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Hey Andrew clearly this bothers you the he thing is you are making statements based not upon facts not assumptions. We don't know the full story here but I can tell you this if the presenter of a show I was working on (allegedly) punched a producer the show would be most likely suspended until this was sorted out. Love him or loathe him he is the show. He is what you see, a loutish, arrogant loudmouth. That's why he is so polarising. I personally grew tired of him a couple of decades ago but my post here is not about my personal feelings towards Mr. Clarkson. He does what he does very well indeed. There clearly is more to this than we have been told but hypothetically if Clarkson punched this producer unprovoked just because there was no catering that is beyond acceptable behaviour. He should be fired. If it was the other way round and producer punched Clarkson would the show be suspended like this? Would the producer still have a job a half million petition to bring him back? If there was a fight between them behind closed doors then maybe, just maybe they could sort it out between them. But in the public? It becomes something more...this is public behaviour. If Clarkson did punch him then it's assault pure and simple. Do we just ignore it and give out the message this is ok to do? No we do not. Last time I checked punching someone was still illegal. Yes, it's a massively successful show and brings in huge amounts of money. I think what the BBC have done is show balls! The cynical amongst us would have expected the Beeb to not want to lose their cash cow and sweep it under the carpet, pay off producer and carry on like nothing happened for danger of losing said cash cow. The BBC have to be beyond reproach. It's part of their remit. They are not a broadcaster like all the others. If they want to do away with the licence fee and make it a commercial station like all the rest then they could get away with the aforementioned cynical behaviour. They are the BBC. They cannot. They have a really bad stigma these days about very serious past incidents that they ignored. We all know what those are. They HAVE to be seen to not protect their stars and brush stuff under the carpet. No company should but especially the BBC given what's happened the past two years or so. so there are my thoughts. if you miss the show watch the movie version. It's more believable. "fast and the furious"

I'm not offended by your post, but I do find it a load of tub thumping nonsense. 1) If a lead star on a production punched a producer, there would be consequences, even if it were Tom Cruise. 2) You seem to conveniently paper over the fact that he was caught saying nigger on camera and also called an asian guy a "slant'. Two of numerous offences that went unpunished and led to his final warning. If you want to move into this sort of editorial you need to put down both sides of the story, especially when your followers are not all UK based. This isn't bending over to political correctness, it is very lightly punishing someone for a constant stream of problems. Most other presenters would have been kicked in to touch long ago. You cannot let someone go unpunished, time and again, just because he is a creative asset and pulls in big bucks. I don't mind Clarkson, he can be funny, entertaining, no nonsense and clearly knows his cars. But that isn't a green light to do absolutely anything.

Well, yea, he did. Off camera, on camera, out take... What's the difference, he said it, he apologised. It shows the mindset of the man. I'm about as hard to offend as possible, I'm not offended by Clarkson. I don't even dislike the guy (other than being a chelsea fan)... I laughed out loud when he said he was "off to the job centre" yesterday. I just don't believe that huge stars should be given different rights to anyone else. If the producer had punched Clarkson, do you think he would be working today? This diatribe is hiding an ugly point behind an indie/creativity mask.... That big stars should be able to do whatever they want, without consequence... Because they bring in money and entertain. It's the opposite of the indie mindset.

I don't give 2 shits about Canon now. When is the GH4 firmware update!?

I agree. I read a quote that the BBC need to learn how to handle larger than life characters. Nonsense. Punching someone is not larger than life. You can't send out a message that "it's ok...it's clarkson being Clarkson!"

This is the biggest challenge for me as a photographer and filmmaker today. You have to promote the crud out of yourself, because nobody is going to do it for you. I've made some connections with clients who i've made incredibly happy that promote me almost every time I shoot something for them, and I'm discovering clients/relationships like this are absolutely invaluable.

The paradox here is the Andrew mentions Jimmy Saville, the epitome of a company (a whole nation, almost) covering up someone's misdoings to protect the star of the show, yet fails to see the two incidents as being similar. Obviously what Saville did is far more serious than punching someone... But the crux of the matter is that celebs and big earners should not be above the law or above punishment. Hiding that notion behind some kind of anti liberal, anti PC crusade makes it no easier to stomach.

