When is enough, enough? A vent.

But that is the point, it doesn't matter what camera these people have, the only difference would be crappy deep focus shots with lots of noise. Just because you light the scene doesn't mean it is lit well. Only experience and education is going to teach that. :)
 
It's not about your camera.

It's not about my camera.

It's all about you.

It's all about our ability to see.

It's all about our ability to new things, and to see old things in new ways.

It's all about our vision. It's never about your camera.

Cameras are not photography any more than a pen is a novel, a brush is a painting or a golf ball is a tournament won.

The best way to make the worst possible picture is to find a nice place, set up your tripod with the best possible camera, level the camera and carefully adjust everything to perfection, then photograph it with the sharpest possible lens with the highest possible dynamic range, resolution, color depth and gamut, all to get the most accurate and exact possible picture.

As Ansel Adams so truly observed, there's nothing worse than a sharp picture of a fuzzy idea.

Photography has nothing to do with reproducing things. A camera is a tool with which to create new works of art. Art is the expression of imagination. Imagination is how you see things differently from others.

Once you find a picture worth taking, it's still never about the camera. It's always about knowing how to use that camera. The kind of camera is irrelevant.

It's not about pixel size, color space or bit depth.

It's all about line, shape, form, color, balance, texture and tone. It's about new points-of-view, not about shooting at tripod or eye-level height.

Photography is all about what's in your frame, not what's in your bag.

It's all about moving yourself and seeing something worth seeing, in the strongest possible way.
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AMEN!

Excerpts from: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/not-about-your-camera.htm

Frank
 
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...There's always that accidental shot that you took by mistake with a messed up camera, that you thought you would bin when editing, and it turns out to be one of the most brilliant things you've ever done, and no matter how hard you try, you can never quite capture it again. :-)
 
Good thread this. Content, creativity imagination is what makes things work. Who cares what you shot your pictures with. And if they capture your audience that question will never even pop up.
If photography would only be about the size of your equipement it would be called pornography.
 
....on the other Hand,

though all that Ken Rockwell (and Adams) said is very true in analog still photography, it is only true to some degree in digital cinematography.

In analog photography the camera really doesn´t mater, cause you have a wonderful interchangeable fullsize sensor (and a fresh one for every single picture).
Even in a 70 years old, beat up camera.

In digital cinematography, if your sensor is to small or not fast enough, you are not gonna get this clean lowlight shot, with super shallow DOF in a dim bar - no mater how good your creative vision is, no matter how hard you try, no mater how you "see old things in new ways", you are not gonna get this shot - period.

You can only toss it and get an other one, but thats a different story and the difference between still photography and digital cinematography.

Frank
 
Postmaster said:
....on the other Hand,

though all that Ken Rockwell (and Adams) said is very true in analog still photography, it is only true to some degree in digital cinematography.

In analog photography the camera really doesn´t mater, cause you have a wonderful interchangeable fullsize sensor (and a fresh one for every single picture).
Even in a 70 years old, beat up camera.

In digital cinematography, if your sensor is to small or not fast enough, you are not gonna get this clean lowlight shot, with super shallow DOF in a dim bar - no mater how good your creative vision is, no matter how hard you try, no mater how you "see old things in new ways", you are not gonna get this shot - period.

You can only toss it and get an other one, but thats a different story and the difference between still photography and digital cinematography.

Frank
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Some of the most amazing cinematography I've ever seen is in Pedro Costa's film Colossal Youth - shot on a dvx100. I agree you can get interesting images from just about any camera... however when you're working with a script, you'd better be prepared to rewrite the script. OR... write the script in mind with a style limited by your medium. i.e (agree with Frank) the script is set in low light scenarios, you don't have money for lights and your director want's you to shoot wide on DV.

So I guess my 2 cents worth is - that yes, it is possible to make amazing images with pretty much anything, but within reason. (getting a beautiful, grainy, blurry impressionistic shot through a busted lens is one thing... making a whole movie is quite another.)
 
