Nauticam Shogun Housing is here

[Interceptor121 843]

Hi A.Y.,

 

Well said. You are right. I'm increasingly frustrated by some people in this forum who post opinions that are not based on experience or knowledge.

 

You know, when I first started learning and sharing on WetPixel Video a few years ago, we had many active members with deep experience and knowledge. I got some great advice. But most of those people are now gone. Why? Well, I have only discussed it with a couple of those departed people and they both said the same thing. They got pissed off by some of the newer members who have opinions but no experience or knowledge; People who just read something on the Internet and regurgitate it here. We see some examples in this thread. Sometimes I think it's going to drive me away too.

 

I urge everyone who posts here to think carefully before you post opinions, suppositions and unverified information. Do you really know something for a fact. Or just read it. It's OK to have opinions or even regurgitate what you've read. But declare it. Like, "I don't know for sure but I wonder if ..." Or, "I read this story by Xxxxxxx on website Yyyyyyyy and he said ..."

 

Think before you post.

 

Regards

Peter

Nothing to do with you at all. There is no doubt that a system like that is incredibly powerful and has many benefits but not necessarily what the other poster is suggesting who in fact is doing exactly what you say looking on the Internet and trying to do comparisons

 

There was no critique at all of your work or your system but what I wrote there are facts.

prores is a format for post production designed for HD not for 4K it has not enough bandwidth to do certain things to the extent the other poster is suggesting

 

Look forward to your next production and don't take it personal please it had nothing to do with you

 

Would be interesting to see if there is something that can record the cinema dng format and what bitrate you can achieve

Edited May 16, 2015 by Interceptor121

[kc_moses 142]

I know the discussion is taking a different direction when I was "attack" when I mention about ISO800 is probably the max you would push on the GH4/LX100. I shot with GH4 and LX100, and have seen the straight out of camera footage in 4K monitor, so I have experience with what I was talking about. Yet someone who shoot FHD with an old equipment insinuate me being incompetent because he has been shooting at higher ISO.

 

It's not rocket science. If you shoot with GH4/LX100, and am happy with internal 8-bit 4:2:0 4K, fine. If not, look into A7S or GH4 + shogun. But if the additional $6000 price tag doesn't agree with your wallet, consider the next cheaper and maybe more promising product that will release in next couple months (and I got attack for keep looking for the next new thing because of that comment too).

 

I'm done with this thread. Whether Peter report back or not about his Shotgun experience, I know I can't afford it, nor do I want to deal with the extra storage that it requires. So if I offended anyone, I apologize and am leaving this thread alone. I would just go back to contribute what I could which is from the LX100 perspective in other thread.

[A.Y. 15]

Prores hq 422 is designed for 1080p not for 4K

 

To the moderators:

 

A blatantly false statement repeated over and over to suggest Peter's Shogun/GH4 system is not suitable for 4K, completely ignoring the fact that other professional cameras use Prores to record 4k videos. Facing this type of negative behavior, anyone in Peter's position will be understandably frustrated.

 

Apple ProRes Specs opens with: "All Apple ProRes codecs support any frame size (including SD, HD, 2K, 4K, and 5K) at full resolution."

 

I've personally used FCPX / ProRes422 and 444 to edit 4k videos with good results.

Edited May 16, 2015 by A.Y.

[Interceptor121 843]

 

To the moderators:

 

A blatantly false statement repeated over and over to suggest Peter's Shogun/GH4 system is not suitable for 4K, completely ignoring the fact that other professional cameras use Prores to record 4k videos. Facing this type of negative behavior, anyone in Peter's position will be understandably frustrated.

 

Apple ProRes Specs opens with: "All Apple ProRes codecs support any frame size (including SD, HD, 2K, 4K, and 5K) at full resolution."

 

I've personally used FCPX / ProRes422 and 444 to edit 4k videos with good results.

Prores supports any resolution but was designed for 1080p it's an inefficient codec without temporal compression that came up when the best you could do was avchd 24 Mbps.

 

I have made no suggestion that the system that Peter is incapable of shooting 4K I just corrected your statements about color correction because I thought the shogun had a limitation to bitrate

 

I have now found the details and it looks like disk depending it can record at 880 Mbps which is plentiful for any grading you want to do assuming you are a really fast disk in the recorder caddy

 

I had initially thought the limit was at 220 Mbps that would be pretty little for 4K

Edited May 16, 2015 by Interceptor121

[A.Y. 15]

Prores supports any resolution but was designed for 1080p it's an inefficient codec without temporal compression that came up when the best you could do was avchd 24 Mbps.