I've got to say I feel uneasy with with Andrew's implication that minorities are to blame, that the BBC are too easy to fall under political correctness. This is dangerous territory here... I must say some of Jeremy Clarkson's work is entertaining, much like I find Stephen Colbert's right wing character entertaining. And fast cars are always cool to see. As to the above point - I would say Andrew's post is nothing like Charlie Brooker, because that guy is a champion for the minorities (as comedy should be uphill battle) and because of the good points Jimmy and Philip laid out. If we're talking about some of Clarkson's humour, Brooker (and Steve Coogan) has already picked it apart as mostly bullying rather than comedy; "Haha it's funny because it's racist." - on point wit. But let's not get confused here... this isn't to do political correctness. This is to do with Clarkson possibly being unpleasant, overstepping the line and possibly punching someone.

SlippyWill.... Sorry, I missed that. re: second point. He has not been suspended for anything he has done as his "persona" and certainly not anything that is stifling creativity. This is why I think the blog post is a nonsense.

Pretty sure indianajones was being sarcastic... I mean, surely he must be! Thankyou for this post! I know the british public have to pay for the BBC, but surely that doesn't give them the right to have this level of transparency? I enjoy Top Gear very much and surely it is obvious that they are playing characters, I mean, these people who believe that Top Gear is a factual program don't believe that The only way is essex is real, and they say far more offensive stuff than that. I've worked with Jeremy Clarkson, and he was a genuinely decent chap, nothing like the caricature he presents of himself on the show. What's nice is that he cares about the production so much, he wants the product to be quality and works hard to help however he can. Whatever the truth of this situation, I can say without any qualms that it must have been an extraordinary situation, and I can't imagine he wouldn't have made right however he could at a later time. We all know how it feels to have worked hard and then faced disappointment, we've all made huge mistakes when stressed and we've all done things we regret, probably more frequently that we care to admit. Only difference with us is that our laundry isn't thrust into the public eye for every idiot to judge us on. And I agree with so much else that you wrote - I'm all for better representation of women, ethnic backgrounds et al, bring it on, but instead of shoehorning it into entertainment made for a different audience, make quality content that the demographic you wish to represent would like to watch. I'm sorry, my wife still isn't going to watch QI just because you force a woman onto every show. Make something she actually wants to watch, you'll actually solve the problem like that, rather than ticking the "diversity" box in your "have we avoided criticism" checklist.

Camcorders do have great stabilisation and can be a great choice for many people, but many choose a larger sensor ILC so they have changeable lenses and DOF control because as you know, this helps create a more 'cinematic' image. So if you don't want shallow depth of field then yes, I'd recommend a camcorder but many people usually want the option of having this, so a camcorder is off the table. I have both panasonic and olympus camera's and I'm sorry to say that IBIS is far far superior to panasonic lens stabilisation, but if you're happy with OIS and it suits your needs then thats great. For me, I usually find myself grabbing my E-M1 despite the limitations as I find the IBIS to be worth it. Anyway everyone can make their own decision as to whats most important to them, and for many a GH4/NX1 might be a better choice All I'm saying is that having good stabilisation in body on all my lenses (including my contax zeiss lenses) without extra rigging/equipment has value to me and I imagine to others as well, and although I don't know for sure how many this is, I suspect its not only a small percentage. And while, I'd prefer not to have to compromise on resolution, thats the world where in at the moment.

Shot with Samsung NX1, 30/2, 45/1.8 and 50-200/4-5.6. A shoulder rig was used for most of the shots, especially handy when using the 50-200 @ 200. I used Gorilla Grain 4k for the first time but not I'm not sure if I'm satisfied with the settings i used. More testing is needed. Edited, stabilized and graded in Premiere. https://vimeo.com/121886945

