To have the document mention specifics like weight and dimensions is quite interesting. Where did they get the info from?

What do Canon have in store for video on the 7D Mark II?

As ever since these are rumours, take with several table top salt containers.

The 7D was a very popular camera with video pros and advanced amateurs. Since then Canon have moved video pros onto their own dedicated line (Cinema EOS) and left advanced amateurs to a sea of crocodiles.

Remarkably the 7D is still a popular camera with video enthusiasts, perhaps because until now the competition hasn’t really had a headline specification to beat it over the head with. 4K is that consumer headline specification. In order to reclaim the high ground with enthusiasts against the likes of the Panasonic GH4, Canon will need to address moire and aliasing, rolling shutter, higher frame rates and perhaps even go 4K. That’s a tall order and I can’t see the 7D Mark II having any of these features.

Instead I can see APS-C moving backwards slightly as Canon pushes ‘advanced amateurs’ towards full frame with the 6D (which incidentally also shoots very poor video with a lot of moire and aliasing unfortunately).

Previous rumours have mentioned ‘innovative video capabilities’ on the new 7D but I just don’t see it happening.

As for the release date I can see Canon waiting for Sony to move first with the A6000 and A7000 (successors to the NEX 6 and 7) before releasing pricing, etc.

I’m told the 7D successor is currently in the hands of a very elite few pros at the Sochi Winter Olympics in Russia, along with the Nikon D4S. The D4S is expected to add 1080/60p and a new image processor but very little else in terms of video. I very much doubt it will shoot 4K even though the D4′s sensor can window off an area and do a full pixel readout… but we shall see!

The post Rumoured Canon 7D Mark II specs appeared first on EOSHD.com.

The EOSHD GH2 Shooter’s Guide – now just $9.99 [more info]

Since launching my series of books a couple of years ago, the titles have together sold over 7000 copies. To celebrate for the first time I’m reducing one of the titles from $29.99 to $9.99. Even if you just want a taster of what these guides are like or have a passing interest in the GH2 this is the time to get one!

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to EOSHD by buying one of my books and keeping the blog on an upward trajectory with 6.5 million visits in 2013. There’s more on the horizon. I’m currently working on three. One is secret, the other is the GH4 Shooter’s Guide for when the camera hits the shelves, and of course there’s the A7 / A7R lens guide. Some of the books will also become available in print after April.

The GH2 guide comes from a period of my filmmaking when I was very passionate about the GH2 and I hope it shows. What I learnt from writing this book is that if your heart isn’t really in it, it shows. Unless I am truly into something, truly passionate about it, I won’t be writing about it.

I’ve decided that EOSHD will carry no advertising banners for the time being, I utterly hate being presented with these on other blogs. Maybe it’s just me and other visitors are fine with them. On EOSHD this may have to change in the future. Let me know your thoughts on this on the poll below. Please don’t let the texture, design or nature of the question bias your feedback

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Sony have now taken their Alpha re-think to the mid-range NEX 6 mirrorless camera. For video it looks like an interesting alternative to the ageing NEX 7, adding a 16:9 screen, zebra, dedicated movie mode, new sensor and uncompressed HDMI output.

It also points to some of the new features we’re sure to see on the NEX 7′s actual successor, the A7000.

It seems Sony have reserved the mic, headphone and better EVF for the A7000. It may be better to wait for that camera but for a cheap model the A6000 has a good curiosity factor. Let’s see what it brings to the table…

A few years ago I very much enjoyed the NEX 5N and 7 for video. Although they lacked the clean almost moire-free image of the GH2 at the time, they were the first to do 1080/60p. They had full manual control with Super 35mm size sensors behind a lovely mirrorless E-mount. I used them on and off until I upgraded to a Sony FS100.

Perhaps surprisingly on a camera designed for stills, Sony have moved to a 16:9 screen on the A6000 which means it’s perfect for video and uses more of the available real-estate on the back of the camera.

Noticeable too is the much improved job Sony have done on the rear button layout and internal menus. The button layout is almost identical to the lovely RX1 full frame compact and gone are the babyish NEX menus that plagued the NEX 7. The camera now uses the standard Sony Alpha menus as on the A7 and RX1.

The HDMI output is clean and uncompressed. With that comes an opportunity to bump up the image quality. Will Sony take it? Well they haven’t so far. It really needs to be 10bit 4:2:2 and an advanced pixel mixture on the sensor output along with a very good debayer for it to be useful.

The old NEX 6 and 7 did not feature uncompressed HDMI outputs (only compressed).

That said – here’s another opportunity for Sony to grasp. The sensor is a new 24MP Exmor CMOS with phase detect AF. I am not that hopeful about this sensor being video optimised but if it is the same one destined for the higher end NEX 7 replacement – who knows?

I’m currently shooting with the Nikon D5300 (review coming this week). The image on this is rather lovely and it has a APS-C size sensor like the A6000 at the same 24MP resolution but made by Toshiba. It also has a large articulated screen and 1080/60p. Sony needs to get the same or better video quality from their new Exmor sensor in the A6000 otherwise I cannot recommend it for video against the equally affordable Nikon, despite the presence of zebras, EVF and a much more adaptable mirrorless mount.

The Zebra feature helps to avoid burnt highlights and is adjustable from 70 to 100. The new image processor is Bionz X, first featured in the A7 and A7R. The camera now has a dedicated movie mode on the mode dial unlike the NEX 7. No more changing the stills aspect ratio to 16:9 just to properly frame video. Sensible hey!

Build quality has taken a leap forward and now resembles the A7 and RX1 with shiny black alloy plating, square edges and a proper hotshoe.

Unfortunately the video record button is still positioned on the shoulder of the grip, which is incredibly awkward, and it appears AVCHD still haunts Sony cameras. What year is it, 2006? What TV made in the last 5 years cannot directly playback plain Quicktime MOV / AVC H.264 video direct from an SD card? At least give users a choice. MP4 on Sony cameras is not a viable choice because it only records at 12Mbit in 1440×1080!

Even if the A6000 pulls a rabbit out of the bag, it won’t challenge the 4K monster from Panasonic, the GH4. It has the chance of being an interesting low price solution for enthusiasts interested in video… But only if the image takes a leap forward ahead of the GH2, NEX 7 and Nikon D5300, all of which have a similarly low price point. The A6000 will cost $650.

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I’ll start this review with a parable. It is a parable about an old man, who fell asleep…

In the prime of his life the man understood exactly how people used cameras. Because he was a photographer himself…

He worked extremely hard all day and at the 11th hour went to bed. When he woke up, he checked his bank account and realised he was rich. Very very rich. So he immediately fell asleep again.

However the next time he woke up things had changed. Everybody was taking selfies on their portable computer mouthpieces and this the old man did not understand or even like. Some photographers were even taking moving pictures with their stills cameras and the old man felt this very silly. He even wondered if he’d accidentally swallowed too much mouthwash the night before.

The old man checked his bank account again and after feeling complacent he yawned and dozed off again. He went back to sleep for a very very long time. It was quite late in the day when the old man was awoken by a knocking sound on his door. It was his accountant. “Mr Nikon, Mr Nikon! Nobody is buying your digital-variant 1970’s SLR cameras any more!”

***

This isn’t actually a real Japanese parable. It actually comes from Finland, the character’s name was Mr Nokia and it goes something like this – one day he got hit on the head by an Apple and swiftly died.

Granted that’s a short parable but it has a very important message for Mr Nikon and indeed Mr Canon.

And so… As the D5300 sees a bright new iterative dawn on a bright new evolutionary day at Nikon HQ, but not as many people are there to welcome it. The D5300 is a lovely sensor and image processor wrapped up in a very uninspiring DSLR shaped box just like all the others.

The D5300 comes into a world where video enthusiasts are shooting 4K on Panasonic consumer cameras and ProRes on revolutionary Blackmagic cameras for $999. Pros are shooting on a very profitable Cinema EOS cameras from a small company called Canon and almost everybody else just CANNOT BE BOTHERED with proper cameras anymore and have given up, choosing to shoot selfies with their smartphones!!

