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

    @thepalalias Yeah, I've not shot with CM Night for quite a while, and my memories of shooting with it raise some concerns (can't remember what the concerns were though, but they related to colour correction in post). I will shoot some test footage with CM Night though as well. Thing is though there is no way we're going to reshoot at that high an ISO unless we absolutely have to. What we do is going to depend on experiments I make in post creating a night look (which will have to involve faking some lights to create the dynamic look we're after). If they go well it would allow us to shoot in much better early evening light. The other option is getting a good lighting guy and some additional lights. If either option plays out then we won't be shooting at mad high ISOs, so hopefully we won't have to reach for CM Night. Its all a bit up in the air still as to how we proceed.

  • MeierhansMeierhans

    @stray Unless you really want to keep this underexposed look I believe you would get better results with higher Iso and moderate denoise with Neat Video.

  • thepalaliasthepalalias

    @Stray The things to watch out for with CM Night are the way it handles banding in the event of overexposure and the green levels. It tends to go (slightly) greener than some of the other settings.

    I am sending you a PM with a link to a video shot using a combination of cameras (but all the GH2 parts were CM Night).

  • StrayStray

    @Meierhans Yep indeed as it'll definitely be reshot at a lower GOP (3 or 1), so denoising will produce a good result. Denoising at a much higher ISO tends to get counterproductive though. The look we got from this test shoot is quite close to what we want, however I think we'd be better off capturing something thats about 2 stops brighter than this at a lower ISO and then bring it down later.. but then we'll be losing a lot of the nice lighting. Heh, yeah basically, we need a lighting guy really.

    @thepalalias Cheers for the info, will check the PM. The performers are kinda into a green look for this it seems ;)

  • peternappeternap

    @Stray Have you tested Boom? I've been very impressed with it's lowlight performance.

  • StrayStray

    @peternap No I haven't, @Driftwood describes it as experimental so I'm wary of using it for this, and I'm happier with settings that I really know well. There are a lot of performance related variables to this. The performance has a lot of dance sections where the dancers are really going for it. I have good experience of filming dancers, and although we're going to have to do multiple takes I don't want that to be driven that much by any technical issues on our part, tiring out the dancers more than we should. Also we don't want to break the flow of the performance (although obviously we are going to have to shoot it in sections, and move lights around) too much with interruptions (which is also why at least 2 cameras is a must for this). Although Boom may hold up well and be perfectly stable under the conditions we end up shooting in I know other settings that will be more than good enough and have been used by many other people. CM Night is more the likely lowlight specific option for us at the moment for these reasons, and its one we'll be testing this week a lot along with some other settings. If we add Boom to the list to test I just know its going to eat up too much of our time, as the 'experimental' tag it has means we're going to end up overfocussing on it.

    At the end of the day, we're zero budget and flying mostly on instinct and previous experience with regards the specific settings to use.

  • thepalaliasthepalalias

    @Stray I forgot to mention - just in case you are using a different card, remember that you reduce the chance of write errors by using a SanDisk 64GB 95MB/s compared to any other card. Good luck!

  • fatpigfatpig

    @artiswar: very filmic look on page 15! :)

  • rajamalikrajamalik

    @driftwood Boom looks superb but u r warning clearly says its not for panny lens. I am using panny lenses should I stop using it?? Is there anything available for panny lenses from GOP1 sets???

  • RyanPWRyanPW

    @thepalalias - yep, that was filled in the missing pieces for me and hopefully others, too. Thanks for the knowledge.

  • strancalistrancali

    @driftwood +1

    @Stray EXCELLENT! Would love to see a clip :).

  • StrayStray

    @strancali Hopefully I'll be able to share some of this test shoot soon, but I need to check all that with the performers first. Its entirely their gig. Heh, discovered today that there was 20 minutes of the performance at the start around the corner from where we were that we totally missed (we knew as little as the audience did, nothing in other words).

    Honestly, as I've been working with these clips I'm gobsmacked by how well this GOP6 AN setting does in lowlight.

  • MbhuyKoMbhuyKo

    @driftwood @bkmcwd @cbrandin can use this setting with Transcend SDHC card class10 UHS-1 85mbps ???

  • lickmyballlickmyball

    I updated patch with the Apocalypse the DreWnetwork Sharp, with class 10 SanDisk Extreme 16G SD card, the result when shoot in 720p "H" was seeing warning message on my GH2 "Motion recording was cancelled due to the limitation of the writing speed of the card" ...... why? I was able to shoot @ 1080p

  • flabloflablo

    AN Boom! 24p. Only problem experienced: couldn't playback one clip in camera. SanDIsk Extreme Pro 95 Mbps

    Slight banding on skin tones on some scenes is my fault, not AN. Pushed it a bit too hard ..

