Arri's New Camera

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ahalpert said:
Hopefully Elon Musk will finish developing his Neuralink soon and we can finally control cameras by telepathy as God intended
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I'm not even sure that would work, depending on WHAT you are adjusting. Telepathy kind of implies that you are actually thinking about something consciously. A lot of adjustments are reflex and done "unconsciously". You twitch your finger to do it faster than you can form the thought. It's the same reason(well one of the reasons) I don't think voice control, which has come up before, would work well, either.
 
John Brawley said:
No.

Deliberately pointing out the very words that come across as condescending if one doesn't support your view.

You're not getting it. I too retire from this OT diversion.

JB
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I am clearly anti relying on touch screen. I do not believe I am anti Black Magic. And I do not believe I disregarded the advantages of touch screen when appropriate. But I am emphatically against the idea that touch screen is superior full stop. horses for courses. Too few conversations surrounding touch screen on line regard the advantages of physical controls for operators. I was counter pointing that.


If you flat out disagree with my comments in a sort of generic way, then I do not believe you are truly speaking with a professional opinion.
 
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@NorBro: Yeah, extra camera dials and controls on the 17-120 would be welcome. The 18-80 has an autofocus button but I’ve never gotten it to work. Zacuto also had a third party handle for the 18-80 which had even more buttons and a joystick to control the camera which would have been awesome, but unfortunately it never came to market. As is, you still have to relocate the C-series handle in addition to the 18-80 handle, and the C-series handle then needs to be mounted backwards on the left side. Not ideal.

I really hate forced White balance presets, most often preferring an easily accessible dial or joystick which can easily scroll through the WB in 100 increments. Canon has always done well with easily allowing scrolled changes to WB, going back as far as my first camera, the XH-A1s, which was one of the main reasons I chose it over a Sony (I don’t want to bring out a flipping white card for every WB change). Sony has failed miserably in this regard for many years but I haven’t used as much of their latest generation so I don’t know if they still do. And Arri, they’re a failure here too, as they go off of four presets and you have to go into the menu anytime you want something aside from the four presets. Even worse, you can’t simply go into the menu and dial through, you have to create a new preset but there are a limited amount of presets so very often that means I’m now taking even more time to delete presets which is a process in itself and overall it’s one of the messier interfaces of Arri. It’s not a huge deal because four presets will get your through a lot, but it is a little big deal.

So, I wish instead of a preset dial they had a dial wheel like the C-series have.

It still bugs me to death that on the C300 I & II you can’t press in the joystick to select WB, Shutter, Aputure, which you could do on the C100 and C200. I’ve been told they fixed this for the C500 Mark II so presumably the C300 Mark III will be good here as well.


I once rented a Ford SUV for a cross country trip and found it was dangerous to operate the touch screen only radio controls while driving and hated it (because I don’t like crashing, but I do like music). With touch screen, you can’t blindly feel where the buttons are like you can with physical buttons, and when I’m driving, I want my eyes on the road, and when I’m camera operating, my eye is on the screen or in the viewfinder, so I want to be able to set every button blindly. I haven’t been in an aircraft cockpit in a while, but I imagine they’re mostly still physical buttons as well, and a ton of them in commercial aircraft.

So when it came time for me to buy a new SUV, radio controls were actually my number one priority when shopping (which the car salesmen were not used to), as I needed easily accessible physical buttons that did not distract me from driving. I went with the Mazda CX-5 and have been very happy with how it’s setup.
 
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Run&Gun said:
I'm not even sure that would work, depending on WHAT you are adjusting. Telepathy kind of implies that you are actually thinking about something consciously. A lot of adjustments are reflex and done "unconsciously". You twitch your finger to do it faster than you can form the thought. It's the same reason(well one of the reasons) I don't think voice control, which has come up before, would work well, either.
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did you get my DM?
 
I wasn’t making a Rodney King reference. Just asking that we keep this place a positive community for worthwhile and respectful discourse.
 
morgan_moore said:
My take on a UI is if you can’t use it when shooting in Kiruna it’s a fail.

It’s often -25 in Kiruna. Sane people usually have thick gloves.
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I think it's a mistake to write off a cheap camera because it can't deal with corner cases and exceptional circumstances. If it can deal with average use and normal situations, then great. In any case, it looks to me like the P6K has iris, ISO, shutter angle and white balance buttons on the body, plus a scroll wheel.
 
Run&Gun said:
I'm not even sure that would work, depending on WHAT you are adjusting. Telepathy kind of implies that you are actually thinking about something consciously. A lot of adjustments are reflex and done "unconsciously". You twitch your finger to do it faster than you can form the thought. It's the same reason(well one of the reasons) I don't think voice control, which has come up before, would work well, either.
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As far as I know, neurological control devices enable the user to move a cursor on a screen (for example) in much the same way you move your finger. You don't verbalize a command in your interior monologue. You just move the finger. Learning to use a neurological interface would be like how babies learn to grasp or make facial expressions. So, in practice, changing camera settings would be like having a finger on every button of the camera simultaneously and pushing the right one instantly just by wiggling that phantom limb.