Dinosaurs

It’s great Canon are in the photocopier industry because they clearly they get a lot of use out of them themselves. The new $499 T5 is essentially a recycled Canon T2i (550D) from 5 years ago (2009).

Can you imagine that in 5 years from now, Nikon will announce to the world in 2019 a new DSLR essentially identical to the D5300? We’d all say that’s nuts, but it actually seems to have worked quite well for Canon’s sales.

Therefore my conclusion is that consumers don’t know what the hell they’re doing. Happy shopping people!

D5300 today’s GH2… but too late?

On the EOSHD forum there’s actually been quite a lot of enthusiasm for the D5300. None of it is misplaced, all of it genuine. I can understand where they’re coming from. I felt the same way about the GH2 a few years ago. But back then I’d have had to spend $6000 or more to get a marginally better image. I just wanted to shoot nice 1080p, conveniently, for a low price with interchangeable lenses. The D5300 to some is $799 for a Super 35mm camera that shoots quite nice 1080p with no moire & aliasing problems, good in low light, great articulated screen – and free Nikon stills camera into the bargain. What’s not to like?

I accept that this camera will have many satisfied customer, but I just cannot get over the…

Baby Photo Mode

The D5300 has a ‘Baby Photo’ icon on the mode dial. Yes – a little picture of a kid throwing his hands up excitedly in the air. Curiously missing is movie mode.

I know this is a low-to-mid range mass-market DSLR, but really, what is more creatively appealing to an imaging company? Is it decades of artistry and moving images, legions of aspiring filmmakers the world over trying to make something of themselves, talent after talent unleashed through technology, from country to country, through a new distribution platform called Vimeo, with Hollywood as the ultimate pinnacle, the feature film their goal…

Or is it pictures of babies?

The dial isn’t short of clutter. There’s 13 modes on the dial but no movie mode.

This combined with the lack of selectable aspect ratios for stills causes a real headache with composition. Something quite important, you’d think Nikon would have paid attention to it before starting on their Baby Photo mode and selection of attractive Art Filters. It turns out they have indeed paid attention, but the implementation is terrible.

The LCD has almost invisibly faint transparent masking marks for 16:9 and these only appear when the LCD is lit up like Vegas with irrelevant junk. When the info is paired back to a minimum to allow you to focus on the actual image, the essential masking marks are removed entirely and instead you get tiny little notches at the side denoting where the 16:9 box sits. Only when you hit record does the LCD display crop to 16:9.

The tragic thing is, Nikon just cannot seem to grasp the opportunity at their fingertips. They have all the components required to build a video optimised DSLR for hobbyist videographers and aspiring filmmakers at an affordable price with hardly any additional overheads, far less than they have spent on marketing alone for their poorly received mirrorless 1 series.

Simply by repackaging the D5300 and redesigning the firmware, Nikon could make it 10x more useful for everyone in the world with an interest in shooting artistic video.

In addition Nikon have all the technology to build a high end cinema line for pros like Cinema EOS, something which is turning out to be massively profitable for Canon. The sensor, the image processor, the codec, the lenses, everything.

It’s like finding the components of a nuclear fusion reactor in your dad’s garage one day, and him telling you nonchalantly that ‘yeah, had that for a while now. What of it?’. That is Mr Nikon!

Weird upgrade path

“Ah but it’s only ever designed to be a consumer stills camera! If you want video buy a video camera at $15,000 or a dreadful small chip camcorder for $1000!”

This is an argument I see pedalled out on forums and comments sections everyday on the internet by clueless people who have never shot a frame of video. Likewise Nikon’s strategy towards video is just as ignorant. The higher up the Nikon range I go the worse it gets, which gives you a pretty solid understanding of how little regard is given to video by the conservative 120 year olds running Nikon. It’s home-movie stuff, anything but art. Guess which Nikon DSLR has the worse video quality in 1080p? The D4!

You could upgrade from the D5300 to the D7100 but for no gain in video quality. In fact you LOSE video features. Gone would be 1080/60p and the articulated screen. You could upgrade yet again to the full frame D610, lose the same features again and actually have a step backwards in image quality – horrible shot-breaking moire and aliasing plagues that camera for no good reason. You could upgrade yet again to the D800 and have the same ugly patterns all over your broken images and worse low light performance, still no 1080/60p or articulated screen or any extra major video features. The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera is $999 with a 10bit 4:2:2 ProRes codec, crisp detail and 13 stops of dynamic range. The D5300 does have a better screen than the Pocket Camera, which is articulated and it does have an APS-C sensor, 1080/60p in addition to the film frame rate of 24p and 25p, so it’s not all bad… Until you realise it’s going to be obsolete in a few months when cinema standard 4K arrives at consumer prices with the GH4.

Now let’s focus on what they have got right…

The low end Nikon D3300 ($599) and mid-range D5300 ($799) both have the same 24MP sensor, similar image processor and a similar end result. The D3300′s video output has the same amount of detail as the D5300′s but it lacks the very capable high-res articulated screen of the D5300, which is critical for shooting video with on a tripod. The D5300 is worth the extra $200 in my opinion.

Neither can quite match the GH3 for detail in 1080p (let alone the GH4). I believe the trick Panasonic are using to give us such crisp 1080p on their cameras is to down-sample the sensor to roughly 2.5K and then oversample 1080p from that higher resolution raw image. The D5300 looks like the 5D Mark III’s stock video mode for resolution – it’s a bit mushy. You notice this the most when shooting in daylight at focus points between infinity and roughly 5 meters. Sometimes you don’t notice the softness much at all, so it’s not the camera’s main problem.

With sharpness dialled down in-camera it will look very soft and require digital sharpening to be added in post. You can do this in-camera by simply leaving it on the Standard or Vivid picture profile and not turning down sharpness. Whatever method you use the results after grading look similar.

Compared to the Canon Rebels, 6D and 70D the Nikon D5300 has far lower moire & aliasing (it’s almost unnoticeable) in videos and better low light performance than the Canon APS-C fleet. Stills are also way ahead now on the Nikon cameras compared to the Rebels. With a near-2 stop dynamic range advantage and a significant resolution bump over Canon, the Toshiba sensor in the D5300 rates over 20 points higher than Canon’s 700D on the DXOMark chart, and 15 higher than the 70D. JPEGs and raw stills out of the D5300 are very good indeed.

The D5300 as well as the D3300 (surprisingly) can be used for moderate slow-mo work as they both shoot 1080/60p which can be slowed to 1080/24p in post. I wouldn’t show a film in 60p I think it looks awful at the native rate. The camera is PAL / NTSC switchable so European users will get 50p and 25p to prevent street lights looking like a disco.

Low light performance is very good, even with the focus assist zoomed in 2 levels you will find it difficult to see any noise on the LCD while out shooting in low light at ISO 800. The image maintains rich colour at high ISOs and on brighter areas of the image at high ISOs noise almost vanishes altogether. ISO 1600 and 3200 are perfectly usable in video mode and even 6400 and 12,800 are better than on many cameras at the same price, closer in fact to the Super 35mm sensor in the Sony FS100. This is impressive when you consider the D5300 packs in 24MP and the FS100 just 2MP.

There is a new magnified focus assist that shows tons of detail but only at a very low frame rate of around 5fps. The punch-in focus assist is generally a bit slow to use and you can’t simply half-press the shutter button to come back out of it, instead you have to tediously reverse back out out with the ‘minus’ key.

The large 3.2″ screen is definitely a strong point – very good colour and resolution.

But I still have the feeling that in 2014, the D5300 is merely a high deck on the Titanic.

