Its at LEAST equal. I've heard it may actually sharper at the cost of some aliasing artifacts. The Alexa does not alias nearly as much. (If at all)
The power of sLog - and why i'd pay $6,000 for it.......
- Thread starter TimurCivan
- Start date
Hyperdeck is purely 4:2:2. I'll have a Gemini 444 but it will only be for a day or two as part of my DV Expo class. Cinedeck, which I've not had the opportunity to test yet, will record 4:4:4
Ned
LeavingTheCandy
Well-known member
MAybe should be another thread, but has anyone (TIMUR?) noticed a big color difference between the F3's onboard SXS and the KiPro footage? I am surprised sometimes just how much difference there is.
LeavingTheCandy
Well-known member
The onboard recordings seems much more red, particularly in the highlights.
I have, from everything posted around. The Slog image looks a million times better in terms of color accuracy... In fact, its SLOG that really sells this camera. I really don't like the greenish out of the box pictures as well as most of the 4:2:0 daylight stuff in rec 709 posted here recently. It just screams to me "Sony Broadcast look", which I never liked. I'm more of a "Panasonic look" guy... But the SLOG stuff is simply amazing.
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LeavingTheCandy
Well-known member
That whole business of only having two color temps really wigs me out. Of course, I guess everything must go through grading anyway, so if you have to color-match also, no biggie.
There is no xdcam represented here. Are u talking about my examples? Or in general.
What trips people out about this generation of camera is that the compression of the codecs does funny funny things to the footage. Xdcam ruins everything above 80IRE, just ruins it. And does the same for what's below 30ire. (Macroblocking).
If you want to step it up, you have to enter the world of the offboard recorder. EVEN IF you stay in a 8bit world.... offboard recording helps a lot. The Ninja recording to prores is a godsend. Even if you're staying 8bit, cause you will get more accurate color in 422, and smoother highlights and shadows.
In the case of the f3, even without sLog the 10bit is crucial for maintaining this incredible image quality. Remeber, the F3 is so grainless that if you so choose, you can record to a ki mini, and underexpose by 2 or 2.5 full stops to protect highlights, then just boost the mids up in post. There is no noise penalty, and the 10bit signal/recording eliminates posterizing.
The F3 is naturally a bit red. But that's better than green. The MX red is very green and that's difficult to correct for. At least skintones looks more healthy.
Grading 444 or 422 uncompressed, or even prores, is a breeze. The two color temp thing is no biggie at all.
Douglas Villalba
Well-known member
The Ninja is 10 bit 422 ProRes, LT and HQ. It just doest record TC. I am hoping that they come with the Samurai before I start production.
tom.wong
Well-known member
but it's a hdmi recorder, and hdmi on the f3 is only 8 bit. so it's 10 bit oversampled but you still have 8 bits of information expanded out in a 10 bit space. only helps a little, but at least bypasses the massive amounts of compression done internally, and easier to edit with too being intraframe.
edit: looks like i was typing a little too slow, hehe.
LeavingTheCandy
Well-known member
Been recording to KiPro for a couple of years now and wouldn't be without. Every once in a while, I try to go guerilla and shoot to XDCam, but always regret it. Hopefully will have my S-Log next week and the Hyperdeck for studio use. (don't need, nor can afford, 444 right now). But not much convinced that there's a real gain in shooting UNCOMPRESSED vs. PRORES HQ. Anyone care to comment on this? My main motivation is the use of SSD. AJA, are you listening? SSD!
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tom.wong
Well-known member
mixed bag, uncompressed guarantees you the most the image can physically give you, also eliminates generational loss especially when you have to do 15+ passes in vfx, than a color grade. which is generally why acquisition in higher end workflows all gets converted to DPX, tiff, open exr, or something similar anyway. but even on that end, it's a lot of waste of space, and a lot of companies have spent all these years trying to give you the best compressed codec possibly with varying degrees of loss. Pro res is a bit of a lossy codec but light years better than a lot of what's out there. but the compression ratio is still high, and from programming/codec gurus i've been talking to it, it's also highly inefficient. all that bandwidth, if done better could give you even better quality.
i typically see generational loss in about 5-6 passes of pro res, while uncompressed you can just keep going with it. in the end, it's about what's best for you. proress hq and prores 444 is very good, and are work horse codecs, but it's certainly not the best. they can still add noise to the image, definitely doesn't resolve every last bit of detail off the uncompressed signal, and may not always be 100% accurate to the signal itself when you need to dig in for color or luminance. but let's just put it this way,
almost everything shot on Alexa that isn't hollywood or the highest budget commercials is all shot on SxS, prores 4x4. better than a hdcam sr deck hooked to it
but image quality wise, yes uncompressed inherently is better because it suffers from no compression. but the really question you need to ask yourself is do you want or need it? 8 gb/minute is a lot, and some people don't think it's a big deal which is good on them. but the productions I work on barely find r3d file sizes manageable. and that's 4k + in resolution.
LeavingTheCandy
Well-known member
I'm not convinced that uncompressed is actually worth it. I can't see PRO-RES going more than a couple generations. I'm convinced that VERY FEW people would see the difference between HQ and Uncompressed. I am with Timur (and some others here) that 8 bit vs. 10-bit is much more of a deal. Every time I grade 8-bit footage these days, it's stressful!
8 bit can work if not subject to any grading beyond basic color correction. But I do intend to buy another 10-bit recorder other than the Hypderdeck (which is basically a technology experiment). I must say I like the simplicity of the Hyperdeck. Visually perhaps little difference between uncompressed and ProRes HQ, but uncompressed will not clip the highlights. I'll have an eval unit of the sideKick HD in a week or so but I'm really excited about the Pix240.
LeavingTheCandy
Well-known member
Can't seem to find anywhere if the SDI signal is able to start/stop the Hyperdeck recording. Anyone?
LeavingTheCandy wrote: "Anyone care to comment on this? My main motivation is the use of SSD. AJA, are you listening? SSD!"
Yes, listening. The AJA Ki Pro supports optional SSD Storage Modules; it is supplied with a spinning disk Storage Module by default. The Ki Pro Mini supports solid state CompactFlash cards. I guess I don't totally understand the context of the question... using off the shelf SSDs, without any drive carrier/connector that is rated for multiple insertions, is a dicey proposition...
Let me know if I'm misunderstanding this comment... I might be!
Regards,
Jon Thorn
Senior Product Manager
AJA Video Systems, Inc.
Yes, listening. The AJA Ki Pro supports optional SSD Storage Modules; it is supplied with a spinning disk Storage Module by default. The Ki Pro Mini supports solid state CompactFlash cards. I guess I don't totally understand the context of the question... using off the shelf SSDs, without any drive carrier/connector that is rated for multiple insertions, is a dicey proposition...
Let me know if I'm misunderstanding this comment... I might be!
Regards,
Jon Thorn
Senior Product Manager
AJA Video Systems, Inc.
Ryan Patrick O'Hara
Veteran
I ALWAYS shoot at tint -8 or -10 on RedMX. It is green. Always.
When I occasionally DIT, day one of any feature, I always show the DP a regular shot and the same shot with -8 tint. They always see the green after that.
What do you mean 'two color temp' thing? You can't set S-log with a color temp on the F3?