Panavision running scared from the 5DII

Yep, should be interesting. Not saying that it will, but if the ruling is in Panavision's favor I wonder what the implications will be for Canon?
 
Yep, should be interesting. Not saying that it will, but if the ruling is in Panavision's favor I wonder what the implications will be for Canon?

Owners will have to melt down their cameras in the same pit of despair that Panavision is melting the adapters.
 
This is absolutely ridiculous. I'll start by saying that every camera has a unique look, a certain attitude which may be appropriate given what the visuals need to say to help tell the story or provide visual subtext. So every camera, even an iphone, may have an application in some unique, rare, and very particular way.

BUT with that said... In a standard setting/application in our industry there is no way on earth, heaven, or hell any DSLR could compare or threaten Panavision, Arri, or any other higher end camera. Not as of now or the immediate future. Statements like that are so ill-informed and naive that they make me angry. Perhaps that was the point all along. Starting fires with ignorant blanket statements... I don't know. I'm not gonna let this thread go without my interjection of objection. Sorry if I drone on or become a prick-of-sorts.

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. VS ?!

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I just returned home (tonight) from the Producers Guild of America and American Society of Cinematographers screening of the PGA & ASC Camera Assessment Tests screening. If you have not heard, this is the side by side comparison of an Arri435 35mm (kodak) film camera, Arri D-21, Sony F23, Sony F35, Panavision Genesis, Panasonic 37000 (27000? Cant remember), Thompson GrassValley Viper, and a RedOne. They were shot on the Desperate Housewives backlot at Universal with many of the industries BEST cinematographers. The screening, powerpoint, and Q&A session was held in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Samuel Goldwyn Theater, and believe me the picture quality was the *best*.

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People highly underestimate and fail to understand the quality of which these cameras perform. If one thinks Canon just invented a $2,000 camera which is competing against $300,000 cameras, then Canon must have a secret time machine and is pirating technology from the future while selling it today. Or one needs to wake up. For instance RedOne camera was one of the cams tested, and IMO it had a decent showing but was still not among the best of the show, although in some applications it was better then almost all the cameras. Criteria examined and explored within the test included latitude, color reproduction, contrast, grain, saturation, sharpness, and etc.

So it may seem I've wondered off of the point, but my point is clients who use Panavision usually go on to have their films projected in theaters on film-out or digital projection packages, released on BluRay/DVD, and then preserved or archived for future use... thus, picture quality becomes very important since the end product is top shelf presentation. And because I have just returned from seeing the top digital cameras in the world in a thorough comparison in a theater environment... and then finding this thread, it almost feels unreal; a joke. Any DSLR would have been a far, far last place. I could spend the next 20min telling you how it fails in comparison by virtually all technical specs, but I'm not. The fact is Panavision clients are the studios and top dogs of the industry. DSLRs are not a threat to them for MANY reasons. If anything DSLRs could be a threat for prosumer and low pro level camera models such as HVX200, EX-series and etc. If that.

DSLR's do not threaten large productions and not only because they are completely inferior in picture quality but because only 1% of all producers, studios, or big investors would ever sink millions of dollars into a DSLR made film knowing that. It is simply not a good investment or safety net. Plus, who would really choose a DSLR over a Genesis anyhow? It's simply not a threat because the DP and Producer would be in complete agreement (for once, haha).

Right or wrong, it's not going to happen. And again, technically they fail in almost all aspects. To go back to Panavision specifics, the reason they are not renting lenses only anymore is actually a positive move going back to their ORIGINAL and famous business model. Panavisions success may be from thier great lenses, but it's more then that. Many DP's like Arri cameras better, but they still rent from Panavision... you know why? Because Panavision has made it's name in the industry by providing cinematographers a camera package. Everything is made to work together and for the ease and performace standards the cinematographer demands. Panavision creates custom tailored camera packages to meet every need.

And as someone mentioned, I believe Barry, if you are a big feature film or a big-shot cinematographer, you could probably ask for your Iphone to be panavised and they would do it for you. Panavision offers custom modifications of their equipment or others equipment.

On a normal night I might have let this go, but as a well informed cameraman and a former Panavision employee... finding this thread tonight after seeing the most professional and large scale camera test ever assembled...has really lit my fuse, and I needed to say my $.02.


Can DSLR's make good images? Yes.
Can a feature film be made with a DSLR? Yes.
Does it threaten the largest rental house in the world? Well, Panavision has 99 problems but a DSLR ain't one.
 
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Thank you, Ryan. I admire your gusto, as well as the weight of your professional experience, but I already tried this fight in the first half of the thread. Some people just won't listen. In response, they'll just say, "Well, clearly top professionals like Rodney Charters and Shane Hurlbut disagree!" Maybe you ought to send the OP a PM? He seems to have abandoned this thread...
 
Thank you, Ryan. I admire your gusto, as well as the weight of your professional experience, but I already tried this fight in the first half of the thread. Some people just won't listen. In response, they'll just say, "Well, clearly top professionals like Rodney Charters and Shane Hurlbut disagree!" Maybe you ought to send the OP a PM? He seems to have abandoned this thread...

OMG, son of a #$%#$....

Rodney Charters (or his identical twin brother?) was actually sitting across the aisle from me at the presentation tonight! I really wish I would have seen this thread before I left for the Camera Assessment showing.

Oh man. Oh man. Wasted opportunity.

PS: As for Shane, I'll just follow the sound of Christian Bale's screams. haha, jk.
 
Hey guys, I have some unbelievable news: I've just read that director and cinematographer Oren Peli chose the Sony HDR-FX1 over the Genesis for the blockbuster hit Paranormal Activity! $107M domestic! Most profitable movie of all time by percentage return! Panavision must be running scared...
 
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I believe they chose that camera because they wanted a videosurveillance look. I also believe that they had a budget of around $15000.
 
If one thinks Canon just invented a $2,000 camera which is competing against $300,000 cameras, then Canon must have a secret time machine and is pirating technology.

Well, "allegedly" they did, but they didn't need a time machine, they just stole the technology from Panavision's CMOS developer and manufacturer. :happy:
 
He was joking.:cheesy:

...kind of...

hehe i wasnt,it really looks like home vid and i hope that films wont be shot like that.It was experiment to use this cam and its OK but im not enjoying this ,i turned off blair witch because it didnt felt like a movie at all,the same feeling is here.The same was while watching public enemies and even J. Deep didnt helped at all.
 
Well, "allegedly" they did, but they didn't need a time machine, they just stole the technology from Panavision's CMOS developer and manufacturer. :happy:


The technology in question in the law suit is the bininng?
Anyway, if the Genesis also employs binning, how does it get around the moire and aliasing?
 
The technology in question in the law suit is the bininng?
Anyway, if the Genesis also employs binning, how does it get around the moire and aliasing?
Because it has 5760x3840 pixels, all of which are read every single time. The only binning the Genesis does (if I'm remembering correctly) is vertically, so it becomes 5760x1080. The 5760 is an RGB stripe, meaning it's one red, one green, and one blue, all mixed together to form one pixel. 5760/3 = 1920.

And every pixel gets read every frame. So you've got a case where you have technically 12.4 million pixels going to create a 2.2 megapixel frame. It's a case of 6:1 oversampling.

Aliasing and moire happens when the sensor is undersampling the data involved. The DSLRs don't read out their whole chips, they only read portions of them out, binning and skipping rows and whatever else they have to do to get the read rate fast enough for video purposes. That's what causes the aliasing and moire.

The Genesis was designed from day one to avoid anything like that.
 
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