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Hi there - here's a link to download this test: http://vimeo.com/jaemorrison/iscorama54test01 I was interested in seeing what Apertures were sharp with different Achromats & Diopters. Rather than waste even more time cutting a boring video, I've just uploaded a boring image sequence for you to download and step through frame-by-frame. The Achromats and Diopters tested were: Redstan +.25 Achromat Tokina +.4 Achromat Voightlander Focar A Voightlander Focar B And some stacked combinations of the above. Apologies if the test isn't ideal (h264 certainly isn't) - thought it was worth sharing as I've learnt a lot from people posting stuff here. Cheers, Jae.

Here's something I'd like to get feedback for from all you creative types. What methods do you use when coming up with ideas for your craft? Do you find yourself too distracted by the noise of things like instagram, twitter, Facebook, etc? How do you stay focused and make your work a reality?

I had the same dilemma as you... but I quickly got over it. I've had a 5D MKIII since it was launched and back then, the quality of the H.264 was decent enough. Since ML gave us RAW, I've been shooting nothing but RAW ever since. ML RAW is amazing and I never thought I'd own a camera that could shoot such beautiful footage as it does... Unfortunately, it is still only a hack and even though it is getting more and more stable, you cannot trust it on a paid job. It will crash on you or it will stop recording due to a bug and it will happen during an important take or during a moment which once missed will be gone forever. This was unfortunate enough to happen to me a month ago and it was not a plesant experience. It actually made me look like quite a fool and potentially has lost me more work with that client. I Pre-Ordered the GH4 without too much thought. It will without doubt shoot some of the best 1080p we've seen from a stills/video camera. Most of the sample videos being uploaded by testers are not so good, likely to be because they are photographers with no real interest in the GH4's video capabilities. A few good videos are starting to surface though. I really would like to see something shot with the Cinelike profiles. I'd obviously love to stay with Canon as I've invested a lot of money on some fine EF glass and the thought of having to start from scratch with MFT is a little daunting, but exciting. It would be great if Metabones hurried up with their EF to MFT adaptor, but there is no sign of it still. I will most likely replace my EF glass with the nice SLR Magic Cine lenses. Maybe Canon will suprise us at NAB, but doubtful. P.S - Anyone in London should get to Jessops on Oxford Street tommorow. They will have a fully working GH4 there between 10am and 4pm. I'll be heading down there with a fast SD card... fingers crossed!

No camera will give you the best of both worlds, video/photo or Portability/Professional Features I have gone through a lot of cameras. For background. I currently use a Sigma DP1M for medium-format still quality in a small/inexpensive package. I use a BMPCC with a 14-45 for video. I use a Nikon D600 with 24-85 or 85mm 1.4 for portraits. (I also have 24mm and 50mm primes which I don't use that much anymore). I have an EOS-M, which I use as Magic Lantern camera,etc. I also have a GF3 with a 14mm pancake which my daughter uses mostly now. What you should keep in mind, about this forum, is that it is video focused. So most people like my hero Andy :) will be more biased (thought also more insightful) about video. I have ABSOLUTELY no desire to carry, or pay for, full-frame cameras. My experience is that the dynamic range, low-noise, color saturation benefits are real. If you are serious about still photography, can afford it, and weight is not a factor, than full-frame is what you would use. You can get shallower DOF in full-frame, as you point out, but that is NOT why I use it. Panasonic makes superb interchangeable lens video cameras that shoot decent stills. As a stills camera, in less than perfect light, I believe the quality from your 5D will be much better, especially if you print large. My biggest problem in suggesting you go with MFT is that I too wanted to go backward from my Sigmas and a original 5D I had. Once you've worked with full-frame images you see that 3-d look and you, or I, get very fussy when it is harder to get back. As a video camera, I would get the GH3 over the 5D (native video). But I would not get the GH3 over the 5D hacked with Magic Lantern to shoot RAW. So you should consider getting a 1000x CF card and learning ML and Davinci Resolve (or ACR workflow). That is another thing to consider on this forum. There are people who shoot mostly Panasonic H.264 video (which is best in class) and those who shoot RAW. Panasonic lets you focus on shooting, composition, editing, etc. HOWEVER, you'd have to be blind to not see the difference between H.264 shot footage and RAW based footage. There's a lot to read on this forum about all that. If you want to focus on video, your plan has merit. If photography is important, prepare for potential regret. I love my BMPCC. You can use Canon lenses on it with an adapter.

