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XL2 or XL-H1


George Ebersole

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Because of a lack of red data?

Bit depth and lack of Cr (chroma/red) data.

 

Basically what it does is limit the dynamic range of the imager AND color reproduction.

 

Is this a big deal for youtube movies? No... but it's a big deal if you go outside and shoot random stuff that needs to look good. If you don't have the ability to fix issues in post, the camera is worthless in my eyes.

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The soft focus 'mush' from the 5D Mk2 was not a result of the codec. It was because of the line skipping and pixel binning in scaling down from a 5.6k sensor to a 1920x1080 image using the limited electronics on-board.

Well, the C300 has the same mush.

 

So does every 8 bit 4:2:0 camera I've ever colored.

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I'd actually recommend against shooting anything you want to look professional in a 4:2:0 codec. The bit depth is less important to me, but the mushy colors that you get from such a compression is not really appropriate for professional environments. Even with a GH4, you need an external recorder to shoot anything professionally. Even more so if you're going out to a cinema, less important if your staying in a 4:2:0 8-bit environment.

 

But like Tyler said, the advantage of less compression, more color and more bit-depth is not so much for distribution (even though it helps), but rather for effective grading and keying in post.

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Well, the C300 has the same mush.

 

So does every 8 bit 4:2:0 camera I've ever colored.

 

The C300 has the option of 4:2:2, the C100 and the C300 have the same sensor, although both are 8bit. The C100 outputs 4:2:2 through the HDMI port. The C300 mark II has a range of recording options on to either CFast 2.0 or SD Card.

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All of these frames are straight out of the C100, no grading. Just a camera, one 50mm f1.4 Pentax lens, and ND filters. And lighting, of course. Crew of two, just me and a sound person. This is how I prefer to shoot with the camera, just straight up WYSIWYG. I've scaled these down by 50% and compressed them to jpeg for the web so they would fit on this site. If you'd like to see full res, let me know. Hope this puts any FUD about the camera to rest.

 

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Thanks Robin.

 

The key was usually a 2K open face Mighty Mole through a homemade bleached muslin rollout frame. Basically a 2x4 with muslin stapled to the top and held up with 2x c-stands and 2x Cardellinis. On the warm frame, I used a 2K Variac to simulate the rising sun. There may also have been a CTO or straw gel on the light. I tried to play it sidey and even sometimes slightly behind the actor to create a window light effect. I was trying to emulate John Toll's work on 'Braveheart' since we were doing readings from 'Romeo and Juliet', similar time period.

 

3/4 kicker was a 4x4 Kino through a 4x4 frame of Full Grid or Half Soft Frost, or a Dedolight if I wanted something hard. I frequently had 1/4 or 1/2 CTB in the Dedo. The background light is a Dedo placed behind the actor.

 

A third Dedo was used for an old fashioned eyelight, mostly used with a DP-2 projector with shutters and soft filters.

 

There was also often a beadboard right under the lens with a 420w Pepper fresnel pounding into it. Or onto bleached muslin taped to the floor at the actor's feet.

 

Basically, I changed the lighting for every setup based on the mood of the scene. So the director would say, 'crypt scene' and I would have 5-10 minutes to reposition everything and come up with something new. It was a fun job since there was no time to think, so it was like playing jazz. It helped that I knew the play. Not gonna lie, by day three I was pretty much out of ideas. I didn't post some of the really outlandish ones I came up with.

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I agree, I love that lighting. You said just ND filters, so no post softening or anything? The images look very 'filmic' in nature, almost like they have that 'film softness' to them. Hard to explain other than that.

The Pentax SMC 50mm f1.4 lens gets quite misty when shot wide open, so I used that as my diffusion. I was always at f1.4 for Juliet. Otherwise I was around f2/2.8 mostly where the lens starts to sharpen up. I also used a SMC 35mm f2, but pretty much only for the two shots. I did one shot at f5.6 because the actress kept weaving back and forth in and out of focus.

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Hope this puts any FUD about the camera to rest.

Shots look great, as I suspected, perfectly lit. :)

 

Toss me a short clip from the camera via drop box.

 

I'll gladly take a few minutes to record a video of the problem when in DaVinci.

