VaricamLT: Panasonic VariCam LT

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... EF mount native - perfect for CN-E primes...
There's allegedly - at least, it was patented - a 24-70 F2.8 CN-E lens due to be announced at some point.

PS. IMO, addressing someone personally outside of the topic at hand is a bit uncouth.
 
And colour science? The whole point about RAW is that the camera doesn't contribute to the colour science! That's the whole point of RAW! You're recording the direct values from the photosites - bypassing all the "secret sauce" that might be claimed to give any mojo to a camera. All that's left is the sensor filtration and the silicon characteristics. Silicon is silicon, and the Bayer spectral filtration characteristics need to be pretty defined.

The moment you move to RAW, "mojo" moves from hardware to software.
This is not true.

The ONLY thing that RAW truly means is "not debarred". Everything else is up for grabs, and trust me as one who would know, EVERY manufacturer does something to the pure data that comes off the sensor block. Every. Single. One. And they each do different stuff. There are more things on heaven & earth than are dreamt of in your philosophies.
 
The ONLY thing that RAW truly means is "not debarred". Everything else is up for grabs, and trust me as one who would know, EVERY manufacturer does something to the pure data that comes off the sensor block. Every. Single. One. And they each do different stuff. There are more things on heaven & earth than are dreamt of in your philosophies.

Yes, but when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.

It's true, you cannot take the raw from a Sony camera and the Digital Bolex, apply the same LUT, and expect identical imagery. But is there anything the cameras do to raw that falls outside one of these actions:

- add or subtract red, blue, or green to a pixel
- raise or lower the brightness of a pixel
- take away noise (or perhaps inadvertently add it)

Is there anything they do that cannot be compensated for in a color correction program?

I see as much variance among footage from different shooters with the same camera as I do from different cameras. And the night-and-day difference after a LUT is applied tells me that few modern cameras are so far apart that they cannot be adequately matched or that a camera's default color should be the main reason you pick it.
 
This is not true.

The ONLY thing that RAW truly means is "not debarred". Everything else is up for grabs, .......
But surely most of what may be considered the colour science of the camera - it's "mojo" - comes after deBayering? Things such as colour matrixing, flare correction, gamma adjustment, DR handling (knee factors), edge enhancement, most noise reduction, let alone gain and colour gain (white balance)? I don't see that leaves a lot in the "everything else" category....? Yes, manufacturers do things to the pure data off the sensor, but my understanding is they were largely such as fixed pattern noise reduction, dead pixel concealment, analogue gain, and such as bit depth reduction to 10/12 bit, and/or basic compression (hopefully lossless or quasi-lossless). But by and large, such won't affect any "look" of the final picture.

Yes, all sensors won't be totally equal. Global versus rolling shutter gets burnt in to the RAW, and as another example I believe the Alexa has a dual range A-D convertor so that it's the sensor itself that is the limiting factor - not the A-D convertor. And larger photosites are likely to be inherently better than smaller.

Would you be happier if I reworded the previous sentence as "For a given class of sensor the moment you move to RAW, "mojo" largely moves from hardware to software?
 
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But is there anything the cameras do to raw that falls outside one of these actions:

- add or subtract red, blue, or green to a pixel
- raise or lower the brightness of a pixel
- take away noise (or perhaps inadvertently add it)

Is there anything they do that cannot be compensated for in a color correction program?

I'd be a little bit careful, because whilst I largely agree with you then yes - there are lots of other things, see above post. Basic colour matrixing, edge enhancement and a host of others. Which is why the point about RAW is so important. So much gets moved from inside the camera hardware to software.
I see as much variance among footage from different shooters with the same camera as I do from different cameras. And the night-and-day difference after a LUT is applied tells me that few modern cameras are so far apart that they cannot be adequately matched or that a camera's default color should be the main reason you pick it.

And in practical terms, that sums it up well. Even when you get to log based working the real difference can be made in post. Use RAW and talking about a "mojo" of any particular camera hardware becomes practically meaningless.
 
Id think quite a lot happens in a camera before raw.

For example if a sensor cant see a colour then no processing will bring it back.

Of (more famously) if a sensor (for example) allows IR to pollute the image then the sensor wont be able to tell the difference between a black jacket and a dark maroon one (for example)

--

After the image is recorded a slick post workflow is also almost as critical to the camera experience as good colour 'being there somewhere to be found in the grade'

S
 
Thinking about this camera..

Would I do a no cost trade for my FS7.. of course.

Can I see it playing a role in my business.. much less clear.

It does not seem to be a doco demon.. the ergos look pretty much as bad as the FS7.. but it also does not seem really to be a cinematice remote camera (gimbals etc) either as it is a bit big and clunky for that.

A doco demon would have some better form of GUI, maybe digital zoom in 1080, AF, etc.

Im not quite feeling a serious focussed design ethic.

Great cam of course, but take out a loan and get it..? I dunno.

S
 

Indeed, I've always thought it most efficient to record 10-bit log instead of the more common 12-bit linear, whether debayered or not.

Anyway, I don't believe harddrive's point was that raw was some virgin format so pristine that you could figure how many photons must have struck a pixel. His point was that raw is flexible enough that a camera's default look is negligible.

P.S. I'm sorry you didn't find my post helpful, whoever keeps voting me down, but I am at least trying to be helpful.
 
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Regarding the "First Footage" posted by Alohype, I would say we are pushing the limits of display technology and up against a wall for new cameras. The footage looks very nice but not anything better than many other cameras viewed through the same medium. My laptop has a very nice 1080p screen and the images were sharp and detailed but the highlights looked a bit strained to me. Maybe this would look different if a high dynamic range screen was involved, but that is really not in the mix for the majority of consumption.

