Just like buses ... the D800 and 5D Mark III arrive

Last year was pretty much a year of waiting in the DSLR field.  Even those cameras which showed their faces didn't start to ship till this year or we are still waiting.  Part of this was understandable given the problems in Japan and Thailand.  Into this vacuum we saw the dedicated video camera make its comeback peaking with the arrival of the C300 and Scarlet at the end of the year.  People were starting to say the video DSLR revolution is over.  This is a view which I half agree with.  It doesn't feel like a revolution anymore, DSLR is now largely mainstream and ubiquitous.  For filmmakers there are now many choices of large chip cameras which are easier to work with and easier to fit into a professional workflow.  

However, there are still a huge amount of footage being shot of DSLR all the way from the guerrilla filmmaker right up to major motion pictures.  That video function is not going away and will continue to improve. 2012 has seen the arrival of two “next generation” DSLRs from Canon and Nikon.  For Canon, it is the 5D Mark III - the replacement for the camera that has defined this whole sector for nearly three years.  For Nikon it is the D800 which brings most of the new technology recently launched on the D4 into direct competition with the 5D.

Canon 5D Mark III

With three years to wait, the blogosphere has had a long time to imagine what the 5D Mark III would be.  This probably meant that the Mark III was doomed to disappoint and I must admit I haven’t had a burning desire to upgrade.  At least part of that is due to the fact that I can’t afford it, but that doesn’t usually stop the “desire” part.  The increased price (£2999 at launch compared to £2299 for the Mark II) brings it into competition with the low-end big chip camcorders but I need a convergence device and those don’t qualify. 

I have only had the chance to play briefly with the camera so this is no review, but we can look at the spec sheet.  At the time of its launch, the video feature was the most original feature of the 5D Mark II along with its 21MP sensor.  Apart from that a lot of the tech got carried over from the 5D.  For the photographer, it was far from leading edge in the areas of AF and metering.  This didn't stop it being hugely popular with photographers as well as carving out the video niche.  The 7D which followed later did not suffer these issues.  It was more weatherproof, faster and had much better AF and metering.  In some ways the 5D Mark III is more like a 7Ds - a full frame 7D. 

Canon have improved the camera comprehensively in most areas both photographically and for the video section.  We have be starved of full res samples at the launch but all the signs are good.  I fully expect that the quality of the imagery will reduce the 5D bugbears of aliasing, moire and rolling shutter and it will be an order of magnitude better in low light.  Sound recording and monitoring have been improved but the big wish list items of clean 1080p out and faster frame rates at 1080p are not there.  There is also a lack of crop modes (like in the consumer 600D) which seems a missed opportunity to me.  Maybe Canon thinks giving you cheap, fast telephotos in camera is counterproductive for its bottom line?  All of these improvements are welcome but nothing which renders my Mark II obsolete which is why Canon will continue to sell it.

Nikon, who have had many false starts on DSLR video since they kicked the whole thing off with the D90, have put an amazing amount of new tech into the D800 to fight back.  They have managed to do this for a noticeably smaller chunk of change than Canon at £2399. 

Nikon D800

The are many remarkable things about the D800 but the most remarkable is that it so un-Nikon-like in philosophy.  Nikon had been the least enthusiastic DSLR manufacturer in the megapixel wars and now they have gone nuclear with a 36MP sensor.  The aging D700 it replaces couldn't wield half that at 15MP and it dwarfs the 5D Mark III’s 22MP.  This sensor dominates this camera for better or for worse.  For video, it sets alarm bells ringing.  That’s 34Mp to throw away to get to HD size, how will it cope in low light?  Again, we still don't have any uncompressed samples to answer those questions.  From what I have seen in the Nikon demonstration this is my own prediction.  I think the D800 will be on a par with the 5D Mark II for low-light and picture artifacts with on-board recording but will be well behind the Mark III.  I think the ability to record off-camera will narrow the gap some but not entirely close it. 

The D800 does have a lot of features which show Nikon have listened and which I think are valuable both in Photo and Video modes.  Nikon shows no fear of crop modes and this effectively gives you two cameras in one.  I can see this camera being a hit with time-lapsers and for making plates with that massive resolution.  For the photographer I think Nikon will be able to match the D700 for low light and be better at most other things apart from speed.  If you want to shoot darker and faster I expect you are going to have to save for a D4.