Here’s my story - I promoted “Lessons for a Tailor” I film I shot for Galen Summer back when Vimeo first came out. I submitted it to tons of blogs. That then got buzz and that was the start of my career. Later, I helped my friend and former roommate Sean Dunne promote the film I shot for him, “The Archive” - that eventually got picked up by a hip hop blog then the big break - Gizmodo. That then led by his own submission to Sundance, then acceptance! Then it went on PBS POV and got a Doc and News Emmy nomination! Me and him were the perfect team of promotion! That was then, around 2008. The land of blogs. Now in 2015, we have facebook and twitter and instagram and I still promote films the old fashioned way - well not so much - but I still try to email people about the film. But I think more and more “Gatekeepers” of good online films are more immune to this than ever. Now you need to get creative. And of course it’s just persistence - knocking on doors, believing in your film, not caring about rejection. It always has been and always will be. Eventually someone will give it a chance and play the film. Recently a lot I have taken to twitter to promote my work - most recently -”the Quiet Escape” - and overall it’s been great. It got the film to be seen on Gothamist. But today I got called out by a blogger. I won’t name her name, because maybe she’s just having a bad morning but this is what she said: Fair enough, that’s par for the course. I did tweet to about 10 bloggers today, because I still haven’t beyond gothamist for non filmmakers to see the film, which is of course an important thing for me. I want my film to spark a conversation on whether living in NYC is worth it or not. That’s my goal. To start a dialogue. But the blogger on twitter’s reaction was so visceral it hurt me emotionally and made me stop trying to get my film out there. And I’m sure she didn’t mean anything personal, she probably doesn’t know I’m a real person and an artist to push myself, but jeeze, I feel so bad for everyone who is just trying to get their idea or book or blog post or film out into the world and can get that kind of response.. I remember years ago I got a direct message from someone on vimeo about their film and I was snappy about it because I thought it was just a long impersonal “hey look here” and he got upset, then I apologized, I watched it and enjoyed the film. I felt like a douche bag. And never again, after this one tweet from this blogger will I treat any email from a person just trying to get their 2 cents in, their viewpoint or their film, with anything but respect. At the end of the day there is a person on the other side of that keyboard or phone. The energy, negative or positive, must go somewhere. And maybe in the future I send out customized twitter messages only - tailored to that blogger so they don’t think I’m spamming them. Maybe that’s my take-away.

Here's some family footage i recorded some time ago with the BMPCC, the Kern Paillard Switar 50mm and the "Baby" Hypergonar. I love the Switar-Baby combination, i wish there would be a wider alternative with the same characteristics as the Switar. Images are out of focus in half of the shots sorry about that, it was very dark. For the "bokeh shots" i used 2 stacked tokinas 0.4. What do you guys think of it?

​ I agree completely. One of MFT's advantages is that it lives, by necessity, on the bleeding edge. They don't use 3-5 year old sensors because they can't afford to. As it is, Panasonic and Olympus' image quality is within a stone's throw of APS-C, but offers a better selection of lenses--almost all of which are excellent by f/2.8, and many of which are excellent by f/2. http://www.dxomark.com/Reviews/Panasonic-Lumix-DMC-GX7-review-Closing-the-gap-between-APS-C-mirrorless-rivals/Panasonic-Lumix-DMC-GX7-Versus-Olympus-PEN-E-P5-Versus-Sony-NEX-6-Results-are-close Andrew, you say MFT has a hard time achieving "the full frame look." What if I don't want the full frame look? There's nothing inherent to photographic 35mm/VistaVision that makes it the best sensor size for video. My style focuses heavily on subjects' relationship to their background and composing with more than one plane of depth. Unless I'm going for something intimate or a detail shot, I like to stick with f2.8 (if not f/4) on MFT. This provides just enough separation to focus the eye without flattening my carefully scouted locations and (hopefully) interesting set dressing into blurry, 2-dimensional mush. I also like to light my interiors and shape the light in my exteriors, which makes low light much less of a priority. Plus, I hate bad focus pulling in movies. It screams "amateurish" as much as micro jitters. At f/2.8-f/4 on MFT, me or my focus puller (if I have one) have a much better chance to nail it. With that in mind, full frame holds no advantage for me. If I'm shooting my GX7 at ISO 800 and f/4, I'd have to shoot an A7S or whatever at ISO 3200, rendering DR and noise virtually identical, but with the added advantage of Panasonic's color science (which is really good once you learn your way around it) and great tonality. Add to that the small, wonderful Olympus primes and the cinematic as hell Voigtlanders, and you have a recipe for great imagery. If you enjoy the look, that's awesome! I look forward to seeing your work with it. But I get perturbed sometimes when full framers dismiss other aesthetics as somehow inferior to their chosen sensor size. Cheers!