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I spent all of 3 minutes doing a quick grade on the compressed stills posted above within Resolve. Even exported at 8-bit 4:2:0 MP4 and uploaded to YouTube, the images still hold up well. Of course this does not introduce motion issues, but since I don't have the actual camera clip that is not possible. It does also not take into account the higher quality one would get with the MP4 originals over a compressed JPEG.

 

Hope you don't mind me playing with your still images, Satsuki.

 

https://youtu.be/Ydv-dLDEmCY

 

BTW, these were all very 'extreme' grades. Basically I threw as much as I could reasonably throw at each still frame just to test the codec as provided. Last image had some film applied via Film Convert. If the still JPEG's hold up this well, I'm sure the originals would far a little better.

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Someone's telling me that a Ninja can make a C100 do 4:2:2. I'm guessing a Ninja is several hundred as an addon, and works differently from a Shogun, which gather more light, not necessarily color.

 

The Ninja combined with the C100 will get you 4:2:2 color that will be recorded in (I think) ProRes, so you'll get not only better color, but also better compression and codec. The Ninja will also record 10-bit, if the camera can output that. Not sure if the C100 can output 10 bit over HDMI.

 

The main advantage to a Shogun is 4k acquisition, as well as the addition of a nice 7" IPS screen and XLR audio inputs. It also has many other 'pro' features the original Ninja does not. A much cheaper version of the Shogun is the Ninja Assassin, which also does 4K on the 7" IPS screen, but lacks the pro inputs like XLR and SDI. The Shogun is still going for $1,700, while the Assasin is going for $900. You can get a Ninja recorder for roughly $300 that will do all you need from the C100. Their really is no advantage (unless you need the 7" screen) to anything more for the C100.

 

Be warned though: Atomos has stop production of the Assassin and the Shogun, replacing them with the Flame and Inferno. You can only get the previous two while stocks last. The Ninja should still be available I think.

 

Honestly I'm thinking of retiring my Shogun to the color correction suite permanently, and getting the Ninja Flame. I like the HDR setting for my VLOG, and it also records C4K, which the Shogun does not. The Flame is roughly $300 more than the Assassin, so if you're going that route I'd suggest the Flame instead of the Shogun.

 

The Ninja and Ninja star are nice as low cost solutions, though for professional work I'd recommend a Flame or Assassin as a starting point. Those monitors provide so much help on set that it's almost sick...

Edited by Landon D. Parks
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ASA = ISO

F stop = T stop

 

It's all the same stuff.

 

Well, this is the thing that gets me. When I started shooting stills as a kid, we always talked ASA and F-stops. Then when I started gripping and doing some AC I heard T-stop talked about a lot, and there seemed to be a difference in the numbers, but they did essentially the same thing ... and it pissed me off because no one would tell me why there was a difference at all. I later learned that it had to do with the number of blades in the iris, and it made me wonder why the designs were so different in the first place.

 

Just reminiscing here.

 

I'm still somewhat in shock in that F stops are used for digital. But, whatever. I can deal with it. I guess if you're shooting stuff that emulates film, then you're going to keep using film jargon. Interesting.

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F-stop is a mechanical measurement for a lens. Unless you’re talking one of those new Lytro cameras, you will always have f-stop be part of your vocabulary.

 

Satsuki, those look great! I agree on WYSIWYG. For doc work when I have the C100 MkII I’ll usually use Wide DR and try and keep the skin tones right in the middle of the waveform, or just below, shooting native [850] ISO as much as I can. The image is remarkably clean.

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Hi George,

 

T-stops are just f-stops that are adjusted for light loss on a particular lens. They are only found on cinema lenses. The 'T' stands for transmission, as in the amount of light actually transmitted through the lens.

 

For example, if you shoot with still photo lenses, meter for f/2.8, and set f/2.8 on the lens, the image will be slightly darker than expected because of the light lost through the lens. It's usually on the order of 0.1-0.3 stops for prime lenses and around 0.5-0.7 stops for old zooms. On the other hand, when you calculate the depth of field from a table it will be accurate.

 

If you did the same thing with cine lenses, you would get exactly the same amount of light on the film every time as long as all the lenses were set to the same T stop. But the depth of field will be slightly less because T2.8 might actually be f/2.5 or f/2.2.

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