Ergonomics

I’m beginning to really feel a difference between DSLRs and mirrorless cameras. It feels retrograde to go back to using a DSLR, especially a low to mid-range one. All the buttons are cheap. The body looks dated. Live view AF is pitifully slow. The lens mount is way too restrictive. There are even some NIKON lenses I can’t use on it! I can’t use my pre-AI 55mm F1.2 for fear of damaging the mount and I can’t drive AF on my AF-D Nikon lenses as the D5300 lacks the required hardware. There are way to few nice VR lenses in the Nikon range, very few fast primes have VR and yet with the Olympus OM-D E-M1 any lens you put on it automatically has class-leading stabilisation better than any VR lens in the entire Nikon range including their pro lenses.

No OLPF

The lack of anti-aliasing filter (OLPF) over the sensor is a change from last year’s D5200 but not one that has an affect on any real end result – certainly zero effect on detail in video mode. It’s a marketing ploy designed to make stills look better at 1:1 in reviews.

Last year’s D5200 has an identical image in video mode and costs just $400 used, which makes it hard to justify the D5300 if you don’t need 1080/60p.

Conclusion

As of today, DSLR video is over. Dead. Kaput!

It may be resurrected who knows? But right now the future is with mirrorless, 4K, 10bit codecs such as ProRes, powerful raw and dedicated cinema cameras.

The whole raison d’être of DSLRs as affordable, accessible filmmaking tool is just not there anymore, because we have all of the above at consumer prices.

Even if DSLRs get 4K which has been the case with the Canon 1D C, the photographic giants just don’t seem to bother putting any other video features in to sweeten the deal. The 1D C was barely unchanged from the 1D X whereas the mirrorless GH4 is based around a camera that was optimised for video from day one.

The lack of video features and 4K will put DSLRs at a very significant disadvantage on performance relative to the best mirrorless cameras this year.

As for stills I’d much rather choose the Olympus OM-D E-M1. It packs far more technology into a much nicer body than the D5300 and it has a soul.

To give you an idea of how antiquated the D5300 form factor is you still can’t change the aperture from the camera whilst live-view mode is engaged. Why on Earth not?

There are a few solid features that are useful. That higher-than-AVCHD bitrate of 38Mbit in 1080/60p prevents the image from breaking up quite so much on sweeping pans and scenes with complicated movement. The camera uses a variable bitrate which scales up and down depending on the demands of the image, never quite dropping the ball in terms of image quality. It’s an impressive codec for $799, better than the one Sony uses on the flagship A7R.

But in the cold light of day for $1999 (maybe less by the time final pricing is announced), Panasonic offer us 4K video. At $799 Nikon offer us a Baby Photo Mode. Why bother with this crap any more? Really? At $2000 Nikon give us moire, aliasing and no 1080/60p and at $6000 Nikon offer us their worst video quality with the D4 – is that their upgrade path? What a mess!

If you do get the D5300, be prepared to sell it in 3 months time for something better.

Pros

• OK video quality and very good low light performance
• Better than Canon Rebels and 70D on image quality, for both video and stills
• Pleasing colour straight out of the MOV files, richness of tone maintained in low light
• 1080/60p useful for slow-motion video when converted to more cinematic 24p frame rate
• 38Mbit codec avoids break-up in 1080/60p mode (only 24Mbit VBR in 24p and 25p mode though)
• No significant moire or aliasing issues (though resolution falls short of being truly full HD)
• PAL / NTSC switchable for wide variety of frame rates
• Manual focus magnification has an ultra-detailed display mode (though painfully slow frame rate)
• Quicktime MOV file format benefits (easy editing and access, thumbnail preview in Explorer and Finder)
• Very nice smartphone standard 3.2″ articulated screen
• The sensor produces immaculate stills quality for the price
• $799

Cons

• Charmless – looks cheap, bland shooting experience
• Very poor ergonomics by Nikon standards
• Extremely dated form factor
• Very little signs of innovation
• Hardly any significant new features over the D5200
• No real improvement in image quality over the D5200 in terms of video or raw stills
• Cannot change aperture in live-view mode
• Very small viewfinder
• No dedicated aperture, ISO or white balance buttons or dials
• No headphone jack
• Hissy mic input
• Very basic video features compared to Panasonic and Blackmagic
• Nikon VR not video optimised, tied to limited range of lenses
• Olympus OM-D has far better stabilisation for casual point & shoot video
• Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera offers much better image for filmmakers (13 stop dynamic range, 10bit ProRes 422) for just $200 more
• Dated DSLR ergonomics no longer cut it vs mirrorless cameras from Fuji, Sony, Panasonic and Olympus -
• Awful plastic feel to buttons and dials
• Extremely pedestrian, almost useless AF performance in live-view mode
• Small optical viewfinder, cannot be used for video, no EVF
• The least adaptable lens mount out there
• Only one programmable function button and on far left-front of the camera
• Larger than a mirrorless camera yet to no avail – feels toy-like with small grip
• Will not start-up in live view mode, always requires lever press for video
• No dedicated movie-mode on the dial
• No way to mask off 16:9 area completely on LCD without tape

The post Nikon D5300 Review and why DSLRs are dead for video appeared first on EOSHD.com.

The Olympus E-M1 is sitting on a goldmine. The 5 axis stabilisation system is heaven for video, but very little attention was given to video specs. The codec is only capable of recording in one frame rate, 30p, which is an NTSC rate completely unsuited to 70% of the world’s population living in Europe, the UK, China, Brazil and Australia. Consumers need 25p or 50p… and filmmakers are desperate for the 24p look!

Now Olympus are said to be working on a firmware update (source: 43rumors) that gives 21 steps of manual audio gain control (1 step more than the GH3).

Here is a summary of what else video users need.

Olympus please do not be conservative with this firmware update. Let’s at the very least bump the E-M1 up to Panasonic GM1 or GX7 standard and give us 1080/60p, 25p and 24p. Add an HQ recording mode at a higher bitrate to (36Mbit/s minimum), allow us to toggle between 4:2:2 and 4:2:0 and offer us more control over how the image is processed – the ability to turn off processing like noise reduction, especially in the magnified crop mode.

I believe the E-M1 uses a very similar Panasonic sensor to the one featured in the GX7 and GM1 which both shoot a higher standard of 1080p video, with crisper detail and more frame rates.

The other thing the Panasonic cameras have over Olympus for those interested in video (and stills) is the electronic shutter and uncompressed live & clean HDMI output.

But by far the most important thing is 24p and an increase in bitrate or overall video quality.

I know Olympus reps and staff do read this blog so please forward this list of firmware priorities from the video community to those responsible for making it happen…

• At least one additional frame rate – 24p (and 25p for Europe / PAL regions)
• Switch to enable 4:2:2 video recording mode for prosumers (maybe in MJPEG mode as JPEG engine is already 4:2:2)
• If 4:2:2 switch applies only to MJPEG, increase the resolution of that mode from current 720p to full HD 1080p
• Increase bitrate to at least Canon standard (36Mbit +)
• Decrease noise reduction and processing in video mode to offer a finer noise grain – very important for a more organic ‘raw’ feel to video (like in raw stills when viewed closely)
• 1080/60p mode (50p for PAL)
• Optimise overall video quality increase from better debayer of the raw sensor data – to get at least Panasonic GM1 standard video quality

This firmware update would win many new fans and sales, and I know a LOT of commercial photographers now have clients who want top quality video too.

It makes sense – so let’s see it happen!

Read the full EOSHD review of the innovative OM-D E-M1 here

Click here to view the embedded video.

The post Olympus E-M1 firmware update to address video mode – but will we get 24p and higher bitrates? appeared first on EOSHD.com.

Pros are wondering what the benefit of 4K is to them in terms of overall image quality, when mastered and delivered for 2K / 1080p. A lot of work is still shot in 1080p and cameras like the Canon C300 are the workhorses of the moment.

In the case of the GH4 it may appear from the specs that it’s just an 8bit 4:2:0 camera internally.

Actually the theory is 8bit 4:2:0 4K material from this camera can be taken through a workflow in post that converts it to 10bit 4:4:4 1080p – with all the smoother tonality, better colour and workflow advantages that format brings. This is a big leap for 1080p based on the much more expensive C300 which only does 8bit 4:2:2.

