New Inexpensive Technology & Industry Sea-Change

[Christopher Sanderson]

The changes wrought by inexpensive technology in the Film, Video & Photography industries are fascinating to those of us with vested interests and also to those who sit on the sidelines...

This post-NAB essay on such a change to the high-end Color Grading/Timing/ColourCorrection business makes good reading and while its conclusion is not new, its unemotional logic applies to many of the changes facing those of us in the Film, Video & Photography businesses.

[Morgan_Moore]

It has to be good

A dslr costs what?

a vidcam with interchanable lenses costs what

DSLR made sylish images affordable

As a stills professional its a bit of a stress - college kids charing £200 a day out there with 5d2s

22mp cost me £15k a few years ago

It makes the business hard

I shot some beer recently very cheaply I thought yet the client was still p1ssed with the price

Now the client comes to me having employed a cheaper photographer asking me to retouch their images

NO way !

So I have lost a job to a college kid - the client sees the two side by side and the difference is night and day

nothing to do with the technology

the client now makes their own choice - in fact im glad the college kid had a go becuase the client is now aware of the difference

I only got into this game (1995) when nikon coolscan made digital transmission to newspapers a sub £5k possibility against leafax and hasselblad transmitters that cost big bucks

(interesting to note the brands!)

Without that technology cut I could never have gone it alone - so its not new and it is good

S

[Ben Rubinstein]

Fascinating. In the stills world and from the shooting side the change has already happened, stamped and notarized. It's skill and marketing that counts. Lot more competition, lots more dross on the sidelines to wade through, etc. The costs of admittion with the advent of the 5D mkII has made the cost equation of the equipment change drastically, heck, a used 5D mkII with 'kit' lens, set of Alien Bees and modifiers and you're still under the cost of what a Hasselblad body and lens used to cost with no running costs and pretty much equal quality to drum scans at the touch of the shutter release. Heck my assistant owns better gear in some ways than me...

[Graeme Nattress]

Back when video editing on a computer was more hardware than software, this would have been big news. Now that it's more software than anything else, it's very understandable. The software business model is vastly different to that of the hardware one. Also, HD-SDI capture wasn't expensive because the circuitry was expensive - it was expensive because only three people wanted it and they didn't have the budget concerns that us end users do. Once the market for such capture became large, there was a rapid price descent from the $10k realm, to the $2k realm and now they give them away in cereal packets.

With software, you can afford, to an extent, to develop for the niche market. With hardware, it gets more expensive to do so. That's not something that's going to change over-night.

What will happen though, is that there will be a period of users of photography and videography buying on price. There's always an element of this, but it will increase. Eventually they'll get fed up with the bad quality of work, but then they'll go back to buying on quality from people they trust to get the job done to the quality needed on a reasonable budget.

In most markets though, the price of the commodity product doesn't invalidate the high-end quality purchase for the right end user. A mini or a civic doesn't invalidate the porsche or ferrari. The bottle of bells doesn't invalidate the Brora, The Macallan, Ardbeg, Aberlour etc. Those that drink the good stuff laugh at the bells drinker, and the bells drinker just gets on with it, their taste buds never experiencing the vast vista of taste possibilities beyond.

[Ben Rubinstein]

People drink Bells? I use it for cleaning my pipe!  

[mtomalty]

Graeme

Could you answer me this?

Is there an apparent difference in quality when viewing and comparing, for example,files from a 5DMkll and one of the RED products on the web.

I'm not talking about a slick HD portfolio site that takes an eternity to preload but a typical website where an increasing number of
clients are devoting advertising dollars.

I'm asking as a stills based stock photographer who is considering a move towards simple motion segments to satisfy this growing niche.

Thx
Mark

www.marktomalty.com

[Morgan_Moore]

Is there an apparent difference in quality when viewing and comparing, for example,files from a 5DMkll and one of the RED products on the web.



www.marktomalty.com

IMO the canons resolve 360p or 480p well (in fact that is close to the limit of thier 'true' resolution)

That is practical web resolution at todays bandwidths

So there is no difference

BUT

The canon footage falls apart in post production

You know the difference between a jpg at 2 and a RAW file

The more motion I shoot the more I want raw to equalise colour and brightness between takes and locations (even sub locations in the same room)

In stills such variance is often less apparent than two shots cut together

I also want more resolution to allow a little cropping from the chip real estate

handy to crop when you see the boom mic in the top of the frame
stabilisation software crops too

In stills you are probably aware that shooting on jpg2 can probagbly get you web resolution but requires great on set dicipline and control becase there is no latitude for post work

Incedentally I dont think wanting a buffer caused by RAW, particularly for doing colour shows that I have bad 'craft' on set - colour appreciation is limited by the monitoring devices available

