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2K BlackMagic Pocket Cinema Camera, active m43, $995
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  • @vicharris

    I dont hate BMPCC. I dont have nothing against anyone. I am sorry if I am not able to conversate politly about MATTERS. I have considered to try BMPCC but it seems to be very difficult tool. I am a little surprised that some people are so sensitive about commenting their color grading. I can see that it needs lot of work and effort and many are just learning to cc. If I would share my gradings I would be thankful for negative comments too because only that way I could develope my skills. Is it very helpful if everyone just says "Nice grade" or "wonderful video"? Of course cc is personal matter and taste but can you honestly say that there is nothing wrong with this BMPCC color cast thing I have asked.

    ".....it's because people actually have to learn how to grade the footage....." ------How can they ever learn if nobody says honest opinions or what must improve-----

    @lmackreath They say I am too harsh to you with my comments. Do you honestly feel the same. If yes then I apologize you.

  • Color (correction) grading is difficult. When people used DSLRs and camcorders with standard settings, it was not necessary, just desirable. Now with Pro Res and RAW it is required. There has been video after video posted where people just slap on a LUT, resulting in off-color, dull coloration or a pretentious pre-set "film stock" look. (How about "faded Polaroid"? Or maybe Tri-X?). And for some reason many posters defend this as art, or the highest praise - "not video."

    In my view it is a shame, because in fact the content and visuals of most of the videos are excellent (like the family Christmas video). It is patently obvious that for most of the videos little effort was put into what is pretentiously called "grading," but what is really necessary color correction for flat RAW videos that come out of the camera. The result is often (not always) a color monstrosity by any standard. You cannot hide behind "art" or "it's just tastes" when someone just slaps on a preset LUT ("Look I made my video look like S16 film! I am an artiste").

    There have been some great examples of color grading. I just find it incredible that one second of moire attracts negative comments, but almost any dis- or mis-coloration of an entire video from some odd LUT gets at best no notice and sometimes praise.

    Vesku is not knocking the BMC's. He is knocking the same thing I am - the poor results from ill-advised "grading." The many (not all) posted videos make it seem like the BMC's have some color problem. But it's all user-induced - LUT-mania.

    It would be art if the grades were different, but they are almost all the same, because people are just using the available stock LUT's as a shortcut to the hard work needed to get either natural (the horror!) color or an actual personal creative look. Captain Hook's videos are great (and his LUT is actually a useful starting point for grading). I can spot a BMC video instantly, not because of the great dynamic range or high detail, but because of the not-been-seen-before dull, odd-colorations.

    I feel better now :).

  • to the oxymoronic "peaceonearth": "footage additionally killed by horrible sound."

    Can you elaborate on what you mean by this? Do you mean the sound is inaccurate? lacks dynamic range? has overloaded parts? distorted? Or do you mean there is actually a sound track capturing the ambience of the scene and you would prefer instead ("it's just tastes") no sound at all, just a pleasant music track like everyone else uses? Or are you just being spiteful from envy? 'Horrible' is not an audio technical term and thus of little usefulness.

  • ha ha, Happy New Year!

  • I agree with all of the above and as I have already said I am guilty of thinking that slapping on a LUT will make my footage look great and it simply doesn't. I think the main issue is the majority of the bmpcc owners are or were previously owners of gh2s.. Mk 2 canons etc and the colour and white balance were already baked in or taken care of by the camera. Yes you could do some basic colour grading on top but the truth is most of that 8 bit footage was pretty much pre graded if you will straight of the camera.

    Now all of a sudden we are presented with this flat log footage and cannot grade it correctly.. Ironically the kind of flat footage that we wanted out of our gh2s to give us the most latitude in post!

    Another problem is software. I have always used fcp x but it is clearly out of the box not capable of being used to grade prores log footage. The in built exposure sliders in fcp x simply don't work on prores footage and don't really change the exposure. This is only evident when you use nick shaws plugin and see how his exposure slider really effects the footage.

    I have also spent money on the lut utility for fcp x as well as the osiris filM Pack as well as filmconvert. Most of us all new to REAL grading and sometimes we don't have time to learn or the patience and would rather type in google " how to achieve the film look".

    I will get better over time I am sure.. I just think a lot of us bought the bmpcc thinking we could produce amazing images with it that would far exceed anything we ever did on our gh2s or canons. Spec wise we know the camera is capable of this but I am yet too see it in my footage and most of the bmpcc footage out there.

  • @lmackreath My experience is that RAW is much easier to "grade" - get colors right - than Pro Res. Resolve is really the only way to grade RAW in a reasonable workflow, and while it is not easy to master, it can get the job done. It is designed to color grade, unlike most software packages. Thanks for being a good sport, and I obviously agree with everything you say.

    Too many videos are "LUT-lazy"!

  • Now can we all be friends again?

    :)

  • I'm a novice, but one thing that comes to my mind is that I can clearly see from the movies I watch that there is no single look to any film i've ever seen. I see many films intentionally use color to help tell the story using what would be considered off color grades. So why is it that there seems to be this Orthodoxy on what is the proper look for a film? It seems to me that if a person likes the colors they set for their film that there shouldn't really be any purity in this regard. I have seen great looking BMPCC footage and GH3 footage as well as other cameras, but they don't all look the same, so i'm not sure I understand the critique of many of the videos people have put up on the web. I do have a lot to learn and hope to learn how to properly grade my footage, but also think we should have the freedom to do what we like even if it's not technically correct.

  • @Aria

    You have very good points. I have wondered also what is this magical "film look" or "cinematic video". Is there some common principles of that. Hmm.., 24P, 1/48, shallow DOF, slightly personal colors.. BMPCC is cinema camera so it is reasonable to reach cinema look. But I think still that many people want to grade normal rich color looking videos too. It seems to be difficult with BMPCC. Is there somewhere easy instructions how to do that?

