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watch Deathworld: First Epic Test from David RSHC and Nate North

Nate North

Nate North

This is the first real test of the Deathworld Epic M camera. This was shot in available light by David RSHC and Nate North over a 6 hour period, as an initial test of the camera. Most of the features of the epic M are still not enabled, so we couldn't do some of the things that will be possible later, but we were able to test the performance of the camera in a variety of lighting conditions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDSgc8M1DLE

Vimeo version

http://www.vimeo.com/29528257
 
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There's some horrific noise and compression artifacts, especially in the darker shots. I'm assuming that's just Youtube butchering the footage, though.
 
mostly yes, there are two or three other factors as well. One is that this was literally the first time we used the camera in the field for any duration, and without onboard playback, it's currently an inexperienced guessing game as to the limitations of the camera. A second factor is that we shot 12-1 compression in most cases to make the magazine last a day. A third is that this is all shot available light.

I'm absolutely certain that quality will improve as we gain more experience with the gear, and once the full feature set is enabled by firmware updates. This first one was really to get an initial read on the cameras performance in various light. Clearly there were some scenes where the noise was too heavy, but once we get a better ideas of the cameras limitations and fortes, these issues will become a thing of the past.

The video does look far better in the original copy of course. I'm uploading a vimeo copy as well to see the difference.

Can you guess which person in the video is me?
 
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I think one of the things I learned from this first test is not to leave the camera at default compression. I think a lot of the issues we saw with the compression errors source from shooting 12:1. The camera goes all the way up to 3:1, so we can get 4x this quality immediately once we're in a situation where we don't have to make a magazine last all day. I did want to see what it would produce in econo mode, but I think from now on I'll be pushing for higher band. 12:1 definitely doesn't give me what I need.

I think it came out ok for a first test shoot though. Now that I have a second to spare, I'm going back and doing a tighter edit.
 
Beautiful footage! The camera really goes live up to the hype!

As a big Angel fan (and rewatching right now, actually), Nate, you remind me slightly of Mark Lutz (as the Groosalug):
groo.jpg


(note: this is not intended as an insult)
 
Wow, thanks. I really liked Angel seasons 4-5. And of course I remember the gruesilag. I'm honored. However, I now feel the strange compulsion to lift weights.

Does anyone know if Amy Acker is still single?
 
The jumping shadow stick-man has perfect posture.

Also, I got you covered on the two-year supply of ramen. That much ramen shouldn't cost any more than 20 bucks.

Oh, and when I heard you guys were going to take the camera out and go skip rocks, I never imagined that you'd be at a mini-mall!
 
Definitely a great deal of noise in the darkened club. Bear in mind though that's at 1280 ISO and running 12:1 compression. We were slightly limited by the f2.9 lens (iirc), so had to push quite a bit to get shots in that space. Having said that it was a VERY dimly lit bar. Most of the light in the main bar was coming from the red glow on the bar surface itself. The only light on the statue was coming from the moving "dance hall" lights in that shot, literally no ambient at that point.

We should have taken the sticks into the first bar where people were playing pool, could have made those shots, but whatever.

Definitely impressed with the frame rate abilities, but that was never really in question. Will be interesting to see how the camera runs at more forgiving compression settings.

I did a little digging on the relative shutter settings on the camera. Odd that it defaults to 1/<frame rate> even when going back to 24fps (it defaulted to 1/24 shutter according to the menu screen). There wasn't enough motion for me to see what the difference was in the wide shot of the red bar. When it goes up a stop is when we set it back to 1/24 (the jump cut), but I couldn't discern that based on motion. More research required on that.

I do know that the default absolute shutter for 24fps is 1/48 (or 180 deg). Also, it appears that we could have gone deeper into menus using just the touch screen.

Not a thorough test by any means, just a few hours of roaming around Mtn View and tossing some footage onto the card. I didn't think we'd be skipping rocks into a fountain either, but hey, when in Mountain View ....

Also, wish my hand had been out of frame for that one. Fountain shots seem a little over on my monitor, I imagine they might actually be a little over but not as much as my monitor makes them seem. Is that the case?

Either way, rad little camera, but we already knew that. ;)
 
Nate North said:
I bought it!

in a related topic, does anyone have 2 years of ramen money I could borrow while I pay this off? :lol:
Click to expand...

Wow! Congratulations! The savings on Ramen is offset by the cost of blood pressure meds to deal with the weeks worth of sodium you'll ingest every day. :D

All kidding aside, you must be thrilled.
 
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