This two hour online event brings together three well-known cinematographers to discuss the new role of the director of photography. Migue Amoedo, known for his expressive use of color in TV series and films, Adriano Goldman, who has won multiple awards for his work on TV shows like The Crown, and Lars Pettersson, who has been working in the Swedish film industry for over 30 years, will share their insights on this topic. The event will be translated by Carlos Congote, a cinematographer from Colombia who has worked on feature films and TV spots, and moderated by Lars Pettersson himself. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear from these experts in the field of cinematography.

Sunday, 30 April: 9am PST, noon EST, 5pm BST, 18:00 CEST.

More information in this PDF.

Reserve your spot at Eventbrite. The event is free, but you need to sign up.

Why does this matter? 

You might want to replace a failed power supply with one off of Amazon, AliExpress, Mouser, or the like. 

You might want to get a DC extension cable: many of the power bricks these lights come with have DC cords between three and five feet in length. With a light stand-mounted at six or seven feet, that leaves the brick dangling uncomfortably several feet off the ground, putting stress on the plug and tugging on the light (at these price points, bricks are not equipped with hangers). 

How can you tell?

Coax plugs with 5.5mm outside diameters are very common; it’s that inside diameter that’s tricky: it can be 2.1mm or 2.5mm. Andrew J at element14 says that 5.5mm x 2.1mm jacks are common at 12 volts, but that at higher voltages 2.5mm is more often found. That’s not universal, though; I’ve seen 48 volt eBike batteries with 5.5×2.1mm charge ports.

Robert Fay at DigiKey has a few handy tips, among them:

• Stick a round toothpick in the plug. If it fits snugly, it’s probably 2.1mm; if it falls out, 2.5mm.
• Stick a ballpoint pen tip into the plug. if it slides all the way in, 2.5mm; if it doesn’t fit, 2.1mm.

Both of those are highly dependent on having “standard” toothpicks and pens. Half the pens I have slide all the way into 2.1mm plugs, so if you go this route, test with a bunch of different pens.

More reliable:

• Use a drill bit: A 3/32in. (2.38mm) bit will slide into a 2.5mm connector but it won’t fit into a 2.1mm connector.

All my cheap lights (two generations of Dracast bicolor LED500s; older GVM bicolor LEDs; two generations of GVM RGB-800 lights) use 5.5mm x 2.5mm connectors. So does a rather less-cheap Nanlite Forza 60C. The bicolor panels all take 12 volts; the RGB panels and the Nanlite take 15 volts.

OK, mine’s 2.5mm, too. Just get any old extension, right?

Also consider wire gauge when you get extensions: too small a wire causes excess resistance. The results may include voltage drops leading to color temperature changes or panel malfunctions; and overheating leading to burns, melting, and fires.

Look at the DC cable on your power brick, and look for its AWG (American Wire Gauge) number. My 15V, 3A supplies for the panel lights use 20AWG cable; 18AWG is used on a 12V, 4A supply with a 9 foot cable; the 15V, 6A Nanlite supply uses 4.5 feet of 16AWG cable. Note that the smaller the AWG number, the larger the wire is — and the diameter of the insulation jacket is not a good guide to conductor size.

Any extension cable you use must be the same gauge or larger (a smaller AWG number), and/or it should be rated for the same amps as, or more than, your light requires. When in doubt, go for a bigger cable: its resistance is added to that of the existing cable, so the beefier, the better.

If you search on Amazon, you’ll find that 5.5mm x 2.1mm extensions are as common as it gets, but 5.5mm x 2.5mm extensions with beefy cabling are about as common as hen’s teeth. I did manage to find two useful ones: a two-pack of 1-meter, 18AWG cables from BNKENX (also sold by BEKER: I ordered these but got BNKENX-branded ones, complete with the velcro ties) and a 16AWG six-footer from BiXPower. 

I’ve been using both of these for a while on my panel lights with good results: no failures, no fires, no color shifts, and my power bricks can lie comfortably on the floor and not put stress on their cables.