I'm really ashamed of myself, because i waste so many hours just doing research like "what should i buy Canon 60d or maybe Gh2 ! or 550/gh1/7d/d7000/d5100/etc... I realized how useless is that.. People talking about it over and over, i don't see any of them making movies like elmariachi/reservoirdogs/evil dead/bad taste.. you know what i mean. All most of them do is retarded tests about LOW LIGHT PERFORMANCE, or how SHALLOW the depth can be! it's so boring
 
damiaanp said:
I'm really ashamed of myself, because i waste so many hours just doing research like "what should i buy Canon 60d or maybe Gh2 ! or 550/gh1/7d/d7000/d5100/etc... I realized how useless is that.. People talking about it over and over, i don't see any of them making movies like elmariachi/reservoirdogs/evil dead/bad taste.. you know what i mean. All most of them do is retarded tests about LOW LIGHT PERFORMANCE, or how SHALLOW the depth can be! it's so boring
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Post of the year.
 
I love this thread, it's everything I wish so many posts weren't. I too have gotten caught up in pixel peeping and debating over gear for hours and hours on end. Countless skype convos, Facebook chats, articles read, Vimeo videos downloaded and scoped out (why the heck I would take that at face value I have NO idea...because I'm stupid perhaps), and anything in-between.

Truth be told regardless of disagreements on what's easier to use for whatever reason (things outside of the image like internal features, audio, etc.), we've all seen beautiful stuff from every single camera that's debated out there. EVERY SINGLE ONE. I've seen amazing 5D footage, RED footage, GH2 footage, AF100 footage, and the list goes on. I've seen my buddy Marlon Torres take some pretty incredible shots with his little Nex5n that he got recently, and it could be intermixed with a lot of these sub $5000 cameras without a ton of effort.

I've been trying to fight myself. I bought my AF100 after debating quite a while about what was the proper choice. I was even a basher of the camera for a time, and then changed my tune. Now I definitely have my quibbles with the camera, but otherwise anything that was going wrong ended up being my fault.

The real problem was my inability to know why the image wasn't turning out how I wanted it and knowing the proper solution on how to fix it...PERIOD. It's not that the camera wasn't good (regardless of what might be lacking) it's that my ability to use it and get superior images was and still is limited.

The funniest part about all of this, is I live in the DVD market...that's where my delivery will almost always be. So part of me wonders why I didn't just stick with my DSLRs and spend the money on things BESIDES the camera. I've wondered if selling my AF100 was a good option, and I'm still not totally sure, but I do know one thing...it's not the cameras fault if my movie looks like crap...it's mine, especially if most of the setbacks some of these cameras might have will virtually disappear once it's downrezzed to SD and compressed for DVD with an old MPEG2 codec.

Don't even get me started on the whole "wow it looks like a movie, look at his nose...it's the only thing in focus."
 
Greg Smith said:
Some of us haven't made that transition yet. I only sold my 8x10 camera (that could take glass plates with the appropriate back) a couple of years ago!

- Greg
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I sold my 4x5 in the 80s to buy the Wife a video camera, thinking that would spur her into becoming a filmmaker... I should have bought it for myself... anyway, I did buy a 4x5 again around 2000 and have not really used it at all...

But in reality, it's only been since the DVX100 that I've really become impressed with 'low end' equipment for making films. Before that point, 'video' never really impressed me, and film film was even more expensive than when I was young....

We did a few video projects using a Sony Beta player with a little 'console controller' gizmo... but ugly cuts with rainbows just really put me off... Same was true for the U-matics that she used at school... no real 'good' video editing for lower than a couple 100K...

I did have access to much higher end digitizing equipment at the time, a whopping 640x480 worth of resolution... (I don't need no stinking rectangular pixels...) and we did a few projects for her school work... but definitely nothing we could take with us once I left that company...
 
Ryan, I'm younger than you (I assume) and my first professional camera was a Sony FX7, also ISO 100-ish as base. With young age (and lack of experience) also comes stupidity, adding to this the consumerist misconception that owning an expensive high-end camera is going to make you better, I also had to fight myself to get rid of these poisonous ideas. I also shot a whole web series with just the GH1 and the 14-140, indoors with the exception of very few takes were no problem, perhaps people are becoming so lazy they don't wanna put some fill light? hehehe

Having said that, my gripe with most low cost systems is really how they handle underexposure and not really sensitivity. Sometimes I just want a low-key look and the sensor contaminates the low-key area with obstrusive noise (since most of the scene is low key), need to be careful with how to achieve a low-key scene, perhaps a not-so-low-key lighting approach is preferred and you further sell the effect through grading.