I asked Go Pro’s David Newman (Sr. Dir. Software - follow on Twitter) whether this theory was correct…

First a little bit of background.

4K all about resolution? Don’t need it? Now that’s a myth. 4K stores far more information about the image than just fine detail, specifically: more colour information.

Until now mirrorless and DSLR cameras have been limited to 8bit colour depth and 4:2:0 colour sampling with their internal 1080p codecs. This can result in stepped transitions from one shade to another, aliasing, pixilation, digital looking colour and a brittle image that doesn’t grade well. What hasn’t helped is that the sensor output itself skipped out a lot of data, with pixel binning and line skipping. A pixel mixture on the sensor has been an improvement and has been utilised on cameras like the 5D Mark III, Nikon D5200 and Panasonic GM1 but processing power has been an issue in consumer cameras.

Although the GH4 without the external YAGH add-on box does indeed have a 10bit 4:2:2 mode (as shown in the illustration below), this is only available via HDMI to an external recorder – all the internal codec options on the GH4 are 8bit 4:2:0 like the GH3 (although the sensor output to the encoder is 4:2:2) so how do we improve this?

The good news (no make that great news) for people who want to trade resolution for better colour and dynamic range is this…

Downscaling and transcoding to ProRes or CineForm at 1080p can convert the RGB 4K data from the GH4′s 4K 100Mbit/s codec to the higher bit depth of 10bit and colour sampling of 4:4:4.

The way this works is quite technical but it essentially amounts to using the extra pixels present in the 4K files to rebuild the lost colour information. Neighbouring pixels are summed to create a super pixel with a greater bit depth and better sampling. It requires a lot of processing power and a finishing codec good enough to store the extra colour data (10bit 4:4:4, with CineForm and ProRes being suitable choices) which is why the camera doesn’t do it internally. It does require a transcoding step in post but the increase in quality over the 8bit internal 1080p codec will be marked. The message is clear. Even if you’re working in 1080p, shoot 4K on the GH4 if you want the best quality.

I’ve been hearing rumours of this for a few weeks but I wanted to get confirmation from somebody who would know.

Here’s the actual discussion with David who was CTO at CineForm, then the company was bought by GoPro (follow on Twitter) -

It demonstrates what I have been saying for a while now on EOSHD after my initial scepticism over 4K and whether it’s needed – regardless of whether you notice the extra resolution of 4K in terms of detail you will notice the extra resolution in terms of colour, tonality and even dynamic range especially on DSLRs which suffer the most from 8bit codecs, 4:2:0 sampling and pixel binning rather than a full pixel readout.

This is going to result in absolutely stunning 1080p from the GH4 with the internal 4K codec after post processing.

10bit 4:4:4 is not just an advantage for grading, it’s something you can take to existing 1080p displays, even Vimeo, and still notice – that isn’t affected by how close or far you sit from the display unlike detail at 4K on a 4K TV. The bandwidth between the sensor and the screen is now wider in all respects and that means great colour. So whenever a 4K argument centres on resolution, remember that’s not the whole story.

Long live 1080p!?

A big thanks to David Newman for taking the time to answer my questions

The post Discovery: 4K 8bit 4:2:0 on the Panasonic GH4 converts to 1080p 10bit 4:4:4 appeared first on EOSHD.com.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Be sure to check out the GH4′s new trick – internally recorded ’1080p’ 4:4:4 with 10bit luma, at EOSHD here

One of the first to receive a Blackmagic Production Camera in the UK (hoping to get mine next week for a review, shipments allowing) is James Miller, Philip Bloom’s friend and frequent shooting partner. As this impressive footage shows even though the camera is designed for general production rather than cinema, I am not missing that BMCC dynamic range here. The footage looks wonderfully cinematic and the camera appears to be a powerhouse of image quality, given the right handling, good light and material.

This is the first good footage I’ve seen from the Production Camera. Some beautifully natural moments captured here, love the opening shot with the young couple and later the seagulls and focus roll off from the beach to the creamy horizon. Mainly shot with the Canon 70-200mm F2.8 according to James there’s also some Zeiss Otus 55mm F1.4 shots in there too. Let’s not discount the role of good optics with 4K. With the extra resolution it is more important than ever to put good glass in front of the sensor.

The Production Camera actually has a very marginally smaller sensor than Super 35mm (more like 1.6x crop to the FS100′s 1.5x crop for example, I believe) – but the sensor is much closer to the cinema standard than full frame (larger) and the 2.5K Blackmagic Cinema Camera (smaller at 2.3x). Unfortunately with that EF mount being allergic to PL adapters I will find it difficult to put my lucky Cookies on this camera!! Let’s see an E-mount one next, Blackmagic.

Coming next from James is a comparison with the Canon 1D C but the comparison I am waiting to see, indeed hope to do myself soon, is the one between this camera and the even more affordable Panasonic GH4. Aside from a few obvious differences – global shutter being a major pro of the Blackmagic but low light performance / ergonomics likely better on the GH4 – it will be interesting to see what the overall image quality at ISO 400 or 800 is like and what difference the 10bit ProRes 4:2:2 codec on the Blackmagic makes (at double the bitrate of the GH4). In terms of grading I’m expecting an advantage to Blackmagic but as we now know, for 1080p or 2K deliver the GH4′s 8bit 4:2:0 4K effectively becomes 1080p with 10bit luma and 4:4:4 colour sampling, so again it will be interesting to compare these cameras for 2K production not just 4K.

The main thing I love about the GH4 as a 4K cinema camera is the tourist camera stealth factor, which doesn’t attract as much attention, doesn’t need a big external battery or monitor and can even be used incognito  handheld due to the built in EVF. A great advantage for my type of non-narrative documentary work, where capturing a natural mood requires the camera to be invisible to the subject (as the below example shows – video cameras were not even allowed in the temple)

Click here to view the embedded video.

It appears that with enough light the BMPC 4K does have inky smooth blacks. Without enough light those shadows on the BMPC 4K are going to become very noisy with plenty of fixed pattern noise especially when you lift them. This is the one major drawback for my work, I think – because I shoot a lot with natural light. But how noticeable this will be when shown via Vimeo is very debatable, because of the massive downscaling from 4K to 1080p or even 720p. The internet is the medium of choice for current aspiring filmmakers – and 4K makes for great looking Vimeo material. The extra resolution when downsampled really does help to improve all aspects of the image, be it noise, colour or even aliasing.

***

Here’s what James had to say on his shoot -

“First test with the 4k Blackmagic Production Camera in Brighton. Thanks to Guy Thatcher & co (hireacamera.com) for the use of the Camera, Lenses and lovely afternoon out. I do love Sunday shooting.

Shot using the Zeiss Otus 55/1.4 & the Canon 70-200mm IS II.
Alphatron EVF, Tiffen Variable ND Filter.

Lightly graded with Film Convert.

Extremely bright today in the midday sun, Tiffen Variable ND Filter struggled to keep lenses above f2.8. I sometimes even nearly hit focus! Would have shot for longer with some varied scenes but battery solution did not last. But it was enjoyable to shoot with. Well as long as you want to use an EVF with waveforms etc. 4K ProRes HQ edited natively in Adobe Premiere Pro CC. Transcoded to HD, 1920×1080 ProRes HQ version available to download from Vimeo.

Audio track is – Richard Burton reads the beautiful ‘Wessex Heights’ by Thomas Hardy.

Part 2 shot comparison with the Canon 1DC coming soon.”

The post Beautiful 4K Blackmagic Production Camera footage from James Miller appeared first on EOSHD.com.

The Nikon D4S is a professional DSLR with a pro stills specification but only a consumer video specification. Nikon are marketing that consumer video spec as “professional video” when it’s nothing of the sort.

The Nikon D4S is a camera which isn’t really aimed at filmmakers, but pro photographers who supplement their stills work with video. “Pro video” according to Nikon. Designed with the input of many Nikon shooting pros, I am sure many of these did not want a consumer codec, a 10 minute recording cut off, an 8bit HDMI output or an overall video spec no better than a $750 Nikon consumer camera, but that’s what Nikon have given them.