Just be careful

Be advised: adding a DC extension is not something the manufacturers support. If you do this, monitor the temperature of the cable and its connections with your light at full brightness (maximum current draw). If the cable or its plugs get warm — warmer than the power brick’s own cable plugged directly into the light — stop using that cable immediately. But if it stays cool, you should be OK. 

Nonetheless I should emphasize that you extend your light’s cables at your own risk, and neither I nor PVC nor anyone else in the vast FilmTools empire is liable for any actions you take that may result in property damage or personal injury. Just be careful.

Disclaimer: all the products I link to I’ve bought myself at market rates. No one has supplied anything for review or offered any compensation for a favorable mention. And yes, I have a cheap-lights problem (curse you, B&H and your year-end sales), which I’m coming to grips with — by buying less-cheap lights! So, problem solved, eh?

The CML and Academy Color Encoding System (ACES) are curating an ACES presentation/discussion at Camerimage 2022. We are looking for creative professionals who plan or hope to attend the festival and would be interested in taking part in a panel discussion with an audience in a seminar room.

We welcome DPs, colorists or VFX people who have used ACES to share their candid experiences with ACES and how it was helpful (or could have been more helpful), as well as their wish lists for future features and other thoughts.  We plan a lively Q&A with the audience.

If you are interested, even if you can’t yet commit to attending the festival or if you can’t be on the panel but would be interested in attending the seminar, please contact CML’s Roberto Schaefer, ASC, AIC or Steve Tobenkin from ACES  to discuss the possibility.

• $500 off the Sony Alpha 7R IV
• $600 off the Sony Alpha 7R III
• $200 off the Sony Alpha 7 III
• $600 off the Sony Alpha 7 II
• $200 off the Sony 24-70mm f/2.8 G Master
• $300 off the Sony 24-105 f/4 G
• $100 off the Sony 12-24mm f/2.8 G Master
• $100 off the Sony 35mm f/1.4 G Master
• $100 off the Sony 24mm f/1.4 G Master

Sadly, the A7Siii is not on sale, nor is the Netflix-just-approved FX3, but the A7Riii, A7Riv, and A7iii are, and they all capture fine 4K video.

The 24-105mm f/4 is a deal; it may be the minivan of lenses, but it’s a darned good one. Mine lives on my A7Siii or A7Riii depending on what I’m shooting, and rarely gets swapped out for anything else.

The full list of on-sale kit is here. Note that this is the “complete promo list: USA”, and the deals may not be available overseas. It’s also unclear when “this week” ends: the promo’s date is 1 August, so make of that what you will.

Disclosure: Sony PR sent me the sales notice, but didn’t offer me any blandishments to write it up in any way whatsoever. I bought my A7Rii, A7Sii, and 24-105mm new or lightly used at prevailing market prices and not (alas!) during any special sales.

What?

The QuickTC plugs into your BNC timecode cable and gives you an immediate readout of the timecode (if there is timecode; otherwise it’ll show “no signal”). With taps on the display, you can:

• Freeze the timecode,
• Display user bits,
• Check the frame rate,
• See the signal amplitude and check SMPTE validity,
• Show the built-in battery level and firmware version.

There’s an LED on the end opposite the BNC that flashes on the :00 frame, so if you have two or more QuickTCs connected to multiple TC sources, you can quickly see if they’re in sync.

QuickTC runs off an internal Li-Ion battery, rechargeable via USB. The battery is said to last all day, and will retain the charge for a year when unused. And yes: Factory Optic can replace the battery if it dies — all batteries die, sooner or later — so you’re not left with worthless hardware.

The box is 23mm x 24mm x 83mm (that’s roughly 1″ x 1″ x 3.3″ in old money) and it’s set up to dangle from a lanyard for easy access.

Why?

Factory Optic has an amusing blog post on why you might need one of these things.

Where, When, and How Much?

QuickTC is available now, directly from Factory Optic for $123.98.

Who?

