Phil,
Just watched the 720P version of the "Kew" short. As always, great work, great eye, wonderful feel.

This thought crossed my mind while watching it: "This is the first camera that I could tell any story that I want with, and not feel like I'm compromising."

Did you grade with with "Looks"? I guessing you're loving it, as well.

Looks is such a great tool!

Stuff should be downloading faster as it is now on a better server.

As soon as I can I will take a photo. it's pretty standard though. Just camera, on rails with letus attached

Phil- Another job well done! That skating footage looked great.This may be the wrong question to ask here, but how do you like this sony EX compared to say, the HD100/200? I am seriously contemplating the next camera purchase.

hello hayes

thanks

two very different cameras. Very different form factor which makes a world of difference. I own an hd 201 and i wont be selling it. I still love it.

Found your pics on your blog. Great size for great 35mm adapter set-up - with 1/2" CCDs - could it be better for hendheld work! If you have solved the problems with your rods, it would be nice to see set-up with matte boxe etc though.

Phil at all,

I have some good news on this. It turns out that even though BD specs do not list 25p, there is no problem at all authoring a BD disk with 25fps progressive stuff on it, and it plays OK as well!

I have only today tried it out on my new Sony Vaio laptop, which comes with a BD burner and a little authoring application, Click to DVD- BD. I was able to burn a nice disk (with menu), using a raw m2t clip from my V1E, shot in 1080/25PsF. The m2ts file created in the STREAM folder is seen by Vegas as 25fps interlaced, but plays just like the progressive original clip.

What's even better, there is no re-encoding whatsover involved!

I can't wait for my EX1 to check whether the HQ, native 25p will also be possible to burn on a BD disk - which might not be possible, as it's not 50i-compatible.

Update No problem with "true" 25p (i.e. not PsF), either - have just rendered a full length MPG2 (1080/25p, 30 Mbps VBR, DD 5.1 audio) in Vegas, and authored a BluDisk using this smart little app; coming from Sony it even recognizes markers from Vegas timeline, so chapter points are conveyed automatically. The BD has a full-featured menu and plays back perfectly...

Looks like it will be possible to successfuly mix 25PsF from my V1E with the HQ native 25p from the EX1 when it comes, and deliver on BD without transcoding to 24p...

Several Sony reps have mentioned that you can change the extension to .ts from the XDCAM 35mbps VBR file from the EX1 and that too will work on Blu-ray without any re-encoding. I didn't ask specifically about 25p though.

BTW I also saw an internal Blu-ray burner claiming 4x speed that can burn an entire 50GB disc in about 50 minutes. Under $600

The tapeless worfkflow, backup, client delivery is getting faster and more affordable by the minute.

Interesting import issue MAC
 

When using the XDCAM transfer tool the clip numbers are not chronological. For example on the card I am currently importing. Clip one was actually the 3rd thing I shot, the chronological first shot is clip 6, the second is labelled clip 13.

Any ideas. It doesn't happen with the professional discs for my F350.

I noticed that as well... but you can change under menu "view" > sort by > name... and that sorts by name ( file number ).

I'm loving the transfer app.... sure beats tape.

and the "logging" function for meta info is very nice.

phil just wanted to know what size rails are on your usual system for the ex with the letus extreme and lens'?

Phil, What lenses do you use with the Letus??

and have you had a chance to play with the tilt/shift super rotator yet?

Later

I have just ordered the new rails from letus. Will let you know how they are.

Ray, I have so many lenses! I have just got the tilt shift and not got a chance to use it yet.

Brevis flip on it's way. Interesting to see how it compares to the extreme. Will post more info on my blog about how well it works with the EX1.

I'll be curious to hear what you think of the combination. I'm right on the verge of ordering a Brevis. I like the size.

Philip - I'm really interested to hear what you think about the tilt shift. I tried the Lens baby and it was fun, but just a large enough sharp area.

- Lenny

Hi Leonard

Not had much chance yet to use it. But will soon.

My religion series is all done. http://www.philipbloom.co.uk/Philip_..._XDCAM_HD.html

These are authored shorts looking at how being a certain religion in Britain affects their lives.

Phil, great work, shots done with Letus look wonderfull, not too much loss of resolution, hard to notice at least at that resolution, do you see the loss on a good HD monitor?
How do you color balance your shots, it seems that all of them have different skin tone/color balance, was it done in auto balance?
My favorite overall, in terms of picture quality, is the Buddhist story. The faces look amazing there.
In Muslim story have you done some sharpening?

Great work, really good social cause as well!

Chiswick??
 

Phil, did I just see you with a camera on Chiswick High Rd?
You may be in danger of turning into a celeb.

Keep it up Man.

Andrew

Blimey. Yes that was me. Small world! Big camera, no ex1 today! You should have said hello!

Hi Oleg. Never auto white! Everything was graded. I often go for subtle differences in colours between different chunks!

The Muslim story was not sharpened, it was shot clean with the ex1 as was the protestant piece. The Buddhist one was shot 95& F350 the rest on the JVC HD 200.

No real resolution loss. Just a softer more organic look with the extreme!

