@Mark I like your quote, too.

@last_SHIFT "cinematic look" is usually BS obsession.

@Roberto Less is more. i.e. owning less items will leave more time to master the gears and tools.

I'll get busy this week... selling the gears I rarely use. A small goal for this week. Finish reading a lighting book.

I conceded to these:

- Screw AF, and get MF lenses for video. Mostly true. Using m43's AF-C feature has been rare. Plus more aliasing. Some fast MF lenses are sharp at 2.0 or faster. Big glasses do help. e.g. Samyang 35mm f/1.4. No I'm not buying it... YET...

- Stabilize with tripod, monopod, shoulder rig, stabilizer, or whatever. I hate carrying more gears, but software stabilization can't replace it. Camera shakes lower the overall bitrate.

- Digital post-processing cannot fix bad footage. It doesn't work like RAW photo. It can enhance only good footage. Get it right in the first place.

- High ISO won't save it. GH2VK's ISO 1250 looks OK. But it's close to GH17's 1000. Just a tad bit better as GH17's 800 is cutoff. In low lighting it would require 2.0 or faster lens with the ISO cap. Again big glass fast MF lenses with good corner sharpness. Unless one can afford 2.0 Olympus prime zoons, gotta load up fast primes. That implies carrying and switching multiple lenses unless one has multiple bodies. Another way is controlling light... but that's not always an option.

- In-camera audio recording sucks.

@last_SHIFT

<<<<<'How do I get a cinematic look?'>>><<<br />
I've heard that question a million times and never really known what is meant. My interpretation is just have good production value. One of my bosses used to say "The show has to look like a million bucks". That's a good summation. "Cinematic" is the wrong term I've always felt, properly lit and shot video can look like a million bucks.

I tried ISO 1600. Noise was OK, but I prefer 1250 as max.

Always below 400? That's good. For me setting up proper lighting is not always an option.

Yes I tried in-camera audio recording with ext mic and a preamp. When there is enough background sound, it was ok. But recording voice in a quiet room.... not really. The same setup feeding to a laptop gave much cleaner sound.

I didn't buy any portable preamp/mixer/recorder like H4n though. Carrying around something like H4n would give me more room to test different cases without carrying entire camera rig. But... ummm... spending freeze... for now.

You mean this:


1. buy a mobile phone screen guard.

2. cut it to fit your screen & stick the bad boy on.

3. use the custom guideline and put the horizontal to the very bottom of the screen... then press up 28 times... now draw your first permanent marker line.

4. now put it to the top and press down 28 times, draw your second line.

5. turn off the guideline function.

Now you can to work within the 2.35:1 lines knowing what will get cropped in post.


Yeah, good idea.

@Mark_the_Harp
Nope.
I looked during GH1 project for them, but didn't find the place.
As I'll have bunch of free time I'll try to look in GH2.

So, here is my confession:

I'm a happy tech nerd with some good ideas to put on screen. So I starte with a VX1000 and tryed to get used to it. After some time I got some friends to help me try some shots. But it was very hard to get them to go in front of the camera and do something - they felt absolutely stupid, even as I told them it won't look stupid on screen later on.
Then I started to get my software together and do something with that footage. I'm still lerning how to cut and grade.

Quite ok up to this point, but as I was never very satisfied with the IQ (especially using the VX1000 + anamorphic adapter to get 16:9), I wanted some HD 16:9 camera. The FX1 was to expensive.....and then I heard about the GH1 and the hack - I knew, thats exactly what I want.

So, I spend the last two years with buying and selling old MF lenses, reading about the hack and the best settings, buying more old glas, reading more,...
...I never got out to shoot anything but a testchart.

My brother kept on bitching at me, that I'm an idiot, as after 3 years I couldn't present a single shot that was telling a story. It took some time till I realised that he was right (I hate when he is right and I'm wrong;-)

So I had to choose between spending the rest of my freetime by reading hacksetings and buying old lenses or get some basic gear and start shooting. I will go with the second one...

...I got all my software and bought a Olympus 14-35 so that I will have one lens for everything (later I will add the Olympus 35-100 but thats it). I just copied LPowells very good hack settings and stoped developing my own. I stopped looking for anamorphic glas, just marked the 2,35:1 ratio on my screen and will cut it in post. I will finish my steadycam this summer and then go out and shoot, shoot and shoot even more.

I got me out of this hardware madness and for all of you still trapped in there: If you really want to put some story on screen - stop it and get your self shooting, no excuses!

I saw home made videos with a cheap camcorder that totally got me and I wanted to see more after the 10min were over. I also was bored to the bone while sitting in cinema and watching some 4k blockbuster with surround sound. If you have a story, go and shoot. If its really really good, you can do it again with better gear and still become famous and rich.

Want an example:

See the dogma films: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogma_95
I recomend watching: Festen - The celebration ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Celebration or http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0154420/ )

BTW... welcome aboard @Psyco.

Just keep milking more out of the gears you already own.

looks like it's the same story here..

i've been thinking to sell my self to get a nokton..
the saddest thing is no one's buying me..

LOL

@Psyco Thanks for the props, always good to hear of folks' success with patching the GH1.

You might find my Four Thirds lens mount solution interesting. I fashioned a 15mm rail mount for a 4/3rds adapter out of a tripod collar made for a Canon telephoto lens. It should be rigid enough to support the Olympus 14-35mm f2:

http://www.personal-view.com./talks/discussion/654/gh2-h4n-on-gini-shoulder-mount-rig-with-ruige-5-monitor

@shouwa403

I will buy you. I need a new slave to carry all my gear (the old one is not strong enough any more, as I got so much stuff together).

To bad for you, even if you could buy the Nokton, you won't have any time to use it as you work for me now ;-)

A Tokina 11-16 and a decent 60-80 cm slider would make me pretty happy and complete for now.

@Vitaliy

Any word from our TrustMT or Cinematics,friends about upcoming sliders?