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BlackMagic: Official $2,995 raw cinema camera topic
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  • @kholi @ shian

    Overexposed is an interesting term. Is it overexposed ? I would say no because nothing is clipped. You're saying it LOOKS overexposed because...that's how the preview looks when you open it in Resolve ?

    I guess the exposure methodology of protecting highlights means many tend to ETTL but I have a different way of setting exposure.

    To me, and I do this with Alexa and RED, I want to know what is clipping, so using Zebra or Other similar tools, I set it to 100%. ON the BMCC the Zebra is based on SENSOR clipping, not a 709 LUT of the video space.

    So when shooting RAW, the 100% zebra absolutely tells me when the sensor is really clipping.

    Once I know what's clipping in the scene I then "choose" my exposure based on what I'm happy to let clip. In a round about way I guess it's like ETTR, but I like to have as much "meat" of my exposure above the noise floor. it depends on the screen though and that's something you have to judge. The DR of the scene itself will affect my judgement of where to "position" the exposure.

    So yes Sian, the numbers you're looking at on the waveform are about right. I actually set the exposure in this by looking at her white dress when she was standing up. I then used the zebra to see where it was clipping, and then gave myself some headroom by backing off another stop. The sparkles on her dress where still clipping but I decided that was OK and let those "go". There's no point in trying to hold that kind of highlight detail obviously at the cost of the skin tones.

    I'd love to ask both of you...you're reacting against the high levels of skin tones..being up higher in the exposure scale in this shot. Is there a downside ? If nothing is clipped, isn't all the information there ? How does it change the way things behave ?

    There are other low keys scenes where the exposure isn't set in the same way at all. In those scenes (night, low con) then you make a much more subjective judgement of exposure. Wide open and highest ISO and trust the camera will hold the DR in the highlights of point sources !!

    jb

  • @shian

    I noticed the same things as you. Strangely enough, the images seem to be overexposed in general, but it didn't really hurt too much. What'll be a task is really learning how to expose here, it doesn't seem to behave the same as R3D from say an Epic.

    Can't see underexposing being "the thing to do" with this camera. S'like all the focus in the range has been placed at the top, similar to Alexa, versus at the bottom like Epic etc.

    Anyway, really just need to have the camera to test this. And, how bout that color separation aye?

  • 6sec / 141 frames at 24fps = 704 MB. I can imagine that after first trials a lot of people will switch to ProRes. But really awsome.

  • Hey guys, this looks awesome.. :)

  • @johnbrawley It behaves very similarly to R3D, except it doesn't seem to live in quite the same LOG environment. (In other words, stuff I would do to R3D footage, I have to do differently with these.) It does seem to be more difficult to bend, as in many instances as you can see by the scopes her skin tone is exposed over 90% which, even for a white girl, is pretty high, but it's manageable and there's recoverable detail, except in the shadows in the background they are so black there's no detail. But There is plenty of latitude on her facial shadows, I can do a myriad of grades with this.

    In the sparkler shot, I really had to spend a bit of time messing with the knee to get something that didn't mute the skin tone terribly. I like the options in AE for interpreting the images very much.

    Even with the ECU I placed her skin above 80, which is still pretty high, but that seemed to be the most natural look given the exposure and contrast ratio.

    I'd like to hear from you, where you actually exposed her, and if possible see a flat interpretation of that exposure - realizing that as it's RAW with a baseline of ISO800, and that you are basically changing metadata in cam per what you see.

    I've also updated the video to show RAW unadjusted DNG vs. the grade.

    another option

    image

    scopes

    image

  • @johnbrawley Did you apply ETTR? Is ETTR useful in this case?

  • @Shian,

    that is awesome work. I am still learning how to color correct and grade, but seeing John's clips and the way you have pulled the elements out of each clip has sealed the deal for me for this camera. My GH2 just died, so what a great reason to buy the BMC now. But in the interim, I need to find another camera to finish up my projects

  • @shian Can you tell me your impressions as a colourist of how it behaves ? I'm always interested to hear how colourists see the camera reacting. You already mentioned you felt the expsore was a bit high ? Did you feel the same about the evening shots ? Noise ? Skin tones ?

    jb

  • Thanks, John. I'm not totally happy with that one. I want to see if I can get a less muted look to the skin tone, but here is a quick video. I'll play with them more tomorrow. It's 2am here. Need sleep.

    Download the mp4, and know that the Prores444 looks spectacular!

  • @shian They look very nice mate, you have a great eye. The sparkler shot is beautiful in your grade and that's a difficult one to get right.

    You mentioned the exposure seemed high, but did you find anything was clipped ? Was there a downside to the high exposure ?

    jb

  • Here are a few of my interpretations with AE importer...

