Anatole Sloan

Tom - It seems to me that there are a few issues which you haven't considered. First, given that a colour grading process includes contrast adjustment, often by means of a Log C to rec709 output LUT, the contrast in the original log footage isn't really important. ISO 200 is higher contrast if your final delivery is in log (heaven forbid), but it is perhaps lower contrast after a transform / LUT. What perhaps matter more is the fact that there may be fewer tonal gradations assigned to shadows than to highlights due to this log curve, and thus under exposing can create muddy images. This leads me to the second point. This should be pretty evident anyhow when monitoring with a LUT. Additionally, we have a 12-bit codec which has far more tonal gradations than an 8-bit or 10-bit codec, so the issue is less important with the Alexa. The bias towards highlight gradations is something we have in our own vision as well; it's preferable from that perspective. Third, the key situation where this analysis makes a differences is where you have a low key scene where you are exposing just the bottom half of the waveform. I have to say, personally I would tend to overexpose in such situations anyhow, to get a better spread across the waveform. I think a lot of cinematographers do that. This is in effect doing exactly as you're suggesting - rating the camera at 200 or 400, without touching the menu EI settings. So in effect, DPs already do what you're suggesting - you're just presenting that same, relatively intuitive process in complex lingo.

I'm afraid I haven't had personal experience with either the Redrock or the Letus, but you should almost certainly be able to zoom, if you have a zoom lens (such as a Nikon) attached to the end. You will require a lens, as all that is happening, effectively, is that it is viewing through the 35mm lens and focusing the image onto a ground glass. You can attach the adaptor to your XL lens, or the LetusXL allows you to attach the ground glass system straight to the body. This is basically what happens, and while the details may a bit wrong, its enough to get by. Have a look at some videos of DIY "35mm dof adaptors" so that you get an idea of what they are.

Hi, I posted earlier on - not sure whether you read it. This adapter will not give you the DOF that you are looking for. At the same aperture and focal length, it will give the same DOF as your current lens, and any XL lens. With the Redrock and Letus, a 50mm lens will perform like a 50mm lens in s35 (or, depending on the crop factor, maybe around a 70mm). For the XL1, a 50mm lens with that adapter that you have above will be equivalent to a 250mm lens, as you have a crop factor of around 5x. My maths here may be a little bit off, but essentially, only the Letus and Redrock provide what you're looking for. To achieve a 50mm field of view with the nikon or arri PL adapter, you would need a 10mm lens. a. This does not exist and, b. you will still have huge dof. Anatole

I don't think this is the case. Redrock and Letus have groundglass in them - which results in the light loss - that allows you to shoot at virtually the same focal length for s35. This allows you to achieve the DOF of s35 film, where as the other provides a crop of the lens (i.e. same dof)

Canon's actions are, however, clearly understandable. While they have the advantage (if you would call it that) of not being in the 'professional' video market, and therefore not having a such market to cannibalise, creating a 5D Mark II capable of full video would damage their prosumer camcorder market. Canon is acting for its own benefit as a company: -They may be waiting to include this in the 1D(s) series -or, they might introduce a prosumer camcorder capable of extremely good video, using technology similar to the 5D II, but better implemented; this could potentially steal a lot of the video market for Canon; however, this would also mean video will be not be fully fledged for a long time in the Canon's DSLRs, unless it is a response to Nikon. Either way, the video market looks good in the future; especially with Scarlet, other companies may be forced to be more competitive. I do not doubt that Red has the potential to steal a lot of market-share from the camera giants, but these larger companies will react; they have the advantage of economies of scale - they are much larger than Red, and can do much more.

I got this off http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?p=289323 The site is controversial, I know, but this is of particular interest (regarding whether you can pull uncompressed HD off the HDMI port) "I've already seen this demonstrated with the 5D mark 2. That will at least give you 4:2:2 8-bit uncompressed, a little better than 4:2:0 AVC." I guess I was wrong.

We can dream... I'm afraid that Canon may have too much to lose if they produce a killer video product in the form of a still camera - sales of their video cameras will fall, perhaps quite dramatically. Much of what they're doing is just to one-up the D90 (resolution, skew, mic input, ability to take photos at the same time as recording). Pulling the feed off the HDMI port as you describe would mean that people would have little reason to get a Canon HD camera instead, other than for the ergonomics and better controls (people will figure out some form of rifle holder, almost certainly, and audio is better recorded off camera anyway). It does have an HDMI port, but they'll probably cripple that particular function.