Factory Optic is a bunch of characters (self-described) who design and build custom film & video gear. I know about them because I talked with them last year about productizing a prototype optical analyzer I designed for a client, and in doing so I apparently wound up on their mailing list… which they used to inform me about the QuickTC.

Disclosure / Disclaimer

Those talks aside, there’s no material relationship between me and Factory Optic. They sent me the press release about the QuickTC but didn’t suggest (or expect) that I’d write about it.

Also, all I’ve seen is the press release and the website: I haven’t had a QuickTC in my hot, sweaty hands to see how well it performs.

Even so, this is the sort of thing that, if you need it, you need it bad, so I thought it was worth talking about.

Valhalla, N.Y., May 31, 2022 – FUJIFILM North America Corporation today announced the launch of its next flagship X Series mirrorless digital camera, FUJIFILM X-H2S. The most advanced X Series mirrorless camera yet, X-H2S includes advanced features for both still photography and video. It is also the first APS-C digital camera of its kind to feature Fujifilm’s 26.16MP X-Trans CMOS 5 HS imaging sensor, a stacked, back-side illuminated imaging sensor with a signal reading speed up to four times faster than Fujifilm’s previous X-Trans CMOS 4.

X-Trans CMOS 5, combined with the newly minted X-Processor 5 (which doubles the camera’s processing power compared to X-Processor 4), greatly enhances overall image fidelity at lower ISOs and reduces noise at higher ISOs. Subject-detection AF, which maximizes the tracking speed and accuracy of moving subjects is now made possible through the incorporation of an AI processor. For video, X-Processor 5 enables the recording of 10-bit 4:2:2 video in resolutions up to 6.2K/30P and frame rates as fast as 4K/120P and FHD/240p. Support for professional codecs, like Apple ProRes HQ / Pro Res 422 / Pro Res LT, provide incredible flexibility within post-production workflows, while also minimizing power consumption, thereby extending the camera’s maximum video recording time up to 240 minutes.

Main Features

● Dramatically evolved autofocus (AF) performance: X-H2S’s high number of AF calculations performed per second improves overall AF accuracy and facilitates subject-detection AF. Developed with Deep Learning technology, subject-detection AF implements an advanced prediction algorithm to enhance the performance of Zone AF, by refining the camera’s ability to track moving subjects in low-contrast environments. Subject detection and tracking has also been expanded from the human face and eyes to now include animals, birds, cars, motorcycles, bicycles, airplanes and trains. X-H2S keeps targeted subjects consistently in focus, allowing users to concentrate on framing and critical image-making opportunities.

● Exceptional video performance: X-H2S digital camera supports internal recording of 4:2:2, 10-bit Apple ProRes HQ / ProRes 422 / ProRes LT and ProRes 422 Proxy at resolutions of up to 6.2K/30P and 4:2:2, 10-bit h.265 video in frame rates as fast as 4K/120P and FHD/240p. The sensor’s readout speed of 1/180 second when recording video further assists in minimizing rolling shutter effects on moving subjects, or when the camera itself is moving. A heat-dissipating design brings the 4K/60P continuous video recording time to approximately 240 minutes, while the optional FAN-001 cooling fan accessory assists with maintaining similar levels of performance in high-temperature conditions.

● Significant flexibility for external recording: X-H2S is the first X Series digital camera to contain F-Log2, which provides a dynamic range of up to 14+ stops, allowing for more creative possibilities both in production and post-production workflows.

Additional Features

● Best subject tracking in X Series history: X-H2S controls phase-detection pixels independently from image display when in burst mode. This triples the number of calculations in phase detection from the acclaimed FUJIFILM X-T4 and enables high-speed focusing even during high-speed continuous shooting.

● X-H2S’s electronic viewfinder uses a high-resolution, 5.76-million-dot panel with a magnification of 0.8x. With a frame rate of approximately 120fps, the smooth viewfinder offers stellar visibility as a result of strong suppression of parallax and distortion (which commonly occurs when an eye position becomes displaced while using the viewfinder), thereby enabling accurate subject tracking.

