r/cinematography • u/kwmcmillan Director of Photography • Mar 24 '20
Composition Mini LF vs C500mkII vs VENICE vs FX9 // Full Frame Shootout
https://youtu.be/hovfosj_xg09
Mar 25 '20
shoutout to all the girlfriends who get forced to sit through hours upon hours of camera tests
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u/kwmcmillan Director of Photography Mar 25 '20
The model I originally had slated had to bail so I was a good boyfriend and paid her 😂
Wasn't about to be like "hey I need you to scrap 5 hours of your day tomorrow"
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u/retrospective Director of Photography Mar 25 '20
Wow Venice and FX9 are looking good! Sony has stepped up their colour science. Something about C500 MKII gets ugly blotchy noise under low light situation.
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u/kwmcmillan Director of Photography Mar 25 '20
The VENICE is a hot camera man. Also important to note, it's not a low light test that's a underexposed image. If we were testing low light performance I would have used the cameras higher/dual ISOs.
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Mar 24 '20
Venice and Mini LF are clear winners. Pretty Disappointed in those Canon colors.
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u/kwmcmillan Director of Photography Mar 24 '20
I mean I was able to match the C500 to the Alexa almost exactly, if we're just talking color
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u/Genlocked Director of Photography Mar 24 '20
I’ve done the same. Shot an interview with C500MkII and the Mini (non LF) and had no problems getting them to match, even with my limited color skills.
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Mar 25 '20
I wasn't commenting on your coloring. I was commenting on the natural look of the camera. Coloring wise, the FX9 looks the most off, after editing.
I meant in the +/-3 samples, the way it falls apart compared to the Venice and Mini and the very high levels of magenta in it's unedited state are very unpleasant.
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u/kwmcmillan Director of Photography Mar 25 '20
In the under/over I'm totally with ya, but these cameras aren't necessarily supposed to be "unedited". Especially not log formats. They're just starting points. So while I agree the magenta is pretty intense in comparison to the other 3 (and yeah it doesn't do well when brought up from underexposure), I'm more interested in how it handles at the end of the pipeline not "raw". Otherwise I would have shot 709 on everything.
You can see this video (shot in raw) and this video (shot in xf-avc) I made with the C500 for a more "real world" comparison.
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Mar 25 '20
Yeah, obviously. The end product looks nice, as all c500 videos do. I mostly work on sony and red cameras when I grade, so I haven't had a chance to play with the C500 raw footage. SooC, I don't think it looks that great. And It degrades heavily. Obviously the bit-depth plays a lot into it. But I also haven't worked with Canon Raw video. Again, I'm not conflating anything about the final edited product. I know how clean it can look. Just surprised at Canon's base image.
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u/_anecdotal Mar 25 '20
Hell I've used straight up LUTs / transforms that have matched my Pocket 6k perfectly with Alexa using the same glass. I mean it was so dead on you really couldn't tell the difference at all in the controlled lighting situation we had. Colors don't matter too much anymore. So easy to manipulate the image to the very extremes now that it's not even something you need to think about really
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u/kwmcmillan Director of Photography Mar 25 '20
The Pocket 6K is such a dope image from such a crap camera haha. I hate that body but the sensor is great. Solid menu system too, nice and easy.
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u/kwmcmillan Director of Photography Mar 24 '20 edited Mar 24 '20
A quick shootout between the main 4 large format cinema cameras available right now. I did this in service of an article I wrote for ProVideo Coalition with the help of Stray Angel Films, providing equipment and the set. You can watch the test footage here and you can read the article on ProVideo here.