If you don't have the cash to hand or are not convinced by the feature set then its probably best to wait.  We still have the Canon Cinema EOS DSLR to show its colours and that is likely to have some very different tech in it.

Concept Cinema EOS DLSR

Expect to see much if not all the new video features trickle down into the rest of the rand in the next 12-18 months.  It think the upgrade for the Rebel/00D range is due soon and we will see from that how widely Canon is prepared to share its features.  With the Digic IV generation cameras they were pretty generous, so this will be a very interesting announcement.

Bear in mind that most of what I have said is still based on very incomplete information.  Its going to be a while before the blogosphere gets its hands on production models and can come to independent conclusions on the image quality and usability of these new cameras.  I am eager to see how it all pans out!

Some more in depth looks at the cameras can be found:

http://www.paulgwilliams.tv/blog/2012/03/my-thoughts-on-the-new-canon-5d-mark-iii/

http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/nikon-d800/nikon-d800A.HTM

http://www.eoshd.com/content/7311/canon-5d-mark-iii-vs-nikon-d800-for-video

Making do

"Making do" - this phrase has typified a cash-strapped, post-war Britain which had, by then, lost the swagger and ambition of the Victorian era.  On a more positive note, its also about achieving the best results with what resources you have.  It is also "situation normal" for the budget filmmaker.  It's easy to fall into the trap that all that idea you have needs is some new piece of gear, or another workshop or some new software package.  Oh that's just me then is it?

Occasionally, you see a piece of work that has production values that far exceed the consumer equipment used to make it.  My friend J G Harding just posted his latest music video up on Vimeo which is just such a creation.  The track is called "Clapton Pond" by Apologies, I Have None, this is an ambitious, high concept piece which I think completely belies it's zero budget origins.

To judge for yourself here is the video

To learn more about its making go to Julian's website

What the 4K!

Every so often my twitter stream will burst into life about 4K and the 4K Jets and the HD Sharks will get ready to rumble.  It may be a new 4k product announcement or a post on Red User which will act as the catalyst.  It seems far more polarising than say, 3D, as an issue.

I think there are a lot of aspects to this battle for hearts and minds - worth a little reflection I think.  If we look at acquisition then there just a couple of systems capable of 4k (or more acquisition).  Of these RED is the poster boy for 4K as Sony's F65 is only just starting to appear.  

F65 Prototype at NAB

Now most people would agree that more resolution is better (possibly not older actresses).  I saw a demo on the Sony stand at NAB2011 and it was deeply impressive despite the screen being huge and the audience being unrealistically close.  It is also true that it gives you more flexibility in post for reframing and cropping.  It certainly true that throwing resolution away usually works better than adding resolution.  Major motion pictures shot on film (though not all) tend to be mastered at 4K and many cinemas are equipping with 4K digital projectors.  RED claims this makes them the future-proof option.  30 years in IT leads me to believe that future-proof is a myth - perhaps future-resistant is more accurate.

The challenge at the moment on the acquisition and production side is the maths.  4K has four times more area roughly then 1080p.  That means 4x the data - all other things being equal.  That data is going to be present in your entire pipeline if you are going to master in 4K.  This has obvious implications in storing, movement and computation required in post.  This will increase costs and increase time.  Over time, improving technology will reduce this but it has significant implications now.

Currently, 4K equipped cinemas are the only place the public is likely 4K footage natively.  Will this change in the near future?  There are signs that the consumer electronic industry is going to put its faith in 4k as the next big thing after 3D.  CES this year had a smattering of 4K models.  CE Manufacturers always need a next big thing, its essential to their business model to persuade you that the consumer durable they sold you 2 years ago is no longer sufficient.  Interest in 3D is waning, they need a new flag to wave.

Toshiba 55" 4K TV

I happen to have a 3D set bought recently and a 3D projector waiting for an install.  Am I a 3D evangelist? Not really, I was really making the move to 1080p and 3D was just a bonus.  Its not that I don't like 3D, I enjoy the experience when its done well, but there is hardly anything to watch.  I have 2 sources of material: Sky and Blu-ray.  Sky has one channel which is about 70% repeated material (my impression, I am not sad enough to measure it) and a few blu-rays.  Even cinema releases which were 3D don't seem guaranteed to get a blu-ray disk.  If they do its normally dearer list price and less likely to be discounted.  

