Early morning light - BMCC images

I've had my BMCC since Friday and have been shooting as much as possible over the bank holiday weekend here in the UK.

Below are a few stills straight from the RAW files processed within Resolve. More on the flickr link.

I shot predominantly before sunrise with the early morning light, mostly with a Sigma 24mm f1.8 and Tokina 11-16mm f2.8.

I am definitely getting images that feel more film like due to the RAW capabilities of the camera. There is noise in these images... but I'm still learning how to best expose with the camera and how far I can push it and what I can do with the files in the grade.

It's an exciting start.

More images here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hangmanstu ... 886506572/

Really lovely results! The shots look like they were taken from a gritty London film.

Pretty impressing stuff James.

I was so used to protect highlights (old FS100 habit) that it took quite a while to adjust to the BMC.
I learned that I had to set the zebras to 100 and have them just disappear.
Looks horrible hot on the camera monitor, but it's all there.

best, Frank

Pretty impressive. Could you attach some dng files or maybe a rendered sequence in full resolution (prores)? It will be nice to watch this in motion, not just stills.

It looks totally organic, this camera is really awesome ,absolutlely brilliant. Nice pictures James.

js

I recognized that the pictures posted from James are definately noiser than other BMCC stuff I saw.
Maybe Black Magic can look into this, it´s odd.

I just hope the sensors are consistant in performance and have no variance.

http://twitpic.com/aoe409/full

If that´s developed at ISO 800 it´s much more noise than for example the Pool Shark DNGs



open the picture in new window to get 1080p

I suspect he has added some grain in post as it looks a little too large to be sensor noise.

But I could be wrong

mmh, it´s the coloured noise that scares me. He didn´t add that for sure

I just want to make sure, black magic gets everything reported concerning the camera. The beta testers all have one camera per tester so there is no direct comparison.

I quite like it ha - yes perhaps it does look a little like an artefact. He did say there was some noise in the image as well.

It could be that this was introduced by excessive sharpening in resolve? I'd be interested to see the ungraded stills.

Beautiful Stuff!

Very, very nice!
Yeah, it looks a little more JPEG artifacty to me than noise.

... Looks horrible hot on the camera monitor, but it's all there. ...

Question for those fortunate to have a BMCC to test: The user manual appears to indicate the camera's LCD can be adjusted for both contrast, brightness, and Film/Video gamma, independent of the recording format. Do these adjustments allow for a less "horrible hot" display on the LCD, even though the camera is recording RAW for example?

Hi guys,

This picture was processed within Photoshop using Camera RAW. http://twitpic.com/aoe409

I messed with it quite a lot as I was playing with what could be done with the RAW file, i.e sharpening, using clarity, highlight protection etc

I'm not so keen on what I did in Photoshop now. Below is the same shot but processed in Resolve.

The noise in the images I've posted I'm guessing are mostly a result of me working in just natural light and under exposing the image. The interior shots were filmed before the sun had even risen and with no other light source. In comparison Jon's Pool Shark shoot was well lit plus he's always been working with the camera for longer so I'm sure has got his exposures with it down.

The zebras on the camera help well with avoiding highlight clipping... but I'd like to hook it up to either Ultrascopes on my mac or an external monitor with a waveform to judge correct exposure across the rest of the image. First myst buy a thunderbolt lead.

Lastly, yes the display settings for the screen can be switched between VIDEO and FILM, essentially putting a LUT on the camera display, something I've found useful in seeing a nicer working image and will be essential for client work.

Excellent, James, really looking nice. And thank you for responding to my question about the BMCC's LCD adjustability.

If I may ask another question: Are you applying noise reduction to your footage in post, and if so, using what software?

(I'm considering using the latest version of the Neat Video plugin and use it sparingly, since I can't run Resolve on my 2 yr. old MBP.)

Cheers.

Very nice. Some of the best looking footage so far in my opinion!

Beautiful frames James.

jb

Beautiful images, and if this is lit just from the rising sun, looks great.

Stunning photography.