Who is this guy? Clarkson? A Swede? Sorry for my question, I haven’t watched TV for over 10 years. I get my news and entertainment through other channels. OK… I am joking. I have read the story. I have even seen a few topgear episodes on youtube. Obviously this guy has punched his colleague, or though not. Publicly. So the question is, does the employer have the right to fire him? What would happen in your company? What would you expect? How could you work together with a colleague, who has hit you? Or perhaps not, but…. Maybe famous people should have more rights? Like this “gangnam-style-boy”. He has been seen x-million times. A real hero. For 1 mill. views on Youtube 1 physical assault should be allowed, 5 racist and 10 political incorrect remarks as well. Publicly of course. For 5 million views 5 physical or sexual harassments, 10 racist and 20 political incorrect remarks should be free. Maybe for 10 mill. views it should be free once to spit a chewing gum on the pavement in Singapore :-) What do you think? These things are quite cultural. Being an international business consultant, I have worked in most European countries. Maybe you remember the Nokia MD, who was caught speeding and had to pay a certain percentage of his yearly income. Aaauuuggghhh, it did heart. In another, Southern European country, a famous football player was caught driving 200 within city limits. The policeman was so happy to see him, he asked. Are you really….???? Oohh yes, I am :-) Can I have your autograph? Yes :-) A picture with you? Just for my son… Yes :-) Have a nice day! We love you! I am not an expert on UK issues, but if I was a UK taxpayer and the BBC was operating for my money… I think, I would prefer the Finnish attitude :-)

​This Dan's of this world did no such thing, but i'm sure that small detail wont inhibit the raging angry white man that thinks he can speak for me. Perhaps in your world its acceptable to beat the staff when not up to scratch but in a modern civil society you'll get a criminal record, hopefully. You seem to forget just how long this guy's record is and imagine some senior manager at BBC HQ flippantly allowing this story to escalate into the red top headlines, despite the show grossing c. £150 million? Dah! I've worked in production for c. 20 years and my experience tells me if this went public then something definitely happened and the BBC didn't want to get caught out with others reporting on this before they did. So Will, reading between your lines, maybe you'd like to keep him on, perhaps you identify with him a bit and think case not proven and racism is no where near as bad as the sexual assault of minors (while on BBC property) for example. But then that's a distinction more easily made if you or your loved ones are not from a visible minority with long painful experiences of being racially abused and mistreated. And you probably don't make a correlation between the casually expressed racism of establishment figures (like Clarkson) and things like the experience of the Parisienne violently stopped from boarding his train home by racist chelsea fans. If indeed it even showed on your radar, it hasn't impacted you so what can be wrong? Time for people to have some imagination, the world will keep spinning without jeeza and his mates, formats don't last forever, and despite a few retro racists floating around in the media currently their time is done and if you can't get your head round that then may be yours is too. atb.

​I try every creative angle I can to get anything I work on - either as a DP or my own films out there. The right people. And at the end of it, it's just banging down on as many doors as you can. Finally someone will respond. How do you think Quentin Tarintino got Reservoir Dogs made? Did you ever hear that story? There are some amazing stories of persistence in many people trying to get their foot in the door. Even, unfortunately for a lot of male and especially female actors - having to hit the casting couch. And they do it. Ugggggg. What's also interesting is that once they are big, if they remember the struggle they went through when they were younger or if they blocked out the hard times.

​I couldn't agree more with this statement. As for Andrew's comments about how important Top Gear is to the BBC, the only relevant question is whether the allegations against Clarkson are true or not. The profitability of Top Gear is completely irrelevant unless you believe moral exceptions should be made when profits are at stake. Imagine someone making the same argument about Saville. It would be an absolute disgraceful position to take. The allegations against Clarkson aren't anything like as serious, but the argument about moral consistency still applies.

I pretty much covered myself fine there. Both legally and ethically. I am discussing acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. i didnt say he punched him or that he committed assault. You need to re-read what I wrote. Considering Andrew's post was chock full of assumptions without covering his arse that you are taking issue with what I wrote when I said "if" and stated the hypothetical nature of what i wrote then I am most perplexed!