What have I got plugged into my setup.  I have a Blu-ray player (1080p), PS/3 (720p/1080p), SkyHD (720p/1080i) and AppleTV (720p). My amp is theoretically capable of handling and upscaling to 4k but compatibility is always in doubt till some standards emerge.  The signal path is via HDMI1.4 which can do 4k24p.  I do expect to see a jump in quality in my new 1080p projector over the old 720p one slightly offset by a bigger screen size.  However, I see no real difference in percieved resolution at my 3.5m viewing distance between my new 47" 1080p LED LG TV and my old 1024 x 720 Pioneer 42" plasma.  The step up in resolution to 4k is more marked than that between 1080 and 720 but I am not convinced it will be obvious at TV panel size.  How big do you have to go before you notice 4k.  In the world of AV consumerism there is the much feared WAF.  This is not a technical term but stands for wife acceptance factor.  Flat screen TV has faired well in WAF because the resulting sets maybe larger but they have taken up less space.  Get over 50" though and the sets are starting to draw to much attention to themselves and the WAF plummets relegating them to dedicated media rooms and bachelor pads.  This is probably less of an issue in the US where homes are typically more spacious, but any new format has got to succeed globally. 

I am the kind of early adopter guy who would buy 4K so what would it mean to me and how would I get it?  I think we can rule out broadcast.  In the UK, only the death of analgue has freed up enough space for a few HD over-air channels.  Sky too tends to worry about how many channels not the quality or we would not still be on 1080i.  Download services could distribute a file but how long are you prepared to wait.  In metropolitan areas it may be OK but I am limited to 5mbps out here in the sticks.  A single 4K movie not compressed to mush would probably exceed the typical UK monthly download limit for most punters.  So we are looking at some kind of disk or device to deliver the movie.  Blu-ray could do it but most current players arent going to be able to cope.  Even the ubiquitous and future-tolerant PS/3 is probably going to fail as its missing HDMI1.4.  If blu-ray can be stretched to fit (and in this I include at the pressing facilities) it just might gain a foothold with a slow burn dual play approach similar to 3D.  The disruption level is similar in that case.

I can't see a brand new physical format succeeding now.  DVD had the full weight of the industry behind it and its take off was slow in the UK taking a few years to hit critical mass and oust VHS.  Most of us early adopters have a drawer full of Region 1 disk we played on hacked DVD players.  We bought them so we had a decent choice back in the day and now we cant trade them in against blu-rays.  Blu-ray had a more troubled birth as it was fighting not just against DVD but HDDVD too.  It won the format war in the end but even after all this time it still has a smaller section in HMV than DVD.  Look round the rest of the store and you see racks of CDs.  CD is 30 years old and no higher definition format has come close to unseating it as a retail format.  The threat to CDs comes from a variety of formats that are worse - an interesting lesson for video.  Even HMVs future is far from assured - condemning video sources to online or a small selection at supermarkets. 

So winding right back to where we started with acquisition, how important is 4K?  If you are filming big budget features then it seems to make sense to feed the growing number of 4k projectors.  Not that I have seen any issues with Alexa films at my 4k equipped multiplex.  For lesser budget features then its a finely balanced decision.  What is going to provide the most production value up on the screen?  Any skimping you do on other crafts to feed that 4k pipeline are only going to be more visible in your end product.  For TV, Indie Films and Commericals I think its a long time before most of the 4k benefits start paying back with time being so critical.

A few bits and bobs

I haven't posted anything recently after a busy Christmas and New Year.  Its been relatively quiet in the DSLR world with only Nikon D4 and first impressions of the C300 and Scarlet to entertain us.  Rather more with the C300 it must be said.  After a slightly negative initial reaction with mumblings about the feature set and price the C300 seems to be winning hearts and minds.  Canon bringing the price down to more F3 like levels has not done any harm.  However, the real theme I have noticed is that people really like using it.  They also like the image, especially in low light.  Its not the perfect camera but it seems one with relatively few compromises.  As a step up camera from a DSLR it makes a lot of sense.  It is still, unfortunately, a pretty big step though.  Here are a couple of reviews from my friends Philip Bloom and Nino Leitner.

