Author: carlomacchiavello Page 3 of 18

Pocket6k G2

On 3 July 2022

Blackmagic Design surprisingly releases second set of pocket6k, is that a good thing?

And everyone talking about it … looking for flaws and reasons not to buy it, shooting it down … without having it in their hands …

Of course, I’m not going to sit on my hands and as usual, with my critical and defeatist style I’m going to list all the mistakes he made to make it a bestseller … undermining the sale of its own chambers….

Every camera manufacturer thinks about improving its products, and it is embarrassing how in Blackmagic Design they had the courage to improve their original camera by listening to user requests with :

sony battery like the pro
viewfinder compatibility
improved and bausculating monitor
New improved Os 7.9
Gyroscope recording to stabilize in post in a more modern way

Before, the battery seemed to be a problem, and now the battery is 3500 mAh, so one of the many “shortcomings” of the camera is gone.

Now instead of using external monitors you can use a very good viewfinder that is sold at a very honest price.

The bausculating monitor so one can complain that it is now not articulated….

About the new Os I talked about it the other day.

Of course many will think of it as a hybrid of the old 6k and pro, and the concept is right, they have taken the innovations of the pro, which is bulkier, and put the pluses in the box of the regular 6k, creating a scalar line of products for all needs:

pocket 4k the cheapest entry level 4k raw in the world
pocket 6k g2, 6k sensor, bauscular monitor, small footprint with many features.
pocket6k pro for those who need more audio inputs, internal ND filters, 1500 nits display.

for those who complain that they recently bought the “old pocket6k” well … the market goes on for all brands, indeed … many brands come out with a new model every year, while Blackmagic tends to bring out a new product or update every two years.

Clear dof infos

By carlomacchiavello

On 2 July 2022

In Techinque

Blackmagic Design is no stranger to surprises, and they often hide gems. Today while playing with the new firmware, I realized that not only have they rewritten the focus system making it more performant, but this information is written and inserted inside the scene metadata.

For those of you who are less technical, accustomed to certain technicalities, I point out how now those who have to manage the focus with automatic lenses, in the metadata have been given the gift of measurements…. I pressed on the focus and I get back the depth of field where to work with the subject calculated between focal length, aperture and focus distance, no small feat…

Blackmagic OS 7.9 … here we go again

By carlomacchiavello

On 1 July 2022

In Techinque

I can’t take it anymore… why don’t they stop with these updates?
You released the BMD pocket 6k G2, that’s it, you made the camera update, sell that one, don’t touch the already released cameras, don’t update them or else people are happy with the original ones and don’t buy the new ones!!!

Let’s pretend that they haven’t released it, that it’s just to support the new camera, that they just want to update the aesthetics of the system and that’s it … we didn’t realize that …

we have a revamped media management system, optimized and made much more efficient
we have rewritten the focus system much more efficient and faster by solving issues with the lenses of even a camera as old as the pocket4k released years ago
that they have received a responsiveness of the single frame shutter button making it finally usable and immediate in shooting
that they have enabled the gyroscope to record motion data in braw files for pocket4k, 6k, 6kpro to dramatically improve stabilization in post on resolve (V18beta5) reducing artifacts and problems from rolling shutter and motion recognition
that now the clip review management works like davinci tape mode and with a scroll we see all the clips on the board
that the white metering and management system be made more accurate on all cameras (including 4k).
that on 6k and 6k pro they have added support for the new bmd hardware for remote focus and zoom

We didn’t notice anything 😛
Thank you Blackmagic Design for not abandoning the cameras to their fate.

in 2022 there are not enough Genoese around…

By carlomacchiavello

On 29 June 2022

In Techinque

We’re in the middle of 2022 and I’m still reading about people complaining that they missed the photo shoot, the video because of machine X from brand Y…

Well the truth is that they are idiots… if they were Genovese they wouldn’t have had that problem… they wanted to save money the wrong way…

For foreigners : people who were born in Genoa in iItaly have a reputation for being cheap, because as good merchants they have always tried to buy at the lowest price and sell at the highest price.

Let’s start from the beginning, that is, that being a Genoese, with a capital G, I am thrifty, that is, careful about how I spend my money, this means I don’t waste it, but as my grandmother used to say (in Genoese, which would not be transcribable) when you need it, get the best and the best you can… this means that if you need it, better get the best product, because it will last longer…

Now getting back to technology, I just called idiots of people who buy 3-4000 euros of camera, and then put bottoms in front of the sensor and often (reason for data loss) media made of junk, because (quote) “I spent so much on the camera, I can’t spend more money on cards, disks, etc.”

now the money spent on the camera is useless if you choose inadequate media, consumer junk that breaks at the first breath of wind, products that overheat and change their recording capabilities, and/or cause you to lose data.

I have written more than one article related to recording media, their qualities and their eventual limitations, but I would like to remind you that quality media it is true that they cost money, but they also often have lifetime warranties.
I am using with current machines high-performance ssds bought in 2014, which after almost 10 years of honored service have never missed a beat recording even raw uncompressed video files. Instead I see people who instead of investing, prefer to get the cheapest product, it looks the same anyway, and then every three for two they have disk problems, disconnect, stop recording, have corrupted files etc etc…

do you want to be photographers or video makers? well these are the items you should not save money on : lenses, mounts, tripods, equipment containers.

do you know why? ask yourself these questions :

– what image do you think a 4000€ camera can give if the light is collected by a 100€ lens?

– if you spend a lot of money on equipment, do you want to risk losing the recording because you saved 50-80€ in support?

