Robert Ruffo
Well-known member
Because the camera is such a small part of the total cost, and yet such a key element, that you may as well get what is best for your project, not what is cheapest.
BlackMagic CEO Denies Existence of Fixed Pattern Noise in BMC4K
- Thread starter Benjobe
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Because the camera is such a small part of the total cost, and yet such a key element, that you may as well get what is best for your project, not what is cheapest.
Robert Ruffo
Well-known member
I never said that Red was always the best answer, or that film did not still have advantages. For some things an EX1 is the best camera, for others a GoPro. I only said that BM 4K cameras have no advantages over Red's offerings, except cost, and I maintain that this is true. Their image quality is really piss-poor in comparison, otherwise DPs would be all over it, and they are not. Only cash strapped no-budget indy people are.
Egg Born Son
Veteran
So you're only here because you are railing against a world that has moved on? Because you can't stand the democratisation of technology? That you are offended by people turning that technology to uses you personally see no value in?
Some of the most popular video content on the internet is screen captures of video game playthroughs. Millions of kids watching other kids play computer games. Not reviews, mind. Just playing. The bit you used to have to suffer through until your turn with the controller, now deemed entertainment. Enough views that these kids are making a living off it, probably doing better than I do in my dayjob. That and custom lego star wars figures is about all my nephew watches. It's ridiculous. But I don't feel the urge to go on his forums to tell them all off.
If it's affecting your business it's not our fault. It's the google age. Everyone's an expert, just ask them. People don't know, they search. It's a reality you have to accept because nothing's changing there fast. If you can't impress your authoritative expertise upon your clients, answer their questions in a manner that engenders trust in you, if your results don't speak for themselves...maybe it's a problem with communication.
Social skills are an important aspect of business. If you address them like you have here, not outright rude but dismissive, inflexible and a tad condescending, I'm not entirely surprised you aren't getting through to them. Try talking it through, asking them questions to find out why they are making those suggestions, discuss their needs and then explain what their best solution is and how much it is going to cost. They are not necessarily idiots. Most likely they are clumsily trying to involve themselves in something they find more exciting than their own day to day. I am sure they are not actually trying to undermine your decade of experience. You'd be surprised how far you can get with another person when you sacrifice ego.
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FrameFarmMedia
Veteran
As a Producer/Director I have had many owner operators try to push their cams on me when its the wrong choice and most of the time is Scarlet owners. Some have the attitude that if its not shot on RED its crap. The first question I ask potential hires after describing the job is "what camera do you think this should be shot on and why" its a very telling question and gives me insight into their thought process. Its up to everyone to educate their client or for clients to become educated as I have so I know when a potential hire is trying to pull a fast one or lead an agenda that isn't in the interest of my production.
RED out of any company has benefited from the spread of buzz words, misinformation and aggressive cult like status. I had one exec producer come to me and ask if we can get a RED cam (no model just the buzz word RED) in to shoot some quick turnaround low light TV stuff with little budget for color/post. He saw that David Fincher was using RED so he wanted to use it. We went with a C300 because it was by far the better camera for what the job was.
Postmaster
Dark Side of the Camera
You are aware, that you pretty much disqualified yourself with this.
Can we put that money thing from the table for now, as I told you, money was not an issue.
And yes, I prefer the result coming from the BMC (not the 4k) over Red material - like it or not, it was a qualitative choice not a quantitative.
And for the record, I won awards with this "piss-poor" material.
Terry_Lasater
All about the Caption
Not siding with any particular posting in this thread. Heck, I haven't even read half of the comments. But, I will say that I like the above-quoted sentence. That is an attitude worthy of attaining in all aspects of life. :thumbsup:
Agree 100%
BM cameras are a creative not cost choice for us.
I really like the look of a number of cameras and was so vested specifically in Canon cameras and glass that I really didn't see the need nor incentive to shoot with yet another brand.
Then I grabbed my first BM camera to see what all the excitement was about, did a lot of testing versus our Canon, Panasonic and Sony cameras and that was that.
As much as I initially dreaded the idea of Metabones adapters and new Nikon glass (this was pre EF MBs) I hardly produce with anything else now.
