New video opportunities with SL2s and Ninja V

[matted]

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4 hours ago, hansvons said:

I have the Ninja. I can say that it is a bargain for the money. The functionality is incredible. But the battery makes the whole set up top heavy, which is as bad as front heaviness. 
 

I had never the opportunity to work with ProRes Raw, let alone in a rea-life project. My NLE of choice (ADSK Flame) can’t read it, which means that transcoding is necessary. Colour temperature can’t be corrected after the fact, which somewhat defies the raw concept. If I‘m not misled by the white paper, the benefits are low bandwidth at a high bitrate (kind of ProRes 444 alternative with a more restricted accessibility).

Considering the Ninja is about the same price as non-recording 5" LCDs it certainly seems like a bargain! Yesterday I did some more digging into ProRes RAW and you are right... I'm not sure if there are as many benefits as I thought there would be, and support for it is not as widespread as I assumed it would be. I believe your assessment is spot on. It will still be interesting to test and compare RAW to ProRes 444 L-Log and the internal codecs. It could be there are some situations where having total control over the NR could be advantageous.

I wonder what other functionality, features, or fixes might be included in this new firmware? Personally I would like to see a bit more flexibility in the frame rate/GOP/codec options. I'm sure they had input from people smarter than me in deciding what options to put in there, but they seem kind of arbitrary to me; why offer both Long-GOP and All-I 23.98fps in 4k but only Long-GOP in C4k, and conversely, why only offer Long-GOP 24fps in 4k, but offer both Long-GOP and All-I 24fps in C4k? And why limit all 23.98/24p options to h.264? It would be nice to set codec, GOP, frame rate, and bitrate independently as my Fuji XT3 allows. Surely there is a way to do it elegantly so it does not bog down the menus and UI.

[BernardC]

1 hour ago, matted said:

why only offer Long-GOP 24fps in 4k, but offer both Long-GOP and All-I 24fps in C4k?

I think the overall logic is that projects that require all-i generally shoot in DCI formats. That's either because they use anamorphics, or because they expect to provide a DCI deliverable (usually for projection).

Leica could have provided more combinations of long-GOP or all-i with UHD or DCI, as many brands do, but it would have created a lot of confusion for people who aren't familiar with those acronyms, and who don't want to use-up SD cards like chewing gum.

[OleBe]

Am 17.4.2022 um 21:56 schrieb hansvons:

I have the Small Rig half cage. If I recall correctly, you have to hone down a pin to make the bottom plate work. I did the honing myself, which means that’s as easy as pie. 

The half cage is as small and lightweight as it possibly gets without losing functionality. Brilliant piece of gear. Highly recommended. But hard to find. I got mine from Sweden after a lengthy google and some trust into an obscure seller.

Trying to get one as well, the baseplate can be replaced by any standard 501 Manfrotto...Which I have at home anyway. So at least if I can get one not issues to get it running  Thank you for the hint!

 

[matted]

2 hours ago, BernardC said:

I think the overall logic is that projects that require all-i generally shoot in DCI formats. That's either because they use anamorphics, or because they expect to provide a DCI deliverable (usually for projection).

Leica could have provided more combinations of long-GOP or all-i with UHD or DCI, as many brands do, but it would have created a lot of confusion for people who aren't familiar with those acronyms, and who don't want to use-up SD cards like chewing gum.

I would assume All-I for broadcast deliverables as well, which would mostly be UHD I would think, however UHD does have All-I and Long-GOP available for 23.98fps, as I noted above. There is definitely logic behind their choices, and they are certainly very workable choices I must say, but I would prefer they give the power to the users to decide. For the users who are easily confused between All-I and Long-GOP, 4:2:0 and 4:2:2, 8 bit and 10 bit, etc, I would think that they will be confused whether they have 2 or 200 choices, so why cater to them? Steer the users wanting simplified choices to the .mp4 container and let us chew through our SD cards like gum should we so desire with .mov 🙂

[dennisritter]

Am 17.4.2022 um 21:56 schrieb hansvons:

I have the Small Rig half cage. If I recall correctly, you have to hone down a pin to make the bottom plate work. I did the honing myself, which means that’s as easy as pie. 