– do you want to risk in backing 4-5000 euro equipment on a 50 euro tripod?

– you spend thousands on your equipment, and you don’t want to protect it with an adequate bag or backpack as padding and/or protection from dust and liquids?

remember that accidents can happen, but who knows why everyone I read or hear about has violated the basic rules of smart saving…

LUMIX DC-GH6 beautiful yes, but it is not FullFrame..

By carlomacchiavello

On 31 March 2022

In Techinque

Panasonic recently released the new iteration of its flagships in the GHx series, the LUMIX DC-GH6.
I personally have owned several Gh2s, Gh3s, Gh5s, used with satisfaction for both photography and video and have always been more than happy with them, but… does a GHx still make sense in 2022?

So they want to convince us that this machine is good because it offers us only two or three functions, which more or less nobody cares about, but just to be fair … let’s see what the house dishes are :

Unlimited video recording (within the limits of battery life and support space)
Internal recording in Prores
Recording in 10bit 4:2:2 up to 60P at up to 5.7k
HFR and VFR recording at 10bit
Renewed v2 stabilized sensor

Trying to figure out if it’s worth it…

Unlimited video recording

As if it’s a plus, who cares that virtually all cameras or almost all cameras have a continuous recording limit because maybe the sensors overheat, the recording caches are small or because they are sold as cameras and not camcorders that are taxed more in Europe, so the limit is active in Europe and not in Australia, and for convenience of distributors, Europeans get this difficult. A Detail…

It’s a camera anyway, who cares about recording long videos with cameras?

Internal recording in Prores

And again, why waste so much space on the card (which to record in prores you have to use the new faster and more expensive cards) to use this ancient format, by now Prores is already more than 15 years old, when we can save space with a nice h265 (waiting for the 266 released in 2019)?

It’s a camera, it’s not like we can waste our time copying giant files, so who’s going to notice that they require less labor resources in computers, that they have fewer compression defects, more color accuracy, that we can postproduce them better…

Recording in 10bit 4:2:2 up to 60P up to 5.7k

Still pointing to these useless data recordings… do like others who record at 8bit, it’s 16 million colors, it’s always been enough, now it’s a numbers craze, if I make a video with a camera it’s because I don’t care to do color correction, waste space by recording in a non-standard format like 5.7k, no one has a 5.7k TV… maybe some imacs? and should I record for those few who have the 5k imac?

HFR and VFR recording at 10bit

And they insist on wasting space!!! Shooting at High Frame Rate (HFR) or Variable Frame Rate (VFR) at 10bit up to 300 frames per second, what’s the point of so much color fidelity, anyway already when you’re doing slow motion it’s cool, it’s not like you need to have accurate color … Surely panasonic aims to sell lots of expensive cards to fill with these features.

Revamped stabilized sensor v2

In a world where stabilized lenses have been around for thirty years still they point to the stabilized sensor, and they continue to improve it, making it easier to do the stable shots, and then .. move them in post, since now it is fashionable to blur the camera to give more “realism” to the shot … in fact it is since Cannibal Holocaust (1980) that they have been moving the camera in a rougher way to make a fiction product look more amateurish and real.

And we’ll stop here, because the other features have them too, nothing new in short, but it all serves to keep attention away from the biggest flaw, from that unacceptable original sin …

LUMIX DC-GH6 has it small, in fact the sensor is tiny, and all the videomakers and photographers cannot accept such things, it is almost offensive to propose a sensor of that size, you know well the limitations of certain things….

Are we sure?
Let’s start with a technical comparison, that is, let’s compare the size of the sensors starting with the mythological FullFrame, which is not big, in fact it has a very very large crop factor, as much as 2.4, but few people know that, I explain why in this other article by joking about it.

In this image we see how m4/3 is a tiny format for making video, and then if we compare it to fullframe there is no comparison… it’s obvious…smaller is only the sensors in the cameras that are surely amateur, if they have a 2/3-inch sensor or smaller still…maybe…or is that what the marketing would have you believe?

A few years ago a bearded engineer chose 2/3 inch cameras to make his new little film : Sony F23, Sony HDC-1500, Sony HDF-F950, chosen for their 2.2 million pixel sensor, which returned in HDCAM SR a 1080/24p image encoded in H264 base 6, 10 bit 4:2:2.

A compressed format-can you imagine?
a compressed format to even shoot a movie for the cinema!!!

After editing and post-producing his little film, he also had the courage to have it printed on film, both in 35m anamorphic and 70mm horizontal and Imax…
All from a sensor the size of a cat’s spit!!!

As an experienced engineer in the field, he knew that he was pushing those sensors to the limits, and although he could get FullFrames, the beautiful 5dMkIIs were available, he flatly refused, he was a bonehead and wanted to use the cameras even though they had that incredible handicap…

Rest assured that after that waste of energy and money, few went to the movies to see that little film, in fact to date he has earned

only $2.84 BILLION!!!

Avatar is still the highest grossing film in the history of cinema….

Think what it would have earned if it had shot in fullframe with a good camera?

I got the technical shooting information from the excellent IMDB.com site that has always been the reference for filmmaking, for which I cannot thank enough a friend, Giancarlo Cairella, one of the founding members.

I always like to mess around with new products, with ridiculous myths, both because if I took marketing and fan boys seriously, I would put them both to the stocks, and because although I am on the threshold of half a century, I like to approach life with the eyes of a child 😀

But let’s open our eyes to what is often just marketing, and quality, capability is far beyond sensor size and many other hissy fits, and try to understand what features really matter for the work we have to do.