@kronstadt Maybe you should re-read. You said (or implied) something I disagreed with but it was not that. Basically nothing in the section I quoted from you was accurate, but it wasn't that.

I tried to explain in detail why I thought so but I guess I should have just said, "no."

@kronstadt

"Roger Deakins are switching to Alexa is for purely budgetary reasons - higher ISO than anything that film stock can deliver, is a major saving when it comes to large sets with complex lighting setup, lots of lights, grip people etc. So the industry is less concerned with the"pale" look of Alexa and Red, and more with how much money and time can a given camera save during the production."

Roger Deakins wasn't an early adopter of digital, he waited until Digital IP technology was such that it made sense to start using digital technology to craft the look of his photography. The first feature to ever get an end-to-end digital IP was one of his. It would be a mistake to assign budgetary reasons for any his decisions or attribute the results to your inaccurate dismissal of both Alexa and RED.

Some DPs play in the shadows and grade everything so that much of the image plays out in subtle, almost imperceptible gradations of darker tones. Deakins has shown a tendency to do the opposite and grade to a very bright image with more subtle tones up in the highs. It's not how I necessarily prefer my imagery but it's intentional.

Alexa and RED footage, finished footage, only looks pale if you grade them to look that way (or don't grade them, like most early RED films). This is a common issue with high-end digital cameras, complicated on-set grading that intimidates directors and accounts for radically different results using the same technology based on the expertise, comfort level and choices of the filmmaker. That's why you would never guess that Michael Mann used the same camera for Collateral or Miami Vice that David Fincher used for Zodiac or any part of Benjamin Button. And who could predict that any CineAlta could look so bad as Mann's Public Enemies???

I believe the GH1 is about 8 stops. I think you really have to finesse the intake of light so you can hide the fact that it doesn't have great DR.

As for the BMC's pixel grain, I would have to disagree. I feel the look of BMC footage is very film like. Especially when talking about it's RAW output. I'm not sure what footage you may be referencing, but everything i've seen has proven to me that if you know what you're doing you can get absolutely glorious footage from a BMC. I could only wish that my GH1 could get that kind of overall look. I don't currently have the budget for a BMC workflow, but I do believe it could give me the kind of look i'm after.

@RRRR ,@Aria , @endotoxic if by DR you mean the Dynamic Range, then I'd say it is THE most important factor that separates Film from Digital. Film has roughly 16 usable stops. It shows Black as "more black" than what our eye is used to under normal situations -- that's why Film is a "hyperreal" medium. The other factors are As @Aria mentioned, smooth gradation and color. To that list I would also add the grain texture - Dots vs Pixels. So achieving a filmic look is really a matter of striking the correct balance between all these factors in a way that would best emulate the filmlook. If BMC, for example, with its 13 stops DR and 4:4:4 colour-space had a lower sensitivity (or a setting to deliberately lower the sensitivity) combined with a nice codec that would replace it's pixel grain with more filmic dot-grain and smooth gradation, then we'd have a very film-like footage. But BMC in ProRes 4:4:4 is not up to par as far as I'm concerned, so then it becomes a matter of shooting in RAW and adding these effects in post, which means more resources, more time, more specialists etc. GH13 somehow delivers not so high quality, but acceptable to most audiences, near-filmic footage almost straight out of the box.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but GH13 has only 8 or 9 stops of usable DR. Am I correct? Maybe not even that.

@Aria I understand well where you are coming from.. and if you want the most eye-like-natural looking image (without working a lot on lighting) then yes, DR is very important. However, when talking about how we see things, it works a bit the same with DR as with focus. If we sit inside and talk to someone who sits next to a window and we pay no attention to the outside; we see the window mostly as certain intensities of light in the periphery. We focus on the person we are talking to.