MY eizo in my office destroys any onset monitor I am aware of

S

[paul_jones]

IMO the canons resolve 360p or 480p well (in fact that is close to the limit of thier 'true' resolution)

That is practical web resolution at todays bandwidths

So there is no difference

BUT

The canon footage falls apart in post production

You know the difference between a jpg at 2 and a RAW file

The more motion I shoot the more I want raw to equalise colour and brightness between takes and locations (even sub locations in the same room)

In stills such variance is often less apparent than two shots cut together

I also want more resolution to allow a little cropping from the chip real estate

handy to crop when you see the boom mic in the top of the frame
stabilisation software crops too

In stills you are probably aware that shooting on jpg2 can probagbly get you web resolution but requires great on set dicipline and control becase there is no latitude for post work

Incedentally I dont think wanting a buffer caused by RAW, particularly for doing colour shows that I have bad 'craft' on set - colour appreciation is limited by the monitoring devices available

MY eizo in my office destroys any onset monitor I am aware of

S

even at vimeo quality, i can tell the difference between red and dslr footage. i cant put my finger on it, but there is a visible difference. the red just looks better.
it might be just down to red users tending to expose and grade better (more experience?).

once in a blue moon, theres a great 5d video that i cant tell easily, but not many.

paul

[Graeme Nattress]

Always amazes me that some photographers pixel-peep beyond even me, and look for the minutest of details to be great, but as soon as things start moving, those finely tuned critical faculties seem to not operate any more. There are things that the vDSLRs do, from an image processing engineering perspective that are somewhat less than optimal. We understand that they're not primarily motion cameras, but now that many are marketed as such, should they not be judged to the same standards of resolution and aliasing performance that motion cameras have been judged to?

Graeme

[Morgan_Moore]

Always amazes me that some photographers pixel-peep beyond even me, and look for the minutest of details to be great, but as soon as things start moving, those finely tuned critical faculties seem to not operate any more. There are things that the vDSLRs do, from an image processing engineering perspective that are somewhat less than optimal. We understand that they're not primarily motion cameras, but now that many are marketed as such, should they not be judged to the same standards of resolution and aliasing performance that motion cameras have been judged to?

Graeme

graham

its a simple question really that needs defining

data rate and image size of interenet delivery - can the canons do this ?

In my remote area with slow internet connection the resolution of the canons is certainly not the weak link in the chain

Of course we want more and better - a professional internet and broadcast solution in a small package

I have been badgering Jim no end for this
http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=44624
But there seems to be fog of MP war at  Red development

Just bring us a 2k scarltet with RAW at under $10k that takes our stills lenses - the cash is waiting

S

[feppe]

IMO the canons resolve 360p or 480p well (in fact that is close to the limit of thier 'true' resolution)

That is practical web resolution at todays bandwidths

480p might have been a practical resolution in 2005, but not today in most of the western world and large chunks of the Far East. Youtube serves 720p which is a very respectable resolution, with 1080p rumored to be coming soon.

Their 720p is roughly 4Mbps, and this implies the average internet users in almost 20 countries can stream 720p. Please note this is streaming, so if you're willing to wait a bit the potential user base is pretty much the entire western and northern Europe, most of US and Canada, and entire Japan and South Korea. You will have to do quite a bit of looking to even get slower than 10Mbps wired internet in Finland, for example.

I've heard some countries have bandwidth caps, so YMMV.

[Graeme Nattress]

graham

its a simple question really that needs defining

data rate and image size of interenet delivery - can the canons do this ?

In my remote area with slow internet connection the resolution of the canons is certainly not the weak link in the chain

Of course we want more and better - a professional internet and broadcast solution in a small package

I have been badgering Jim no end for this
http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=44624
But there seems to be fog of MP war at  Red development

Just bring us a 2k scarltet with RAW at under $10k that takes our stills lenses - the cash is waiting

S

The problem is that when you live day in, day out, with 4k+ media, the local cinema doesn't cut it any more, the TV certainly doesn't cut it, and there's an increasing frustration that amazing images can be made very affordably, but distribution is holding quality back. Hence the REDRAY project.

Scarlets will certainly suit your needs - the downsampling from the full sensor data will give a superb 2k for you, and will produce utterly clean web delivery versions too, for better low-bit delivery. THe work on Epic carries over to the Scarlet models, so although you hear Epic, think Scarlet too.

Graeme

[Morgan_Moore]

480p might have been a practical resolution in 2005, but not today in most of the western world and large chunks of the Far East. Youtube serves 720p which is a very respectable resolution, with 1080p rumored to be coming soon.