The half cage is as small and lightweight as it possibly gets without losing functionality. Brilliant piece of gear. Highly recommended. But hard to find. I got mine from Sweden after a lengthy google and some trust into an obscure seller.

SmallRig 1658 Half-VersaFrame-Cage this one? 

[hansvons]

1 hour ago, dennisritter said:

SmallRig 1658 Half-VersaFrame-Cage this one? 

No. It's not in their current line-up anymore. As said above, not easy to find.

[Photoworks]

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Kondor Blue will have a cage.

"The cage that will work seamlessly between the S1H and the Leica SL2 will be available in mid-May! We worked directly with Leica to design the cage to ensure that it will work!"

[dennisritter]

vor 3 Stunden schrieb Photoworks:

Kondor Blue will have a cage.

"The cage that will work seamlessly between the S1H and the Leica SL2 will be available in mid-May! We worked directly with Leica to design the cage to ensure that it will work!"

Now I've already ordered the "SmallRig Camera Cage for Panasonic S1H CCP2488" 😄

[Slender]

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Getting some Set flight hours today....

[hansvons]

All the bells and whistles. Cool!

[Slender]

Indeed that clearly is only ever needed for scripted fiction with a director monitor and crew...etc. Going "naked" with just a mic on top and using the EVF is also a very nice way to shoot for docu style....

[matted]

It's official; download SL2-S firmware v3.0 here. Interesting that RAW is only supported in APS-C crop. I did not expect that, but I suppose it makes sense as the full sensor readout requires processing to down-res it.

 

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Edited May 5, 2022 by matted

[rim_light]

Has anybody got it to work? Updated the SL2S, put it in RAW, but the Ninja V shows "no input" only.

EDIT: I'm in idiot - just made a firmware update of the Ninja V and it works as designed!

Edited May 5, 2022 by rim_light

[Aaron Daniel]

Curious to see and hear everyones thoughts on this! Will be updating my camera and ninja tomorrow. For anyone who has done so already, what are the available frame rates while recording raw?

[matted]

11 minutes ago, Aaron Daniel said:

Curious to see and hear everyones thoughts on this! Will be updating my camera and ninja tomorrow. For anyone who has done so already, what are the available frame rates while recording raw?

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Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

 

I do not have a Ninja, but these are the options once you have selected RAW. Curious that 24fps is not available… I would have thought that would be one of the premiere markets for this functionality. 

[Jonathan Levin]

Sort of confused. What is the frame rate of C4K? And 29.97 RAW, 1080?. Or is the white highlighted C4K the Name of that section and you chose FR i.e. 29.97. That must be it, no?

[matted]

35 minutes ago, Jonathan Levin said:

Sort of confused. What is the frame rate of C4K? And 29.97 RAW, 1080?. Or is the white highlighted C4K the Name of that section and you chose FR i.e. 29.97. That must be it, no?

Yes, the white highlighted C4K is the “section” and the other lines are the available frame rates for C4K. 

Edited May 5, 2022 by matted

[Shubee]

333 / 5 000

Hi,

The manual states that "It is now possible to record a 12-bit RAW format with recorders such as the Atomos Ninja V, the Atomos Ninja V+ or a Blackmagic Video Assist 12G HDR". Is this an error with Blackmagic Video Assist? I don't think you can record in Blackmagic RAW from the SL2-S... Unfortunately.

Edited May 8, 2022 by Shubee

[Aaron Daniel]

Hello all, I have just recorded a few tests with the SL2-s and the Atomos Ninja V with ProRes Raw. Importing footage was seamless, but now I am having trouble changing the ISO or colour temperature in the settings. The metadata shows up but it is not allowing me to change these values; is there something I'm missing or needed to while recording? Thanks in advance!

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[beewee]

1 hour ago, Aaron Daniel said:

Hello all, I have just recorded a few tests with the SL2-s and the Atomos Ninja V with ProRes Raw. Importing footage was seamless, but now I am having trouble changing the ISO or colour temperature in the settings. The metadata shows up but it is not allowing me to change these values; is there something I'm missing or needed to while recording? Thanks in advance!

I don’t have direct experience in this regard, but I do recall that raw video is not like raw photos in that not all raw features in ProRes is available from all camera manufacturers. This includes colour balance being a potential feature where some manufactures support it but not others.