The D4 shows Nikon is stepping up its game on video.  Have they finally avoided introducing any gotchas that undermine their camera in video?  I still haven't seen any definitive hands-on reviews yet.  Like its arch-rival, the 1DX, its still too much camera for me - too big, too expensive.  I don't have any Nikon lenses so I was never going to be a buyer but I welcome its innovations and hope Canon follow suit.

How soon will that response be?  Well the rumour mill has been hotting up for the Canon 5D MkIII since the turn of the year.  There now seems to be a strong chance of an announcement as early as February with some going as afr as to say the 5D and its rival the D800 me get released on the same day.  Unknown cameras from both suppliers have been spotted (leaked?) in pictures recently.  The specs on both still seem to be inconsistent in the rumours.  The Canon also seems to have characteristics similar to the 7D as much as the 5D.  Could the 7D get updated first?  Could we have something like a 6DX, replacing both models in the same way the 1DX does for the 1D and 1Ds.  No idea, I will be keeping an eye on Canon Rumors as diligently as the next man till they break cover.  It would be great to see something as soon as BVE or Focus on Imaging.

I was planning to follow up on my backup and archiving article with some practical advice and experience.  Unfortunately the floods in Thailand put pay to that as hard drive prices rocketed.  I have added an SSD and a 4 way USB3 card to my MacPro but I wont be able to complete my plan until we get back to those October prices.  We seem to be at around 30-50% dearer though it has been worse.  I am on the lookout for fast USB3 caddy or external drive.  I have been disappointed with the ones I have tried so far.

The Big Day Arrives!

I am a little tired this morning.  In the wee small hours this morning I was watching a Twitter stream flashing past with hashtags like #C300 and #Scarlet.  This was mixed with a largely fruitless search for any web feeds that were responding with new information.  I finally gave up when the tweets started to get more like #Ihateyouwitheveryfibreofmybeingforlikingthatcamera.  For camera geeks it was their birthday and Christmas all in one day.

So what kind of perspective does a good nights sleep bring and how well did I do in my predictions?  I was a bit hit and miss about the individual cameras as the C300 is more a hybrid of my imagined two models.  The C300 does borrow some tech from the XF305 but we have a brand new form factor.  We do have a choice of EF or PL mounts.  It is a proper fully functional video camera and blissfully free of any regional market foibles.  Its natural rival is the Sony F3, both in functionality and price. This is no convergence device, stills are available but only at 1080p - there is no attempt to use the full 8Mp sensor.  I was right about it not looking like a hair dryer.  It is a very high density body - more in the style of the Epic and FS100 than the more conventional F3.  Time will tell whether Canon have achieved this without the ergonomic eccentricities of the FS100.  

Canon C300

They also came through with cinema prime lenses but at $6800 a lens!  Thats about twice the going rate for a CP2, I guess that pent up demand is going to stay pent up.

New Canon cine primes

There seem to be a lot of people who have had access to this camera during its development including shooters and accessory manufacturers.  I think Canon must have had the NDAs hand delivered by ninjas to keep everything quiet - I didn't see anything even vaguely revealing the form factor on the web.  Everyone said very nice things about it at the launch but they always do.  It doesn't seem like we should have to wait to long before we see reviews in a more neutral environment.  My favourite film from those in the know comes from Mr Laforet (again) check out his blog. 

There was no respite between the lights dimming on the Canon presentation starting and the fanfares blaring out from RED.  Finally Scarlet is revealed TADA!  Only it isn't Scarlet, this is Scarlet-X.  Its certainly nothing like the camera Ted from RED showed us at the FXPHD live back at NAB.  What it looks like in fact is the Epic S which mysteriously disappeared from the RED roadmap recently.  This is no bad thing as I wasn't seeing a lot of love for the 2/3 chip and fixed lens on the NAB version. What we have instead is a slightly crippled Epic.  To be fair, the term crippled is a bit disingenuous in camera terms.  This is a "Usain Bolt running in brogues" sort of crippled - mere mortals are still only going to see what he looks like from the back in a race. Its so close to the Epic that RED seemed to have dropped the mass manufactured X model and I only see the machined M version listed.

Scarlet-X kit

Choosing to launch head-to-head with the C300 was a canny piece of marketing from RED.  Any other day and they would have faced a mixed press - delight over the spec and some questions over the price.  The promise of 3k for $3k was a long time ago (in camera years at least) but it keeps coming back to haunt them.  They managed to keep the sticker price under $10k and Scarlet is a 4k camera. Any heat they may have taken over the price inflation was completely covered when the C300 was pegged as a $20k camera.  Anyone who prefers a simplistic form of maths or is predisposed to a certain outcome will think "RED cheap, Canon expensive".

