'Apocalypse Now' Experimental Series 1 Thread - BOOM, Intravenus - cbrandin/driftwood AN Soft/Cinema

LPowell

@onionbrain - "You're a nasty little fellow LPowell. Thank you for going away."

So I take it that in your capacity as "Drewnet", you're representing Driftwood's official policy toward independent testing and verification of his patches? That policy being that test reports not originating from Driftwood's mutha'fuckin' beta test team should be ignored, mocked, and disparaged? Thank you for making the depth of your fanboy cult blatantly explicit.

cbrandin

@onionbrain - Of course you are right about the aesthetics of all this.

I can assure you, however, that lens design has changed in many ways since the advent of digital sensors. This is most apparent with extreme wide angle and tilt/shift lenses. Old versions of these lenses can exhibit color shifts at edges with wide angle lenses or when lenses are shifted because of shadows cast by sensor pixel walls. Another change with many lenses is that more attention is paid to longitudinal CA (caused by differences in where colors focus) because it is difficult to correct in post verses lateral CA (caused by differences in how colors are refracted) which is trivially easy to fix in post. In film days, there really wasn't an easy way to correct either in post, so lateral and longitudinal CA had to be treated equally. If you trade off longitudinal CA for lateral CA you can do a better job with the longitudinal CA in-camera.

These guys really do consider how design criteria have changed because of how digital sensors work versus film. Of course, all this is much more visible with high resolution stills than it will ever be with video.

Of course - there were some lenses that were so good that all this is academic - but we're talking big bucks!

alabastard69

lol "Apocalypse Now" indeed. Everyone's so combative.

jrd

@onionbrain

Regardless of resolution charts -- it's still the best looking footage I've seen from a hacked GH2.

At the risk of provoking even more ill-will, which is unaccountable to this reader, could I ask you to clarify, please? If you're doing side by side comparisons, one setting versus another, would you be willing to post them? Maybe it's a confession of incompetence or poor eyesight on my part, but I can't usefully compare footage I'm looking at now, to dissimilar footage I looked at 2 weeks or maybe 2 months ago, with other settings.

I hope you're right - that would make choosing a setting that much easier. But what exactly is the basis of the judgment?

onionbrain

@LPowell wrote: "And on the topic of mutha'fuckin' testing, I have a bug report. The Driftwood Cluster v7 'Apocalypse Now' - 6 GOP Nebula '444 Soft' variant froze up twice in a row while I was shooting some daffodils"

Sorry if I confused "froze up" with a battery drop. My fault.

You're a nasty little fellow LPowell. Lots of opinions, complex explanations -- and you're wrong half the time about anything. I'm entirely happy with your promise of no more interaction. Thank you for going away.

onionbrain

@cbrandin I'm not currently equipped to meaningfully respond to your point. I've discussed your "right angle" assertion with two professionals -- both of whom knew as little as I do on this point.

My gut reaction is 1) if the film lens projects the image at all angles (based on your point, not anything I know) -- then it's covering the right angle, and 2) this sounds very much like something a salesman in a camera shop would attempt to explain when attempting to sell me a new lens.

That said -- you may be entirely correct on this -- and I intend to learn more about this.

But -- that's also irrelevant to the fact that people respond really well to "soft" lenses used with the apparent excessive sharpness of the GH2.

LPowell

@onionbrain (aka Drewnet?) - "Aliasing? Battery drops? You've clearly got some problems. I assume next in line is "it bricked my camera."