I also feel whilst Andrew's point admirable in a way, using this incident as an example is very way off mark. Its also so important when citing real life incidents that they are accurate or the words alleged are use. The way you described the incident is rather different to what has come out as being the actually backstory, allegedly. Also please remember producers aren't rich hollywood type execs on this show. They are there to make sure things happen on location. It's an incredibly demending job. You are first to be shouted out and last to be thanked. So allegedly this is what happened which is somewhat different in tone and feel to what you wrote. Nobody is going to say Clarkson is a quiet, polite mouse of a man but when you are allowed to get away with certain behaviour it's unlikely to make you behave better! Nonr of this has been verified and therefore should be treated as hearsay until proven, I am sharing it as a different version to the story Andrew recounted is his post They had been filming. They had finished around 8ish. They had dinner books at their posh hotel but Clarkson and co decided to drink at the pub for two hours whilst their helicopter waited to take them back. The hotel after waiting two hours past their dinner booking and past kitchen hours sent home chef and staff so when they finally arrived very late back Clarkson was unable to have what he wanted. A steak. So he went berserk. The cold plate of food he was offered was unacceptable. Who gets the abuse? irregardless of whether this is exactly what happened or yet its never acceptable to bully a colleague and it's never acceptable to punch someone!! Not that I am saying anyone did. Just it

Here's a photo of the Nebula 4000's pitch motor compared to motors you typically find on DSLR stabilizers. The gimbal in the picture is one a friend had, which broke, he could never get it working again, so I'm trying to fix it. Not easy! This photo gives you an idea how little the motors are on small gimbals and why they work best with small cameras.

Instead of "exploring" a 4K competitor, why doesn't Canon just go ahead and make one. For a company that started the DSLR video movement, they're now even behind Nikon who at least offers a flat profile and zebra in their higher end FX and DX cameras. However, the mirrorless manufacturers are way ahead of Nikon so Canon needs to act now. Unfortunately, I don't have much confidence in them based on their latest camera showings with regards to video.

If the rumours are even close to true, I will buy 2 and never think about camera tech again. Just having NDs and 4K with a good 10bit internal codec would be great, in such a smaller body (assuming a similar size to the AF100).

The main issue is that m43 lenses are all electronic, so there's no point in adapting them to E mount, hence I haven't seen any adapters for that purpose. The most versatile mount to get is the Nikon F mount version. Just in case Nikon makes something you want.

http://eddavid.tumblr.com/post/113334610539/the-response-i-was-wanting-for-the-quiet-escape After a week I finally got the response I really wanted for my short film, "the Quiet Escape" that you can only get from posting something online and having the anonymous bathroom wall writing comment on it: "I don't mean to be rude because a lot of the shots were decent but hearing you call NYC a shithole made me disinterested .... just felt like a lot of whining. And its not magic most 20 something living in Williamsburg can afford rent they have there parents paying the bills so don't cry for them to hard. I mean why is this even a on here? What did we learn? sorry but Phillip Bloom teaches more in a simple instagram post. We can do better..... Good luck in the country buddy I was born and raised in Manhattan and it usually spits out most transplants eventually so don't feel bad" This is a good thing. Comments that are positive are nice, but you need the bad - to feed off of. That’s probably one of the greatest strengths of NYC. This comment is the underlying air that exists in New York City that you have confront after living in NYC for a certain period of time. This feeling that you are never legit, you are never part of it, that you are always an outsider and that people want you to leave. That you never really fit in, that you're not a true New Yorker and you'll never be one because person X has lived there longer than you. I dealt with this a lot on a website called Diehipster.com - it was a anti-gentrification website that featured fantasy scenarios where the blogger, Diehipster, would post videos of people who looked like hipsters getting beaten and stomped on, and also a sectio n where he would write a fantasy story of beating or maiming a hipster in a variety of cartoony ways. He was big when the hipster thing started becoming a thing around 2003-2005, or at least his hit counter clocked in at a million views. He kept the blog going for years, but I think now it's over - maybe he moved on. The undercurrent in NYC is grumpy and negative, like your grandpa when he's off his meds. Maybe it comes from the rents raising and the food prices raising and the amount of people living there increasing - a feeling of loss, of being hurt by forces around you. It makes people grumpy and have that "New York TUDE" that is celebrated in many of films about NYC. And it’s there and it’s something to celebrate. So much art comes out of “difficult” situations. No one made much of anything during the PAX Romana. Right? I don’t remember. I was sleeping in class that day. Is the "Quiet Escape" really taking a "dump" on NYC? No it's not, well yes kind of - but it's not that simple. It's a study of the city - yes - and it's showing the flaws of the city - but that doesn't mean I don't still love it and love everyone in it, even the grumpy diehipsters. I love them especially because like me, they are trying to figure it all out.

