That doesn't sound too bad. You just confused my decision a little bit more. haha. How do you feel the camera handles? picking your f/stop and shutter and ISO? Is it not as bad as some have made it sound? I really want to see a shot a bright sunny day with al the lights on indoor in any room, and in post, push the shadows way up and bring the highlights way down. I imagine I would expose more for the interior as its most important, but still under expose to be able to capture the exterior. If you were able to do that, that would really be awesome. do you think it's a camera that could be used on hand held glide cam? or is it too heavy? I will likely be renting one soon after hearing your thoughts. any suggestions on workflow for if/or when I rent it?
Cgdillan - check your PM box. I rendered out my video from a few days back. I didn't want to post the quick video publicly, as it was of my messy kitchen!
I don't have any issues with how the camera handles as far as functionality. My understanding of this camera is that, unlike DSLRs, it effectively has only ISO 800. That is, it gets its full dynamic range at ISO 800 and the other ISO's push/pull from there, losing a stop of DR for each ISO. The other ISO choices (400, 1600, and 3200) do not affect the raw file (their only stored as metadata). Therefore, choice of ISO only affects how the image is interpreted before being compressed in the compressed formats (ProRes and DNxHD). Therefore, I don't plan on ever changing the ISO for raw shooting and will be reluctant to do so when shooting DNxHD.
I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to change f-stops. I think I was surprised because, prior to the latest firmware, the original release of the camera did not report the f-stop. The current firmware does report the f-stop (for all of my lenses, at least) and never failed. You just push + or - to adjust. There is an iris button that opens the aperture to the widest point before clipping the highlights. This is useful, since this camera benefits from exposing as "bright" (i.e., open, wide, much to the right,...) as possible, then pulling down the exposure in post to what you want it to be. This gives the cleanest image. Shutter is in angle (not speed), so it is a bit cumbersome. I use it at 180, but it is easy to change by going into the menu (not with buttons). Note: ISO and shutter are in the menu, f-stop is by hard buttons.
I haven't put it on my glidecam yet. If you have one that has a harness/body support, then it probably isn't too heavy. If you're strong, it probably isn't too heavy. But, it is heavy. I bet it would be fine on a glider with a lightweight lens (e.g., the Tokina 11-16) for short shots.
Workflow: I'm working this out myself. The workflow with DNxHD or ProRes are no different than what you'd do with DSLR footage. With raw, your first stop is something that handles the .dng files. Photoshop, Lightroom, After Effects, Premier Pro, or Resolve (others?). I've used Resolve and Photoshop. Resolve Lite is free and it handles these files fine. Open in Resolve, adjust levels and color correct, then render it out to a compressed format to cut/edit just as you would any other camera's files. The nice thing is, you can choose different formats (even 10-bit 4:2:2 or 4:4:4), allowing more color correction in your NLE, if you don't want to come back to Resolve. You can round trip back to Resolve if you like, giving you access to the raw files again. This is easy in Premiere Pro and Final Cut. Resolve is great and very powerful. I use Sony Vegas Pro, so I'm still working out some kinks (due to Vegas, I think). So, at best, there is one extra step in "developing" the raw files. You can add more steps for more fine adjustments or to suit your objectives. Having this flexibility is why I wanted and love this camera. And yes, you need SSD's and lots of storage. 5 MB per frame. A reasonably fast computer helps, too. Resolve Lite seemed faster on my machine than the full version of Resolve.
Just my thoughts after less than a week with the camera (and 6 months of anticipation).