● The camera features an all-new five-axis, in-body image stabilization mechanism, which offers up to 7 stops of image stabilization. Users can comfortably choose to operate the camera handheld in active environments (e.g., sports) or in low-light conditions (e.g., nightscape).

● The camera features dual memory card slots supporting one CFexpressTM Type B and one SD card5. Users can draw out the full potential of X-H2S’s fast, continuous image-making and video performance with the high-speed data processing performance of CFexpressTM Type B memory cards.

X-H2S Accessories

Several new accessories are also being introduced to complement the launch of X-H2S. These optional accessories include a vertical battery grip, a wired/wireless file transmitter / battery grip, a snap-on cooling fan for increased recording times, and a protective port cover kit.

Pricing and Availability:

FUJIFILM X-2HS mirrorless digital camera: Available in early July 2022 at the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price of $2,499 USD and $3,200 CAD.  

VG-XH Vertical Battery Grip: Available early July 2022 at a Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price of $399 USD and $515 CAD. 

FT-XH File Transmitter: Available in September 2022 at a Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price of $999 USD and $1,280 CAD. 

FAN-001 Cooling Fan: Available early July 2022 at a Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price of $199 USD and $260 CAD. 

CVR–XH Cover Kit: Available early July 2022 at a Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price of $19.99 USD and $26 CAD. 

For more information about X-H2S and its accessories, please visit https://fujifilm-x.com/en-us/products/cameras/x-h2s/. 

POSTNAB 2022

POSTNAB 2022 offers 30 vendors and a selection of speakers covering broadcast and post-production tech. It’s a one-day show and free to attend, though tickets are limited (as I write this, only 79 are left for the Seattle show).

• Seattle: Wednesday, May 4
• Los Angeles: Wednesday, May 11
• Chicago: Tuesday, May 24
• Detroit: Thursday, May 26

PNW Lens Summit

The PNW Lens Summit is a two-day cine glass expo, the first “live” Lens Summit since the 2019 event. The 2017 photo gallery gives you an idea of what to expect. Koerner says:

We will be following CDC and state guidelines. Safety precautions include:

• • All attendees and exhibitors will be required to present your COVID-19 vaccination card, or a negative COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours, to enter the event.
  • Social distancing is encouraged.

Things will look a little different than years past, but that doesn’t mean you should expect anything less than the best!

• Portland, OR: Friday–Saturday May 13 & 14, 10am–5pm

2022 Mini Gear Expo

Join Gearhead Grip & Electric on Saturday, May 14, from 2–8pm, and Sunday, May 15, from 9am–2pm to see the latest and greatest in motion-picture grip, lighting, and support gear. There will also be special workshops & demos, local bites & brews, live entertainment, and more. Details here. Gearhead says:

All exhibitors and attendees must present their COVID-19 vaccination card for entry. Face masks may also be required, depending on current CDC guidelines and local mandates.

• Portland, OR: Saturday May 14, 2–8pm & Sunday May 15, 9am-2pm

#1. It’s a small S1H more than a GH5+1

Dual red REC triggers, front and rear tally lights, fan cooling, best-of-breed tilt-and-swivel screen that doesn’t interfere with cables, TC sync input, bolder back-panel buttons, and the revised Q menu — all these make the GH6 look, feel, and operate more like the full-frame S1H (especially welcome is the relocation of the DISP. button to below the clickwheel; it no longer gets mashed beneath the base of the thumb when handholding).

The GH6’s image processing is just as interesting: the sharpness settings, for example, are far more subtle on the GH6 than on the GH5 and track the effect of the sharpness controls on the S1H. Sharpness -5 is comparable on all three cameras, but sharpness +5 on the GH6 and S1H is comparable to sharpness 0 on the GH5, and sharpness +5 on the GH5 looks downright cartoonish by comparison. The GH6 has the same “Photo Style” settings as the S1H, including Flat, Cinelike D2, Cinelike V2, and three Monochrome looks, plus a new L.Monochrome S look.