Do it. The PC you build for 2K today will be much much faster than your 2009 MacPro. Are you shifting to Windows or will you hackintosh this?

except if youre serious about photography youll want to have control over all the different elements including having motion blur or not for effect, as mentioned by many, certainly possible but not ideal

I have been making nice stills from Video flow since 2006 at that time with a Z1U and after effects .. When I first discovered it I knew back then that picking frames from a stream would be the future. We are not exactly there yet but it's coming ... "Stills" are a thing of the past in the next 5 to 15 years ..

Just get a 5D3 then..... Honestly. If that's what you think will get you a foot in the door (it won't) but if you think it will go for it. There are reasons why 5D3's are recommended and it's usually down to ignorance (MOST -not all- of the time it's due to someone heard "this camera is gud".. NOT because it's regarded as the pinnacle of DSLR video performance............) In some cases people are still shooting Canon due to the popularity of the 5D2 (why change when you already own gear?) Canon also offers very good upgrade path with the Cinema EOS system. It's not like you're going to be covered in jobs just because you own a 5D3 (in-fact I'd say you'd be lucky to even get 1 job just because of the gear you own) That said, a good "camera operator" should be able t shoot with a whole range of cameras, any decent job will supply you with cameras and anyone hiring that has slightly more knowledge than just a consumer who's best friends uncles pro videographer buddy told him "this camera is gud".

DOF isn't fixed though. It depends on distance to subject. Give an MFT shooter a Noktor/Nokton lens and a stack of ND and he can make you think you're looking at 5D footage :D Of course, following focus on these tiny lenses, that's an interesting problem.

Consider the following.. >GH4 $1,698 >12-35 $1,104 >35-100 $1,275 >5D3 $3,299 >24-70 $2,299 >70-200 $2,499

One advantage of the smaller Nikon 1 sensor in the V1 and V2 is video image quality. It's fast enough to clock out all the lines and sub-sample for better image quality vs most DSLRs that line skips to get to the desired HD resolution. Presumably with the big video push of the V3 this remains true. DE: I’m curious, then -- most DSLRs do video by line skipping. Does the D5300 read out all the lines, and then perform sub-sampling in the processor? TY: Not to that extent, although the Nikon 1 does. DE: The Nikon 1 reads out all of the sensor pixels? TY: Yes. DE: Ahh… That’s why Nikon 1’s video is very good. http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2014/02/14/nikon-qa-head-of-development-sees-interchangeable-lens-slowdown-as-an-aberr The Nikon 1 V series is a great b-roll camera where you have lens flexibility and the ability to take full frame stills while shooting video. The 18.2 f1.8 is a big equalizer for low light video work if it's enough reach. The 10-100 PD is a bit large (and slow) but absolutely quiet. I hope the new 10-30 PD is the same. Here is a D800 vs Nikon V2 video quality comparison at different ISOs: As noisy as the stills are above base ISO the video looks good. The system needs a fast zoom (f2.8) but has been nice so far. The lack of 4K is mildly disappointing but I don't have a 4K workflow anyway.

When you can buy a 4K cell phone, but not a 4K DSLR, something is seriously wrong. The camera market tanked in 2013. It's really simple. The camera companies are not innovating. You can't keep selling the same old thing year after year, and expect people to buy it. Michael

While some of you complain about c100 and c300 being to expensive, it's not a problem for canon, they don't even want hobbyist to have these cameras. Those 10k cameras are for professional's that shoot low budget commercials to weddings and music videos, there is plenty of money in that segment for gadgets like these. Imagine the profit they get from a puny c300, that thing has an asp-c crop sensor, they say "canon digic III" processor and unrestricted codecs, nothing exotic like full hd at 200 fps, cpu on that thing is slow, all of that for 14000 $ :lol:, t2i sensor with proper processing and video camera features at 14000$, funny shit.

One question for Canon... Why in 2004 the DigicII eos 1Dmark II did 4k Mjpeg at 8 fps (it had a 8mpx sensor shooting 8fps till buffer full :) ) and my eos 6d with powerfull Digic 5+ cannot shoot Mjpg 24 fps full hd video...?

I have tested mine at 58mm and 85mm and the results were pretty much the same at 1.41 stretch factor - at least with my lenses and setup - that would be a 70.9% squeeze. I have found several other reports online that confirm this as well. Unfortunately that gives you an akward 2.5 aspect ratio that I have been cropping down to 2.4 or 2.35, taking advantage of the extra resolution for slight reframing. Sometimes you can get away with using 1.5 but I noticed that 1.5 didn't look right when shooting people which is why I tested to begin with. I find that 1.41 looks way better in those situations and I can't bring my self to use 1.5 anymore since I know it is wrong.