Revenge of the Great Camera Shootout - blind test

[evilthought]

Looking at the light set-up, I am 95% sure A is F3, so now the list is

D: IPhome
G: 7D
B: GH2
F: Alexa
H: F65
A: F3

Why were FS100 operators using ISO 1600? Unfortunately it looks like FS100 would end up I, leaving C and E for C300 and Epic

 

[evilthought]

Well, G matches that diagram better, that's for sure. We'll see... (also: as others, I'd rather wait for Zacuto to unveil the mistery; it's their shootout, and they've asked those in the know to please remain silent)

They asked those in the know to stay silent .. Since they didn't tell me anything, I am free to figure out myself.

By the way, A is F3

 

[evilthought]

Well, if that's correct it's a little bit disappointing. I picked H as my favorite and it's a 65K camera if it is the F65, but that is what you'd expect.

What's really impressive about F65 is that they didn't relight the scene. Everyone else did. They also took only 30 minutes on post production editing. Everyone else took more than an hour (hour and 30 minutes). See this PDF document

http://www.zacuto.com/zvideo/RGCSO-TechnicalCameraDocumentation-V1.pdf

And yes, I am sure H is F65. It has magenta cast. What's the probability that someone who watched the shootout a month ago says F65 had magenta cast, and the only clip that has the magenta cast in H?

 

[Samuel H]

Nothing wrong with trying to guess, my "please don't share yet" comment was for those who actually know the answer.

 

[Gillvane]

Do people here WANT me to reveal which camera is which? Or would it be more fun if we all waited for Zacuto's reveal next month?

(FWIW - I was at a trade show this week where Zacuto had a booth - and they ran all of the clips in a loop with the actual Camera names on them, vs. the letters. It doesn't seem to me that this was a mistake on their part; they MUST have known the information would get out there...)

I think the objective is to look at the footage BEFORE you know what each camera is so you won't be biased when deciding which one you like.

If you're a Red fan for example, you might tend to say you like the Red footage and so on.

So if you've already looked at the footage and already posted your choices, there's no harm in the reveal. I assume anyone this deep into the thread has already looked at the footage once without knowing which camera is which.

It's silly to keep it secret after you've already watched the footage and made your choices. What's the purpose in that?

If someone doesn't want to look at the footage first without knowing which camera is which, they can do that too. What's the big deal?

 

[Steve R]

It seems that most who have chimed in have asked me to NOT reveal which is which. And I understand the logic that Zacuto may not want the info out there - so I'll respect that and keep quiet.

(...although the Zacuto employee manning the booth at the show didn't care when I pointed out to him that the footage he was looping revealed which camera was which, and I told him it was my impression Zacuto wanted to keep it a secret until the next chapter. He didn't take the video down, nor did he mind if I wrote down the info.)

 

[Letzring]

All-in-all my favorite test of all time, but then I love the concept of blind tests in principle. It seems to really frustrate a lot of people that they cannot definitively identify their favorite camera (or the one they are currently invested in). Except for the excessive self-congratulatory blabbing, Zacuto should be applauded for the underlying message of this episode; "it ain't the camera".

I would like to have seen a 5d and AF100 in the mix, and of course the BMCC. The decision to include the iphone was just too cruel.

 

[evilthought]

Steve R, Epic, FS100, and C300 .. how would you rank their performance in this (empirical) shootout, from best to worst?

 

[Gillvane]

All-in-all my favorite test of all time, but then I love the concept of blind tests in principle. It seems to really frustrate a lot of people that they cannot definitively identify their favorite camera (or the one they are currently invested in). Except for the excessive self-congratulatory blabbing, Zacuto should be applauded for the underlying message of this episode; "it ain't the camera".

I would like to have seen a 5d and AF100 in the mix, and of course the BMCC. The decision to include the iphone was just too cruel.

We've seen a LOT less fanboism and hating because of the blind test. A lot of people have kept their mouths shut that would have otherwise been telling you all day long how the camera they want or are invested in kicked butt, or how the camera they hate sucked so bad. But they don't want to risk making a mistake, so they've been largely silent.

My prediction is when the list comes out they'll act like it was never a blind test and they knew the answers all along and begin the bashing and fanboism.

BMCC isn't ready yet so I don't think they could have included that. No one has had time to really work with it and put it through it's paces.

I'm not crazy about the look of the AF100 so not really disappointed that one isn't in there.

