Red posts zone plate chart of 7D

The larger question is what our industry will struggle with for the next ten years, is cinematography the physical act of touching a machine in the real world to tell a story, or is it touching a virtual machine to tell a story. I think that we'll evolve into the latter since it's ultimately using the same techniques to tell stories, but that doesn't mean there won't be a massive struggle and coming to terms with this new reality.

If Avatar wins Best Cinematography at the Oscars I think it will be a continued blurring of what it means to be an image maker.[/QUOTE]

To use the dictionary definition of Animation - my belief is that contemporary Animation is analogous to and incorporates Virtual Cinematography so, yes I agree with you to a large extent. To Animate means 'to give life to' And, as you just acknowledged, a "real world" cinematographer - Roger Deakins was brought in to advise on the virtual cinematography. This is very cool. And believe me, I'm a digital rebel too. If the future of cinematography becomes purely clicking a mouse and sitting in front of a computer, then I'll move to Australia and become a gold miner. I love computers, but to live life in front of one is not why I got into Cinematography and movie making in the first place - it was to avoid that. If I wanted to be a virtual cinematographer then I would have studied what is classically known as Animation.

I'm no Luddite, but I don't want to spend the rest of my life tweaking in front of a computer. And with that, I bid you all adieux.
 
I have a question then. With folks here trying to draw the line between whats animation and what's cinematography what do you consider it to be when actors primarily work in front of a blue/green screen? Take Avatar for a second...if those actors were not painted over and were displayed as their natural selves with the virtual world kept intact ("300", "Sin City" etc.) do you think that would still disqualify it from being cinematography? Or would it be considered animation? I'm only asking because I want to learn...not trying to make an argument for or againts.

Edit: By the way, I ask because in the case of Avatar it's not like these characters had to be drawn or made up in the computer. These folks literally had to interact with one another like on any set.
 
steventimothy said:
http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=41220



Because 90% of the DSLR market is rich hobbyists or nerdy pixel counters.
And those guys have endless debates about technical minutia. Seriously, page after page after mindless page on photo sites.



.
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You have a great attitude, I agree 100%. Just start shooting and leave the crap on the cutting room floor. I just shot a job with and EX3 and I had moire show up on a few fabric shots, a truck tail light, and the intercooler on the engine, all important details of the sales project. The client said nothing about it, because they expect it in video anyway. I thought I was immune to the problem with the EX3 because everyone is picking on the 7D and 5D and the EX3 is suppose to be perfect.(Not perfect but pretty damn good) All these new cameras have the capability of shooting fantastic looking shots. Better to spend more time with the camera than complaining about it.
As for RED, it's time to put up or shut up. We already know it will be good. Release the camera and I will buy one last year.
 
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Ian-T said:
I have a question then. With folks here trying to draw the line between whats animation and what's cinematography what do you consider it to be when actors primarily work in front of a blue/green screen? Take Avatar for a second...if those actors were not painted over and were displayed as their natural selves with the virtual world kept intact ("300", "Sin City" etc.) do you think that would still disqualify it from being cinematography? Or would it be considered animation? I'm only asking because I want to learn...not trying to make an argument for or againts.

Edit: By the way, I ask because in the case of Avatar it's not like these characters had to be drawn or made up in the computer. These folks literally had to interact with one another like on any set.
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I call Avatar digital puppeteering with voice over.

Cinematography for compositing is still cinematography.

I think Virtual Cinematography needs to be clearly distinguished from Physical Cinematography. Yes, many of the same "theoretical" factors apply bit there are too many experiential differences to call them the same thing.

Good enough is definitely the contemporary attitude, but I reserve the right to decide what I consider good enough at any given time. To me, conceptual (virtual) experience may be good,
but it's not enough for a pixel pusher to take my job behind a real camera and
run a set/crew.

Is Mel Blanc an actor? In a sense yes. Is filming cell animation plates one frame at a time cinematography? In a sense yes.

The only reason I bring these things up is that I'd like to encourage people to examine every aspect of what we are doing as storytellers. I'm by no means a definitive resource on what "is" and "isn't" but to me the philosophy behind our thoughts and actions is often as important as the technical dead horses being flogged in perpetuity on this forum.
 
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ROCKMORE said:
I thought I was immune to the problem with the EX3 because everyone is picking on the 7D and 5D and the EX3 is suppose to be perfect.(Not perfect but pretty damn good) All these new cameras have the capability of shooting fantastic looking shots. Better to spend more time with the camera than complaining about it.
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It's funny you mention moire on the EX3. I came from consumer cams like the HV20 etc. and I never noticed it. when I say that I mean I've never paid attention to it if and when it happened. But I'm sure that cam produced the same thing. Since the 7D came out...my eyes are fixated on every scene I shoot now. I just can't get it out of my head now. The 7D's moire/aliasing discussions have turned into the HV20/Wobbling/Skew issues of the past. Though other cams produce the same sort of things...the Canon's will be the first thing that comes to folk's minds when talking about it.
 
Ryan Farnes said:
Just had a thought. What would stop Canon from producing a DSLR handle like this or this that has a couple of the lacking features typically found on full fledged video cameras? Say...XLR inputs, line out for monitoring, etc...

Someone made an excellent point the other day that DSLRs are nearly identical to the whole modular approach RED is taking. A DSLR body is your brain.
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The
Canon WFT-E5A Wireless File Transmitter (WFT)

is only a type 802.11a/b/g - ie typical data transfer rate of 15Mb/s which is waaay to slow.