TimurCivan said:
Also, the biggest battle now is getting rid of spill, or over powering ambient light. i swear, one 60w bulb and your whole scene goes sickly yellow. You have to kill EVERYTHING in the room. Laptop Screens, TV's, Blinking clock radios etc....
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Timur, when you mention color cast, are you referring to increased sensitivity that makes a small bulb affect your exposure or about how the video processor handles different color temperatures?

Regarding sensitivity, with its increase also on professional systems, that's not only going to affect the amateur kid. I remember Art Adams touched this subject (he said some street lights far away were affecting his lighting and he had to deal with it) when writing about his first-hand experiences with the Alexa.
 
Isaac_Brody said:
On the flip side, this will make everyone with a solid foundation in cinematography that much more valuable and hirable. I agree it's annoying, but it's also pretty obvious when people are bulls**tting, and that doesn't go very far on jobs.

And really from what I can tell the fake experience and posturing can slide by online but gets checked pretty quickly on set. It's not a threat, but I agree it can be pretty annoying. This is why it's good to unplug and go shoot/create when you find yourself getting pulled into the gear talk vortex of saying and not doing. One thing I really appreciate about hearing really good DP's talk about their craft is that they don't talk about how cool a piece of gear is, but they talk about how a shot services the story. That is something missing in the discussions online.
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Amen to pretty much all these points. Too much gear lust can get in the way of creating beautiful images that tell the story. I got the chance to meet a great DP after a presentation. One of the people before me asked him the question: Which camera should I buy? The DP looked at him like a Kung Fu master looks at a beginner student and said: Give me any camera you like and a few lights and I will make beautiful images.

This is truly what its about. Not the resolution, ISO, image sensor of a particular camera. It's the images you make. Make light your brush and the frame your canvas.
 
Pietro Impagliazzo said:
Ryan, I'm younger than you (I assume) and my first professional camera was a Sony FX7, also ISO 100-ish as base. With young age (and lack of experience) also comes stupidity, adding to this the consumerist misconception that owning an expensive high-end camera is going to make you better, I also had to fight myself to get rid of these poisonous ideas. I also shot a whole web series with just the GH1 and the 14-140, indoors with the exception of very few takes were no problem, perhaps people are becoming so lazy they don't wanna put some fill light? hehehe

Having said that, my gripe with most low cost systems is really how they handle underexposure and not really sensitivity. Sometimes I just want a low-key look and the sensor contaminates the low-key area with obstrusive noise (since most of the scene is low key), need to be careful with how to achieve a low-key scene, perhaps a not-so-low-key lighting approach is preferred and you further sell the effect through grading.



Timur, when you mention color cast, are you referring to increased sensitivity that makes a small bulb affect your exposure or about how the video processor handles different color temperatures?

Regarding sensitivity, with its increase also on professional systems, that's not only going to affect the amateur kid. I remember Art Adams touched this subject (he said some street lights far away were affecting his lighting and he had to deal with it) when writing about his first-hand experiences with the Alexa.
Click to expand...

I'm talking about color cast. It poisions the scene.
 
Okay, I admit I haven't read this entire thread, so if this has already been covered then forgive me.

I think people don't want to have to learn how to LIGHT a scene properly. They want the 'natural' look because they think it's easy. They don't realize how much sheer wattage Hollywood dumps on those 'natural' looking scenes.

A lot of indie filmmakers seem to think they can just grab a really good camera and shoot a movie and make mega-bucks. It's not about the camera, folks. At least, it's not JUST about the camera. The very LEAST that an indie filmmaker should do is to consider camera, lighting and sound as equally important. A poorly shot film won't be saved by great lighting or great sound. A beautifully lit film won't be any good if it's badly shot or the sound sucks. Sound can be stellar, but crappy camera work or lousy lighting will ruin the film. (And that's before we even talk about acting, script, directing, etc.)

Hollywood makes it look easy sometimes. It's not.
 
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