geoffboyle-blog1

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Slowly losing my mind

Slowly losing my mind

I’m trying to speed up cinematography.net.

It’s a continuous process, the rules keep changing.

I’d love to change all the images to a more modern format than GIF, PNG or JPG, something like WEBP. This would speed initial load by about a second. I cant because Safari doesn’t read WEBP. Chrome does, Edge does, Opera does…

The real killer is my PC rating, err I mean accessibility rating.

We are…

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Grumpy Old Cinematographers

I worry that Grumpy Old Men In Black, ie older cinematographers,  tend to discourage young crew when they think that they’re helping them.

“The business has got much tougher” is a typical comment that I don’t think is true. OK, there are more people out there competing for the work but there’s a lot more work out there!

I’d like to start by saying that this is a great way to earn a living, I’ve…

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If you've got no ambition why bother?

If you’ve got no ambition why bother?

I’ve been involved in another of those wonderful Twitter/Facebook threads about exposure and again I keep getting told that you don’t need a meter and using a waveform is far more accurate.

Well yeah, if you have absolutely no ambition and are happy shooting single camera on corporates and weddings with the odd bit of news thrown in but if you have any ambition at all you’ll need to learn how…

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Personal comments on the 2018 CML camera evaluations

Personal comments on the 2018 CML camera evaluations

I want to stress that these are purely personal impressions and that you should check out the raw files at  https:/cmltests.net  and also get your hands on a camera to see how it feels for you before making any decisions. When we were shooting we used an Odyssey and a Canon 24″ monitor to see what we were doing.

In all cases the EI mentioned is what was required to give a “correct” & neutral…

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What do I want in a camera?

What do I want in a camera?

Not a lot actually.

I want to be able to use it without a caravan of kit and crew.

I want to be able to take it out of the box and be able to shoot within 5 seconds.

I want preset colour temperatures to be accurate.

I want the indicated ISO to be accurate.

I want a camera that has a simple recording system that doesn’t require contacting the NSA or GCHQ to get my rushes!

I want a camera that…

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RAW camera files available now

RAW camera files available now

I’ve just setup and new CML site that is linked to the main one. The new site is specifically for the camera raw files from the Digital Cinematography Evaluation sessions.

At the moment raw files from the 2017 sessions are available, once we have finished the 2018 in a month or so the new files will be uploaded and these will be removed.

The new system is insanely fast with multiple SSD’s and…

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"Filmlook" or TV standard?

“Filmlook” or TV standard?

I’ve been asking for peoples opinions about what needs to be included in the next camera evaluations but the answers are highly contradictory.

It comes back to the old which do you prefer, the look of film or the look of TV. The majority of people will say film.  Or at least digital images which emulate the look of film.

They then insist that camera evaluations are done using TV charts and to TV…

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Information or Knowledge?

It’s becoming clear to me that there is a huge confusion between information and knowledge.

Whilst I love the net it is creating a major problem in that by making so much information available so easily a lot of people think that by looking up information on the net they can “know” something.

This is just not true, truly “knowing”something implies understanding and being able to balance one…

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The next camera evaluations

The next camera evaluations

In preparation for the next round of camera evaluations I asked for comments and got a lot regarding the type of charts I was using.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this and I think we may have it all backwards.

Conventional rec 709 TV has a DR of at most 6 stops and if the charts are slavishly adhered to only 5 stops.

However, once the knees and hypergammas etc are taken into account we are…

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Next Camera Evaluations - request for comments

Next Camera Evaluations – request for comments

First, my apologies for cross posting, but if I can’t break my own rules…I’m also posting on Cinerant.

The next camera evaluations are shooting in three weeks and I’ve been thinking about how to change them from previous ones, bearing in mind comments I’ve received.

I’m going to try to move away from marking =/- on the charts, it will be purely stop and shutter angle for this test.

I will light…

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Interview with James Mathers of the DCS at Cinegear

Interview with James Mathers of the DCS at Cinegear

The title basically says it all.

This is an interview that I did with James Mathers the founder of the Digital Cinema Society when we were at Cinegear.

We talk about the origins of CML and why I got involved in and like ACES…

https://vimeo.com/275354606

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Cinegear update

It’s 9 days and 5 presentations at 2 conferences later 😊 that’s not including the panel at CG.

A shattering 2 weeks in total for me.

What is there that sticks in my memory from CG?

Not a lot really.

Lots of lenses, I’ll be interested to see how many are around in a couple of years. Major question about whether lenses can be universal i.e. S35 and FF. Personally I doubt it. Oh you’ll get decent…

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Conferences and exhibitions

I’m about to go to LA for CineGear. This show has grown and grown and for me is now the most important cinematography event of the year for gear freaks.

Cameraimage is better for the pure worship of cinematography, CineGear is heaven for gear freaks but it has a problem, it’s effectively only 1.5 days long and this is no longer enough.

Years ago we all went to NAB and IBC and that was pretty much…

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Snobbery in the camera department

Snobbery in the camera department

Snobbery is an insidious thing, I grew up in a council housing estate in the north east of england. In the UK this forever branded me.

Unfortunately the same class snobbery exists in the camera department, it’s not as bad as it was but it’s still there.

When I moved from documentaries to commercials in the mid 80’s I had issues with the crews I worked with initially because I’d come in as the DP…

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Crewing

I just made a comment on CML about DIT’s and once again I get a backlash from DIT’s. Lets get this straight, I do not wish DIT’s harm its just that I think that for the majority of shoots there’s is a job that may have been required during the transition from film to digital but that in the majority of cases it’s no longer needed. A message to me of “that”s not how we do it in Hollywood”is utter…

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High ISO-C200-EVA-URSA-MP

In this test I set the C200 & EVA to ISO 2500 and the Ursa mini pro to 1600 (its highest ISO)

I then took the rushes into Resolve in ACES cct and adjusted offset and black level only to match them.

It’s interesting how good both the EVA, noted for its high ISO capabilities, and the C200 are when pushed. Unfortunately the Ursa can’t keep up in this comparison.

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C200-EVA-UrsaMP I'm going to duck and cover now

C200-EVA-UrsaMP I’m going to duck and cover now

This has proved to be a much harder evaluation than I expected.

Normally it’s a very straightforward assessment of clear and defined responses. Where do they clip? What colours distort? How does the colour change with exposure? How much noise at various underexposure levels and so on.

This time it’s purely personal, how do they feel? How easy are they to use? How robust are they?

I was going to…