#2. HDMI Lag is lower with audio turned off

With most Panasonic mirrorless cameras, the EVF and LCD are 1.5 to 2 frames behind realtime (at 24fps, at least), and the HDMI feed is four frames behind the camera’s own displays, or five and a half to six frames behind realtime:

However, the GH6 lets you turn off audio over HDMI (gear > in/out > HDMI Rec Output > Sound Output (HDMI) ), and this has the interesting side effect of halving the internal HDMI lag, putting it only three and a half to four frames behind realtime (h/t Matt Allard):

#3. Focus Limiter improves AF usability

The GH6 has a new menu option: photo/movie > focus > Focus Limiter. You can set near and far focus limits for AF to work between.

Panasonic says “the focusing speed of AF increases when you limit the range where AF works”, but equally important is that AF won’t hunt beyond those limits. In my testing, setting the focus limits to the volume within which the subjects will play is quite useful; the camera won’t suddenly decide to focus on the background when panning from one person to another, for example.

#4. MF Assist (image mag) is only 1080p

The magnified image for the MF Assist function does not reflect the pixel-for-pixel reality being captured; rather it appears to be enlarged from a coarse 1080p downsample of the 4K or 5.6K source image:

This is a clear break with Panasonic tradition; with the GH5, S1H, and older cams, MF Assist is WYSIWYG. So you can’t use MF Assist on the GH6 to pixel-peep the live view, and when you use it for focusing, you’ll be looking for the sudden appearance of aliasing artifacts as much as any actual detail.

But what Panasonic taketh away with one hand, they giveth back with the other: MF Assist can now be used while recording, just like on a real camera! Just be aware that if you enable MF Assist on HDMI (gear > in/out > HDMI Rec Output > Enlarged Live View Display > MODE2), the entire HDMI feed is dropped to 1080p, whether MF Assist is active or not.

#5. The HDMI Info feed is… odd

If you enable gear > in/out > HDMI Rec Output > Info Display, you lose many important displays on the camera itself:

The GH6’s screens will be bereft of camera status displays, framing aids, grids, histogram, spotmeter target area and reading, the focus area, and all recording-in-progress indications(!) (again, thanks to Matt Allard for the heads-up). As with other Panasonics, though, you’ll still have focus peaking, zebras, and menus on both displays, and the waveform monitor and vectorscope remain on the camera’s LCD.

Seriously, just leave Info Display off; even cheap HDMI monitors nowadays have framelines and grids and histograms and suchlike, so use them and let the camera operator see everything she needs to see on the camera.

Oh, and while the GH6 handily desqueezes 1.3x, 1.33x, 1.5x, 1.8x, and 2.0x anamorphics, it only desqueezes its own displays; the HDMI image remains stubbornly squoze. So you’ll want an HDMI monitor with desqueeze capabilities if anamorphic is your thing.

#6. Dynamic Range Boost is for V Log and RAW only… mostly?

DPReview has an excellent explainer for Dynamic Range Boost, so have a shufty over there for more info (Matt Allard also discusses it, of course, but I’ve already linked his magisterial review twice, and I’ll be darned if I’ll do it again!). It works as promised, adding at least a stop (maybe a wee bit more) of highlight capture when you’re in V Log. Presumably it’ll have the same salubrious effect on external RAW recording when that’s enabled in a future firmware update.

However it doesn’t have a substantial effect if you’re shooting anything other than log or RAW; it only provides a tiny fraction of a stop of additional highlight capture, which comes about through shifting the rest of the tonal capture down a small amount:

These are the results with the camera in the “Like 709” look, but I get the same sort of result in all other Photo Styles other than V Log — sadly, even HLG shows the same minuscule gain in the highlights.

Interestingly, I also see a slight shift in the white balance:

Whether this shift is common across all GH6s or just a calibration error in this one sample, I can’t say.