Makes me even more excited to get my hands on it. The last month or so has really confirmed that you can achieve a photographic 1080p image, just like I would when shooting stills with my DSLR.

Looks like you're pushing your sharpening a bit far James. Maybe why you're getting more noise. What ISO did you use on these images?

Thanks everyone for the kind words!

I've not used any noise reduction on these images but have indeed sharpened in Resolve, but only around 2-5%.

Is there any chance we can see a motion video from these stills? Looks amazing, would love to see something on Vimeo to see it in motion.

Cheers!!!

Thanks everyone for the kind words!

I've not used any noise reduction on these images but have indeed sharpened in Resolve, but only around 2-5%.

In Adobe Camera Raw, if you leave the default colour noise reduction on, it will get rid of pretty much all the colour noise whilst leaving the luminance noise in there (which I like personally). Not sure what the Resolve settings are like though.

Digital colour noise is the ugly duckling amongst the different types of noise and grain.

I never trust post noise reduction or degraining, its essentially averaging your image so will often soften it quite a bit.

In my opinion it is best to use what comes out of the camera unless you're compositing and need a degrained image for a special reason - and even then its rare that you'd use that degrained version in the final shot.

Beautiful shots, and great tests. These are the images I wanted to see. This is going to be the longest two weeks ever.
What lens are you using?
I'm loving it.

It looks totally organic, this camera is really awesome ,absolutlely brilliant. Nice pictures James.

js

wow !! its really good. is this a RAW only..? i actually want to get an idea about this film making tool. could you guide me up from shooting to resolve post? do you have a da vinchi resolve too?

Yes, motion would be very nice.

Could you also give us info on your rig? How did you use the camera?

I never trust post noise reduction or degraining, its essentially averaging your image so will often soften it quite a bit.

In my opinion it is best to use what comes out of the camera unless you're compositing and need a degrained image for a special reason - and even then its rare that you'd use that degrained version in the final shot.

I'm not talking about de-graining. I'm talking about reducing the unsightly chrome noise which is what digital sensors added to the equation. At least in those frames. It leaves the luminance noise in there, getting rid of the random red/green/blue-ness the pixels.

And it barely does anything to your image if you keep it at the default or lower.

I hope to get some motion footage up from the camera soon. I am however now using the camera on paying jobs which testifies to the ease of workflow for both RAW and of course ProRes.

A couple of pictures of my shooting rig from the early morning light shoot are attached here. Note the Hawk-woods battery system I use to keep the camera package light and simple. It works really well in both powering the camera and recharging the internal battery at the same time. I run mine off Sony NP-F970s:

http://www.hawkwoods.com/products/dv_li ... mToSlide=2

The Tokina 11-16mm is definitely a great lens to work with.

James, can we get DNG samples of te first images that you post here? I will be grateful

James I'm so pleased you posted these early morning shots. My greatest concern about the BMCC from what I had seen is actually the opposite to everyone eases concerns. I felt it was all a little to clean and there wasn't enough organic grain to be seen. From the examples you posted from the morning, I am now very excited to start filming the sort of direction and style I adopt. I very much prefer that Daniel Wolfe 16mm look, you know The Shoes music video like and and his latest Guinness commercial by Saatchi & Saatchi . Make sure you link us up to the final cut footage would ne nice to see how that noise moves.

I never trust post noise reduction or degraining, its essentially averaging your image so will often soften it quite a bit.

In my opinion it is best to use what comes out of the camera unless you're compositing and need a degrained image for a special reason - and even then its rare that you'd use that degrained version in the final shot.

I'm not talking about de-graining. I'm talking about reducing the unsightly chrome noise which is what digital sensors added to the equation. At least in those frames. It leaves the luminance noise in there, getting rid of the random red/green/blue-ness the pixels.

And it barely does anything to your image if you keep it at the default or lower.

I know what you mean now. It is still not totally ideal as in some situations it will cause a sort of fringing along the edges of different colours.

I wouldn't like to apply that effect accross the board to footage unless I really had to - it will look great in some areas and in others it will look terrible.

Hmm, nice Filmic picture but shows lots of noise