 

For what concerns the shogun it's an interesting tool but 220 Mbps seems a bit too low for extensive grading in 4K. At 1080p instead is plentiful

 

The shogun will produce fine results the amount of color correction you will be able to do with 220 Mbps at 4K is not a lot as every frame is pretty small in size.

Take an 8 megapixel image in raw squeeze it in a 1.14 MB JPEG now try to do some color correction you will see you can't do a lot.

 

To the moderators:

 

Amazing! This person keeps repeating these false claims as absolute fact! The truth is 220 Mbps is ProRes HQ 422 target data rate for 1080p30 only, its maximum data rate is 880Mbps or 110MB/s so each 4k frame size will be 1.8MB for 60p, 3.6MB for 30p, and 4.6MB for 24p. Atomos Shogun document shows it can record at 880Mbps or 110MB/s.

[Interceptor121 843]

 

To the moderators:

 

Amazing! This person keeps repeating these false claims as absolute fact! The truth is 220 Mbps is ProRes HQ 422 target data rate for 1080p30 only, its maximum data rate is 880Mbps or 110MB/s so each 4k frame size will be 1.8MB for 60p, 3.6MB for 30p, and 4.6MB for 24p. Atomos Shogun document shows it can record at 880Mbps or 110MB/s.

You can use the button report on the post instead of doing those type of statement like crying to momma

 

I worked out myself I misread the specs. If you had brought this in 5 posts ago it would have been more useful. I have no problem saying j make a mistake

Your considerations to compare a land clip with. I color correction as an example of your statement about grading still makes no sense and helped fuelling the discussion

 

Anyway case closed I look forward to Peter new productions (though I never liked the colours in his videos) the clips have always been excellent composition wise

[casbba 18]

The controls that are used regularly during the dive, like start-stop, auto-focus-lock, aperture, shutter speed, WB are all accessible without taking the right hand off the handle. Checking focus, exposure and color qualities now are done visually on the huge Shogun monitor.

 

The controls on the rear of the NA GH4 housing, like menu and the four-way dial, can be reached with the Shogun housing in the "line astern" position as there is plenty of space between the back of the GH4 housing and the front of the Shogun housing. I can easily put my gloved fingers between the two housings.

 

However, if you need to see the GH4 monitor, you have two choices. You can peer over the top of the Shogun housing and see the GH4 monitor from above. This should be OK for confirming the settings that you are changing, like ISO or WB. Or you can quickly flip the Shogun housing up to look directly at the GH4 screen. You might need to do this if you are going into the GH4 menus (which I never do underwater)

 

In practice, I don't expect to ever need to flip the Shogun housing up while underwater. I don't change ISO often - nearly always on 200. I might change WB a few times during a dive but I have my usual WB settings preset into the 4 slots so it's easy to pull the WB lever with the right index finger and press the right-most 4-way button to step through the WB presets. You can see if you have reached the best WB preset by looking at the colors on the Shogun monitor.

 

I also use the 3 custom settings to move between 3 preset parameters - a good way to go back to a known starting position if you've changed controls. For example, if I've been shooting in open greenish water and made some adjustments to a few settings and then I pop into a small cave lit only by my video lights, twisting the mode dial on the top of the housing, one click forward then one click back, I'm immediately back at ISO 200 and WB Auto and SS 1/50s, etc.

 

So, I'm quite confident that I can easily and quickly change what I need to change but let's see how it works out in practice...

 

Regards

Peter

Thanks Peter (and Edmond). Looks like they have all bases covered, I guess they need to with what a setup like this must cost. It's certainly impressive.

[thetrickster 328]

I'm really hoping the guys with these Shoguns can setup a static scene and do a side by side recording (underwater)

a) Direct to SD Card (so using the 100MB/s)
b) ProRes off the Shogun

 

Maybe even say, set it to AWB (so its off) and then we can see the power of 10bit 422 and getting the colours out of it.

 

I'm sorely tempted. But would love some sample footage to play with first.

 

Also agreed - all this land based footage is pretty useless, underwater we are dealing with such a reduced palette of colours - I think any refinements in color recording will help.

