Zacuto Shootout (GH1 specific)

pharpsied said:
I'm a smooth and standard shooter, would I set it the same way as I setup smooth? Also, how does nostalgic hold up in bright sunlight? I'm gonna shoot some this afternoon but I was kinda trying to get an upper hand on what I might run in to...
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It holds up perfectly fine in bright light. The image itself is brighter and less contrast across the range of the image, so at least in my experience it holds up fine. Even if the highlights have slightly less range(which I haven't noticed in my shooting environments yet) the shadow detail increases greatly.

Smooth is a good one as well, but I still see less contrast and a more even & "flat" picture in nostalgic.

I just turn the contrast down to -2. You can tweak the other settings as you see fit. Even Barry Green has said changing NR doesn't do much of anything, so I leave that and then saturation and sharpness are pretty much up to you. I leave the sharpness at 0, since I enjoy the look I've been getting simply lowering the contrast -2.
 
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what are your complete settings in nostalgic?

what are your complete settings in nostalgic?

Do you turn everything down further?
 
I just turn down contrast. I and leave the rest at 0. But that's my own personal preference. I've shot on smooth with everything down, but prefer nostalgic with just contrast -2.
 
Will give it a go this weekend, thanks, have tried nostalgic for low light stuff but never during the day, interesting.
 
I think it's helpful in an uncontrolled situation if you're going through spots that are sort of bright and a little darker. THat was the case for me when I shot a music video in a condemned warehouse. Bright patches and darker patches and using Nostalgic allowed me to keep a pretty consistent look on the lead singer as he wandered with a snorricam hooked up.
 
Nostalgic bugs me because I feel like it just muddies the highlights like when you bring the highlight slider down in a three way color corrector. They don't look like highlights anymore, and they don't resolve much more detail.

That's part of the reason I didn't like the Canons so much in that Zacuto test....the highlights had more detail but they looked gross.
 
You may lose a bit in the highlights, but the shadow detail is far better. But again it all depends on what look people prefer. I haven't had issues with highlight retention yet, so every situation is different. I've had times where it's been the a beautiful sunny day and I've shot on vibrant, because I've wanted a gorgeous saturated look right off the bat.
 
I tested out the nostalgic and I really like the look. I shot a quick scene between these two kids and it looked like SVU with the saturation in the picture. I tried to dial it down inside Vegas 9 and Final Cut's Color Correcter but I don't like the mud in the highlights (thanks Ben B for the heads up). I tried the 6aavc color corrector in Vegas 8. When I make it home, I'll try my stuff in After Effects and Magic Bullet.
 
Rory_B said:
I'll reiterate what I said and pappas too. Nostalgic will yield the brightest least contrasty image of all the settings. Smooth is nice too, but Nostalgic looks as though you gain 1/2 - 1+ stop of sensitivity depnding on which setting you compare it to. Between dynamic and nostalgic is night and day. And even between smooth you can see a gain in DR.
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It's the way to go.

"Nostalgic" Then apply -2 Contrast, it gets so friggin flat. For night filming it gives you almost a stop if not a full stop. People need to try this...


Michael Pappas
http://www.pbase.com/Arrfilms
http://www.PappasArts.com
http://SumeriusChronicles.com/
http://TheOrbisTerrarum.com/
 
pharpsied said:
But even the 720 only Nikon held it's ground and was given the benefit of the doubt as far as resoultion and codec were concerned.
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I was going off of the fact the footage looked washed out. What I mean buy loosing is the fact that it is only a 720 camera with all of it's competitors at 1080p. I would not consider such a camera for its video mode with cameras like the T21 and the 7D falling under $2000.00
 
GRENCH said:
I was going off of the fact the footage looked washed out. What I mean buy loosing is the fact that it is only a 720 camera with all of it's competitors at 1080p. I would not consider such a camera for its video mode with cameras like the T21 and the 7D falling under $2000.00
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Yeah, but the problem is, even though the others are "1080p" cameras, they're only delivering about 720p worth of resolution. It would be nice if Nikon would join the 1080p crowd, but don't assume that its image is necessarily any less sharp just because it's recorded as 720p. You could downscale the "1080p" of the other cameras to 720p and lose no actual resolved image data.
 
listening to the initial reaction of them viewing the gh1 was interesting, they seemed really impressed by how good it looked. it wasn't until looking at it closer that they decided it was too sharp and contrasty. but i seriously doubt the average movie going to be sitting there looking and this footage and think to themselves, "if only this wasn't so sharp." all in all a good showing by all the dslrs.

i can't wait to see what improvements the gh2 brings.
 