I don’t see a noticeable change in noise characteristics switching DRB on or off, so I can’t see a strong reason to keep it on for anything other than V Log or RAW capture. If you beg to differ, do so in the comments, and let’s discuss…

Disclosure: All the cameras discussed are ones I’ve rented or bought at full retail price (give or take the odd LensRentals.com discount code, grin). There is no material relationship between me and Panasonic, DPReview, and Matt Allard, and nobody has offered me any compensation to say anything nice — or nasty — about these cameras.

You can set it up for 100% for 100% electronic colorbars, or 133% for 75% electronic colorbars, and… that’s about it. Sure, you can hide the skintone indicator, and switch to Mark3 orientation (why?), but if you’re trying to line up on printed test charts, you’re S.O.L. — Simply Outta Luck.

Calibrated color charts (the kind you can line up on a ‘scope), whether from DSC Labs or Gamma & Density, use half-saturation 75% colorbar colors, as full-saturation 75% colorbars exceed the printable gamut. Color charts are designed for use with a vectorscope with a x2 setting, which every proper vectorscope has (am I implying that the vectorscope in FCPX is not a proper vectorscope? You might very well think that; I couldn’t possibly comment).

Can’t fix the scope? Fix the picture instead

Quick fix: use an Adjustment Layer, and set its saturation to x2. If you’re using the Color Board, set Global Saturation to 100%:

Yes, that may push saturated colors into clipping, but it’ll also push the half-saturation chart colors towards their ‘scope targets.

You can also set up a crop in your Adjustment Layer to mask out everything except your test chart, simplifying the ‘scope’s display so you can focus on calibrated corrections:

I found this essential when compiling the CML 2021 RAW tests so I could match and white-balance my clips, and compare the ‘scopes for ProRes RAW in FCPX to the ‘scopes for Blackmagic RAW in Resolve (Resolve, of course, has a proper x2-capable vectorscope).

Just don’t forget to turn the Adjustment Layer off when you’re done with the ‘scopes!

In this case, the chroma hexagon is still pretty far from the targets: the Panasonic S1H RAW file is decoded using Panasonic’s recommended VLog-RAWGamut-to-VLog-VGamut camera LUT plus the  VLog-to-V709 custom LUT, which yields a desaturated, low-contrast image. Check out the RAW tests for other decoding pathways and their results.

Yes, but…

…who the frack has a color chart in any real-world shot? I said it was a GeekTip, not a ProTip! Even so, many a discerning DP will shoot a DSC ChromaDuMonde or a OneShot as lighting and/or grading reference at the start of a setup. No, it won’t be in a circle take; it’ll probably be in a separate clip of its own in the same bin, possibly with the same filename-encoded scene or shot number. The idea is to perform basic technical corrections on the chart clip, then copy them to the clips used in the edit.

To be of any use, of course, the post process has to carry the chart clips along with the edit, so that they can be called up to set (or check) the basic technical grade of the shots that are used — but that’s a topic outside the scope of this article.

…you’re not seriously suggesting serious grading inside FCPX? FCPX ain’t Resolve, but if you’ve built the show in FCPX, it’s often easier / safer / more cost-effective to grade it in FCPX than to move the show elsewhere for grading, as Scott Simmons eloquently argues.

…what’s that weird chart? It’s the sole prototype of the DSC Labs ChromaMatch GEO. It arranges the 24 ChromaDuMonde colors radially around the grayscale reference at the same angles those colors have on a Rec.709 vectorscope. Sorry, it’s not shipping yet; I’ll make some noise about it when it becomes available.

Moiré?

Moiré and aliasing arise when fine repetitive details in the scene — like the RGB pixels making up the screen of a smartphone — almost align with the photosites of your camera’s sensor, and are of the same scale. That slight misalignment means that while some photosites “see what they should” (for example, a red-channel photosite is illuminated by the light of a red subpixel on the screen), others don’t (a red-channel photosite is illuminated by a blue subpixel in the source image, which is just a complete waste of time and effort). The result is that “screen door” interference pattern called moiré, after the “watered silk” textile of the same name.

