At around 2’18” into the video, you can see the difference between how Blackmagic Gen 4 and Gen 5 color scence handle the bright, saturated reds we mentioned in an earlier post (which can make things like tail lights and the lights on police cars & emergency vehicles look so obnoxious), something the latest Arri... Continue Reading →
The Ideal Cinema Camera
What are the minimum requirements when it comes to choosing a cinema camera? When asked why he chose the Ursa 12K to make realistic fake window videos, Tim Pan (content creator for Media Storm), cited resolution, dynamic range, color science and the ability to record RAW as paramount. We'd add another requirement: the ability to... Continue Reading →
Kolari Pro 3-Stop ND Filter Test
We just finished doing a quick & dirty test of the Kolari Pro 3-Stop ND screw-on filter. Screenshot #1 was auto white balanced with no filter; #2 is the same white balance, only with the Kolari ND3 filter; #3 was white balanced with the ND3 filter in place. While all land directly on the skin... Continue Reading →
Neon & LED
For the longest time, colorists have had to deal with the garish digital color processing of neon and LED lights, particularly those of the emergency vehicles, police cars and taillights seen in so many crime shows. Also, at the dawn of digital cinema, LED lights were seldom seen on sets, whereas today, they are commonplace.... Continue Reading →
Why HDR10 Doesn’t Have Terrible Banding
The PQ EOTF, standardized as SMPTE ST-2084, is used for both Dolby Vision and HDR10, only the former stipulates 12 bits while the latter uses a 10-bit version of PQ. Take this quiz to test your knowlege: why doesn’t most HDR10 content suffer from appalling banding artifacts? Choose from among one or more of the... Continue Reading →
Cullen Kelly on Correcting Skin Tones
"In the last five years I have maybe pulled one key for skin. I will avoid it at basically all costs. It's just upside down, it's wagging the dog. What are we trying to make look good with our primaries if not skin? Skin should be like bullseye, dead-on, by the time we've moved on... Continue Reading →
Cinematic!
This 19th century style follow focus has been gathering dust in the closet for five years. It's got A/B hard stops and comes with a crank and a whip for smoother focus pulls, so hopefully it's idiot-proof, which didn't prevent me from putting it on backwards! I ordered a SmallRig lens support this afternoon, so... Continue Reading →
RAW: An Often Overlooked Advantage
In our Monster guide, we lay out no fewer than a half dozen reasons why you should be shooting RAW, but there’s yet one more seldom discussed advantage: when shooting log, the quality of the file is completely at the mercy of the camera’s internal encoder, meaning that it’s not possible to improve upon this... Continue Reading →
Our Kolari Filters Arrive!
The Kolari drop-in ND filter adapter for RF mount, along with a set of filters, arrived yesterday, so we won’t have to shoot at f/16 all the time. The KipperTie Revolva with three ND filters and one clear filter runs $1,574, the Kolari with the same filters costs around $625, a savings of almost $1,000.
Canon Rids R5 of Fake Overheating Restriction Without Fanfare
Seldom has a camera elicited as much controversy as did Canon’s EOS R5 and its overheating debacle. At the time, we were even compelled to call out DPReview's shameless defense of Canon, a shoddy piece of journalism which DPR technical editor Richard Butler has since retracted. Since the latest update, users are reporting being able... Continue Reading →
Best Budget Rear ND Solution for the RED Komodo?
After poring over dozens of reviews and watching countless comparisons on YouTube, we think we’ve finally landed upon an ND filter adapter and drop-in filter system that (1) is compatible with the RED Komodo; (2) whose solid NDs have remarkably neutral color rendition; and (3) that won’t break the bank. Kolari is asking $224.99 for... Continue Reading →
Origins of the Skin Tone Line
The original purpose of what we now refer to as the skin tone line on the vectorscope had nothing at all to do with the color of flesh tones. Alexis van Hurkman explains.
“I Guess It Wasn’t for You in the First Place”
We're seeing this idiotic refrain echoed over and over again in the comments sections of YouTube camera reviews and in online forums in reply to those for whom image quality is paramount and who recognize the value of objective testing, the most recent instance being CineD's lab test of the Canon EOS R5 C -... Continue Reading →
How Improper WB Hurts DR
We were aware that shooting with the incorrect white balance reduces dynamic range, but we never understood why this is so - until now. For those thinking that this doesn’t apply to raw video, we highly recommend checking out the heated exchange in the comments section of Alister Chapman’s blog post on the subject.
Motion Cadence Is BS
Over the years, in the comments section of YouTube sample footage videos, we continue to run across viewers claiming the motion cadence of camera X, Y or Z isn’t cinematic. Motion cadence is a BS term - it has no meaning whatsover. Which is not to say that there aren’t factors that impact our perception... Continue Reading →
RED Komodo: Versatility
Balancing the RED Komodo paired with the Canon RF 35mm f/1.8 Macro IS STM on a DJI RS 2 was easy peasy! In fact, it required much less time to balance than the a7s III with the Ninja V. As can be seen in the photo below, there is a ton of clearance between the... Continue Reading →
The Advantage of A Heat Sink
HDTVTest, in their review of the Sony A95K QD-OLED, compare it to the Samsung S95B, which shares the same QD-OLED panel. After running footage on a loop with the same APL for several minutes, the Samsung becomes noticeably darker while the Sony picture maintains its brightness, owing to a heat dissipation layer that reduces the... Continue Reading →
Samsung Cheats on TV Benchmarks
A must-read article over at flatpanelshd.
Daejeon Chronicles Sees RED
We’re in love with RED, but $8,000 for the Komodo is just a touch extravagant for an English teacher in Vietnam, so instead we’re eyeing this marvelous beast - a 6K Scarlet X with EF mount for a cool four grand.
The Daejeon Chronicles 