To keep going on about the $$ aspects of these cameras and not respect the creative choices for many of us is pretty lame and self serving.
I really like the look of a number of cameras and was so vested specifically in Canon cameras and glass that I really didn't see the need nor incentive to shoot with yet another brand.
Then I grabbed my first BM camera to see what all the excitement was about, did a lot of testing versus our Canon, Panasonic and Sony cameras and that was that.
As much as I initially dreaded the idea of Metabones adapters and new Nikon glass (this was pre EF MBs) I hardly produce with anything else now.
To keep going on about the $$ aspects of these cameras and not respect the creative choices for many of us is pretty lame and self serving.
People have won awards with a Canon T2i. In the end it is about the story always. (not to say the bmc is pisspoor, it isn't!)
In another note, it was funny as I got to see Arriraw square off with the Red Epic today at work. I am amazed how good the Arriraw looked. It actually looked sharper than the Epic (though I have no idea how well the shots were focused and they were both scaled to HD). It also was very clean in the shadows. Red Epic had some seriously noisy blues.
Even funnier that they also shot a color chart. Skintones were pretty much almost the same (daylight). Alexa had a bit less saturation in some tones. Neither camera shot completely neutrally when compared to a color chart. Funny because a lot of people here claim how the Epic has poor skintones. Looked pretty much alike (though we did a slight curve to both cameras)
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Robert Ruffo
Well-known member
I do that with graduating students in person - I also give many paying jobs. On the Internet a meme starts off as shrill, no other way.
It's not about ego. It's about how much I hate misinformation. Many bad things come from it, racism, wars, not just bad camera choices.
My business is just fine - I deal with arguments with clients who read nonsense on the Internet. My business is doing better than it ever has. Kids watching play-throughs doesn't mean other people are not seeking out quality content. I don;t know any real person who actually does this by the way, and I doubt those who do have much disposable income, so I'll sound a little harsh here, but advertisers (my clients) could care less about them. Most of the people I work for make 80% of their money from the top 5% of wages-earners. This is true of many businesses lately. Their most important customers likely play no video games at all, and certainly don;t watch the kind of videos you mention.
Its' not about democratization of technology either, by the way, that's all good, my problem is with people forgetting that details and quality matters - that's how you avoid directly competing with play-througsh for the attention of zombie viewers, by going the extra mile with something stupendous - and that's a lot of work and sacrifice, and also means being very careful with tool choice, careful with everything.
Robert Ruffo
Well-known member
Epic is noisy if you shoot with Tungsten, not really if you don't. It's super high resolution makes noise reduction easier than with Alexa though, so in the end, I agree, they're very similar although Alexa is perhaps more forgiving of lighting issues. Neither Alexa nor Epic have any sharpness issues whatsoever, assuming a well collimated mount and proper focus in both cases (you can't even collimate a BM camera).
Winning awards and having a career and pleasing a wide audience are very different things. Audiences much prefer nice, clean visuals, otherwise Hollywood and advertisers would not pay for anything more than iPhones and hardware lights. Why would they? If you really think it's all about the story, why don't you focus on writing, and let other people do the technical stuff? You're never going to be very good at something you think is unimportant. Other people might add a lot of value to your story, because they love images and really pay attention to them. Scriptwriting is a noble profession, in my opinion, and there is a real shortage of good writers.
Most "award winning" (especially obscure award winning) filmmakers I know are broke, which might not be important, except most of their time is spent waiting tables, not making films.
Also, it's not really just about the final result one is shown, award winning or not, it's about wasting time on set with a camera that is unforgiving. You never see the shot they worked hard to get but missed and could not save in post because they used a cheap camera. Thats' why I am very, very against cheap cameras. They are disappointment machines.
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I'm not arguing about your experience, I'm just curious if you meant that both looked about the same on charts (skintone swatches), or you had various kinds of skintones (humans) in your tests. It sounds like you were looking at actual skin, but just wanted to ask, anyway.
A phone camera film won Tribeca a couple of years back, but that doesn't mean most of us would choose to shoot a production on a phone.