This footage looked very much like a Varicam. Panasonic has retained their look over the years. Kind of like a cleaner "Planet Earth" with more detail and less DOF. But I have to wonder about the worth of these level cameras outside of special viewing circumstances. Line up an RX10II, a GH4, an Fs5, an F7, a RED anything, a C300II, a Varicam etc... and have them all shoot in 4k. If 1080p or under is the delivery medium, at what point does the more expensive image become necessary?

I know about the "you can't compare different classes" mantra and ergonomics come into play a lot, but with all of the hoopla over these $20,000+ cameras and their releases, I am just not seeing the image quality benefits in the end product. I guess the era of being blown away by footage is over.
 
Yes, but when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.

It's true, you cannot take the raw from a Sony camera and the Digital Bolex, apply the same LUT, and expect identical imagery. But is there anything the cameras do to raw that falls outside one of these actions:

- add or subtract red, blue, or green to a pixel
- raise or lower the brightness of a pixel
- take away noise (or perhaps inadvertently add it)

Is there anything they do that cannot be compensated for in a color correction program?

I see as much variance among footage from different shooters with the same camera as I do from different cameras. And the night-and-day difference after a LUT is applied tells me that few modern cameras are so far apart that they cannot be adequately matched or that a camera's default color should be the main reason you pick it.

Yes, there is a ton that they do. I am not going to go into details because much of it I may or may not be under NDA on, and also some of this information would simply be rude for me to release as it may be construed as being a criticism of a manufacturer (which it is not). But the simple fact is that there is a TON of stuff that happens to a RAW signal and CAN happen to a RAW signal yet it is still called RAW. To state that these cameras can all be equated is simply wrong. It is what leads people to think that a $3K RAW camera can be made to precisely match an $80K RAW camera, because hey, they're both RAW, right? Wrong. You can dumb them both down to an eventual level field but there are absolutely differences in those RAW signals. Some have to do with the capabilities of the chip and some have to do with the PREPROCESSING OF THE SIGNAL WHILE STILL IN RAW FORM.

Careful grabbing that handsaw.
 
I know about the "you can't compare different classes" mantra and ergonomics come into play a lot, but with all of the hoopla over these $20,000+ cameras and their releases, I am just not seeing the image quality benefits in the end product. I guess the era of being blown away by footage is over.

It's not all about IQ. And it's not all about armchair viewing on a computer.
 
Regarding the "First Footage" posted by Alohype, I would say we are pushing the limits of display technology and up against a wall for new cameras. The footage looks very nice but not anything better than many other cameras viewed through the same medium. My laptop has a very nice 1080p screen and the images were sharp and detailed but the highlights looked a bit strained to me. Maybe this would look different if a high dynamic range screen was involved, but that is really not in the mix for the majority of consumption...
IMO, this is sort of an ACES thing - do you make the final "print" for your basic 1080p monitor or for a tablet/iPhone or for a 4K HDR set or whatever. It's like an audio engineer has to decide whether he is going to mix his track for a $100,000 state-of-the-art system or a boombox. As the video technology goes forward, it's more likely than not to be mixed for an HDR 4K set.

Anyway, not sure if this has been posted yet.

 
I'm talking just about whatever it is people mean when they say "color science" and "mojo." I don't like those phrases, because really all it is, I think, most of the time, is contrast curves and coloring (again for two cameras with the same dynamic range and noise floors), and a lot of that goes out the window when you shoot in log or raw or both.


No "color science" isn't just contrast curves and coloring.

You may have studied video for 25 years but you really don't have an inkling into the engineering that goes into a particular camera and the the methods used to derive the mapping of the image from the sensor into the final display.
 
Regarding the "First Footage" posted by Alohype, I would say we are pushing the limits of display technology and up against a wall for new cameras. The footage looks very nice but not anything better than many other cameras viewed through the same medium. My laptop has a very nice 1080p screen and the images were sharp and detailed but the highlights looked a bit strained to me. Maybe this would look different if a high dynamic range screen was involved, but that is really not in the mix for the majority of consumption.

This footage looked very much like a Varicam. Panasonic has retained their look over the years. Kind of like a cleaner "Planet Earth" with more detail and less DOF. But I have to wonder about the worth of these level cameras outside of special viewing circumstances. Line up an RX10II, a GH4, an Fs5, an F7, a RED anything, a C300II, a Varicam etc... and have them all shoot in 4k. If 1080p or under is the delivery medium, at what point does the more expensive image become necessary?

I know about the "you can't compare different classes" mantra and ergonomics come into play a lot, but with all of the hoopla over these $20,000+ cameras and their releases, I am just not seeing the image quality benefits in the end product. I guess the era of being blown away by footage is over.

Most cameras can make a pretty picture - even gh4 or whatever - but only a few cameras can make a pretty picture once the scene is stressed - bright backlit midday or maybe under the light of a match or a new moon.

Interestingly the vari35 reel was exceptional

This footage did not blow me away at all so a bit of a fail by panny to not pick the right subject, Dp, or something. We do not see the camera pushed.
 
Most cameras can make a pretty picture - even gh4 or whatever - but only a few cameras can make a pretty picture once the scene is stressed - bright backlit midday or maybe under the light of a match or a new moon.

Interestingly the vari35 reel was exceptional

This footage did not blow me away at all so a bit of a fail by panny to not pick the right subject, Dp, or something. We do not see the camera pushed.

I agree with you Sam on this. It is hard to distinguish the characteristics of a camera's ability - if the subject matter doesn't push things or help show latitude. A nicely lit - 6 or 7 stop scene will appear very similar on a very wide range of camera's - especially if given some love in post.
 
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