The GH1 has such a lovely lcd screen, I don't think many gh1 owners buy Z-finders.

This is a great assumption actually. Perfect cross pollination for products from the people who are hosting the shootout. Canon is a better product because A. We sell products to enhance the shooters experience.
 
So Barry would you rate the Nikon higher or on the same level as the 7D and GH1 based on the results so far from the Zacuto test or do you think it's still to early to tell. Based on the footage which I know is not the best due to compression the Nikon didn't look as good as the others especially on the stop chart. And then again maybe I'm looking at things through the wrong end of the microscope. I so wish you would have been there for the GH1 test. Really wanted to see it tested at it's optimal level.
 
PappasArts said:
It's the way to go.

"Nostalgic" Then apply -2 Contrast, it gets so friggin flat. For night filming it gives you almost a stop if not a full stop. People need to try this...
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Even though I shoot the gh1 like that all the time, I'll heed your advice to all others and strap on my 20mm pancake or 40mm voigtlander pancake tomorrow night at a dimly lit birthday party and shoot nothing but nostalgic and then throw a shot or 2 of smooth and standard in there. Time to start a nostalgic revolution!

If I was adventurous I'd bring the 7D along too, but I don't think I'm ambitious enough to look like the paparazzi all night.
 
GRENCH said:
GH1 test. Really wanted to see it tested at it's optimal level.
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Guys...I gotta say...again...while I feel that both Zacuto and Bloom are focusing on the Canons and feel they are the future, I firmly believe that Bloom knows how to use the GH1 better than most of us and was using it that way on the test, not somehow torpeoding it or ignoring it as suggested many times on this thread.

Look around...aside from Ben Bunch, and the occasional reminder from Barry Green, I'm probably the GH1's biggest defender on these boards. I showed up with the GH1 + Lecias at two bloom events when I could have taken a 7D. I'm shooting two ongoing documentaries on the GH1.

And I believe that the GH1 was handled properly on these tests. I may disagree about their interpetation of the bathtub look, and I'm a little confused about the DR chart (with regards to 5D vs 7D as well), but Bloom knows what he's doing and isn't a shill to any brand.
 
By the way, I'm not sure if Nolstalgic really gets us any increased range, but I do think it helps kill banding and even gets a little better color, in real low light...but I haven't used it much. I'll be getting some stuff in San Francisco bars with an F1.0 Noctilux over the next week, maybe I'll give it a whirl.
 
There's far less contrast than any of the other settings, so even if the DR is the same, the contrast across the entire image is way better. So you gain some in the shadows and lose a bit in the highlights maybe, but there's a definite advantage in certain scenarios.
 
Kellar42 said:
Guys...I gotta say...again...while I feel that both Zacuto and Bloom are focusing on the Canons and feel they are the future, I firmly believe that Bloom knows how to use the GH1 better than most of us and was using it that way on the test, not somehow torpeoding it or ignoring it as suggested many times on this thread.

Look around...aside from Ben Bunch, and the occasional reminder from Barry Green, I'm probably the GH1's biggest defender on these boards. I showed up with the GH1 + Lecias at two bloom events when I could have taken a 7D. I'm shooting two ongoing documentaries on the GH1.

And I believe that the GH1 was handled properly on these tests. I may disagree about their interpetation of the bathtub look, and I'm a little confused about the DR chart (with regards to 5D vs 7D as well), but Bloom knows what he's doing and isn't a shill to any brand.
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According to P.Bloom he used Smooth with sharpness -2 and contrast -2. Via Facebook.

I would call this proper handling.

So, maybe it doesn't quite have the latitude of the other cameras. That's fine. Everyone ooh'd and aw'd when it came on and then started tearing into it.

I am looking forward to the other tests...you know...the ones where we just get to ooh and ah :)
 
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