Please leave the insults to Driftwood, he's far more entertaining. I'd suggest you clear them with him in advance, to make sure you stay "on message". I don't know what you're fantasizing about with "battery drops"? Changing the battery is not something I have a problem with. But don't worry, I'm done testing and will have no further bug reports to interrupt your reverie.

rajamalik

{ Cluster v7 'Apocalypse Now - Nebula' 6 GOP Setting } VS { Cluster v7 'Apocalypse Now - DREWnet' 12/15 GOP Settings } VS { Valkyrie 'Apocalypse Now' 3 GOP Settings } Any testers??? I tried and Found Cluster v7 Nebula GOP 6 to be the Best. What do you feel people???

cbrandin

@onionbrain - True, good film lenses have other nice qualities and I was dismissing that. But still, some film lenses are "soft" with digital sensors because, unlike lenses intended for digital, they supply the image to the sensor at more oblique angles - which is not an issue with film. So many lenses are softer with digital sensors than they were intended to be with film.

bkmcwd

@Nino_Ilacqua Sorry! I had overlooked your question.

Since Chris himself has already explained, my answer may be needlessness, but I am a premise improved about TYPE-ZERO after this. Therefore, please use 444 soft ver.

@BlueBomberTurbo Many thanks for testing TYPE-ZERO and please try 444 Soft Matrix version! :-)

@cbrandin Thanks for your post.

onionbrain

@cbrandin wrote: "I think it's funny when people "want" maximum sharpness, then turn around and use soft lenses - I don't get it!"

Pretty dirt simple explanation on that. If you're experienced with lenses -- MFT lenses are rather mediocre on a range of levels. I couldn’t' bash these newest Olympus primes for long enough.

On the other hand -- combine the excessive sharpness of the GH2 with what's being called "soft" film lenses -- and the result is a winning combination.

@LPowell Aliasing? Battery drops? You've clearly got some problems. I assume next in line is "it bricked my camera."

I've had no battery drops, no corrupt files, and have certainly not been plagued by aliasing and/or moire on any of these AN variations.

vicharris

@onionbrain Thanks. They turned them into private communities behind what's now Culver Studios, which used to be MGM. That lake has been home to a bunch of famous old movies which all escape my mind now but I do know the movie RAINTREE was filmed here as well since they named the place after it. Kind of cool they keep a lot of the old stuff, like the lake, pieces of the yellow brick road and I'm pretty sure there's old prob boulders all over the place made of concrete.

The DR of this stuff really looks great!

cbrandin

@lpowell - The criteria I chose was the first instance where the wrong number of lines are shown (8 versus 9). But your right - that decision is ultimately subjective. Part of the reason they look different is because they are not scaled to relative resolution. If the lower res is scaled, it looks more similar. These are JPEG screen grabs, so we have layers of compression artifacts happening. Also, I didn't optimize any other settings and that results in cruder rendering overall with the soft 444 matrix because it needs more bandwidth. I was just trying to determine relative resolution and nothing else.

onionbrain

@vicharris I didn't know any of the backlots still existed. I thought they were all apartments now, or a Safeway and Pizza Hut or whatever. Looks great. Think about an informal mini-doc on what's left. Even if you film without permission -- it's probably worth a million youtube views.

@cbrandin Regardless of resolution charts -- it's still the best looking footage I've seen from a hacked GH2. The GH2 can afford 10% softening -- and even with that or more it's still substantially sharper than a 5D Mark 3 with the best L glass and half a dozen or so other "pro" camcorders.

cbrandin

Sure - that's because the gradation rendering is much, much better. Also the way detail is rendered is a little softer and less rectilinear - compensating for the "sharp" video look.

People complain about the "harsh" video look - well... that's significantly related to detail sharpness. I think it's funny when people "want" maximum sharpness, then turn around and use soft lenses - I don't get it!

fatpig

can someone tell me, really, what advantage do we get from the 2k mjpeg mode? I've been looking all over the Forum.. I mean, resolution is still inferior, isnt it? And the 30fps we are also stuck with, right? what is the point? :)

LPowell

@cbrandin Thanks for posting frame grabs of your matrix resolution tests. I think they clearly illustrate the inherent difficulty of choosing a number that represents the camera's "lines of resolution". In both charts, the individual vertical lines blur into gray in a ragged manner, and exactly where you choose to assign a numerical cutoff is debatable. Beyond that, I'm actually seeing more noticeable aliasing in the Soft 444 matrix, in the form of bright vertical ringing effects around the outer edges of the flute and the zero in the number '10'. This is often evidence of a digital filter with too sharp of a cutoff, which may indicate that the 255 components in the Soft 444 matrix are a little to harsh for optimal results.