Their 720p is roughly 4Mbps, and this implies the average internet users in almost 20 countries can stream 720p. Please note this is streaming, so if you're willing to wait a bit the potential user base is pretty much the entire western and northern Europe, most of US and Canada, and entire Japan and South Korea. You will have to do quite a bit of looking to even get slower than 10Mbps wired internet in Finland, for example.

I've heard some countries have bandwidth caps, so YMMV.

720- is roughly 4mbs ?

maybe graham can comment on this

I would suspect that clean 480p is above 4mbs ?

Vim and Youtube certainly take my 5d footage and mungle it beyond recognisability

A 5d grab from my Reel at 450p before vimeo destruction..



S

[PierreVandevenne]

720- is roughly 4mbs ?

Reduced to 8-bits, in addition to a 25-1 or so compression ratio, it can be. And apparently, they are using even less

http://www.streaminglearningcenter.com/art...using-h264.html

But of course, quality isn't their goal and their audience isn't picky ;-)

[feppe]

720- is roughly 4mbs ?

Their 720p is. Or so I thought - Pierre's link claims it's 2Mbps

It's not only youtube and vimeo, though: as I pointed elsewhere, even TV broadcasters are guilty of overcompressing their feeds to feed more channels through the same pipe.

[Morgan_Moore]

Their 720p is. Or so I thought - Pierre's link claims it's 2Mbps

It's not only youtube and vimeo, though: as I pointed elsewhere, even TV broadcasters are guilty of overcompressing their feeds to feed more channels through the same pipe.

The original question is does Red look better on the web compared to a canon ?

We see most likely that the data rate the canon can give is higher than is typically piped down the web (currently) by our clients

Therefore the canon can achieve web delivery

The images I posted I think is better than most on demand web delivery and is made with canon

Is Red better - of course -dynamic range and tones no doubt - is it $20k better IF you have such a restricted delivery medium - doubtful IMO

Is Red better on the big screen - absolutely Im sure

S

[Graeme Nattress]

It all depends on subject content - if you're posting low DOF bokeh-porn, you're not going to stress the dynamic range or the resolution / aliasing issues. Shoot architectural works in tack sharp focus, then you may have big issues even on a web version.

Graeme

[mtomalty]

if you're posting low DOF bokeh-porn,

O.K. then.  What about good old fashioned regular porn !

Seriously, thanks all for the useful back and forth.  Lots of good info for me to digest.

With  zero practical experience with motion it's difficult not to get swept up in the positive hype
surrounding the 5D Mkll especially when a number of established veterans from the motion field
are equally enthusiastic.
Granted, many of them are hocking how-to videos and the like and it would work against those interests to
showcase problem areas with DSRLs.

MT

[Graeme Nattress]

One very interesting thing you can do with a vDSLR is take a still shot in stills mode and video mode and then compare. Match the video cropping with the still and scale it down to fit, and scale the video up to the stills size and compare that way too. It's very interesting and well worth doing to get a feel for what the processing short-cuts do in making the video image.

Our goal is that stills look like motion look like stills - in that if you did the above test you'd not see the difference. And that indeed, is the difference.

Graeme

[Morgan_Moore]

MT

To clarify the technical difference (as I understand it)  between architecture and narrow DOF 'porn' - a frame with more detail has more information and therefore breaks down more when compressed and may be subject to alaising so the canons look better for F2 50mm work rather than 20mm F11 work

Those veterans baffle me - they work in the environment (budget, formality of shooting, crew size) where Red is the appropriate tool for eveything but the 'glove box point of view' or 'from in the fridge shot' where the canon is clearly the appropriate tool due to its size

I think the thing for you is to buy a 7d or a T2i and just get some experience shooting a motion picture style camera - they are most certainly fantastic learning tools - the rolling shutter teaches you good camera dicipline the large sensor introduces you to focus issues not found on a handycam

Buy accessories that will carry forward to scarlet (manual nikkors or Zeiss most likely) and sit tight while you learn - you probably have a bunch of those manual lenses in the shed anyway - I did

Alternatively buy a handycam and learn to tell stories with it (shoot cutable sequences and cut them)




GN

You are not wrong - Red is awesome, RAW is great, Id pick a RAW shooting Red over a Sony F35 any time, being used to RAW I cant imagine baking my look in on set

A canon frame grab sucks compared to a still even from a Nikon D1 - that is true too

BUT I feel that the difference closes once your quality limit is definied by bandwidth of the delivery medium rather than the aquisition tool

I guess us photographers will initially be shooting web clips for our existing clients to extend our business offer, an on that basis the canon (T2i) is great bang for the buck

Bring us a stable Scarlet, even at 1080RAW, and the debate will end (in your favour)

S