[grispie]

Not a fan of that inserted slider shot to the cross tho, it's a bit jarring compared to the timing of the rest.

good feedback. there is a reason for the cross in the storyline, but maybe this is not the place to insert it...
edit is still work in progress, we'll see what happens..

[kadajawi]

@jhmos: Oh, thank you! That's a nice find.

Someone needs to tell Pentax that we can work around the noise easily (and it really was not a problem on the K-5 in pretty much every single shot. Unless the mechanism has become much louder or the microphone much more sensitive. I barely, if at all, hear it in my shots), and that the reduced battery life... I've shot about an hour of video AND taken somewhere around 1200 photos on ONE battery. SR was always on. One of the BlackMagic Design cameras can last 20 minutes on a battery. I think the Pentax lasts long enough.

I think the video anti aliasing is not so important. The next generation of Fujitsu processor and Sony or Toshiba will probably offer full sensor readout and downsampling, and then moire and aliasing should be much less of an issue.

@PiDicus Rex: Sounds good. Premiere Pro doesn't support 10 bit h264 files, the decoder will read them as 8 bit files, meaning the colors will go wrong etc.

That cross... it can make sense, depending on the story, though personally I think the slider and length was a bit much. Could be a horror film... Anyway, if you want it to be jarring, leave it there. If not... maybe another place.

@grispie: I've given it a go too. I also edited them a bit, normally I don't have anything with narrative to play with. Since I didn't know where you were going with the story I just went with a nice, warm look. First some sharpening, then Filmconvert emulating some Fujifilm stock (I've used the D7000 profile) and a bit 3 way color correction to give it some warmer mids and teal-ish shadows. The noise that Filmconvert adds (at 50%) do mean that bitrates explode a bit. I'm getting somewhere around 24 Mbps.

The files look good to me. I liked grading them. However upon closer inspection, especially after grading, some bad blocking becomes rather apparent when there is movement of smooth surfaces. As in when her face moves through the frame for example (not the hair). Look at it frame by frame. It should not happen during scenes this noise and detail free. I decided to look at the Sony alpha 57 footage too, and yes, it also has these problems. My K-5 files, and their transcoded variant using the same h264 codec (but a different, more sophisticated encoder) at much lower bitrates do not show these artifacts. I have the feeling that at least this generation of built in h264 encoders is not without flaws.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B26uSljVPN-NODJhdHl3UHJ3eHM/edit?usp=sharing
You can download the original file. It is much better looking. All the grain for example is completely gone in the preview, even at 1080.

[grispie]

I've given it a go too. I also edited them a bit, normally I don't have anything with narrative to play with. Since I didn't know where you were going with the story I just went with a nice, warm look.

yep, fun to see! I know you don't have a narrative to go by. And i want to keep you all in the dark for now :-)
But i like what you've done. You kind of gave it a retro look (which works with the phone and all) and the filmconvert grain is really really nice. I just discovered filmconvert. I need to explore it.
Skin tone is nice too!
I'll have a more detailed look when I have more time.

ps: not really horror, but the cross is indeed not a good sign :-)

[kadajawi]

Glad you liked it. And yes, it's really nice. Though I already dialed it down, and it really hurts bitrates.

I've got access to the Sony a57 again, tried portrait style, dialed down contrast and sharpness, a bit saturation too. The video looks better, but it still looks like a camcorder. It doesn't have that lush, cinematic look that you can get with a Pentax. There is still sharpening, there is still something that looks like local contrast/clarity being applied, like unsharp mask with high radius. Not really sure if that's what's happening, but it just doesn't look as nice as a K-5 or K-3. However low light performance seems better.

Also I can't change the aperture. I can only pick A, S or M when AF is deactivated (huh?!), and P seems to have the aperture locked to wide open. I'm sure it was able to adjust the aperture, because I have videos taken during bright daylight that aren't completely overexposed. But why... The dial doesn't work either. Also if I'm in a different mode than movie mode, where I can set the aperture, and then start recording, it will open up the aperture to wide open. Wait what?! I can adjust the aperture in liveview, and it does adjust the aperture. Why can't it record that way? Or is Sony afraid the AF doesn't work at smaller apertures...? That would mean I can't shoot video in bright daylight... and I will get choppy video all the time.

I will never ever complain about a lack of controls on my K-5. I promise.