The current WiFi type n spec is 8x faster !!!
 
good thing i don't shoot charts for a living. red could stand to spend a little less time shooting charts with a dslr and more time getting that s35 scarlet in my hands. until then, real world hd video looks killer on the 7d....
 
Didn't see this before...but it fits here. Hopefully we can keep all the hubbub in one thread. (That's right, I said hubbub!)

Resolution chart of 5D (black) and RED (red):
1265662267.jpg

M-X sensor (in red) and the Canon 5D (in black). The grey area is where the 5D2 provides either NO detail or corruption caused by aliasing. It really measures a "ragged" 1.4K horizontal resolution vs. about 3.7 for the Mysterium-X at 4.5K.

BTW... that is over 4 times more measured resolution.
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>>ORIGINAL POST

So, according to this specific test, the $22,500 camera (have to factor in cost of Mysterium-X now) is better than the $1,400 camera. Not only is this news in the truest sense, but shockingly so!
 
NO....this can't be true!!??? It's a travesty!!! I'm taking my 7D back and demanding a sensor upgrade!!
 
cheezweezl said:
good thing i don't shoot charts for a living.
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Yeah. Or bricks. Or roof shingles. Or plaid fabrics. Or striped shirts. Or picket fences. Or chain link fences. Or ceramic tiles. Or overhead power lines. Or painted lanes on streets. Or stairs or staircases. Or eyeglasses on an interview subject. Or venetian blinds. Or corduroy clothing. Or lace fabric. Or ocean waves. Or greenscreen.

Yeah, those charts have nothing to do with the real world, do they?
 
so sick of this dslr vs. video cam comparisons. :( its pretty obvious video cams blows dslrs away. If people prefer shooting aliased footage and moire you cant stop them.

cinematography term to me does not have to involve reality. it involves how a scene is lit/colored and how the emotion or message of the scene is told. but 3d cinematography cant be in competition with live cinematography. technically you can pretty much do anything in 3d cinematography which puts live cinematography at a disadvantage.
 
Barry_Green said:
Or greenscreen.
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Eh? I just shot a beautiful and easily keyed greenscreen shot with the 7d. Last week our client came up with a very bad looking greenscreen shot done with the RED One camera. We had about three guys trying to key it and had to manually do a load of masks and blurs to make it work at all. Before that we also got a horrible looking greenscreen from another client also shot with the RED.

Is anyone here actually shooting with these things or just talking? If you mean that it's impossible to get a great key with the 7d then... well... you're completely wrong.
 
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Are you seriously going to make a case for 4:2:0 1080** vs. RAW 4.5k for green-screen???

If the guy lit the green-screen with candles and lasers for the Red, I'll believe that.

This is ridiculous...

Can you get a very decent key with a 7/5D? SURE! Same with an HV20, even DVX.

You can NOT compare it with the key you'd get of the same shot with a Red.

This whole thread is ridiculous...

** HAHAHAHA!!! As the chart shows... ~1.6k vs. ~3.5k
 
I have a Scarlet! Snuck it out of the factory last night. It even does my dishes. I take it for long walks at night and we discuss the relativism of Kant and Proust. It tells me stories of how they always wanted it to shoot test charts and plates and stuff. We also talked about how animation isn't really cinematography in the strict sense of the word. Well that makes me angry, very very angry indeed. Unfortunately I flew into a rage and destroyed my dear sweet Scarlet. La guerre pour mois cest finis. No evidence is left of my dear sweet Scarlet, but all of the above is absolutely true, trust me!
Now I have to go over to the 5d MKII forum and let people know I have had the upgrade now for awhile.



Edit: I think all cameras should have the word BOMB in them somewhere. Makes life more fun don't ya think?
 
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Oh my god , i thought I was in the 5D thread here, sorry sorry my mistake. OK Charles, strike the lights. Ok everyone thats a wrap, one hour for lunch then we meet over at the 5D thread, OK? Super!
 
dcloud said:
so sick of this dslr vs. video cam comparisons. :( its pretty obvious video cams blows dslrs away. If people prefer shooting aliased footage and moire you cant stop them.

cinematography term to me does not have to involve reality. it involves how a scene is lit/colored and how the emotion or message of the scene is told. but 3d cinematography cant be in competition with live cinematography. technically you can pretty much do anything in 3d cinematography which puts live cinematography at a disadvantage.
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1. Yeah, Eff cinematography and all that artist crap. Video cameras totally blow away DSLRs at Videography. Because I want every pore to be visible on an actresses face, and can we also make sure the filthy curtains and crappy furniture in the shot stay in focus at the same time as the actors? I'd hate for anyone to get the impression that what the actors are doing and saying is anywhere near as important as the set that production got for free on a craigslist posting.

2.Yes, because limitations on what you can and can't do are always bad right? Why base anything on the real physical world where I have bills to pay, and dishes to do. Yeah, eff it. I'm tossing in the towel on this Real World stuff. I'm going to be a level 12 Dragon Mage and slay your Elf in World of Warcraft because I'd rather live in a 3d virtual world without limitations. Freedom from limitations for life! I can't wait until we all have ocular implants that take the real world around us and then map a photorealistic 3d rendering (beautified of course) over it all so I don't have to see all the unattractive people and things around me. Then there won't be any limitations for me either because I can program my avatar to be a superstud who all the women want to get with. My old toyota corolla could become a virtual Ferrari Testarossa and I can pretend I'm playing Outrun in an arcade in 1986 YEAH! Go VIRTUAL BABY!
 
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