Is this ‘good enough’ for pros? Really? The general impression Nikon gives us with the D4S video mode is that pros are content with their low quality video output. Grab a shot quick, get it on the internet as easily as possible, with minimal knowledge or effort.

Actually most professional Nikon users I know are very much into shooting video with the same set of high production values they apply to their photography. Thanks to the general lack of progress in DSLR video have been forced to invest thousands in dedicated camera equipment from other manufacturers, money that Nikon could have taken with one hand while providing video orientated DSLRs with the other. I am quite sure the company is out of pocket in a big way due to putting so much esteem in feedback from pros from the prehistoric era rather than the pros of today.

Obviously I can see Nikon are aware of the multimedia demands of clients, even going so far as marketing the D4S an “HD-SLR” [their term] in their press releases, which makes it all the more bizarre as to why the intention failed so miserably in the execution.

D4S video – what’s new?

• 1080/60p/50p useful for slow-mo (Nikon claims “smooth video” is also an advantage when played back at native frame rate – almost the entire filmmaking industry would disagree with them)
• 42Mbit/s prevents image break-up at 60p and 50p (consumer standard 24Mbit bitrate used for 24-30p)
• Audio level adjustments ‘in realtime’, but not clear whether this can be controlled silently while recording
• Simultaneous 1080p HDMI output and card recording (something most consumer cameras like the Canon 5D Mark III and Canon 7D have had for years)
• Slightly improved low light performance from ‘new’ sensor and better noise reduction engine

HDMI remains only 8bit 4:2:2 like the consumer targeted D800. Despite the unadventurous specs list, the new sensor can scale for very high quality 4K “mini-raw” stills at 8MP resolution with the 16MP sensor count perfectly aligned for doing a clean pixel mixture in the scaling process, maintaining image quality. Yet there’s no 4K video on the D4S.

D4S video quality – has it jumped the D4?

These specs tell us nothing of whether video quality is actually improved over the old model, and Nikon won’t tell us in the press release either. The original D4 had the worst 1080p resolution on the market [see more info at EOSHD here]. If the labelling of 1080p was more rigorously enforced, Nikon would not have been allowed to market it as HD at all. The D4′s full frame video output looked like poorly upscaled standard definition 480p.

For many reasons, mainly one of sycophantic interviewers, we never did find out the technical reasons behind video being as bad as it was on the Nikon D4. It was never clear whether this was a sensor issue, or an image processor limitation. There are however a number of clues that point to it being sensor related. That’s a bit of a worry because the sensor in the D4S looks more like a tweak than a re-design. The first concern is the D4S is rather bizarrely limited to just 10 minutes of record time at the highest quality setting in 1080/60p and 20 minutes in 24p, even though the bitrate is a relatively mundane 42Mbit in 1080/60p. This points to a sensor heat dissipation problem more than a file size restriction. I can only speculate what has driven this kind of limitation. My personal theory? It’s possible that shooting long video sessions compromises the ability of the camera to deliver stills at noise levels identical to when the camera is running cooly, especially when ISO is pushed to extremes (one of the main selling points of the camera). Therefore it’s possible they have taken an arbitrary decision to cripple the video mode to avoid complaints of a ‘bug’ with stills performance. It’s a decision which should rather be in the hands of the user.

The D4S has an upgraded image processor, but the previous D4 already had one which was perfectly capable of giving much better 1080p in other Nikon cameras – the consumer D5200 being one example, Nikon’s much maligned mirrorless fleet another, with bursts of 4K raw stills at 60fps, 400fps slow-mo at low resolutions and 1080/60p conformed to 24p slow-mo in camera, all on a Nikon J1! The ‘old’ Nikon D4 image processor did not lack much for video features and in the D4′s 1:1 crop mode (2.7x crop) with a clean sensor feed, encoding, compression and image quality were well up there with the competition.

One thing we do know is that on the tweaked sensor low light performance has been improved, which points to it being similar if not the same to the one in the Nikon Df, for which Nikon claimed cleaner circuitry with lower heat dissipation (generating less noise). The Df gave us no clue to any video improvements as it lacked video altogether.

I’m not alone in feeling the tweaks to video on the D4S don’t go far enough. Here’s what DPReview had to say in their hands-on preview:

“Perhaps the biggest surprise to us is how little the D4s has gained in terms of movie functions… [it] hasn’t taken any big steps towards being the modern photojournalist’s stills and movies all-rounder. This isn’t to say the D4s isn’t a credible camera for using video; just that, after years of manufacturers insisting on the importance of video as a tool for working photojournalists, we’re surprised to see so few changes or additions have been made.

“The headline change is that the D4s can now shoot 1080 video at frame rates of 60p and 50p (at bitrates of around 48Mbps), but beyond that, there’s not much that’s changed. There’s been no improvement in whatever limited the D4 to 20 minutes of video recording: the D4s hits a similar limit, with high bitrate 60p restricting the camera to just 10 minutes of footage capture.”

Missing features galore

I am still wondering where the better manual focus aids are on the D4S? Why is the internal codec once again recording in a non-pro acquisition format on a pro camera? Why are the specs for video hardly any different to a $500 consumer camera like the D3300? Why is Nikon’s live view so frumpy for video use? Why does Nikon think a practical and well built articulated screen is merely a consumer gimmick? Why no video optimised stabilisation systems? Why no 4K as on the GH4? The list goes on, and on, and on…

And most of all, if all this really does upset photographers, reduce profit margins and take emphasis away from Nikon’s core business of stills, why not put it all on a separate model – a real “HD-SLR”?

Pro alternatives

The D4S has to compete with the Canon 1D X, a camera which has seemingly out performed the D4 on the market so far, which could help explain why Nikon have been unusually swift in updating the line. Filmmakers have a host of more exciting tools to use, many of them available for much less than Nikon’s $6500 asking price for the D4S.

One gets the impression Nikon very reluctantly added a few token video improvements to the D4S, believing that video belongs on point and shoot cameras for beginners, not flagship pro cameras. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even if the D4S ends-up shooting ‘good enough’ D5300-style footage but from a full frame sensor, it still won’t stand head and shoulders above consumer DSLRs for video like it should do given the price tag and stature of the pros who want to shoot with it. When Nikon are not even beating Canon’s top of the range consumer camera for video with their double-the-price flagship pro DSLR, questions need to be asked. Canon didn’t exactly push the boat out far enough with the 5D Mark III for video users and yet it’s still got more video features than the D4S.

The Panasonic GH4 does have filmmakers and pro video firmly in mind. It is aimed at pros, though priced for consumers. My advice is crystal clear. The moment a client asks for moving images, avoid the D4S and pick up the GH4, especially if carrying a large separate system for video like the Canon C300 on an assignment which involves a lot of travelling.

That’s impractical…

And so is having consumer standard video on your $6500 pro camera.

The post Updated Nikon D4S looks set to disappoint pros for hybrid video appeared first on EOSHD.com.

Seb Farges (see his work on Vimeo) pointed out this rather interesting looking “Bellami HD-1″ on his Facebook page earlier. OK this camera may turn out to be rubbish or it may be great fun!! Who knows – nothing is released beyond the picture. The real Digital Bolex is something I’d love to get my hands on sooner or later. I’ve used the same CCD sensor before in the Ikonoskop and found colour to be completely beautiful and unique, totally different to a CMOS sensor.

Now it seems other manufacturers have taken note of the ‘Digital Bolex’ craze and we have the first ‘clone’. It has a vintage Bolex / Super 8 style form factor and is from non-other than low end consumer manufacturer Chinon of Japan. Very unexpected… but nothing else is known about it aside from this picture and that it will shoot 1080p.

Obviously this looks more like a toy than the Digital Bolex which has a global shutter, XLR jacks and its own grading software to round out quite a unique feature set for the price, but until we know the specs we don’t know if the Chinon can surprise us. The mount certainly looks like it could be a interchangeable one, possibly c-mount – and Chinon appear to have their own prime attached to it.