Phil, did you have any problems setting up you EX1 with the Brevis? I have no problems focusing in on the Ground Glass on my Z1U to the (Brevis+Spacer+Achromat), but when I set my EX1 up to the same setup, I can't focus in close enough. Did you have a problem with close focus?

Yeah you need a fair old spacer between the achromat and the brevis. Or get a flip

Great, thx.
I'm really enjoying the video you created "kew whole". I've watched it a couple times on my AppleTV. It has a great feel to it!

Hi Phil, just to sum up the entire workflow.
Shoot in 1920x1080-25P>Capture into FCP with Clip browser> CC with MB Looks>Export as QT for web?

I'm looking to move to FCP so I like to understand more. Thks!

Justin, I get my Brevis flip in Monday. I will let you know if it works well with the ex1.

Sean, I shoot 1080p 25p or 720 25p for overcrank. Import into the Mac. Edit, grade with MB Looks. Export as a quicktime movie file using current settings then convert to h264 mp4 using quicktime pro. If you export .mp4 direct from the timeline it needs to re render all the colour correction which is slow.

Phil, your experience with this camera has been so helpful; I thank you for your contribution. And on that basis I'm sorely simply tempted to blindly follow your excellent example regarding choosing 25p, especially as in the here and now I'm in PAL land. But that's not entirely my nature; I have a question: how did you decide?

I presume you tried 30p, and 24p, and 60i and so on. How did you settle for 25p may I ask? I’m wrestling with this decision even as my EX1 is on its way and I embark on a difficult-to-repeat project. Was that decision based on specific customer needs or broad future-proofing, or what?

Many thanks for being so patient...and extremely helpful.

Cheers

John

hi john

I always shoot at the same frame rate as UK broadcasts which is 25 frames a second. So I always shoot 25p for the film look or if I really have to 50i for interlace, but I really don't like interlace! I never shoot 24p as I don't need to output to film at all, well not yet!

Hi Phil,

Just a question regarding your use of 1080 25p.

While I luv progressive and even more so luv 1080 at 25p how do you deal with motion when shooting at this resolution. EG Say one has a setup whereby there's alot of movement in the shot (such as a soccer match) what's your advice and setup. Does one need to shoot at 720 50p to maintain a clean shot?

Simon

Hi Simon

I wouldn't recommend using 25p on Sport. Use 1080p 50i or 720p 50p

Phil...

I've seen a lot of luma noise in my images from a JVC HD110 after color correcting. This isn't low light grain, but noise that gets introduced in post processing from gain changes or color shifts. My understanding is that this is a shortcoming of the long GOP mpeg compression in 4:2:0 color space.

Have you experienced this with the EX1? I'm interested in the EX1, but, not if it has the same level of noise I experience with CC HD110 footage.

Hi Bill

As far as my experience goes I haven't experienced an increase in noise with CC. I do shoot everything -3db if I can. It isn't a completely noise free picture, if you look hard enough it is there. But it is minimal compared to all the other cameras I have used.

Philip

Hi Philip,

This may have been asked in this thread already but I haven't spotted it.

You do all your colour grading in post production, which is what I've been trying to do. And my question then is what settings do you pay most attention to in camera during the shoot? Are there particular picture profile preferences that you have? Or do you just sort of shoot neutral and save it all for post?

Hi John

I do have some settings in Picture Profile but only subtle ones, I will make a list and post them. When editing myself I prefer to leave it pretty neutral. If it is for something that won't be graded I have heavier settings.

I would love to have some picture profile suggestions Phil. Just got the camera yesterday. I'm used to the Cine preset on the DVX100, but I also just got Magic Bullet Looks and plan to use that and shoot neutral most of the time. Occasionally though I'll need a quick turnaround and would love to be able to achieve that look out of the camera. Thanks!

Maybe we should start a separate thread on Picture Profiles. I could use some ideas with that too but it might make it hard to follow if it's all lumped into this thread.

Are you editing and correcting in the native codec or ProRes? I'm under the impression that converting to ProRes would allow for better results when manipulating the image. Also, how do you get the picture from the Mac to a broadcast monitor while editing?

thanks

I have an aja kona lhe and I use component to go to my JVC monitor. I also sdi to a 26" Apple monitor through blackmagic decklink

i dont use pro res. The encoding is too slow. I suppose I could capture sdi live using the kona as pro res but that loses the point of tapeless workflow

Ok. Done a new short to test out my shift/ tilt lenses. 80% was done using the 65mm and 85mm Hartblei lenses. Go to my blog at www.philipbloom.co.uk and read all about it and see the film.

There is a 720p version linked at the bottom of the blog page!

Enjoy!

Freakin' beautiful. Though I'm getting tired of telling you that ... why don't you shoot something crappy for once and make the rest of us feel a bit better about ourselves? ;-)

I just watch the 720p version on my projector (11' wide cinemascope screen) and it was gorgeous. My little HV20 is having serious camera envy.

I knew you'd like the super rotators... you have done well so far, keep
working the lenses, at longer distances... the magic of them will reward you....