    Sewper-Awesum Look:

    image

    Normal Look:

    image

    'Cool-Grade 9000' look:

    image

    Here's something with a bit more blue/red and less contrasty skin... I've always been a fan of slightly under-exposing skin. I don't really like green tones in skin either. This is why RAW is so awesome. :)

    image

    Man, I already don't want to shot on anything besides this cam... :) (well, Red or Alexa aside)

    01_jpg.jpg
    1919 x 1081 - 760K
    02_jpg.jpg
    1920 x 1076 - 494K
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    1920 x 1081 - 658K
    04_jpg.jpg
    1920 x 879 - 454K
    05_jpg.jpg
    1920 x 878 - 380K
  • VERY Impressed with the DNG files. VERY!

    They behave in much the same way as Raw R3D files in how AFX interprets them. There is a definite grain to the image. Not totally unpleasing. And, while it is a bit sluggish in AE CS6 (more so than 4k R3D) it grades VERY Nicely.

    image

    These were done with ColorGHear, it's a very heavy Bleach Bypass style look.... the footage holds together reeeeeeeally well.

    This is nearly the same grade I did to the JPG files last month, but I cranked it up to see what would happen. I did limit the skin tone to around 65-70 which muted it a bit. The raw was exposed really high.

    image

    raw - interpreted using the auto function

    image

    others

    image

    image

    casey_1-22-2 (0.00.07.02).png
    2400 x 1350 - 3M
    Screen Shot 2012-08-21 at 10.48.16 PM.png
    1162 x 975 - 660K
    casey_1-22-2 (0.00.07.01)_2.png
    2400 x 1350 - 3M
    DNG RAW 1.png
    2400 x 1350 - 4M
    casey_1-22-2 (0.00.07.01)_3.png
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    Shot 6 (0.00.02.15).png
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    Shot 7 (0.00.03.16).png
    2400 x 1350 - 4M
  • @johnbrawley

    I can't seen to open them in Resolve Lite. Doesn't Lite only support 1920x1080 files... ?

  • @johnbrawley

    Thanks John.

    Very glad that you have forum now.

  • First, it is great decision to lauch their forum.

    Second, it is good news that Cinema DNG is available.

  • @JohnTollwannabe you're right, we should care IF the people directly had control of this. Unfortunately we don't - our voting system has much to be desired when ballots are skewed behind the scenes. @jfro Agreed.

  • No offense to anyone's political or religious beliefs, but I'm on this thread to read and talk about the camera. I don't use guns so it's of no interest to me. How about started a new category to talk politics or guns.

  • Even Australian companies have been known to outsource. I do believe we should care about the working conditions and salaries of the people who make our goods, don't you?

    And the sad truth is indeed, the U.S.'s greatest exports are weapons.

  • I have to make do with my 3 x 120G Vertex 3 .. used in Hyperdecks I also have to make do with my canon kit zooms, and 60mm macro I have a handful of adapters for most of my vintage lenses to canon.

    I have been told my Continio cage will ship today. The cage and the BMD cinema camera will be interchangeable with my GH2 on my rail system. The rail system is Lanparte. Power is from the Lanparte v-mount. I have a BMD SDI->HDMI converter for my small HD DP6

    According to BMD's drive test utility, I will be able to play 1 stream of RAW at approximately 22fps .. off a 4 way RAID0 (7200rpm satas) .. the raid gets about 230Mbs.

    I think I need a new motherboard with onboard USB3, as I am only getting 180Mbs from my SSD through a cheap USB3 addin card (Resnasas chip set) .. the SSDs are capable of more as they manage to record uncompressed in the Hyperdecks.

    I am going to aim to get the Rokinon Cine Primes .. they fit my budget.

    Basically I am ready to shoot .. depending on the job .. if I shoot RAW, I intend to make Proxies with Timecode in DaVinci, edit proxies in AVID, then either Grade in DaVinci or AE (I hold a belief that adobe will put the codecs in place, as will AVID).

    My reading leads me to believe I will need a second graphics card to run DaVinci such that's it's repsonsive.

    I should be able to post produce RAW, albeit I won't be able to play more than one stream at a time.

    I am hoping my existing graphics card will handle a two or three of nodes of color correction in DaVinci.

    If I don't get my BMD by the end of next week, I will stop being the biggest BMD fan boy here .. and complain :)

  • My Samsung SSD 830 just arrived. I'll see Dr. Dave's pizza and raise you a 12 pack of microbrew.

  • Anxiously awaiting raw. Will trade burrito or pizza for raw.

  • If all the stars align correctly, I'm expecting my cam in 12-14 days. Couldn't wait any longer so bought a single Kingston 240GB SSDNow V+200 (SVP200S3/240G) ssd. Wanted to buy the vertex OCZ 240gb, but scared off by many negative reviews as well as JB's comments.

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