 

[Tom Wilkinson]

The reason why B upon any second glance is a weaker shot over H, F, C and A is that B has so much light, the scene becomes a staged set rather than a scene. The scene for B is easily depicted as a lit set rather than a person's house, and it took me out of any type of visual story (I know it is a test but still, the set was designed to look like a house and B looked less like a house than any of the others). The best language I can use for it is, "soap opera style" - too much artificial light.

Now, nothing is wrong with that per se, unless you were shooting a "24" style scene or something naturally lit for a soothing drama from a movie - now instead of a room scene you have a stage set and it doesn't not look real.

Overlighting can be just as bad as underlighting - and we all know this. I find most people who are not film majors call it, "green screened" or "too much CGI." What I finally figured out from friends, family and strangers when they use this lingo (because there is no CGI or bad keying going on) is that the light looked 'fake' to them.

As a professional graphic designer, in school we learned how the eye thinks and moves on its own, far more than we consciously think about. Think of it this way: the eye knows where to go for facial recognition, you do not have to think about it; the eye knows natural light and shadow extremely well - even if you don't know the terms - and can generally pick real vs fake very well from things as well, which is why CGI for realistic characters is so tough!

So when a scene is overlit, the eye begins to communicate to the brain that something is 'artificial' or plastic or CGI. Most people think greenscreen in their basic terminology, and I suppose that is because many greenscreen scenarios have been lit wrong and it looks different from the previous scene or natural light. Most people never see keying, edging or anything along that sort, nor know what that means.

Thanks, finally an explanation that helps me understand what is meant by “video” vs “film”. So each face may look good, each highlight and shadow may be correct, but taken as a whole the scene does not look realistic. I have spent so much time with photography and video interviews concentrating on one face. I now understand I need to learn a new skill set if I want to expand to narrative “film” shooting style. This is a whole new level of complexity. The Zacuto Shootout and DVXUSER are great learning tools, I don’t know how long it would of taken me to understand this without both.

 

[Ian-T]

What is people's problem with "B" by the way? I thought scene wise it looked better than the rest. I'll be honest...it was ALL too dark for my taste. In most of them you couldn't even make out one person's face. "B" stick out because they decided to light the place up for us to see. I didn't think it was excessive. I just think all was too under-lit. Even "F" which overall looked the best needed more light (it was only when we seen the close up of of their faces where I thought it looked great). "B" was not my favorite up there....but in re-watching it I'm liking the lighting choice more than the others. I liked all of them except what appears to be the iPhone and Canon 7D. I wish they all took the time to adjust the lights better IMO.

 

[Dan Pears]

What is people's problem with "B" by the way?

As someone else said, I felt that B was lit like a soap opera with no subtlety.

 

[Ian-T]

As someone else said, I felt that B was lit like a soap opera with no subtlety.

In comparison with the others…sure….maybe. But then again think of a movie….any movie (Hollywood, Bollywood or made for television) and tell me if you think the way the set was lit for any of these clips represents what you’d typically see.? That’s the problem I have with this whole thing. None of it looks cinematic to me because it’s too dark overall. Only a few people have commented on it but for the most part everyone seems to be dancing around that fact.

The way I look at it is this…when you compare great, mediocre and “so-so” cameras in the same test under the same exact lighting then they will all stick out like a sore thumb against one another (I guess we’ll see that scenario in the next video release). But that was not the goal of this particular test. They ALL had the chance to light the room the way they wanted to try and make the scene look good. Some tried and others thought their cameras were too good to fail. But in all actuality most of them failed IMHO because it was not adequately lit for the most part. As good as the F65 looked in this test I’m betting it could have looked a lot better if they tried.

I’m not convinced that “B” was the GH-2 but if it was good for those guys who lit the room more. Still…”B” was not in my top three ..though I did like it. Then again…I did not like any of them in their entirety. Only certain segments of certain shots I like. For example…I originally put “A” at the top of my list because of the close-up shot of the man and woman (looked nice and warm. But other videos had a much better opening scene. The “obvious” F65 shot that I felt was superior…..was only because of that last close-up shot of the man and woman. It looked flatter than everyone else’s shot and I could actually see more of their faces than any of the other videos. That is what I judged on. Other than that they should have lit the room a little better also.

 

[Gillvane]

In comparison with the others…sure….maybe. But then again think of a movie….any movie (Hollywood, Bollywood or made for television) and tell me if you think the way the set was lit for any of these clips represents what you’d typically see.? That’s the problem I have with this whole thing. None of it looks cinematic to me because it’s too dark overall. Only a few people have commented on it but for the most part everyone seems to be dancing around that fact.