In general, there's really no objective way to measure the resolution of any digital camera, it's a subjective judgment call. At high spatial resolutions, the image sensor's output is contaminated with ultra-fine aliasing artifacts that are literally folded down into the upper resolution range. As a result, the genuine resolution of the sensor is submerged within spurious alias products and there's no way to separate them. With digital cameras, "sharpness" is a marriage of refined technology and aesthetic preference.

peternap

@cbrandin It may well be 10% Chris but the images flat look better IMO. Sometimes numbers don't tell the real story.

vicharris

Here's something I threw together yesterday where I live. It's MGMs old backlot #3. Tech info at start of video. It's Cluster v7 'Apocalypse Now - DREWnet' 12/15 GOP Sharp2 Seems like there might be a couple glitches in the upload. I have one going up on Vimeo right now to see if it fares any better.

cbrandin

I redid my resolution tests. I may have underestimated the reduction in sharpness with the Soft 444 matrix. It looks more like about a 9-10% reduction. Examining resolution charts is somewhat subjective so I've attached detail captures for you to look at for yourselves. Realize that the detail captures have had levels and gamma adjusted to make things as visible as possible - so don't draw any conclusions about image quality from these.

bkmcwd

Is it busy while I am away for one day?

@bozfx

"Is the "TYPE-ZERO" Valkyrie matrix patch considered to be the 'sharp' variant?"

No, it is the version which adopted the first edition of the 444 matrix of Chris and Nick. I am going to make the sharp matrix version of Nick after this. Rather than "Chris's original matrix was soft", by this original matrix, since the balance of the I frame and the B frame is not good for GOP3, I consider that a 444 Soft matrix version is better, IMHO. Then, it is because this setting is a starting point of "Valkyrie" as to why I released TYPE-ZERO.

@Mirrorkisser

Many thanks for understanding my situation poor at English. :-)

@jebsly

Thanks for testing Valkyrie! :-)

And all praise is to Chris and Nick!

exilenorth

@driftwood, remember this, Driftwood GOP1 AQ1 220M Smooth as Fuck Quality Limiter? It was outstanding, truly outstanding, But that was way back when. Question could the Apocalypse Now settings be incorporated into the old SAF patch. I would like to find out. SAF was incredible in very low light and very miuch shy of noise. I am seeing huge amounts of noise with the AN, yes they are a combination different frames, I,B,P and SAF was just I frames.... If you think there is a possibility say hey if not...say so.

willardj

I was a huge fan of reAQuainted and Sedna Q20 and really like the sharp2 Apocalypse. I use old Russian and German lenses mostly and they are getting me close to what i would ultimately like. GOP1 to 3 is better for an overall crispier look in gradations and shadow. I tend to shoot as flat as possible everything to -2 and then adjust in post to get the ultimate look. Probably a low contrast filter on top of all would even be better. Paradoxically the lower contrast reaches the sensor, the more detail gets preserved. For after effects: use (multiple times) the unsharp mask. For FCPX there is a free plugin effect "unsharp mask" that is also very useful to bring back the detail. Get the contrast back with Curves effect in After effects or with Nattress (Graeme Nattress wrote software for RED) Curves, Luma Curves and Chroma Curves in FCPX (the default S-curve already gets nice results). Really worth it. Try it and see how great an image you can get with this workflow.

itimjim

@vicharris yeh, love the Tokinas. Can be a bit difficult to use wide open with blooming, really have to be careful and controlled. But they render very well for their price point. Incredible that the Bolex 16/32/1.5x works on it throughout the range (without filters)....which gives it some epic flares on top of the Tokina flares :)

vicharris

@itimjim Great to see someone else using that Tokina! I have the old version from Japan and love it. Love the lens flares you got with it.

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