Such is the way of price relativism these days.  I would strongly recommend any potential buyer to take a step back and try and gain a sense of perspective before they make any judgments about cameras.   Just a few years ago having a camera capable of mainstream movie production under $20k was almost inconceivable.  The RED One spearheaded a downward trend but we were still a long way from affordable.  Then along came the 5D Mark2 and changed everything.  OK, so a full mainstream movie is a bit of a stretch, but it didn't stop a paradigm shift in peoples pricing expectations.  Suddenly everything else was compared to its $3k price point.  Even entry level "proper" large chip camcorders like the AF100 and FS100 were seen as a bit expensive when they arrived.  There is a reason why DSLRs are so cheap - they are subsidised.  They are subsidised by a group of people called photographers who buy them to take stills with.  Crazy idea I know, but there are a lot of them out there.  If you want to buy something that is primarily a video camera then you are restricting yourself to a much smaller pond and forsaking the economies of scale of the convergence devices.

So concentrating on large chip video cameras where do we stand?  We seem to now have 3 distinct sectors and I am going to go with UK ex VAT pricing for consistency.  We have the entry level cameras like the FS100 and Af100 which are about £3500 body only.  We have a mid-range with Scarlet, F3 and C300 in the £10-15000 range and then a big step up to the Epic, Alexa and F65 which are in the "if you have to ask you cant afford it" range.

The most interesting battle ground is the middle one.  I must admit that the F3 really impressed me in the Zacuto shoot out.  Only the Alexa consistently out pointed it to my eye and not by much. Its "old-school" EX body is a bit big and clunky for someone coming off DSLRs but battle tested and with all the pro bells and whistles.  To get the very best out of it though you do need to invest in some extras to record off-board, but you can use it straight away with HDCAM.  So how does the C300 stack up against the F3?  Well for someone who started with a 5D2 very well.  I have lots of nice EOS lenses and nothing else.  This is not a good place to start from with an F3.  If you go through a list of weaknesses with a DSLR the C300 checks every box:  sound recording, monitoring, clean out, SDI, ND, XLR, codec, remote operation - all there.  It also keeps all the DSLR strengths of low light performance, compactness and inexpensive media.  The big exception of course is that it is of no interest to photographers - so no subsidy.

So that leaves the Scarlet.  Like the C300 it comes with an EF mount option, RED even seem to be squeezing a bit more from the Canon mount than Canon.  On sticker price alone the Scarlet ducks under the £10k barrier but the basic option is not really useable unless you already have an Epic in your camera collection.  Take due consideration of the traditional RED appetite for power and media and a workable kit is inline with its competitors.  It is, however, just a fraction of the price of an Epic M and what has been taken away is far less remarkable than whats has been left in.  That must make it a bargain then.

The spec sheet and the RED Faithful would make you think this was "Game Over" and I am not saying they don't have a case.  Canon may talk 4k about the C300 but 2k of that goes missing in the signal processing.  RED outguns the Canon with RAW, HDRx and faster frame rates.  The RED UI with the touch screen always looked slick in the demos and we are yet to see much on the Canons control system.  There is a catch to all this tech though and that is complexity.  I saw one tweet rather unkindly implying the RED was a "science project".  I prefer to think of it like an F1 car.  On a F1 car you can adjust everything to extract the ounce of track performance, but you need some new skills and some powerful workflow to achieve this.  An F1 car is pretty useless though when you need to go down to the shops for a pint of milk.  I got the impression from the Canon launch materials that their focus has been to deliver great performance effortlessly.  I struggle with this part because the geek side of me yearns for all that RED tech, whilst my sensible side of me says that the Canon would be better for my kind of use.

In fact my sensible side also points out that my 5D is better for my kind of use than either of them and that I should spend more time catching up on editing than surfing on camera sites and blogs.  It goes on to say that my stuff would stand a better chance of improving if I shot more and researched less.  I don't think I am really that fond of my sensible side. 

But what was THAT…in that keynote slide…a DSLR with a new red badge…thats my perfect camera right there…I wonder what it does?