If you rent cameras, as a lot of major market pros do, you can match the camera to the job by whatever criteria is relevant.
If you need or want to own one or more cameras the choice becomes far more complex. You have to balance practical utility for your type of shooting against budget limits and aesthetic preferences. These are often in conflict and the lower the budget, the greater the compromises one must make. There is no perfect camera.
Those of us that choose to own raw format cameras, Reds, BM's, or in my case a Digital Bolex, are driven much more by the aesthetic side of the equation I think. There is an extra level of skill and commitment involved to get the best out of any of these cameras and it takes knowing the camera and the post workflow intimately to make it work. But the upside of developing real skills and paying attention to critical details is that your clients pick you because of the aesthetic qualities of your work and not so much because you shoot any particular camera system.
On the flipside... I don't know why money keeps creeping into this conversation, especially in regards to BMD cameras and/or DBolex... they both cost just as much to shoot at their best--RAW DNG. What you aren't paying for up front to buy the camera, you end up spending on accessories and archival, media to record to, etc.
Especially the 4K camera shooting lossless DNG 4K. I'm getting fifteen minutes or so for every two-hundred and forty gigs...
Yeah it's both amazing and ridiculous that we're able to shoot 4K DNG lossless. Or 6K wavelet - whatever the camera. The storage requirements for a feature film are what's ridiculous, especially if you want to color grade a master off the original DNG's. For colorists and their technical staff, it's a big I/O problem.
It's a matter of having the horsepower to deal with 5K or 4K lossless DNG. I just built a tower that's completely capable of handling 5K and 4K DNG RAW. Getting full playback, full debayer on 4K DNG with one node of Noise Reduction a, a few key nodes and normal adjustments.
Most post houses should be equipped to handle 4K-5K by now, and shouldn't have much of an issue dealing with 4K DNG on those same boxes...
... average guy at home though? =P Well, that's a different story.
I neglected to post my feelings on the aliasing/moire/false detail part of this discussion: it's not good. And, it's completely worth calling attention to. While I don't think BMD cameras are difficult to work with at all provided you're using them as intended--built-out with batteries and accessories, the two largest setbacks are unfortunately very real setbacks.
- Moire
- Lack of 60P
THe latter I can deal with, the former has always... ALWAYS been a thorn in my eye, especially as an avid BMD user, owner, shooter. I stuck with Mosaic for over a year pushing them to get the filter out, and I've been testing it for a while now. It removes the biggest problem with both the pocket camera and 2.5K camera. I'm ALSO glad that it's not something that I'm forced to have in, on the opposite side.
To not have the option of simply removing it when I'm okay with risking the moire or aliasing isn't amazing, either. I believe that's why Sony's made it very simple for users to replace their OLPF at will, it opens up a lot of creative options that I believe we honestly need as content creators, another method of achieving a look one way or another.
So, yeah, the false detail thing, what it does to motion, clothes, hair, it's been a bit rough. It hasn't stopped me from using it, and now there's a solution.
This isnt' a problem with the 4K camera, it's already been demonstrated that it produces negligible amounts of moire/aliasing. Less than cameras with stock OLPFs. So, anyone saying that it IS an issue with the 4K camera is outright wrong.
My new editing workstation, which is nothing special, I7 4770k 16GB ram and 2TB GTX760 plays real time 2k DNG timelines in Resolve 11 just fine at 24fps with a single node grade off of a single dedicated 7200rpm media drive. Yes the camera is only part of the equation and one does have to build the other necessities into the budget. 4k is a different ball game, but 2k is not that ridiculous. A $90 2TB NAS drive holds 6 hours of raw footage and plugs into a hot swap e-sata bay. Cheap media, even with backups.
Matt Gottshalk
Resident Preditor
Epic hasn't been "noisy with tungsten" ever.
The original Red One was with the M sensor.
But this MX is clean under both tungsten and daylight sources.
Despite all the technological progress and ever cheaper cameras that shoot decent quality images, I still say a true entry level pro camera package, one that can shoot at least a decent 4:2:2 HD codec, with the minimum necessary lenses, media, and accessories is going to come in not much under $10k.