Panning 'mud', reasons why and firmware update

What made the Beatles great was their creativity, chemistry, and craft. You add or take away some fidelity from their music and you are not changing my emotional connection one iota.
 
Jim Klatt said:
What made the Beatles great was their creativity, chemistry, and craft. You add or take away some fidelity from their music and you are not changing my emotional connection one iota.
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And if we did run a line from the mixing board to the mic input of a Micro casset recorder.

That music would still have beauty and heart from the Beatles, no matter what....



Unlike if we ran a line to a million dollar recording studio system of the Backstreet Boys!

We would all vomit our own feces.......






Michael Pappas
http://www.pbase.com/Arrfilms


Anamorphic DSLR Lens Test Images... links:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=1638289&postcount=97
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=1637705&postcount=84

Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/people/Michael-Pappas/573417404
Myspace:
http://www.Myspace.com/PappasArts

Arrfilms@hotmail.com
http://www.PappasArts.com
CONTACT VIA AOL INSTANT MESSENGER
AT { PAPPASARTS2 }

.
 
This thread is CRAZY. You guys made Kholi's tummy hurt. I had to take pain killers.

LoL

But good conversation/debate going. Check out Barry Green's involvement. Whaaat.
 
Boz said:
I'm the Terminator, not the anti-christ. Get it right! :D
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Got it! Won't make that mistake again.

I knew you guys must have discussed the Image Resource vid before, but don't have time to go through 5000 posts. This forum is insanely hot right now.
 
Barry_Green said:
There's a table published in the ASC manual that lists the proper strobe-free pan speeds for 24fps film. It lists the rate (in seconds or even minutes) for several different focal lengths (shorter focal length = quicker pan, longer focal length = longer pan). If you pan at those rates (or slower) you'll avoid strobing. If you exceed those pan rates, the footage will strobe. It's my contention that if you stick with the ASC panning rates, I am pretty sure you'll avoid "mud" too.


The grass is messed up in my shots before even starting the pan. The tree leaves have lots of detail, but the grass is fuzzed out.
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Thanks Barry. I never heard of ASC tables before. I am a very new amateur but learning tons on these posts. I will look them up. Like you said in one of your posts somewhere "I'm trying to help those on no budget be able to get good use out of this camera" instead of saying how bad it is. Yea, its bad on some things (1080 panning), but for me, I think its a perfect camera: stills for magazines, short 10 minute videos to help small charities (which I'll probably shoot 80% in 720). All at $1500.
 
Barry_Green said:
I don't think I've seen a worse-looking film in the theater. Looked like it was shot on VHS.

.....

Doesn't mean it can't be used, and used to good purpose. Hell, HDV is the worst format I've ever seen for breakup, but lots and lots of people use it every day.
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Finally, someone else who saw 28 Days Later in the theater. Great movie- and well shot, despite being the worst image quality I ever paid to see. I still contend that film would have been just as powerful if they used 16mm.

I've never been a fan of "intended to look bad", doesn't mean it doesn't have it's place. It was nice to see Mantle win the Oscar for Slumdog. The man is exceptionally talented.

HDV is sneeked into everything these days. Most networks have a 10-15% rule, but that doesn't mean that the producers are actually following those guidelines.

The "would you shoot" question made me think plenty-

The answer is- if TODAY someone gave me I had a choice between a Gh1 w/PL mount Cine lenses, or any lower end "prosumer" camera with the same lenses (plus any adapter), including every flavor of HDV made by JVC, Sony and Canon. I'd gladly take the Gh1.

After the 35mm filmout test I may take that asertion to a higher level, but the jury is still out. Some of the Gh1 images are looking really, really good. I can't wait till I can share them.


I.

Illya Friedman
Hot Rod Cameras
 
rubberbandito said:
Thanks Barry. I never heard of ASC tables before.
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The best value is the 8th edition, it will give you most everything of the 9th in one book, too much new "stuff" between 7th and 8th editions. Possibly the best $50 any camera inspired film student or newbie cinematographer could spend. Best of all you can easily pick up one used here.


I.

Illya Friedman
Hot Rod Cameras
 
The GH1 is certainly the most versatile option at the moment but I can't get past the aesthetic quality of the MKII and unlike Kholi and Hunter I can only have 1 for now.....decisions decisions

While locked off is more my style occasionally you just want to run around like a crazy man....stabilized of-course
 
John Caballero said:
This one looks pretty good to me:

http://vimeo.com/groups/gh1/videos/4964678

Its all about the cinematographer. Remember, it is an art.
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I don't see that all. It's awful. Artifacts all over the place. The dark is just awful. My flip mino handles low light about the same as that. Except maybe the dancers look sharp in light, but all around them is artifacts everywhere. Not grainy but square boxes (whatever they are called in pro terms).

I've seen so much great footage from the GH1, I can only assume the shooter did something wrong here.
 
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Sure. You are looking at the Vimeo compressed version. You wanna look for artifacts go for it. It looks extremely promising. I can't wait to start shooting with mine. Its gonna be a lot of fun.
 
ok john. i will download the file, but i can't wait to get the camera too, but the artifacts are everywhere on stream version, i am looking not to see them as i want the camera, but its soooo obvious. yea, source is probably much better.
 