​It is obviously inspired by Brooker, but completely misses the target. Shame Brooker isn't on every week... Would love to see his take on the Clarkson situation.

I mostly agree with you there. I don't think we could have a Klaus Kinski these days... However HSBC? There is nothing about that bank that needs to be saved. There were plenty of investigations into that bank that pretty much ended up with showing it was Satan itself, that it supports drug cartels, terrorist groups and other enemies of the US, and the only reason why it was allowed to go on was because it's too big to fail. It has a ton of blood on its hand. The bank needs to go away, and it's staff need to be investigated and put into prison.

The whole issue reminds me of when footballers act out. The club and/or establishment have to tread a fine line between looking like they have control, whilst making sure their prize asset will not just pack up and move away to a rival team/league.

I guess there is no way to completely turn off the display. That'd be a nice addition from samsung.

I have to agree with Jimmy and Philip. This has absolutely nothing to do with creative freedom or artistic independence, it's simply a staff management issue. Much as enjoy Top Gear from time to time, Jeremy Clarkson's off-screen persona is troublesome. It's not the first time he's been involved in a public brawl (he tried to punch Piers Morgan at a gala, I believe) and he's been warned repeatedly about his behaviour. If he had been suspended because of an unfortunate joke on screen -and let's face it, he IS funny as hell though bordering bigotry-, I might agree with some of Andrew's remarks. But it was due to his inability to be civil with his coworkers, and frankly, any staff manager or PR manager would have fired him long ago. Imagine he were a well-kown representative for Nike, Coca-Cola, etc. Add the fact that the BBC is a publicly owned state-run company, which increases the level of scrutiny and means it is not guided by the most profitable choice or a 350 million audience, but by politics. Perhaps this could also raise the issue of whether there should be a publicly owned TV station (when private initiative fully covers the market needs for entertainment and information). I personally feel those 350 million consumers are being unlawfully "snatched" from private competing TV Stations that don't have the luxury of trial and error backed with taxpayers money. Still, if the BBC were privately owned they would probably be suspending him anyway. He caused a PR storm that has to be weathered, and then he'll come back.

​Andrew, While I do understand where this post is coming from, I still applaud you for the sentiment and for having the guts to state how you feel. I understand your frustration having worked in TV for almost thirty years. I now call TV 'The Great Mediocrity Sieve', meaning it turns most things into porridge. It's almost impossible now to have strong authorship, strong ideas/views, be risqué, daring, confronting or even be too affecting because a committee of exec producers will step in to tone things down for fear the film may be 'too much' for their audience. I recently had this happen to a show I worked on in which the true events were deemed too 'dramatic'. Of course their ratings ended up being nowhere near as strong as they could have. But I fear TV is just a reflection of our wider modern western society in which an epidemic of 'political correctness' aimed at protecting ourselves from ourselves has raged rampant. One can hardly move these days without encountering some legal requirement or having to fill out paperwork, pay a tax or levy, or need permission from a government department. What we're witnessing is the rise of the bureaucratic class that generates laws that then require even more bureaucrats to administer (reminding me of Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil'). It's part of the reason most western nations are so hopelessly in debt. I don't live in Britain but I know over the last few years public sector economic activity there has been greater than private sector, the place from where the tax monies come to pay for public spending. This means that Britain's national debt has ballooned out to over 5 Trillion pounds and rising. This is the reason things we took for granted twenty to thirty years ago can now no longer be afforded, including decent budgets for investigative and educational documentary. The UK is one of the last places in the world to have government funded television - you're lucky.

This article is great, it reflects everything that's wrong with todays society values. I literally want to hug every word. Print it out, and hug. Thank you!

At least you got out in one piece, many get wind up in bad situations, panic attacks, drugs , loses girlfriend to the city, anything can happen , i am a city guy and still i liked your video, big cities are meant to be used and thats what you just did, bravo

Just to put some perspective on the "Micro 43 is no good for stills" - Jérôme Sessini of Magnum just won the World Press with one and his colleagues Moises Saman, Alex Majoli and Peter Van Agtmael all use the format.

He can say whatever he wants. And you know what Andrew you were right - I shouldn't listen to critics and I didn't - I revised the Quiet Escape and made it better - I tried to incorporate what I heard but in the end I modified it more to what I wanted it to be. Thank you again Ed

Well said. I can understand Jeremy thinking about leaving with the BBC acting the way they do. Political correctness kills creativity and also intrudes into essentially private spats. Don't agree with the UKIP comment (it contradicts the not freedom from offense argument) but everything else you're right on.