The 1080p comes from the entire frame, and is down-sampled to the hd signal; however, some are saying that the image doesn't look hugely sharp. Once it starts shipping, we'll have a better idea. Concerning AF, it doesn't use the same AF as when taking photos - the mirror needs to be in place for this. Instead it uses contrast detection, and while it is better than nothing, it's quite slow. Rolling shutter is meant to be a near non-issue, and otherwise the only major bug is 30p, as opposed to 24p. I personally wouldn't care that much, but some do have gripes about it... if the reaction against this is big enough, I'm sure Canon will release a firmware update to allow 24p.

I'm afraid I don't know a huge amount about compression, but will it still be the case at 40mbit/s? It's a very high bitrate (the bitrate used in bluray discs), and therefore shouldn't have much compression at all. I think that generally, h.264 codecs use a lower bitrate than their mpeg2 counterparts. For example, the Canon HG10, although a consumer camcorder, records 1080p with h.264 at 15mbit/s, yet maintains a very high level of detail, although less than the HV20. Concerning noise, it's very likely that this is a feature of the Digic IV processor itself; the original sensor is 21.1mp, and can go up to ISO 25,600; when scaled down to 2.1mp (HD 1080p), a photo at around ISO 3200 would seam to have very little noise, considering that it is combining over 8 pixels to form a single pixel. Furthermore, this should create a very sharp image. Regards, Anatole

Sorry if this has been posted elsewhere, but I only saw something about the D90; the 5D Mark II has come out, also with a video mode; but with a few major differences to the D90: -1080p -h.264 encoding, around 40mbit/s -Supposedly, barely any rolling shutter artefacts (D90 has a big problem with this) -Audio input (admittedly not XLR, but better than nothing) -Contrast Detection AF Seems quite interesting; the people that have played around with it have been very impressed (some affiliated with Canon, others not), and the footage is meant to be near noiseless, even at ISO3200. What is most impressive is the compression - it should be better quality than the 25mbit/s Mpeg2 HDV codec.

Something like iTunes will help a lot here; I'm sure it's not only about the cost, but the ease. To rent a dvd, you have to go out and get it, etc. With music piracy for instance, there is far less now, just because it is so easy to get it off iTunes; but, film studios don't want to start depending on Apple like they do with music - ultimately, it would help them, but they don't quite see that... Anatole

Probably the most interesting reason for having video in DSLRs is for photojournalists; Guardian photographers are required to take around camcorders, as video is worth much more than photos. Through the added convenience of having all in one package, as well as better quality video (when compared with what they use at the moment), we might get some interesting stuff on the news. On the other hand, that group is entirely unrelated to the filmmaking industry...

It is cinematography.com Surely allowing a few basic filmmaking tools to the greater public can only be beneficial to the industry? I know very very many people who can't really afford that $5000 camera, let only the processing and the costs of telecine, etc.; but I do know many people who can afford a $1000 camera, and who already have a computer on which to process some footage on. Many people don't become interested in something by being plunged straight into it, like working on a film set, in this case. Any new product can only be beneficial.

The compression is MJPEG, for those that wish to know. It should be of moderate quality, at least, not like the compression in p&s cameras.

I think it's potentially rather interesting; although the D90 will obviously have very compressed video in comparison with prosumer camcorders, it will undoubtedly be used in things such as cheap music videos, etc., because of its low-light ability, DOF and multiple lens options - it is the same price of an HV20, but with Canon, you have to have a Redrock adaptor to get the DOF effect. Considering that Nikon doesn't have any camcorders it makes that sales will cannibalise (unlike Canon), it will likely realise the market potential for a better quality version - I'm thinking D3 quality, 1080p, low compression in video. Nikon's probably testing the market with this, and there will be more interesting things in the future. Nikon's recently very aggressive commercial stance, for example the quick release of the D700 for half the price of the D3, but the same quality, suggests that it may be very quick to enter into this market. Videos released so far seem very impressive from the D90, although none have been released at full 720p rez. Anatole