FS100's ability to capture that "cinematic" look

When all things are equal, and well compressed, you should be able to easily tell the difference between mediums/formats/cameras.

Once everyone's finally watching material that's as well compressed as Apple Trailers the drawbacks of these cameras will be startlingly clear.
 
Yeah the FS100 is probably the best choice under 10k right now, if you don't want to mess around and need a camera that straight up works exactly how it's suppose too, then the FS100 is definitely the ticket. The way it dominates rolling shutter and low light are good enough reasons for just about anybody to get this camera. I've never really considered the 7D as useful for cinema, if I was forced to go Canon, I guess it would have to be the 5D. But as far as DSLRs go in general, absolutely nothing can even begin to approach the hacked gh2 running the latest patches, it is simply untouchable right now. Just the level of detail and incredible motion characteristics of the footage that comes out of this thing is jaw dropping, makes you smile every time you review your stuff, sitting in awe of this $600 camera.
 
I saw some FS100 to Nanoflash footage, night no/low light exterior the other night and was pretty surprised at how that combo plays. If it weren't for the aliasing I'd probably re-consider using it more often. Heck, I still am.
 
I already owned the 7D and compared to the GH1 it was better in my opinion. The problem I've had with the GH2 is the rolling shutter, other than that, it really does shoot great. I don't want a 5D because I don't want a full frame sensor. S35 (or close to it) is what I like. It's a perfect balance with my lenses and even in the future, I will be looking to S35 sensors. When I shot with the 5D it was just too much shallow DoF for me :) Not that it isn't an amazing camera and has great uses, especially for wide shots, that are awesome.
 
Kholi said:
I saw some FS100 to Nanoflash footage, night no/low light exterior the other night and was pretty surprised at how that combo plays. If it weren't for the aliasing I'd probably re-consider using it more often. Heck, I still am.
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I've yet to have aliasing in a shot that I could see on my 30" cinema display. Maybe coming from using the 7D I just don't notice it since it was so overly obvious on the 7D/5D. I've even shot things that I was certain would alias, zoom in afterwards on a big screen, nothing.

I've also watched a lot of other peoples footage and don't see it either. The three or so times that it was horrid, it was a problem with interpretation of the footage by the application (like Premiere Pro CS5) and not a problem with the footage. (Because I downloaded the MTS and looked at it on my system and posted a grab of an alias free edge).

I'm not saying it isn't there if people are seeing it, as I have seen a few examples that people posted shots of to point out a situation where it occurred. I just think it must happen pretty rarely.
 
Ruben/Sheri said:
Just saying I have seen FS100 footage look like RED footage, in fact one of my friends went on REDuser posted some of his FS100 footage and said it was his new scarlet footage and no one there new it wasn't a RED?? They all thought it was! And said how awesome the footage looked and to top it off said that it was one of the best footage of the scarlet so far LOL, he finally said it was Sony and got banned LOL but there u go internet compression...FS100 Rules!!!!
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Ha! Do you, by chance, have a link to that video?
 
Rick Burnett said:
We release mostly to the web, but, what drove us to the FS100 was resolution and rolling shutter.
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Yes.

People don't prioritise good rolling shutter as much as they should IMHO. I see DSLR footage time and time again that is ruined by jello. Maybe that's just my pet peeve as other people talk about other aspects of the image that doesn't phase me.

The new Nikons seem to have fixed that though.
 
It was interesting to see ppl before our eyes contradict themselves by not knowing the difference, especially when most of them on that site bash the FS100 and most every other camera, they think RED is the end all be all camera.... well on reduser anyway not sure about anywhere else lol
GH2user said:
HAHA. So awesome! I've always wanted to do this! He should have documented the whole thing and then put in on youtube. Would have been great!
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Rick Burnett said:
I've yet to have aliasing in a shot that I could see on my 30" cinema display. Maybe coming from using the 7D I just don't notice it since it was so overly obvious on the 7D/5D. I've even shot things that I was certain would alias, zoom in afterwards on a big screen, nothing.