Diffraction?

In a nutshell, squeezing light through small apertures causes it to blur slightly: a point source isn’t rendered as a point, but as a slightly blurred circle called an Airy disk. The smaller the aperture, the greater the blurring; you can clearly see this when pixel-peeping a lens at progressively smaller apertures. (Mario Orazio has amusing articles on the topic from 2005 and 2008.) That’s why the sharpness sweet spot of a lens is typically a couple of stops down from wide-open, and not fully closed: stopping down reduces pesky aberrations but increases diffraction blurring, and the sharpest aperture strikes a compromise between those effects.

Stop It Down

The trick here is to use diffraction from a small aperture as a low-pass filter, blurring fine detail enough to eliminate moiré without overly reducing sharpness. The tighter the photosite pitch is on your sensor, the sooner that diffraction takes effect, so (for equal sensor resolutions) you can more easily reach that point on an MFT sensor that an S35 or a FF sensor, or (for equal sensor sizes) you reach that point sooner on an 8K sensor than a 4K sensor.

Shorter lenses help: the aperture diameter for f/16 on a 100mm lens is four times larger than f/16 on a 25mm lens. Put another way, you’ll get the same blurring from a 25mm at f/16 as from a 100mm at f/64.

Of course the method your camera uses to demosaic the sensor has an effect too, as does the presence of an optical low-pass filter and its strength.

Practically speaking, I can almost always shoot a screen using a GH5 (MFT, 5.1K) with a 50mm somewhere between f/11 and f/22 with no moiré. Using an X-T3 (S35, 6.2K, no OLPF) 25mm at f/22 usually works, but at 55mm I can’t stop down far enough. With an A7Riii (FF, 7.9K, no OLPF), 16mm at f/22 works, but 35mm doesn’t, and shooting screens at 16mm is a bit constraining. And an A7Siii (FF, 4.2K, no OLPF)? I don’t have a lens short enough with a stop small enough to blur moiré away.

I’m using mirrorless cameras, but the same physics apply to video and cine cameras, too. Indeed, if you’re shooting with a 1″, 2/3″, or 1/2″ camera, you should be able to pull this off more easily. However some very-small-format (1/3″ and smaller) video cameras with built-in lenses may not be blurrable this way; some of those cameras use an internal, graded ND wedge for “small apertures” specifically to avoid diffraction blurring. Darn it.

How To…

When trying this out, use your camera’s image magnification function to see as close to the unvarnished truth as possible. Some aliasing artifacts can go unnoticed on a low-res EVF or LCD image, but pushing in closer to pixel-for-pixel display should reveal any lurking nasties.

In this case it wasn’t needed as I purposefully chose a framing that maximized moiré, but in many cases it’s the subtle, fine aliasing that screws up the shot, and that sometimes won’t show clearly on the unmagnified picture.

Without built-in image mag, an HDMI or SDI feed to a separate monitor is helpful; again, pixel-for-pixel mode is recommended. If you just pipe your feed to, say, an Odyssey 7Q+ and don’t use pixel-for-pixel to check things out before hitting REC, you might wind up in post with subtle but shot-ruining aliasing and the need to reshoot everything (ask me how I know, sigh).

As you traverse apertures from wide to small, they’ll all look horrible until you’re within a stop of the blurring aperture — it’s not a gradual change, it happens all of a sudden.

When the shot allows, use a wider lens closer in rather than a longer lens farther back.

Sometimes a slight reframing makes a huge difference in visible aliasing. Mind you, this works best with static shots; if you’re following a handheld smartphone around, all bets are off.

If the picture starts looking a little soft? Yeah, you get that, but if you’re not A/B-ing f/22 pix with sharper pix at f/4, you may find it looks just fine. And if not, a bit of sharpening in post can crispen it up nicely.

And, finally, it won’t always work. In some cases you may just have to fix it in post with a screen replacement. Sorry.