    I can clearly see from the movies I watch that there is no single look to any film i've ever seen.

    I have seen many films which has own special colors. For example many children movies has very bright and vivid colors and 2. world war films has some muted colors.

  • Talking about "LUT is just decoding algorithm, it's not grading" thesis, I try to understand grading RAW and ProRes at Davinci Resolve 10. I try make grade without 3D LUT and basically I very like that starting point. But I also begin to know what advantage and disadvantage of LUTs, and I learn to using LUTs. One of great target of Captain Hook is make the picture and skin-tone less yellowish, and I found that is not easy to correct right to beginner Davinci colorist. My second test clip I used 1st time a Captain Hook LUT on ProRes, and overall sharpness was less my previous clip I done with BMCC Film to REC 709. I haven't touch any sharpness configuration yet. My question is: Are LUTs have different sharpness presets? I sure I was exactly at focus every shot at this clip with focus peaking.

  • Why opening ProRes and RAW source clips at Davinci Resolve 10 looks so different? Resolve opens RAW like very brut aggressive LUT? It almost not acceptable to begin work with any LUT (over-saturated, over-contrast and too yellow), just No LUT looks looks ok for start with it, but ProRes is opens very different, LUTs also not too bad to begin. Could I use some different preference for RAW?

  • Learn to use Resolve systematically. You need to go to the RAW tab on the right (or to the RAW section in "Project Preferences") and set the project/clip to Cinema DNG/BMD Film + BMD Film.

  • With grading, please go to one of many grading topics :-)

  • Ugh. Same shit, different day :)

  • @vicharris

    let me just provide simple quote:

    Playing Hercule Poirot for a quarter of a century would not have been possible for me without the help of many, many people, all of whom I owe my most grateful thanks. The television executives, directors, producers, writers, production teams all helped to make it an unforgettable experience. To all the teams over all the shows, to the costume designers, costumiers, tailors, dressers, personal make-up artists, set designers and the art directors, who made the production values of Poirot so special, let me say at once, I could not have done it without you, thank you all so much.

    I must also thank all the extraordinary and talented actors and actresses who have appeared alongside me and supported me throughout the years

    From "Poirot and Me" by David Suchet. One of the best books I read recently.

    http://www.amazon.com/Poirot-Me-David-Suchet/dp/0755364198/

  • @Vitaliy_Kiselev

    I see your point but it just drives me crazy that time and time again I see people have no idea what they are doing with this camera and then wonder why their footage does not look good. I'm by far any sort of camera or color expert but every time I plan to make a purchase I research the shit out of it. I had never used Resolve before I got my first BM camera but you bet I watched many videos and read many blogs on how to work with and ingest the footage. I wouldn't consider myself smarter or more keen than the next guy so why do we see this time and time again? It's driving me crazy.

    I just wish people would take a few minutes before they post questions and research their problems. It would help out tremendously!

    Now maybe I should go buy that book ;)

  • see your point but it just drives me crazy that time and time again I see people have no idea what they are doing with this camera and then wonder why their footage does not look good.

    My quote just say why footage is much more frequently "not good". As all must match (knowledge, actual skill and talent in many areas) in exactly one guy. It is rare thing. Grading is also not so simple thing and requires skill and taste.

  • Hahaha, that's funny. I though you were trying to prove a deeper point.

    Well I bought the book anyways :)

  • Well there is more than one way to skin a cat. I'm certainly no expert, but being a designer and a Photoshop expert goes a long way in helping me out when I 'attempt' to grade this stuff.

    There are tons of tutorials out there - heck just watch ColorGHear tuts and you're already half way there. People should spend more time on basic color theory, and how to communicate the tone and manner of your story.

    And for gods sake - at least get your white balance and levels correct :-)

  • Lot of users here come here with previous experience with conventional format cameras. BMCC and BMPCC for my understanding, cameras that indivisibly coming with Davinci Resolve, like only tool that make right algorithm of understanding its own CinemaDNG and ProRes picture decoding from flat negative. LUTs are not grading! For sure some stupid basic question will be repeated, what about FAQ about it?

  • @vicharris I spent about week on youtube and vimeo Resolve tutorials. Lot of them not about last version 10. I already read Resolve full tread here.

    @cantsin Thank you! I asked to help because I just can't find at Resolve 10 lite exactly same RAW settings (Cinema DNG/BMD Film + BMD Film). There is only Cinema DNG to choose, others are ARRI, RED, SonyRAW etc. And at Master settings TAB - Decode Using: Camera metadata, CinemaDNG default and Project. Only if choosing Project opens custom Color Space: BMD Film and Gamma: BMD Film

  • What your RIGHT way set good WB at BMPCC? Picture at monitor too flat to set precious WB and make any fine tuning. I just use 3200 indoor warm light (sorry it can't go lower to 2800), 4600 or 5600 fluorescent light, sun is 5600, shadows with clean blue sky 6500. Is there better way? Finally I bought Zacuto EVF Z-Finder. It can make some changes to make the picture less flat. I set maximum contrast and saturation to see right picture, so it can help a little for WB too.

  • @act Wait, did you say LUTs are not for grading?

    They absolutely can be, in fact, they often are used to provide a very good base for grading in all kinds of situations. For example you can do a super fast 4 node grade using LUTs. Node 1: basic corrections. Node 2: saturation adjustments. Node 3: LUT. Node 4: Sharpness. Sure if you were grading a feature film you could go a different route and build a grade from the ground up, but for quick and efficient, this type of grading is often more than enough.