There’s an EVF (presumably) on the back and hopefully the camera will use a similar CCD sensor to the Digital Bolex, although in my view being a consumer model it will most probably be CMOS.

Style wise, the black casing doesn’t look like plastic and the hotshoe looks quite robust but the red trigger to record looks a bit flimsy. We’ll have to wait and see what this mystery camera brings us!

Chinon have always been a low end manufacturer right back to the SLR days. Interesting they are today part of Kodak Japan and continue as a subsidiary churning out very cheap digital cameras. So Kodak lives on… at least in Japan!

The post Mysterious Bolex-style camera appears from Japanese camera manufacturer – Bellami HD-1 appeared first on EOSHD.com.

Aimed at the broadcast market but just as well equipped for high end cinema, the VariCam 35′s secret weapon is an efficient codec developed afresh – AVC Ultra 444 – and an industry standard Super 35mm sensor with PL mount.

Panasonic were a bit early with the AF100 and it was quickly overtaken as Sony and Canon debuted their cameras on the market later. This time Panasonic have bided their time and put down a much stronger marker. It’s not an AF100 replacement, it’s far more high end and I’m expecting Panasonic to aim this squarely at the kind of work the Sony F55 and Canon C500 are used for. If the image is as good as the specs imply it will be a credible Alexa rival as well, certainly in the TV industry.

I am currently shooting with a Blackmagic Production Camera. Oh how I wish it had a PL mount and a more efficient codec like AVC Ultra. For the price it’s an absolute bargain and it’s not realistic to expect these features for £1925 + VAT, but if Blackmagic ever made a higher end version with the same Super 35mm sensor and global shutter, those two features would be absolutely top of my list of priorities. File sizes with 4K are enormous if you have a codec which records at 880Mbit/s as on the Blackmagic Production Camera just to maintain quality. The VariCam doesn’t have to do that, it can record at a more sensible 240Mbit/s and still maintain quality, in 10bit 4:4:4.

A PL mount to EF adapter severely limits what PL lenses fit but that hasn’t stopped the Canon C300 from being such a popular rental option for pros. Compared to most PL mount cameras it’s a lot cheaper and everyone has the glass. I didn’t appreciate the benefits of PL mount until relatively recently when I had the good fortune of coming across some used Cooke S4 Mini (Panchro/i) cinema lenses, and believe me once you go Cooke, you want all your other lenses to walk the plank. The PL mount on the VariCam is a statement of intent. It’s a high end product, likely with the price to match unfortunately.

The VariCam is made of a camera head and a processing / recording unit. These can be as integrated as if using one piece, or they can be separated and linked together via a cable so you can position the recording unit anywhere on your rig. Unfortunately the recording media is Panasonic’s proprietary P2 and no other option is available. This media is widely admired in the broadcast industry for performance and reliability but it’s yet another sign of the very high positioning of this model and likely expense of using one.

The form factor is really small, especially when you consider the camera head is only half the overall unit size.

Picture from FDTimes

In terms of brute imaging power we have 4K AVC Ultra, 4K raw (likely output via 6G-SDI), 120fps slow-mo, 14+ stops dynamic range (according to Panasonic) and Super 35mm size sensor. Panasonic dub this a ‘MOS’ sensor rather than CMOS and Panasonic have a track record of using NMOS technology which gives colour like a CCD chip but with the speed and low light abilities of a CMOS. So due to it being referred to as ‘MOS’ it’s highly unlikely Panasonic are simply reusing a sensor from Sony or an other manufacturer and that it’s an original newly developed part. No mention of global shutter though!

Rounding out the spec is an OLED viewfinder, another camera head with a smaller 2/3″ sensor for ENG work and for use with ENG broadcast lenses and the ability to record proxy files simultaneously for faster editing turn-arounds. The proxies will be especially useful if trying to edit 4K footage on-location with only a laptop at your disposal. News crews will love it. By comparison my first 45 minutes of footage shot on the Blackmagic Production Camera in 4K took up 256GB of drive space and the Canon 1D C isn’t much better.

I really think this is a camera that will make Canon and Sony sit up and take notice. I like the direction Panasonic are taking lately. First with reversing their losses, then with the pro-orientated GH4 and now with the impressive VariCam spec. However I’ll be reserving judgement until we see what Canon and Sony have up their sleeves for 2014 and NAB. Panasonic are once again in the unenviable position of being the first to lay their cards on the table.

The post Panasonic VariCam 35 – 4K and 14+ stops dynamic range appeared first on EOSHD.com.

Last year Sony showed a prototype hybrid stills / 4K video DSLR along with a modular-looking 4K cinema camera. Now a few more clues have come around.

SonyAlphaRumors reports are saying the 4K DSLR will have an interchangeable lens mount for E-mount, A-mount and PL-mount. And yesterday US cinema gear rental / sales shop AbelCine teased the shot above, which may or may not be related – only confirming it’s from Sony.

So what exactly do Sony have coming?

Let’s throw one of my wilder pet theories out there…

The biggest threat to photographic cameras and DSLRs is not smart-phones, but 4K video. I prefer to pull my stills from 4K video because in photography timing matters, even down to a split second. The best sensor in the world right now according to DXOMark is the Red Dragon 6K CMOS made by TowerJazz who recently announced a joint venture with Panasonic and purchased some of Panasonic’s fabs in Japan. The GH4 sees the fusion of stills and video really ramp up a notch. High end cinema sensors like the Dragon have caught up with photographic ones and indeed film itself. I have printed professional A1 sized stills from 4K video on the Blackmagic Production Camera (read my extensive review here) and the results were indistinguishable from 22MP raw stills printed the same day from my 5D Mark III. Suitable for a gallery.

Of all people Sony seem to have the biggest 4K push going, putting the full weight of their sensor technology behind it and even restructuring the whole company around 3 core parts with one of them being the imaging division. In their recent imaging product releases they have broken from the past – the F5/F55 design and the A7R being cases in point. Sony seem to have younger people in top positions.

The AbelCine photo above appears to shot a fan inlet of some kind but a relatively consumer-grade plastic housing. There’s very little to give away what concept we’re seeing here though.

SonyAlphaRumors reports that the 4K Sony DSLR will have 2 axis in-body stabilisation along with the interchangeable mount we saw in the original prototype pictures. Their source describes it as ‘a F5/F55 in a DSLR body’. If that is the case performance wise this thing is going to be exciting.

The post New Sony 4K camera teased, source describes it as ‘F55 in DSLR body’ appeared first on EOSHD.com.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sample footage! You can download the full resolution 3840 x 2160 Ultra HD file from Vimeo here if you’re a ‘Plus member’.

Keep an eye open for my Production Camera review in a forthcoming issue of Mac User magazine available at all good newsagents in the UK.

I am currently shooting 4K with the Blackmagic Production Camera on loan from their British office which features a global shutter and Super 35mm sensor for $3000. For this shoot yesterday I found myself at an aeropark built in 1930′s Berlin, thanks to a suggestion from Lars Rehm of DPReview who also finds himself in Berlin for some reason! The girls are shot opposite an old wind tunnel and a giant egg shaped concrete structure which the Germans used to test the aerodynamics of fighter planes in, until the Russians came and nicked the fan. Part of the wind tunnel still has an inscription from the invading Russian forces branding the buildings “free of mines”, which cleared the way for them to take all the advanced technology back to the Soviet Union with them.

Today the aeropark is part of a university campus and parts of the Charlize Theron movie Aeon Flux were shot there. (This shoot was my own experiment and not a commercial one).

Miss Blackmagic

So how am I getting on with Miss Blackmagic? After a week of dating, we got married and now we get on pretty well. I just wish I’d married someone not just for their looks but for their personality. I miss my Japanese girlfriend, Miss Panasonic GH2. She was small and enthusiastically went everywhere with me. I enjoyed flipping her screen around and pressing my head into her viewfinder. I enjoyed putting my very very small card in her slot and she would never weigh me down with enormous files when she returned home from work every day. I had to go and mess it up and go for a 4K model, falling for the gorgeous face. Suddenly Miss GH2 fell out of favour and she was left broken hearted in the wedding dress she’d bought just days before I dumped her.