The GH1 does well with stuff like this. Black backgrounds, not a lot of panning.

The footage using the 7mm wide lens is fantastic. I want that lens so badly... just a shame it costs £800.
 
I'll be doing a lot of this type of shooting. Dancing, lot of similar movement. I am glad it looks good. Also the noise is almost non-existent. Pretty cool.
 
If you guys think "28 days later" looked bad in cinema then you haven't seen Lars von Triers "The Idiots". Done on a Sony VX1000 and rumours are around that Trier, who shot it himself, accidentally underexposed most of the takes by 2 steps requiring some massive massaging in post to get something viewable on screen. It was nominated for the Golden Palm Award in Cannes...

Barry_Green said:
I tried at 1/50; the shot's overexposed and the light's different so it's not really a fair test, but... bah. Here it is. This was in the middle of a 5-second 90-degree pan (which is about twice as fast as you'd want to actually pan 90 degrees with this field of view!)
http://www.dvxuser.com/barry/Tree-1-50-5-sec-pan.jpg
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Thanks for this test. Hmm... so... if I slap on a ND8 to push that foliage into a pretty bokeh while keeping shutter at 1/50 and make a nice pan following a swedish bikini blonde walking towards camera tentatively pouting her lips the following dialogue would later happen at a test screening:

ME
So, could you see any artefacts with codec mush in the background here?

TEST AUDIENCE
(in unison)
Uhhh... BOOBS!
​


The firmware update we should convince Panasonic Consumer to do is enabling Full HD HDMI out when the cam is not recording for... ahem... 'checking focus and exposure' and then not tell them that we will never press the cam's recording button but the one on our external recorder.

PS. My apologies to any present ladies for the rampant sexism above
 
Ok so I had a couple of hours to kill so I've been doing some serious pixel peeping. Nothing scientific mind you just comparing re-compressed GH1 footage from the usual suspects Hunter, Kholi, Bloom to footage from the D90 I've shot, some MKII stuff and the Pentax K-7 clip. The "test" involved freezing frames during camera and subject movement and comparing the breakdown/mud from the H.264, AVCHD and mjpeg codecs. Now like I said nothing scientific lighting, detail, camera settings, focal lengths all vary but I was looking at multiple clips from each camera/codec. The re-compressed bit-rates also varied but generally averaged about 10Mbps.

here's the results of my opinionated codec motion shootout-

The clear winner by a wide margin is mjpeg. It doesn't break up into a muddy mess like AVCHD does and when it does break up it looks more organic, more of a kinda motion blur. The honors go to the 58Mbps 720p Pentax K-7. Watch this and freeze it on the kid swinging the bat, see any mud? http://vimeo.com/4924324 The 720p 25Mbps+ mjpeg on the GH1 and even the 15Mbps average D90 holds up better than H.264 and AVCHD. I did a fast pan here 16 seconds in and the D90 mjpeg holds up ok http://vimeo.com/4274001

Next up we have the 5D MKII. There's some visible mud from the 42Mbps H.264 but it's much better than the the 1080 AVCHD on the GH1. Try to concentrate on her arm movement- http://www.vimeo.com/2605789

Next we have the 720p AVCHD on the GH1. I have to say Hunter appears to have been able to tame this beast very well (the codec not his little girl) but some of the other 720p stuff I've seen is quite muddy.

Last up of-course is the 1080i AVCHD from the GH1. We've all by now seen plenty of examples of the paintbrush filter effect this creates.

Conclusions-

Well I was just about ready to go and buy a MKII, when there's little subject or camera movement it looks fantastic but I don't know if I want to fork out that much dosh for something that is still a bit flawed.

Now for the GH1 well I don't think I'd use AVCHD in either flavor BUT I may be willing to get one for the mjpeg and do a 24p conversion in post.

The D90, it's heavy on the jello but it can be tamed. If Nikon were to raise the bit-rate and give it manual controls I'd go out and buy another 2 without hesitation and I eagerly anticipate the launch of the D300s/D400.

The sleeper, Pentax K-7. This camera has major potential if Ned at Pentax is listening and pushes for a manual control 24p firmware update. I'm hanging to see more from this beastie and for the $1300 US sticker price I might just get one and deal with the usual workarounds to get the stunning images that I think it could be capable of.

IMO mjpeg is currently the superior DSLR codec for indie filmmaking. It has a more organic/filmic look, has discrete frames, and is much easier to deal with in post. But don't take my word for it get on vimeo and do your own pixel peeping.
 
Barry,

If that's the worst mud you can come up with, then Man - That's some nice looking mud!

As a DP, I'd be more than happy to shoot with this "Defective" camera. Seriously.

I understand cost/benefit.

For a low budget film, think of how you could use the money saved - a couple 1,200 HMI rentals for your outside stuff, a car rig, an underwater housing, a jib, a cheap steadicam, a rental of a real steadicam, a mattebox and some nice filters, a good sound guy instead of the $200 guy.

And the list goes on and on and on.....

There is nothing in this price range that competes. Nothing. (If you are looking for large sensor and 24p)

Home run panny!
 
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