I've also watched a lot of other peoples footage and don't see it either. The three or so times that it was horrid, it was a problem with interpretation of the footage by the application (like Premiere Pro CS5) and not a problem with the footage. (Because I downloaded the MTS and looked at it on my system and posted a grab of an alias free edge).

I'm not saying it isn't there if people are seeing it, as I have seen a few examples that people posted shots of to point out a situation where it occurred. I just think it must happen pretty rarely.
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I have ran into moire issues when shooting with window screens in my shot. I haven't seen any aliasing that I can remember. I have also had some issues with color banding with the internal codec, but that was while I was doing PP testing and had cranked the color controls up quit a bit. Haven't seen it since I have been sticking to Frank's and Abel Cine's PP settings (or modest variations there of). I love the camera, but it is not perfect. It is, IMHO, an incredible camera for the money. Can it produce, "Cinematic images..."? Well, it really does depend on what you think "Cinematic images" look like, and there are a lot of threads about that. In the sub $10K market, right now, the FS100 is the camera to beat image wise, IMHO.
 
Heres a thought.

Most indy movies try to create a cinematic look given a fixed set of resources (money time)

Now the FS100 is cheap, so efficient with money, and light, so easy to move, so efficient with time

Being light there is also a knock on effect with cost/time/speed of gripping and being light sensitive there is a reduction in lighting costs (maybe to R1 for example)

On that basis you end up having your resources freed up to add other cinematic elements to your production - for example maybe a professional MUA or give the art department some budget or hire a better location

On that basis the FS100 aids the cinematic look

Is it as technically good as an Alexa/F65/Epic.. of course not

A further thought

Ive seen a short that I shot, on the FS100, projected in a proper cinema (cornwall film festival) while the film was absolutely rammed with shortcomings, I could not say that anything about the image quality was anywhere up on the list of why that film was a bad film!

S
 
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So I see it has been a month since anyone commented on this thread, but now with the Mark III slowly leaking out here and there with test footage, is FS100 still the best option bang for the buck?

I am bouncing back and forth on which one to get. The FS100 needing a smart adapter which last I checked, will be around $800 in addition to the $1,500 higher price tag makes me confused on the decision. The whole I-frame option on Mark 3 hitting somewhere around 71-91mbs unhacked also has me wondering. I will be the first to admit that I love to over color grade my footage. I like really saturated looks. I have a T3i and a Panasonic AG-AC130. The AC130 is my first experience working with AVCHD footage and I have to say I am really happy with how well it responds to grading. When noise does occur, it seems much more grain like than the splotchy .mov files out of my canon.

So I guess what one of my major question here is, what footage do you guys think is gonna grade better? 24mbs AVCHD out of the FS100 or somewhere around 80mbs .mov file recorded in the new I-Frame off the Mark III.

This is one my attempts at a film look off a small chip camera which I think are capable of a filmic quality and now overlooked because of the single chip movement. Just trying to help point out that I agree it is more than the camera that creates a cinematic look.

 
5D Mk III vs FS100:

It's really hard to say until the 5D MK III comes out and some tests by people we trust have been done as to what will have better image quality. I have a FS100 and a 5D Mk II. Right now I think the 5Dmk II's is better in some ways than the FS100, especially in how it handles blown out areas or transitions to highlights. It seems to be able to lay down a very attractive image without too much adjusting, and this is probably for a variety of reasons including just dumb luck on the part of Canon. Also, even with a large lens on, the 5D is much more of a stealth camcorder than the FS100, this is due to how much camera is behind the lens. The 5D is maybe a couple of inches, or maybe 6 inches with a zfinder, the FS100 much more, especially with a lens adapter. It is much more of a a full sized camcorder once you have a zoom lens on.

That being said, unless I need stealth, I'm turning to my FS100 almost exclusively nowadays if I'm going to bring one large sensor camcorder on a shoot. The handling of Audio, the lack of aliasing and moire, the basically infinite battery life and clip length, the rigging, is much less fiddly than with the 5D, you can do much more with it in post, including grading, sharpening, zooming and cropping into a frame. Do that on 5D Mk II footage and it kind of falls apart in 1080P.