The way I look at it is this…when you compare great, mediocre and “so-so” cameras in the same test under the same exact lighting then they will all stick out like a sore thumb against one another (I guess we’ll see that scenario in the next video release). But that was not the goal of this particular test. They ALL had the chance to light the room the way they wanted to try and make the scene look good. Some tried and others thought their cameras were too good to fail. But in all actuality most of them failed IMHO because it was not adequately lit for the most part. As good as the F65 looked in this test I’m betting it could have looked a lot better if they tried.

I’m not convinced that “B” was the GH-2 but if it was good for those guys who lit the room more. Still…”B” was not in my top three ..though I did like it. Then again…I did not like any of them in their entirety. Only certain segments of certain shots I like. For example…I originally put “A” at the top of my list because of the close-up shot of the man and woman (looked nice and warm. But other videos had a much better opening scene. The “obvious” F65 shot that I felt was superior…..was only because of that last close-up shot of the man and woman. It looked flatter than everyone else’s shot and I could actually see more of their faces than any of the other videos. That is what I judged on. Other than that they should have lit the room a little better also.

I think you're wrong that it's to dark overall. Many movies have extremely dark scenes, scenes that are much darker than this.

The problem is that the scene has to much dynamic range. This was done on purpose of course to test the cameras.

But no DP lights scenes with 14 stops of DR on purpose, even if your camera can handle it because it looks like crap.

If you light this scene up it's still going to look like crap. You're going to wash out the little lamp in the corner, the plant in the dark corner is going to be like where's the light coming from to light that?, and if you even it out with the bright "sunlight" coming through the window it's going to be high key, a very soap opera look.

There's much darker scenes in this trailer, but you'll notice they do not have 14 stops of DR in them:

They let the blacks go black, and sometimes the highlights like lamps just burn out. It's a more cinematic look than 14 stops of lighting to use more contrast in the scene or less DR. Golden hour looks great, but it's not 14 stops of DR.

That doesn't mean you don't want a camera that has 14 stops of DR, you certainly do. But that's for tiny highlights and small areas of shadows, not huge parts of the scene, IMO.

Anyway, that's why I think it looks ugly, but it could be something else I can't put my finger on.

 

[Ian-T]

The scenes you posted work because they are trying to set some sort of mood. It would give an entirely different kind of feeling if the whole place was lit up and blasted with lights everywhere (it just wouldn’t work). What kind of “mood” were we supposed to getfrom the Zacuto tests? It looked like a house warming party during the daytime to me. Problem is….it was too dark. I didn’t see some cold blooded killer with a mask on waiting to torture some poor soul in a grimy dirty warehouse anywhere up in there. So…apples and oranges.

As far as “too much” dynamic range isn’t that what peoplelight their scenes to control? Some do abetter job at it than others I would guess but I think the ultimate goal is toset a mood by controlling how you light a scene.

I get what you are trying to say…..but this was a badexample.

 

[Mattbatt]

Thanks, finally an explanation that helps me understand what is meant by “video” vs “film”. So each face may look good, each highlight and shadow may be correct, but taken as a whole the scene does not look realistic. I have spent so much time with photography and video interviews concentrating on one face. I now understand I need to learn a new skill set if I want to expand to narrative “film” shooting style. This is a whole new level of complexity. The Zacuto Shootout and DVXUSER are great learning tools, I don’t know how long it would of taken me to understand this without both.

Hey thanks Tom. Ya, so for me with photography at natural events, outdoor weddings, dark night scenes, finding the light to sculpt in a natural fashion is very hard. I was photographing a friend's dance the other night, my DJ friend had a ton of lasers and lights and fog machines but it was at 11pm outside till early morning.

So if I turn on the flash (580exII) and bounce or diffuse straight on, I can get amazing detail but it looks day-lit and the lights and ambiance of the party are completely gone. I ended up shooting ISO 1600-3200, f2.8, 1/60th to capture details in the night, decent shallow DOF and then bounced diffused light at -3ev to add rim light, eye sparkle and skin detail, then pushed in post a bit further with the RAW files.

This allowed the nightime look and the DJ lights were shining in all their glory but certain features popped, but subtly. This pushed the camera and the 5dmkII is a bit noisy (as all RAW shots are), wish it held blacks better when raised.