I’m not sure how long me and Miss Blackmagic are going to last to be honest. She has some very bad habits… She drinks ALL the juice in the fridge. I have run out. Her sister, the Pocket Camera went through about 6 Nikon juice cells in a day once. This one is much worse. Then there’s her weight. I have to be very delicate what I say here, but she’s a little on the heavy side especially when she is carrying around that big juice carton all day in her handbag. Before marrying Miss Blackmagic I am definitely going to go to Las Vegas and do a trial marriage to a Sony or a Panasonic, even if I might end up getting drunk and married to a JVC.

Drawbacks

Before moving onto the image let’s get the negative stuff out of the way first. The Production Camera has changed very little over the Cinema Camera in terms of the form factor. That controversial design concept, I think I get how it’s supposed to be used now. Took a while to figure out the madness but I accept it. Do I like it? Not so much for my work. I do a lot of shooting on-location and guerrilla style. This camera is more at home in the studio as the name would suggest, with a crew to handle it rigged up with a lot of stuff on a big tripod and someone to data-manage the large 4K files. The Panasonic GH4 shoots at 100Mbit/s. This is 880Mbit/s. That is 100 megabytes per second!

Raison d’être or raison d’fail?

Each design element of the Blackmagic Production Camera has a reason to exist, a primary purpose to fulfil yet neither can be used primarily for what it is! It’s bizarre. We have a big 5″ monitor. Can you use it for monitoring? Nope, too reflective even on a cloudy day, not sharp enough for manual focus in 4K and there’s no histogram to aid exposure. So we need to add an external one. The battery, can we use it on a shoot? Nope, lasts for 20 minutes and is designed to be a backup for the main one, which again we add externally. The Thunderbolt port, can we use it for speedy transfer of our 4K files off the drive? Nope! SSD won’t mount over it so you will need to use an external e-sata card reader. The audio input – what shall we use this for? Any suggestions? You there with your hand up – ‘recording sound’ you say!? Nope, external device required. Computer says no! Audio circuitry too hissy. Tell you what – if any of these parts suddenly fell off the camera one day I would not miss them. Treat the Production Camera as a sensor in a box, and good luck with it.

Image quality

Now then we’re onto something more positive. MUCH more positive. But not all positive. The Australians are of a much more sunny disposition than me. In Manchester and Berlin we like it when it rains!

The image is dazzling when you have the required light to feed it. When in the comfort zone of this camera 4K images are detailed and clean, noise free at ISO 200 and 400, fantastically smooth in terms of 10bit colour, lovely and realistic, zero distortion thanks to global shutter and a nice rendering of your Super 35mm lenses like the superb Sigma 18-35mm F1.8. You don’t have to own a 4K display to appreciate the extra resolution either. It looks spellbinding on a 27″ iMac display. It prints like a DSLR still on a huge poster at A1 size. I had some of my 4K video frames hung in a gallery next to 5D Mark III stills and nobody could tell them apart! This is great news for photographers.

The native ISO of this camera is 400. Motion picture film DPs will feel right at home with ISO 400 and 800. DSLR users will probably run a mile but they shouldn’t do. It’s a myth you can’t do good low light stuff with this camera. On the Berlin streets at night I was able to shoot at F2.0 and ISO 400 and it was fine. Very silky smooth, no noise. It’s only when you try and lift the shadows dramatically from ISO 400 to ISO 1600 where you get problems, mainly with fixed pattern noise. The solution if you desperately need to shoot ISO 1600 with this cameras is to apply lots of noise reduction in Resolve 10 and downsample to 1080p, then you can just about get away with it. 4K has plenty of detail to spare over 1080p so if some of it is smudged away you will not notice for delivering HD content. If you look at the 4K image up close though, it is quite noisy even at ISO 800, but ISO 400 is silky and smooth. The lack of higher sensitivities do affect how high a shutter speed you can use in dark conditions and how much you can stop down for manageable focus.

Meanwhile in good light during the day you will need those NDs because the shutter doesn’t go higher than 45 degrees which is around 1/240 max in 30p mode. I often don’t mind the look of high shutter speeds actually, so it would have been nice to have up to 1/4000 for emergencies or when you don’t want to lug a matte box around. Vari-NDs I am not a huge fan of at the moment because they soften the image, knock colour accuracy off and change reflective surfaces due to the polarising effect (particularly noticeable with cars, rivers, etc.) leading to inconsistencies from shot to shot. A word of warning – don’t be tempted to shoot at ISO 800 with NDs like on the BMCC, it will be noisy due to underexposing and the camera applying a lift for the ISO 800.

The image is not entirely free of moire and aliasing. I don’t think the camera has a filter. That’s a big shame in my view. With the new 4K sensor you don’t see it as regularly as on the Blackmagic Cinema Camera nor is it anywhere near as bad as on many DSLRs, but it’s there! Very fine fabrics especially.

Dynamic range is not THAT far off the Blackmagic Cinema Camera so it’s a cinematic image, but at least until the raw firmware update comes out you will really need to get your exposure absolutely spot on with the Production Camera. Highlights can be prone to a steep roll off like the Sony FS100 and burn suddenly.

Above: Click to enlarge for 4K JPEG

As for global shutter. LOVE IT. For 3 years I have been speculating when this technology would arrive with affordable cinema cameras and now we have it for just $3k. As far back as 2010 there have been full frame 5K sensors with global shutter as seen here on EOSHD and 2 years ago Panasonic told me it would take around 2-3 years to commercialise one for mirrorless cameras. Yet it’s Blackmagic who have given us it first. Very commendable.

Funny story – 6 months before the Production Camera was announced at NAB 2013 I featured a global shutter sensor on EOSHD designed by CMOSIS, that Blackmagic ended up using. This was the genesis of the Production Camera. Since NAB 2013 it’s been a race against time to get the Production Camera released and I have to say even though it has taken nearly 12 months they have worked a small miracle.

In case you don’t know about it yet, global shutter is a CMOS sensor technology that allows the sensor to expose every pixel simultaneously like a CCD sensor, rather than exposing line by line in quick succession (rolling shutter). The upside of a global shutter is that the motion characteristics of the sensor matches film, so there’s no distortion with fast moving subjects or banding with very quick flashes of light in the shot. The downside is that the masses of wiring and circuitry needed for global shutter takes up a lot of space on the sensor, so the chip isn’t as sensitive to light as one with a standard rolling shutter. This is why even top spec cinema cameras like the Red Dragon and Alexa have so far preferred to go with a very fast rolling shutter. Incidentally the Dragon sensor is made by TowerJazz, who recently joined a venture with Panasonic so I am sure we’ll be seeing some advances in Panasonic sensors considering TowerJazz currently lead DXOMark ahead of Sony with the Dragon sensor. Indeed the main rival for the Production Camera is going to be the 4K shooting Panasonic GH4 come April.

Overall I feel 4K is a wise move and it is going to work long term. I am convinced. It is like the merging of stills photography and video personified. I can pull beautiful stills from the 4K Production Camera ProRes that look wonderful. 4K is a worthy substitute for film be it motion picture or photographic and it will be with us for a long time to come. We just need those lighter codecs and H.265 will come in very handy in reducing file sizes while maintaining quality especially for delivery. To give you some perspective before I go into the details, though only 1080p a broadcast ready codec like the one on the Canon C300 clocks in at just 50Mbit/s and pros seem perfectly happy grading that; the GH4 shoots 4K at 100Mbit/s; the Canon 1D C with it’s very inefficient 4K MJPEG codec has a massive bitrate of 550Mbit/s; the Production Camera weighs in at 880Mbit/s in 4K mode so we really need a lower bitrate ProRes LT option in the camera with a firmware update. Currently I get just 45 minutes of footage per 256GB SSD in 4K mode. You wouldn’t believe how much this adds over the year, until you have no option but to do the unthinkable and make compressed copies and delete the masters. Because let’s face it – who with $3000 to spend on a camera has $20,000 per year to invest in storage?