[Interceptor121 843]

I'm really hoping the guys with these Shoguns can setup a static scene and do a side by side recording (underwater)

 

 

 

Also agreed - all this land based footage is pretty useless, underwater we are dealing with such a reduced palette of colours - I think any refinements in color recording will help.

I think the comparison still holds how much grading can you do on a compressed JPEG? Some but not too much I guess

I would think getting exposure and colours as good as you can when you shoot will still help a lot

[A.Y. 15]

 

Since this Shogun Showreel contains footage from Eric Cheng, most people on Wetpixel must have seen it already.

 

1:02 into the video - such impressive dynamic range.

 

------------------------------------------------------------

 

CORRECTION: The GH4 and A7s were mentioned on the page, but I just realized only A7s ProRes 8bit 422 footage appeared in the video credit, not the GH4 10bit 422.

Edited May 21, 2015 by A.Y.

[kkfok 24]

 

Since this Shogun Showreel contains footage from Eric Cheng, most people on Wetpixel must have seen it already.

 

1:02 into the video - such impressive dynamic range.

 

------------------------------------------------------------

 

CORRECTION: The GH4 and A7s were mentioned on the page, but I just realized only A7s ProRes 8bit 422 footage appeared in the video credit, not the GH4 10bit 422.

Thanks, the original footage that can be downloaded is 420 while you can download the 422 version here

 

I tried to grade them with Pr CS6 to make a comparison but I did not find much differences, maybe I used The wrong tool, not very sure.

Edited May 21, 2015 by kkfok

[A.Y. 15]

Found the original, thanks!

Edited May 21, 2015 by A.Y.

[A.Y. 15]

 

Thank you Eric Cheng for making the ProRes 422 700Mbps clip available for us to examine. The white balance of the original footage is excellent. Is it right out of the camera? The details and dynamic range this system captures are amazing.

 

Since I dive the California kelp forests often, this is my suggestion on grading to restore some of the kelp colors. It's just a quick adjustment, masks should be used to add more contrast in the mid-tone areas.

 

I'll remove this image in case it violates Wetpixel copyright policy.

Edited May 22, 2015 by A.Y.

[kkfok 24]

Thanks, have you tried to grade the same scene in the showreel video which is 420? Do you find it less gradable?

[Interceptor121 843]

The 'graded' footage has an unnatural magenta tinge. The original looks better on the eye

[peterbkk 110]

I know some of you want to see some graded underwater footage from the GH4 / Shogun combination.

 

A week ago, David Cheung and I spent a few days diving in Lembeh Straits. I was capturing footage for the octopus documentary that I'm working on. So, I did not specifically shoot any "let me test this system" footage. I'm more of a storyteller than a technician.

 

I did get some excellent footage of octopus behaviours to add to my increasing library of these amazing critters. Some of the footage reminds me of playing with our cats at home - they just don't react they way you expect them to.

 

It took me a couple of dives to get used to the changed handling of the rig.

 

The one huge upside was the big monitor with its ability to do focus-peaking with different colors (red works best during the day, light blue at night). It made a huge difference to capturing footage of moving octopus, close up. I could always see if the octopus was in the band of focus. At some angles, the band of focus shows up as a pathway across the monitor. All I had to do was to mentally will the octopus to walk along that pathway (or move the pathway to suit the octopus).

 

Anyway, sorting through the clips, I did find once piece of footage that I thought might test the tolerance of the ProResHQ 4K 422 10bit footage. One afternoon after heavy rain, the water was dark, murky and very, very green. We were hunting blue-ring octopus (we did find a beauty and got some great blue-ring CU footage later in the dive) but I did a quick test shot on a nudibranch to make sure all was working.

 

The original footage is green. So I put it on a FCPX timeline and pushed the colour-correction to get rid of the greeness. It took 3 CC effects (1 primary, 2 secondary masks) to get it looking the way that I wanted it to look. The footage held together really well. I have no idea if this is a valid test but it convinced me that ProResHQ 4K 422 10bit footage is worth the extra effort of lugging the Shogun housing with me on future trips (underwater it is perfectly balanced / slightly negative)

 

I have posted the test footage on YouTube in 4K

 

(3 seconds original / 7 seconds graded)

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYJXKdOcvrM

 

(switch the little cog thingy to 4K before watching).

 

Regards

Peter

[SwiftFF5 136]

The graded video clip does look really good. Now you've got me wanting another toy...