My favorite lens was the 50mm 1.4 - brought a whole new look when opened up.

Anyway, ya, to me, B reminded me of what I would of been tempted to do to try and fit everything in the camera's limits, but to capture the feel of the room, it has to be done differently.

 

[Mattbatt]

What is people's problem with "B" by the way? I thought scene wise it looked better than the rest. I'll be honest...it was ALL too dark for my taste. In most of them you couldn't even make out one person's face. "B" stick out because they decided to light the place up for us to see. I didn't think it was excessive. I just think all was too under-lit. Even "F" which overall looked the best needed more light (it was only when we seen the close up of of their faces where I thought it looked great). "B" was not my favorite up there....but in re-watching it I'm liking the lighting choice more than the others. I liked all of them except what appears to be the iPhone and Canon 7D. I wish they all took the time to adjust the lights better IMO.

First, you sort of answered your own statement/question, saying "it was only when we seen the close up of of their faces where I thought it looked great." Now we are going somewhere. In movies, why do we use DOF, camera movement, angle of view, actors hitting their marks, sound and editing? To MOVE the audience along with the story, through the scene onto the next scene.

In this test, the real 'movement' is the end scene, the faces, all DP's knew this and emphasized that couple most. It is just, some tried to light the rest of the house too (like B) while others let the light fall off.

H is certainly sharpest and feels most natural, if it is the f65 with no added lighting, that shows you the ability to have VARIETY in mood with that camera.

The one thing I have learned most in studying film as I work on my own time to become a filmmaker, is the use of subtlety in scenes that work. CGI artists love it best when you don't know their work. DP's love it best when the light fits the story instead of creating a mood of its own.

In this case, if the story is a party in a house, B looks like a party on a set.

 

[Ian-T]

First, you sort of answered your own statement/question, saying "it was only when we seen the close up of of their faces where I thought it looked great." Now we are going somewhere. In movies, why do we use DOF, camera movement, angle of view, actors hitting their marks, sound and editing? To MOVE the audience along with the story, through the scene onto the next scene.

In this test, the real 'movement' is the end scene, the faces, all DP's knew this and emphasized that couple most. It is just, some tried to light the rest of the house too (like B) while others let the light fall off.

H is certainly sharpest and feels most natural, if it is the f65 with no added lighting, that shows you the ability to have VARIETY in mood with that camera.

The one thing I have learned most in studying film as I work on my own time to become a filmmaker, is the use of subtlety in scenes that work. CGI artists love it best when you don't know their work. DP's love it best when the light fits the story instead of creating a mood of its own.

In this case, if the story is a party in a house, B looks like a party on a set.

I'm not knocking what you are saying. I do think "B" lit the room a bit much. But ask yourself this....why is it that a lot of folks chose "B" initially (whether or not they changed their minds afterwards)? As an audience member do you think our purpose is to "analyze" the movies we watch? If you're a movie critic....sure...but otherwise no. I'm sure you have a favorite movie like anyone else here. I bet though even with your favorite movie...after re-watching and analyzing it over and over again you'll find flaw after flaw in the image, acting, delivery ect. But as a casual viewer you initially just went with your gut and accepted that the movie was....a great experience.

Back when it came out I thought "28 Days Later" was awesome....even in the way it looked. BUT, I saw it on cable the other day....and MAN did it look HORRIBLE. Sites like this turned me into such a pixel peeper...lol

Oh.....and why do people think that "H" is the F65? If "F" really is the Alexa (as some are suggesting)..then it has a better looking image that the F65. IMO I stand by what I said about them all being underlit. But what I liked about "F" is how the shadows on the close-up looked more grey than black (like all the others) therefore revealing more detail in thier faces and hair.

 

[squig]

Back when it came out I thought "28 Days Later" was awesome....even in the way it looked. BUT, I saw it on cable the other day....and MAN did it look HORRIBLE. Sites like this turned me into such a pixel peeper...lol

Yeah but it's still entertaining so who cares....oh yeah right Kholi does. Check out "The Raid Redemption", best action film I've seen in years and shot with an AF100. It's funny that 28 days later would look much better if it was shot with an iPhone. We've reached the point now where you can shoot a blockbuster with a $700 camera and even pixel peepers won't moan about it.

 

[maarek]

It's funny that 28 days later would look much better if it was shot with an iPhone.

Except rolling shutter would destroy it. 28 Days Later is full of shots that would look horrible with regular CMOS cams. High shutter speed and huge amounts of camera shake.