On the Nebula 4000, there are two ways you can balance the "roll" of a camera. The first, is to mount it in any plate slot, looses the screws attaching the roll arm to the motor, and move the roll arm until it balances. The second way is mount the camera on a plate mount either closer, or farther, from where the roll arm attaches to the pitch motor. The problem with the GH4, A7, and any larger camera, is that you can't get it balanced, for roll, unless it's in a plate slot that puts it right up against the pitch motor adjustment screw; that is, the roll arm doesn't move to the right far enough that you can mount the camera on the right side of the plate where you can get the wrench into the pitch motor screws. Dave Dugdales's videos show him wrestling with this problem. The bottom line is that with a smaller camera you can easily adjust the pitch bar position because you can mount the camera away from it. With the GH4, you'd need to figure out the pitch balance BEFORE You mount the camera. That makes balancing the camera very difficult. In order to get a good balance, you need the camera mounted on the gimbal where you can move each part around and test. The second problem is that if you put any sort of long, or heavy lens on the GH4, you start to stress the Nebula out. The motors aren't designed for heavy cameras. So you'd have to have it balanced perfectly. I don't want to dissuade anyone for using a Nebula with the GH4. I just want to point out that it's much easier with a smaller camera. The sweet spot cameras are probably the A6000, LX100, EOS-M, GX7, etc--and not with heavy glass.

Well, I make a living doing video production. I'm not the most accomplished, but I get by. You're verbose about your opinion, but I can't quite comprehend the level of angst you have about a camera you never plan to purchase. The perceived threat that a particular stabization feature will interfere with sensor development? Well, okay, I do hear you saying that...but I don't quite get it. Feel free to rant though if it helps.

As far as stabilisation goes there's no doubt the only reason to buy the damn thing is the stabilisation. The X-T1 beats it for stills and the GH4 thrashes it for video quality. That's a real shame because in many respects the E-M5 II is an inch from greatness.

These times of over sensitive, full of politically correct hypocrites are utterly annoying. You over protect kids so much that when they are by themselves in the jungle they are unable to deal with any issue, as minor as it can be, everything becomes a life and death drama. I hate the feeling of not be able to make a joke because I have to be aware of whatever, that's why I only surround myself with people that can easily understand the difference between a joke and my serious opinion about something, that seems trivial but nowadays, it's really hard to find people like that, at least the ones I find usually become close friends of mine. One a side note, I don't really think that the US are really the place for Top Gear.

Cmon to the United States. Freemarket and lots of offensive tv here.

Well after paying a fortune for a Sony DSR570WSP camera (anyone remember those!) back near the start of the century, then moving to a Sony EX3, I finally jumped on the DSLR bandwagon with the Canon 60D (due to the menu view driven audio levels out of the box). I purchased some nice Canon L lenses expecting to stay with Canon for a while, only to be disappointed with Canon's future progress and price compared to the competition. In the end I finally sold the Sony EX3 and Canon 60D and switched sides to Panasonic and the GH3's. Love the ease of the GH3 settings and menu's (Andrew was late in the game with a GH3 book, I'd picked most of it up by then - but still got the book). I also very much like the 12-35mm f2.8 Panasonic lens and only attach my Canon lenses with manual aperture adapter when I need the faster glass. Due to the price of the Panasonic bodies I can upgrade and change more frequently these days, if I went down the Canon Cinema route that would never be the case. I'm still basically spending the same amount of my budget every couple of years on more camera's, its just Canon isn't seeing any of it. I've already upgraded the GH3's to GH4's. Initially got one and love the added benefits of focus peaking, zebra and timecode (things i missed from my old Sony broadcast cameras). 4K filming looks great. I don't really need it and have never output anything in 4K in the last six months, but love the fact that I have the ability to film in 4K with a great internal codec. It's been handy a couple of times for cropping. My second GH4 body only cost me £860 inc taxes from China (couldn't get the UK version, as I need cameras that can record more than 30 minutes without stopping). What has Canon really got to compete with a 4K camera that has most of the bells and whistles of a broadcast camera with added benefit of DOF for £860! I film and edit small corporate films, school shows and wedding films and consider myself a prosumer user. However, I can't see Canon reducing the cost of their products enough any time soon to pull me away from other manufactures, they have set their bar far too high for my liking compared to the competition, maybe they don't want my money? I don't have any intentions of selling my Canon lenses (love the 50mm f1.2), but instead of buying more lenses from Canon I'm getting the Leica 42.5mm f1.2 next for the GH4.