Edit: Ok. That is WEIRD. When I activate video stabilization (which is electronic video stabilization, so it sucks, though nowhere near as bad as the K-3 because it can correct for rolling shutter) it can bring down the brightness far enough to give me properly exposed video even at f3.5. Every other setting is identical. What?!

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Last edited by kadajawi; 03-19-2014 at 12:53 AM.

[grispie]

Also I can't change the aperture. I can only pick A, S or M when AF is deactivated (huh?!), and P seems to have the aperture locked to wide open. I'm sure it was able to adjust the aperture, because I have videos taken during bright daylight that aren't completely overexposed. But why... The dial doesn't work either. Also if I'm in a different mode than movie mode, where I can set the aperture, and then start recording, it will open up the aperture to wide open. Wait what?! I can adjust the aperture in liveview, and it does adjust the aperture. Why can't it record that way? Or is Sony afraid the AF doesn't work at smaller apertures...? That would mean I can't shoot video in bright daylight... and I will get choppy video all the time.

No, the Alpha series is not perfect either.
to answer your question: the AF only works in P mode and it will push your aperture to f3.5 and start playing with your shutter to correct the exposure :-)
But I have a ND filter. So when I want to use AF, I point the cam around untill it hits 50fps, I lock it using AEL and control my exposure with the ND filter. Works quite well this way. And outside you want an ND filter anyhow or you'll constantly have to shoot at f16 or so.

I agree, it has a different rendering than my K3. you'll need to work harder to make it cinematic. On the other hand, in a wood or open field with a lot of details, the A77 will resolve more detail and you'll get more DR..

ps: try the sunset mode as well.

[kadajawi]

Sometimes I'd want more DoF though. Now granted the Pentax also doesn't let you chose the aperture with AF. Mostly because there isn't AF. And in MF the Sony has more controls... plus focus peaking.

Still, I don't like the image it returns. Wouldn't know how to put it in a pleasant direction. I'd rather shoot with my K-5, which doesn't have any loss of details due to the codec.

Sunset mode sounds like raised contrast... Anyway I only had access for a few hours.

[PiDicus Rex]

Sneaky sideloading post,... a K-01 test video..



Going to drop those K3 samples on to a fresh Edius timeline during the week - had to do a fresh Win7 install on a spare hdd to test a new USB3 card, trying to get my damn Intensity Shuttle working.
We can all complain like heck about the limitations of our Pentax gear, but at least they work 'as advertised' out of the box.
Got a 'found footage' indie feature to do, probs on my HD7, would be nice to be able to record the HDMI out to ProRes, rather then the Mpeg2 TOD files.

[Usuqa]

I don't have a k3 but I had the chance to play with one for a little when Heie visited and just to test the "movieSR" I shoved on my 50-135 and moved the camera around at a long focal length in a dimly light room (my studio).

From the quick test I done I wouldn't buy one for video and I'm glad I didn't sell my k5 to "upgrade" to the k3, still's IQ and overall operation is great and I'd love a k3 for that but the "movieSR" would kill the one reason I use the k5 for video and that is the mechanical SR and we use it a lot when doing movies.. we have hacked gh'2s for the more stable stuff.

What I found in the short clip which doesn't happen with the k5 is stable objects (my studio stool) being still in the frame but full of motion blur (as the sensor is moving but the image is digitally stabled) with the k5 and mechanical SR the sensor is stabilized so no motion is seen on still objects.

The other thing that bother's me is the added crop, sure I Can't use the lens hood on my 16-50 with my k5 as during moving around it will creap into the frame but I would rather keep the 16mm than have it chopped down, I'm not sure what the extra crop is (I heard 1.2?) wouldn't that bring the k3 sensor size in video pretty close to a gh2 with its muti aspect ratio (1.83?) and if so your as well buying gh2's for much less, hacking them and using lots of great m4/3 glass or almost any lens ever made on them.

[kadajawi]

Yeah. Is there a place we can send feedback to? They might simply be not aware of what real people think about their movie SR. Doesn't Pentax say they listen to user feedback?

[Ayoh]

Yeah. Is there a place we can send feedback to? They might simply be not aware of what real people think about their movie SR. Doesn't Pentax say they listen to user feedback?

I think it might pay to contact Jim Malcolm the Us Ricoh CEO, he seems to be accessible. Hopefully if enough people voice their concerns we can get some change.

https://twitter.com/jim_malcolm