For this kind of scenario, great DR, when it comes to film making is not so important. It can be useful, of course - but we can choose from lighting the interior to lessen the contrast or choose to let the highlights blow or crush the interior (if we´re looking out). These are context-based decisions to make.. but a lot of people avoid making any decisions simply because they have huge DR. (goes the same for post-work as for acquisition)

However, there are situations when the light is so peculiar and beautiful in itself where we cannot record it´s "face value" by any of the methods described above. F.i. when we´re inside a relatively dense foliage in the sun, where you both have light trickling down, "holes" in the foliage where we are used to seeing the sky and our eyes are adjusted to the light conditions below the trees. Now, to shoot something like that with limited DR range we´d have to do it in the morning (when the sunlight hasn´t peaked / is at an angle) and there might be a bit of fog dispersion in the air which acts as a diffuser.. But it might still get too dark underneath the foliage / too bright for any sky to show so that is really a situation where it´s very difficult to replace dynamic range.. the tools available to combat such situations are filters, and flags. For me, if I´m shooting a film in broad summer daylight / exterior and the budget allowed for it; I´ll go for a rented camera simply because it´s easier to handle harsh lighting and differences in light intensities. There will still be work to do with filters and flags, but I´d be more certain that the footage can be matched up afterwards.

I can often affect when to shoot what and avoid some of the problems. But then again I live in a part of the world with pretty great lighting conditions for shooting outdoors.

Well…ya’ll can take anything I say here with a grain of salt but what it comes down to for me…is the lower the HD resolution…the more filmic (not cinematic) it looks. I first noticed this with the HVX line of cameras. They were a lower resolution HD camera (I know….sort of an oxymoron) but they always had a more film like texture to it than all other HD cameras. That could be what some people are seeing with the GH-1. Personally I don’t see much of a difference between the GH-1 and GH-2 other than maybe sharpness (or rather detail). The driving factor, at least for me, between all of the GH-X cameras comes down to……..lens choice.

Another example of what I’m saying above is the difference between Alexa footage and Red. The Alexa, in my eyes, always wins when it comes to mimicking a film-like texture. Not saying that it’s a better looking image but just stressing the fact that Red’s strength is in its high resolution while the Alexa is nowhere near Reds resolution but yet it’s “texture” can be a bit more like film.

@kronstadt

The usage of "cinematic" as a buzz word is promoting stupidity / obscures clear defenitions. It´s far better to talk in terms of "I think, I like or In my opinion.." preferences of different kind of images than to try and make a one clear definition of the cinematic/filmic image (all such attempts hitherto has failed quite miserably and only succeeded in terms being swung all the more recklessly without any real thought put into it). In my opinion, this is all the more important since there are so many popular "sources" around that simply promote stupidity.

I can fully subscribe to the idea of describing different camera outputs sort of as different film stocks.. Although it doesn´t paint the whole picture since they behave rather differently. What is cinematic / filmic and what isn´t? We all have different opinions on what´s nice and what isn´t and preference for certain characteristics over others. Many on them depend on how we process the footage and for some (me) it also depends on the project.

For me, the gh1 can succeed very well in emulating s16mm film stock.. The gh2 on the other hand is a bit more in-between and can emulate both s35 and s16. It´s one of the choices I like to have with it.

@aria I get what you are aiming at but I think we have two different approaches to getting what we want. For me, DR is nice, useful to have and great fun to play around with but it doesn´t always look nice (especially straight out of the camera) and it´s far from always necessary. For me the moldability of the BMCC is the key (while it preserves a natural looking image - with pleasant organic grain). F.i. I hate the "Alexa look" these days. It looks lazy, dslr and not one bit filmic.

Wow... there are quite a few people who prefer GH13 texture over GH2 and GH3. For a while now, I was beginning to think that I was crazy, or maybe of just bad taste.

@endotoxic one of the most recurring confusions is that sensitivity is ISO. Not really. They are quite distinct from each other. Watch that video that I posted from 2:20 onwards.

Another reason why I like GH13 is that it emulates closer the traditional cinematographic workflow - in a way that it does not make your life immediately easier by easily making available higher workable ISOs. So you have to light your scene, and by doing so, learn from the cinematographers whose movies you liked. You might think that I'm a weird guy for loving difficult workflows? Well, very often I type my screenplays on a typewriter (because the quality of writing improves dramatically), and if I had the resources to shoot on film stock, I would prefer that, but then the costs would sky rocket, especially with montage and sound mix.