Shooting with the Blackmagic Production Camera

Click here to view the embedded video.

Above: Location scouting with the Production Camera in Berlin (BTS shot by Volker on the 5D Mark II with Magic Lantern Raw Video)

For my Aerogirls shoot I equipped the Production Camera with the Sigma 18-35mm F1.8 and Canon 100mm F2.8L. The stabiliser on this lens and the Canon 35mm F2.0 IS work really well on the Production Camera. Not as good as 5 axis on the Olympus OM-D E-M1 but they have ultrasonic stabilisation motors that don’t just account for larger movements but can damp down tiny very fast vibration extremely effectively, better than the E-M1 can. The Sigma 18-35mm F1.8 of course is a must-have lens for APS-C and Super 35mm sized sensors and although the sensor in the Production Camera is about 2mm shy of Super 35mm, that’s not enough to lose the wide end of the Sigma, nor is it enough to turn the Tokina 11-16mm F2.8 into anything less than an ultra wide zoom.

I have put my Switronix PB70 BMCC battery pack ON TOP of the camera because the quick release plate on it is way to wobbly to be used between the base of the camera and the tripod. Speaking of tripods you will need quite a chunky one because the BMPC is a lot heavier than a DSLR especially when rigged up with an external monitor and battery.

I shot in Video mode not Film as I enjoyed the Video results and you can still apply Film Convert to these. The Film mode just brings up all the fixed pattern noise, so you have to crush the blacks afterwards anyway. Shooting Video they are already crushed down and you get a nice punchy look straight off the card, which I am fine with because it’s still cinematic and shooting in Film mode didn’t seem to really gain me much in the way of extra image quality or dynamic range, as I say mainly because of the shadows. Shooting Film mode just encourages you to preserve the highlights and underexpose your image, then lift the image in post and you can’t really do that with the Production Camera because of the fixed pattern noise and inability to go much past ISO 400. Light for ISO 200 for best results and give the camera plenty of light, but make sure your shots can tolerate a few burnt highlights along the way.

In use the Blackmagic Production Camera is a bit like using a DSLR but without the stills features, or any features at all really. It is just a case of composing your shots. Very rarely do you change anything that isn’t lens related. This is not the camera to go for if you want a wide range of custom menus or physical controls!

Blackmagic Production Camera page at Blackmagic (specs)

Conclusion

Blackmagic’s camera strategy is interesting. In starting out they seem to have a strategy of finding a sensor from suppliers to the science industry and putting their codec and software expertise to work with it. If you’re listening again Blackmagic here’s another global shutter sensor, this time full frame and 5K at 50fps which I found back in 2010 so I fully expect the team to turn up at NAB 2014 with nothing less, OK!?

Joking aside what I really want next from Blackmagic is a fully featured camera rather than a sensor in a box, even if they have to raise prices a bit.

My advice to Blackmagic is to put a filmmaker in your camera design office. I’m a bit disappointed with the job they have done so far on usability. In its current state the Blackmagic Production Camera is not really a camera at all. It’s an Archos media player of some kind which just so happens to have a very nice Super 35mm global shutter sensor tucked away inside with 4K and 12 stops DR!

Overall, if you have a clear understanding of the drawbacks, you should seriously consider blessing your work with an image as good as this.

Thank you Blackmagic for giving us such an interesting piece of kit.

Pros

• 4K for $3K and then some
• Global shutter eliminates distortion from rolling shutter
• Super 35mm sensor
• 10bit 4:2:2 codec, though heavy duty
• Beautiful image quality in good light
• Records to affordable third party SSD media you can buy pretty much anywhere
• Minimal moire and aliasing though some still remains
• 6G HD SDI output good for professional monitoring
• Active EF mount allows use of a wide range of DSLR lenses

Cons

• Quality control issues remain
• Poor design choices and ergonomics
• Aperture control of active EF lenses done with media playback keys, no dials
• Aperture set automatically when camera boots, overriding user preference
• Canon EF mount reduces compatibility with PL mount cinema lenses
• Low native ISO (400) and fixed pattern noise in shadows when lifted to ISO 800 or 1600
• Monstrous file sizes and no ProRes LT or lower bitrates than 880Mbit/s in 4K mode!
• Very poor screen visibility in daylight
• Cannot angle the screen for better visibility
• Resolution of the screen not much good for accurate focus in 4K even with peaking
• Touch screen sometimes unresponsive
• Major features missing such as raw recording at time of shipping
• Very poor audio quality
• No on-screen audio meters
• No HDMI output limits compatibility with external monitors
• Out-featured significantly in terms of firmware related aspects by the competition
• Thunderbolt port of limited use (cannot mount SSD to transfer clips to hard drive)
• Less dynamic range than Pocket Cinema Camera
• Harsh look to highlights (like FS100) and steep roll off
• Black holes and magenta in bright highlight areas
• Panasonic GH4 is more ‘ready to shoot’ and $1000 cheaper, with smaller file sizes
• Heavy for location based work or single-operator shoots, especially when rigged with necessary parts (battery, monitor, etc.)
• When called up on to boil water, lacks spout

The post 4K is here! Blackmagic Production Camera Review appeared first on EOSHD.com.

I decided to get my hands on a Nikon D4S at a local store in Berlin, to see if the much hyped ‘new image processor’ gives a real improvement in video quality. Nikon have made a lot of marketing noises about this ‘HD-SLR’ and video. It’s a camera which according to their management “started out as a small update but became much bigger”. Hmm.

This isn’t a comprehensive review of the D4S, rather it seeks to answer one simple question that Nikon themselves so far have been dodging. Has video got better on it?

Another way of putting this question is does the Nikon D4S match or exceed the video quality of their own $750 consumer camera the D5300? You’d expect a nice leap in quality for the price of $6000 / 6150 euros. The consumer D5300 has full HD which is relatively free of moire and aliasing, if a little soft and not earth shatteringly different from what we already had for a good few years with the GH2 for under $1000. In the case of the D4S and there is no more expensive Nikon DSLR than this. It’s the ultimate in Nikon technology…

Unfortunately the previous D4 was one of the worst DSLRs for video, in full frame it had a lower resolving power than the Nikon J1 video mode at $350, with some nasty moire and aliasing. Because the Nikon D4 was $6000 not $300 this really angered me. Yes it is a professional stills camera first and foremost but it shows Nikon aren’t taking video seriously, as if they think it isn’t artistic or professional. It is like the DSLR video / Hollywood thing never happened for Nikon. Did their top brass even get the memo about their own DSLRs (D800 for example) being used on film and TV sets? Nikon, talk to George Lucas and Rick McCallum. Also have a chat to Francis Ford Coppola. But before that go for a chat with your own damn customers. Basic client requests in 2014 like video and stills on the same job are not met by the D4S adequately. Pros should steer well clear of the Nikon D4S if video is part of their services and get a proper hybrid camera.

The supposably ‘full HD’ mode is nothing of the sort, it’s misleadingly labeled and marketed as high definition / 1080p. Detail is still mushy. Moire and aliasing still abundant. Plastic skin tones, poor colour, jagged edges to bright reds, greens and blues. There’s all sorts of weird stuff going on in the image for your $6000. For this you can wait a month and buy three GH4 bodies!

It has a single good feature – the same crop mode as on the D4, which is crisp and usable but very much noisier and if I wanted to shoot video with a 2.7x crop I wouldn’t invest $6000 in full frame camera for that! This mode was on the old camera anyway, so what exactly does the D4S do new aside from worse 1080/60p than their D5300 consumer DSLR at vast expense?

If you’re a professional photographer needing to provide the same standard of video as stills, sadly Nikon doesn’t seem to have the solution you need after all these years!

Here are some 1:1 crops from the 1080p showing some of the issues…

The post Nikon D4S video quality not suitable for pro use appeared first on EOSHD.com.