  • MirrorkisserMirrorkisser

    @driftwood: regarding the new codec for the gh3, which offers intra at really low bitrates, do you think something similar is possible for the gh2?

  • killagramkillagram

    @driftwood was that a screenshot taken from Lawrence of Arabia?! The desert looks hardcore!

    Anyways the "Apocalypse Now" Sharp Ver.2 is nothing short of extraordinary when coupled with my Voightlander 35mm/1.4 @640iso. I've never seen dynamic range and filmic grain like that from my GH2 ever!! Granted the settings probably don't do much for DR but I'm blown away by the results.

    Thank you so much for your tireless efforts, it's more then paid off for many users on this site including myself.

  • MirrorkisserMirrorkisser

    @flablo: nice footage, looks good in every way :-)

  • jupiter1jupiter1

    cannot wait to try this in a couple of days..

  • roscaeteroscaete

    When will "IntraVenus"? Thank you for an amazing job.

  • MariellaMariella

    @roscaete: Be patient :)) I think "IntraVenus" is on the way!

  • rajamalikrajamalik

    33 pages!

  • MirrorkisserMirrorkisser

    just tried sedna for the first time, really nice setting. really waiting for cinema smooth and intra venus. hopefully there is some useful info that can be transfered from the gh3 codec to a gh2 setting!

  • thepalaliasthepalalias

    @MirrorKisser I already answered your question when you posed it in another forum, but I will mention one point from it here so that others thinking it can see. :)

    Driftwood already made low-bitrate Intra settings with matrices where it made more sense. They do not make much sense with the new matrices - in fact it would have been great if we could have even higher bitrates, but so it goes. :)

    Anyway, Driftwoods previous GOP1 efforts with much lower bitrates go as far back as SMBU v1, which was released last year. There were several other settings released earlier this year that also had lower bitrates for Intra (if memory serves, that would be the 4 Pictoris options and Rocket) that are also worth checking out.

    Personally, I do not believe it would be an efficient use of time to try to provide new GOP1 settings at those bitrates as it draws attention away from testing and refining the high detail settings at the bitrates were closer to what might be intended for them. If you want lower bitrates, either use a low GOp (as opposed to GOP1) or a long GOP setting or use the older GOP1 settings already mentioned.

  • driftwooddriftwood

    The experimental settings of Boom! push chroma and luma values in the matrix to the limit. All flat 4s. Now the Gh2 certainly wasnt built for this kind if mattix and under Intra too. Its pushing 8 bit 4:2:0 to the limit but believe me, under the right conditions for closeup facials - in tight shots with bokeh backgrounds youll retain the highest quality macroblock quantisation of between 16 to 20. Its not too bad with wider shots / more detailed shots but the range will go up from 16 to 30 plus which is possibly going to give you artefacts.

    My basic rule of thumb is if youre going to use the flat 4s setting of Boom! be prepared, do some test recordings, check the datarate is below 140mbps for the scene and you should be good to go. You will get terrific looking images and superior looking movement. Ive done the checks. Believe.

    If you want great all round settings try any of the Intra /Sedna/mysteron settings of the past or Pictoris/smbu v2 for lower bitrate Intra (on a par with AVC Intra 50/100). There will be Intravenus 444 Soft and Sharp versions up soon.

    Then there's Cluster - Nebula GOP6 or DREWnet (classic Long GOP 12 PAL / 15 NTSC) in any of the following versions - v5, 6 or 7. There will be Boom! Variations of Cluster soon.

    Now I release settings that I think are worthwhile releasing. As developments take place and ptools get refined there has been good reason to play with and release new settings. Im a firm believer in sharing my work, bkmwcd does too. So despite the confusion of many settings there has been a natural development process and settings developed for different scenarios will get released.

    Some people stick to one setting and that is fine and if there is a version update thats fine too. Thats there way of working and Im not going to knock it.

    Other great settings include bkmwcd's 3GOP, LPowell's 3GOP or RalphB's Sanity.

    The Gh2 limits are pretty much known now.

    We now look forward to the new with the GH3 and other lumix cameras.

    My analysis of the H264 profiles and possibilities for future ptools with the GH3 will appear soon.

    Best,

    Nick in Chile still!

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