But then one has to ask which particular "cinematic" textures one likes. My personal favorite films are from 1990s and 1970s, so even the modern Kodak 5219 film stock is too "High Definition" for me. I watch those films in BR 1080p along with my own footages from GH13 and I'm quite satisfied.

Panasonic should have worked to improve the DR and colour space (4:2:2, 4:4:2). Instead, they have improved sensitivity, resolution, ISO, etc, which is great, but does it deliver a more filmic look? No. Why they did it? It's straight economics -- so that they could put an improved chip into a bigger camera and sell it for much much higher price.

Difficult to say. I definitely like the GH2 hacked over the GH1 period. But there are things to like about the GH3, and things that aren't so great. Until the GH3 is hacked and we can see what is possible I can't make a determination.

I really feel that the GH2 and GH3 are neck and neck, except for the banding and dynamic range. The GH3 is the clear winner there, but it doesn't yet possess that nice "filmic" grain, and slightly softer image like the hacked GH2 running the high end @driftwood hacks like AN 444 and Intravenus. When the GH3 has those characteristics, it won't even be a competition - the GH3 will be king. For now, it's just in the running.

that's MHO

repost sorry..

@endotoxic I agree and also liked the pictures taken with GH1 better.

Combined with GH1's colour rendering and codec, and Vitali's hack and IPowell Maximum patch, GH13 delivers very filmic looking imagery. In other words, GH13 could be a one-off "lucky accident" , a "freak of nature" . What GHx project should have done is keep the sensitivity low (or give an option to keep sensitivity low) and increase it's DR. That would achieve a more filmic/cinematic look.<

ITs the best example i have read!! thanks @Kronstadt, your humble opinion makes a lot of sence here.

I think too that GH1 has better "texture"

its like GH1 had fixed ISO to work with, like film.

@EYESOUL i have one question...how can you describe the "texture feeling" tha make GH1 series better for you?

For me as i have expresed before, lack of detail, and better color reproduction is the base. Maybe its its pixel bining...maybe its matrixed. We could maybe call @lpowell or @cbrandin @driftwood . They maye have a better inside about why is GH1 image more pleasent when even detail is not that good. Maybe they think all this is not about sensor...maybe code... i dont know.

@RRRR the word "cinematic"hasbeen used wrongly millions of times, but we know what is being meant by it - how closely can a camera emulate the look of a 35mm film stock. That's it there's no need to get hung up on it. Cinematic... filmic... etc

I have bought my GH1 secondhand because back then only 2009 models were hackable. And I hacked it with LPowell Maximum patch (I don't know if there are better patches now). I'm not a videographer- just an enthusiast who wants to make a movie (or at least a digital video that looks to closely to a film that audiences wouldn't notice the difference). So far, I have been getting images so nice, that I have not purchased a GH2 yet. Maybe when the prices will fall further,I will get a secondhand GH2 only because it has higher workable ISO for dark scenes. So GH2 will be my B-cam. I will not be getting a GH3 because it's colour handling is becoming "cold" like most Sony digital cameras, which I hate. The next step up for me would probably be a BMC, but I'm still not sure about many of the factors surrounding it. As far as I'm concerned, GH13 (with legacy lenses, good Lighting kit and good audio gear) is a perfectly good enough tool to make a full-feature-length low-budget movie.

Yesterday, I have written an e-mail to Steve and Jens at Zacuto asking them to include GH1-hacked in their 2013 shootout along with Kodak 5219 film stock, GH2, Alexa, BMC etc. Why? Because the hacked GH1 has never been featured in their shootouts. It would be interesting to see what their response would be.

IMO, one of the reasons why GH13 produces such a cinematic imagery at ISOs below 320, is because it's sensitivity is actually lower than that of any other camera in that range. Watch this video to understand and pay attention to how low is Kodak 5219 film sensitivity:

Combined with GH1's colour rendering and codec, and Vitali's hack and IPowell Maximum patch, GH13 delivers very filmic looking imagery. In other words, GH13 could be a one-off "lucky accident" , a "freak of nature" . What GHx project should have done is keep the sensitivity low (or give an option to keep sensitivity low) and increase it's DR. That would achieve a more filmic/cinematic look.