But if it ever comes to pass, I hope I'm dead by then. I don't want to end up looking like Lobot:
SWE_Lobot.jpg
 
Hmm, lot's of water under the bridge since I last visited this thread.

Now that I've had the privilege of reading the last 4-5 pages in rapid succession, I don't even think there is much disagreement at all. More likely some steam that had gotten trapped and needed to get out.

I am very pro of using the term "in my opinion.." or "according to me..." in forum discussions. As long as we do that, no one can hold anything against us, really. People can still be a-holes but there is much greater tolerance for that than trying to redefine what the world is.

I don't believe there is anyone here who thinks James isn't correct in his core argument: buttons and dials are better for operating core camera functions. We could demonstrably prove this pretty easily too.

On the other hand, we can't realistically expect all functions of a camera to have a dedicated button, so who wouldn't appreciate a clean software interface and a legible screen?

When it comes to the P6K, I shoot with a loupe, so I can't access the screen while shooting. The camera still works for me, which should say something. My right index finger has access to the following functions without changing my grip around the camera. Button to select function and then dial to set value:

  • ISO
  • Shutter Speed (I don't use angle personally)
  • White Balance

A bit further up, my index finger can toggle three functions via dedicated buttons that can be customised in the menu:

  • False colors
  • Peaking
  • LUT on/off

OK, so far I'm still in this mode:

P6K_LinneaPort.jpeg


Still in this mode, my thumb can control:

  • One push auto exposure (I never use this)
  • One push Auto Focus
  • HFR toggle. Depending on what format I'm in, I get different speeds here. Typically I end up with 50fps in 6K or 100fps in 2.7K
  • 2x punch in toggle. Helpful for fine tuning manual focus.
  • Playback button to review what I've shot.

To me, this covers most bases for normal shooting. Note that there is no way to control audio via buttons here. No cables, no dangling monitors... not even my grip to house the Samsung T5 in this case.

There are enough shooters in the world who like this kind of setup to warrant this camera's existence. No one needs to tell us how poorly this camera would work in their setup, just as we won't insist that the P6K is the perfect shoulder camera candidate — "you just need to visualise a few rig pieces".

EDIT: Since the photographer behind the camera always gets too little recognition anyway here's the appropriate credit for the hard working professional behind the picture above:

LinneaExplorer_4096.jpeg
 
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ahalpert said:
I think it's a mistake to write off a cheap camera because it can't deal with corner cases and exceptional circumstances. If it can deal with average use and normal situations, then great. In any case, it looks to me like the P6K has iris, ISO, shutter angle and white balance buttons on the body, plus a scroll wheel.
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And three user assignable buttons as well behind the fixed ones.

JB
 
morgan_moore said:
My experience of the 4k is tht the mag button next to the HFR button = unintended HFR shooting?
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Hasn't happened to me, but I guess it could happen.

But you'd also need to "miss" that the information top left on the screen says 50/25, instead of just 25 (using 50fps as an example). Also, if you're just "feeling your way" and you press a button, but the camera doesn't punch in, that's an indication that the wrong button was pressed.

Through using the camera (always painful in the beginning) I have learned that the first button in the lower group is the HFR and that my thumb needs to go down one more.

Not defending the buttons here. They work OK for me, but that is one of the areas I think the camera could be improved. The buttons are generally not as nice as on my 1Dx mkII.
 
AndreeOnline said:
Hasn't happened to me, but I guess it could happen.

But you'd also need to "miss" that the information top left on the screen says 50/25, instead of just 25 (using 50fps as an example). Also, if you're just "feeling your way" and you press a button, but the camera doesn't punch in, that's an indication that the wrong button was pressed.

Through using the camera (always painful in the beginning) I have learned that the first button in the lower group is the HFR and that my thumb needs to go down one more.

Not defending the buttons here. They work OK for me, but that is one of the areas I think the camera could be improved. The buttons are generally not as nice as on my 1Dx mkII.
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Yeah, the 1D series has some of the best buttons of any camera ever. The BM feels a little cheap and crude for a $2500 camera, but is cranking out that braw, so no shame. I like the way you set it up Andree. I'll have to pick up a P4K soon. As the Zcam is just a few hundos more than I want to spend right now. We'll see. Maybe I won't get any of them. I just like M43 for the smaller zoom lenses.
 
On the UMP I used to accidentally hit the HFR button often because I had the false colour button mapped right next to it.

It used to not be re-assignable but now it is :-)

On the UMP they also have the LOCK switch so you can lock out buttons from accidental presses as well (like Sony and Panny do on some models)

JB
 
by the way, Andree, You really use cameras well. I think the moments you capture have more meaning and significance than most movies. Some of the most important images we take our of our loved ones.

I saw some 2013 4K footage of family I took and it looks amazing. All of the miniDV and 60D type footage is a hazy mush. But the 1DC 4K home videos are completely different. It is kind of surreal to have such high quality video from that era. I only wish that more people had access to that level of quality sooner. Movies and TV never needed good quality as they have always had access to lights and sets.

did your daughter take that pic of you? the lines, perspective, and balance are actually quite good. Maybe she takes after you. bravo!
 
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