However, I did pre-order a 5D MkIII, the specs, if true, look really good. We'll see how it compares and if it is worth going back to that style of shooting vs the FS100. If you are a stills shooter as well, it's probably a no brainer to get a 5D mk III.
 
I see.....
Well, my interest lies almost exclusively in video and consider the option for pictures a great bonus but just that, a bonus. I had put the the FS100 as a top pic purchase come May or June, passing on the Nikon D800 and the D4 which was a toss up for while for me based on the price being about the same as an FS100 with a smart adapter. I only have one lens for T3i which is a sigma 30mm. As I am not locked into sticking with canon glass for use on the FS100, I have been a bit torn whether to go with Nikon or Canon on that as well.

Your mention of grading, sharpening, zooming, and cropping of frame options on the FS100 is where my interest really is. However, I am confused as to whether the new I-Frame option on the Mark III is true 1080p resolution with no line skipping? The true resolution on the FS100 is the reason you have all that extra flexibility in post, correct?

and yes..... I am dying to see some comparisons of the two. I have been blown away at the FS100's low light capabilities and really want to see how the Mark III's improved ISO options stack up.
 
The i-Frame actually has nothing to do with how the video is scaled from the sensor to 1080P or 720P, it's just how the video is stored in a compressed state. Having iFrame, depending on how they do it, might result in more gradeable footage with less long-gop artifacting, especially with fast moving objects.

Supposedly the Mark III uses processing power to down-rez the sensor to 1080P, which is not the same as binning, or line skipping that resulting in moire and jaggies on horizontal-ish lines in the image. Line skipping / binning doesn't take as much processing power and that's why those generation of DSLRs did it. Also the current sensor size is 3x 1920, which might make the downsizing easier for the Digic 5 processor. This could be good, or not, we'll have to see. Nothing I've seen on the 5D samples has blown me away, not sure why there are not better examples out there but they are totally back ordered, on pre orders because of the pent up demand for it. They will make a lot of money.

When enlarging 5D footage, the lack of resolution and 'stair stepping' is really apparent, I hope this won't be the case with the MkIII. The FS100 is much better at this for many reasons.
 
I will be keeping the FS100 over the 5Dm3. The higher bit-rate codec doesn't seem to make higher quality compression, just a file that is easier on your NLE. This is because now that each frame is independent, it takes more space naturally. A lot of people testing what they can have found this to be true.

The rolling shutter on the FS100 is around 14ms whereas from what I can gather, 12.5ms on the 5D if the engineers are being accurate in their statements. That's not enough of a difference to change to me.

The 5D cannot do a crop sensor mode, which I want, so FF does not interest me.

Battery life on the FS100 is amazing, I don't see anything to show the 5D will be any different than it was.

The resolution on the FS100 looks a lot more to me, even though that doesn't mean everything to me.

The low light on the 5D looks really good, but, I am happy with the FS100 in this regard.

I really want a camera with ND again, so I am going to wait and see what comes out. The C300 would be my logical step up from the FS100, but at that price tag, it's not in my ballpark.

Given the FS100 firmware update is coming out in a few days, I want to see if they've addressed some of my concerns.
 
You guys definitely have me leaning more towards the FS100 again. However, like you mentioned kmoreau893, just have to wait and see comes out upon full release in the right hands.

Rick, have you been using a smart adapter for your EF glass yet and if so, which one? Also, as far as ND goes for the FS100, is a vari ND filter just not a good cheaper option? I have been leaning towards that regarding what to do about no built in ND's.

Thanks for the feedback guys.
 
I have not yet, and I've been waiting patiently for a good solution. I've been either using full manual lenses or using them wide open. Not ideal, but I feel like a purchasable solution is RIGHT around the corner.

I have 2 ND filters, the LightCraft FaderND version 2 and the Genus variable ND. Both of them do shift colors to me. I've considered the Heliopan, but I want to try one before I buy one.
 
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