Thursday, January 21, 2016

Thinking while Rotoscoping

In the indy world, anything which even remotely seems like it might be inexpensive has to be quashed right away. Shooting in HD is now the cheap thing to do so 4K is the new hotness.
Personally I'm not into the look of the giant-sensor cameras. That super-shallow dof reads "Oh, someone's got a Canon" to me.
 My buddy Chance Shirley thinks that the frame size of Super 16mm is about the sweet spot between narrow depth of field and not having an image so shallow it's simply impossible to focus. I have to agree with him there.
 So I like the micro 4/3ds format. It's, you know, about the right size for a sensor. The trick is finding a camera (which has to be 4K) plus a global shutter.
Global shutter. Dang nab it. We solved every problem -- we got big sensors which solved the un-film-like deep focus that those tiny 1/3" sensors had, but doing so we introduced a new and really annoying problem -- rolling shutter.
 The irony is that film, yes film, has an inherent rolling shutter. It's just a lot shorter than what these new big-sensor DSLR's have. And honestly you can shoot a lot of movie without seeing any artifacts. And also, the new cameras are getting their artifacts down to motion-picture "wet film" levels. But still, I'd like it to be gone.
 Filmmaking is a learning experience. One thing I learned is to NOT rely on rotoscoping out an entire scene with multiple characters from a background that does not match what you want.
Oy freakin' vey that's a lot of work.

8 comments:

joe said...

The only camera I know about that does 4K and isn't crazy expensive AND has global shutter isn't out yet...Blackmagic URSA 4K and 4.6K. The 4.6 was supposed to be out a long time ago, so who knows when it will actually be released.

Andrew Bellware said...

The new micro from Blackmagic is seemingly available though. The problem is it has no means of recording internally. So that will have to get fixed...

joe said...

There is a 4K camera that I think records internally...but that camera is very heavy. There are smaller ones coming, called Mini URSAs. One is 4K and one is 4.6K, they aren't available yet. But they do record onto CFast cards internally.

Andrew Bellware said...

I'm thinking about the Micro Studio Camera 4K. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1137295-REG/blackmagic_design_cinstudmft_uhd_mr_micro_studio_cinema_camera.html/ap/y?_escaped_fragment_=/BI/572/kw/1k+Sbid2&gclid=Cj0KEQiArJe1BRDe_uz1uu-QjvYBEiQACUj6oqm2uJtg0f_g2EwiMj_Kf_AuMia9lKSdYXFmlL0iKg0aAgND8P8HAQ
That's the one which needs a recorder.

joe said...

Look at these...this one is a little more expensive than they should be, mostly it's the first link I found. It does record onto cards and it's set up more like a traditional camera, it has a good viewfinder and XLR ports. There's also a 4K. Might be something to look into, I certainly am. There's a cheap 4K Red coming out, but I don't want to deal with those, and to outfit it will cost a lot more.

https://www.prokit.com/blackmagic-ursa-mini-4-6k-ef/



Andrew Bellware said...

Yeah, the Ursas are nice. But I want to shoot on a smaller sensor size. That super 35 is gonna make for a shallower depth-of-field which will make focusing harder and cost time on set. That's why I'm lookin' at that Micro Studio 4K. It just needs an SDI-in, 4K recorder...

joe said...

Doesn't the URSA 4K have the same sensor as the regular 4K? I think it does, so there wouldn't be much difference. As for the 4.6, all of the footage I've seen of it, even with very open lens, the DOP wasn't that shallow. 35 is what people complain about when comparing to, say, the 5D which is way past 35mm. One thing actually I didn' care for as much with the 4.6 was the wide DOF. O saw a video with no lights except ambient and the guy had a 1.somethign lens on, and pretty much had everything in focus except in close ups.

Andrew Bellware said...

The Ursas have super-35mm sensors.
The Micro Cinema camera, however, has a 4/3rds sensor. I believe that's the only Black Magic camera with a sensor smaller than Super 35mm. ;-)