Run&Gun
Veteran
Going for body over personality... That's been the downfall of many a man.
EVA1: EVA1 8/3/17 Press Release and Specifications
- Thread starter Barry_Green
- Start date
Going for body over personality... That's been the downfall of many a man.
Run&Gun
Veteran
Well, to be honest these cameras are still intended to be held/used with two hands. I've been shooting for 20 years and am used to cameras that would make some people on here cry, in regards to size and weight, and I still don't want to try and hold one of these little cams out in front of me with only one hand. 1) You're just making it harder on yourself and 2) The image will be much steadier when supporting the camera with two hands.
Danilo Del Tufo
Well-known member
But if you use two hands to hold the camera how do you change focus on the LCD of the C200? Only on a tripod is possible, I think.
icarusfilm
Veteran
Auto focus is not and never will be a solution for shooting motion. Yes it's useful on a slider or pulling focus on aproaching subjects and such but for the core 99% of everyday shooting Szenarios manual control over focus is the only way to go. The sooner you accept that the sooner you will be able to do the job. You can wait for that magical new AF system to get here but it won't.
When I was holding it, I would set my shot, tap the subject I wanted the focus to be tracked, then move freely with the camera. I didn't find it to be that difficult. It was much easier to me than trying pull focus manually while shooting. The only time it didn't work very well was when there was not much contrast to the subject you were tracking. The annoying thing about the C200 is that it requires two actions to engage the focus tracking. You have to press a function button first, and then select your subject on the screen to be tracked. Canon really needs to make the focus tracking a one-touch only action, where you put in the camera in focus tracking mode, then just touch the subject on the screen you want to track. It does make it more difficult to engage the focus tracking handheld with those two actions.
I don't know man. I think there is a very bright future for autofocusing technologies. If you haven't tried DPAF, it's pretty amazing. No, it's not a dedicated focus puller that can make creative focusing decisions, and yes it can be too robotic at times, but in some situations, I think it can actually do a better job than a 1st AC. For instance, flying around on a gimbal when shooting wide open at 1.4. DPAF can absolutely be used while in motion, it just needs the right amount of light/contrast on the subject. I've personally had it hold focus so well than I can't even tell it's racking. It moved so perfectly in sync with the forward motion of the camera that the subject just magically stayed in focus. I was blown away.
GPS was widely used by the military for years before it became a consumer technology. Now it's in everything. There are currently subject tracking technologies used in satellites that can track single individuals, thousands of miles away, while they are hiding behind walls. To say that autofocus will never be a solution for shooting motion is just wrong. DPAF is just the beginning of a new type of tool that will ultimately become a staple of cinematography, just like gimbals and drones have become industry standards.
icarusfilm
Veteran
I'm shooting a documentary series right now consisting of lit sitdowns, verite, dramatic reenactments basically every kind of shooting Szenario that can come up. There is not one single moment throuought the day whe any form of AF could be of any use. I only know professional shooters. When I say Professional I don't mean people who found a way to earn a living using a camera I mean people who you can throw into a shooting situation with other professionals and get results- none of these people I know uses or wishes he had any kind of AF. And everyone who shoots properly knows why.
I'n not gonna argue with you, man. You've obviously made up your mind. I respectfully disagree with your opinion and will leave it at that.
I admire you're steadfastness. However, it reminds me of these statements.
“Fooling around with alternating current (AC) is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever.” — Thomas Edison
"Television won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night." — Darryl Zanuck, 20th Century Fox.
“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share.” — Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO.
icarusfilm
Veteran
Pulling focus is not the same thing like "locking" focus on a person or object, it's responding to a dynamic relationship between different subjects weithin the frame as an organic response - pull to the guy laughing in the back pull back to a girl in the foreground as she gets pissed off etc. these are simple quick muscle memory responses that would be extremely difficult to trigger via AF and you are allways at the mercy of the system needing contrast faces etc to work.
NorBro
Major Contributor
https://vimeo.com/153889003
I'm sure you've seen that video around, but it's extremely easy to do what you're describing...instead of rotating a knob, touch a screen.
I don't think MF will ever be replaced, but I'm a big AF supporter myself and think it has a huge place in the industry.
My view is quite the opposite. Let's say we are shooting the guy and girl you described. Let's also assume we have the camera on a tripod and we want focus on each face at the proper moment in a narrow field of focus. First, we establish the blocking and then we set marks for the actors. Having established the focus points, they are marked and set. During the scene, the focus is pulled at the proper times and we get the shot. Except that the actor missed their mark and we didn't quite get it. Or the actor did a fabulous take that the director loves, but in that take, the actor moved in an unexpected way forward or back, out of the field of focus. The shot is lost because we didn't hold focus.
Meanwhile, the operator using auto focus taps the screen at the right time and the camera holds focus on the actor, regardless of them hitting their mark. The fabulous take is saved as the camera was able to react to the unexpected move.
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Dpaf is an insane new tech. Ive used it and things that are impossible to do on long focal lengths is possible with DPAF and facial recognition. Its simply a new option for filmmakers. Completely closing yourself from it is ridiclous. Try it out first. Get on a dolly, set opening to f1.4 and pull out or in Ona subject. The amount of effort is minimal without a focuspuller. Less chance for mistakes, faster production.
Now panasonic's or sony's implementation of af is a diff story.
Now panasonic's or sony's implementation of af is a diff story.
I wish EVA1 had 12 bit log raw too but I think of the issues is that big beautiful sensor. It has roughly twice the number of pixels of the sensors on the C200 and FS7 which in turn makes for a brutal data rate when recording uncompressed raw. Even the C200 drops down to 10 bits when recording it's 4K compressed raw at 60p.
Mitch is there any possibility of a future firmware update that would allow 12 bit log raw recording or is the 10 bit raw output a hardware limitation? I am hopeful that some future recorder would be able to create a 4K ProRes 444 XQ file from the EVA1 raw signal and the extra 2 bits might come in handy. I have high hopes for the next generation of external recorders.
The EVA1 looks like a winner. I can't wait to try it out!
Mitch Gross
Veteran
Not a part of this camera's spec.
Mitch Gross
Veteran
I believe it is a data throughput limitation. 5.7K is a LOT of resolution, so getting that out at 30p over 6G is pretty much saturated at 10-bit. Same goes for 4K at 60p.
Mitch Gross
Veteran
Do the math. The limit is the 6G spigot, followed by the recording capacities on the SATA-based SSDs used by the offboard recorders. These are the pinchpoints in the pipe.
I still look at my plywood box. There's no screen inside it but I still keep looking at it. It's a beautiful plywood box.
PS. Actors miss their marks all the time, especially people who are used to doing theater.
Jason R. Johnston
Well-known member
Don't trust a machine to be creative for you. There are times AF has its place. It's nice to have for that 1:10000 time I ever needed it whilst recording, but the rest of the time I focus manually, as do all the other pros I know. I might use AF to get initial focus sometimes, then deactivate it, zoom out and compose my shot. Then rack as needed, if needed. I would never use AF for creative control at anytime...not on a gimbal, or otherwise flying, not on a jib, not as a crash cam. Never.