If we rename the Internet the Argunet all will be good. Then we can start the Rantnet and Snipenet. We should probably take down Catnet, Gossipnet, and Adnet. After that we'll all be busy running from SkyNet.

​No it is - because it helped me become a better person. I make art, people react, I react to their reaction, I change, I modify my art. That's the whole essence of art and filmmaking, right? To learn and grow and connect - give and receive?

I for once thought it was a terrific and honest piece, well done! Good post as well. People are getting desensitized and desocialized because of this digital realm we've created. They try to look for the points to apply pressure, where it might hurt, pointing out flaws in others and reflecting on their own lives to reinforce how much better theirs is. And to them you're just an internet entity, you're not a real person you'd have to say this stuff face to face to, so no harm done, right? Or then there's the one that actually gets a little kick out of it when you take the bite, take a stand and respond (usually suddenly back peddling 'I didn't mean it quite like that' or just having nothing to respond with at all). Because most of the time all they want is attention, as apparently they do not get enough of this in reallife. And for some reason people aren't allowed to be different. Imagine a world now, in which everybody had the same vision, the same preference and opinions. We'd all be chasing the same women, living in the same place, doing the same job, making the same content. We can't all do the same thing. It wouldn't be much fun at all and it would collapse on itself. So why not embrace different visions, opinions, different lifestyles, different choices... not to bring that up, but religion as well. Why always keep defending your way is the one true way? Why does it hurt you when others don't take the same path as you did? Does it make you feel insecure about the choices you've made yourself? But seriously, what's it to you when someone leaves the big city because it's just not for him? You do not like to hear bad things about your city, well, hey, it's just an opinion, you do not have to agree with it, but guess what, you can respect it. If you didn't know by now, life's not a sugar coated candy land and not everything is perfect, not even your city. Not everything is black and white. You could acknowledge there's some truth to something someone else has to say, or atleast respect the different opinion. The same way you should show a little respect for someones hard work. You lose interest the soon someone has something to say that's not in line with your way of thinking? Have you ever considered there's more to a film than agreeing on every aspect of its content? Always looking for the bad, instead of valuing the good. That's just a downwards spiral of negativity. I mean, if you get legit critique and feedback, do respect that as well, you can even turn it into something positive by taking away something from it. But purely these sad under the belt cheap shots... don't even bother with 'em. It's poison without an antidote. Not worth wasting your time and energy on.

I agree, and not just because of the customs issue. When it comes to brick batteries, it's absolutely worth it to stretch a bit and get the name-brand stuff. Li batteries can be very volatile. You're packing a lot of energy into a small rectangle. Well-established brands like Anton Bauer, IDX, Switronix and Bebob have the proper cut-off switches and over-charge detectors both in the battery and in the chargers. You can leave them on blast overnight and not worry about them exploding. Many a house/hotel room/camera truck has been destroyed by unattended overseas Chinese knock-off batteries left on recharge. You can go ahead and cut corners on rigs, rods, matteboxes, follow focuses, stabilizers and other things that won't explode. But for V-mount or AB mount battery, buy from the top shelf. Safety first! (I'm aware I'm being a total jewish mom right now)

I just think NAB is overblown.... what actually got announced, last year, for the indie guy? Cion? Ursa? That's about it, and way above this guy's pricetag. The BMPCC is the only camera that ever launched at NAB at this guy's price range and took a year to come to market. A BMPCC mk II is possible, but would you really recommended waiting for a Blackmagic camera? Anyway, my view is to ALWAYS get out their and shoot, especially if you only have a small budget. Sitting on $1k is pointless when there are now so many amazing options at that price point. Buy 2nd hand now and you wont lose much.

Another live music video, this time from the Koko in London. The lights were pretty full on, or should that be more professional than I've been used to! Hopefully I'll get a second bite of the cherry soon... Password:ws2000

If you need high frame rates maybe wait and see what the nx500 is gonna offer. There's a post on here about the nx1 possibly being able to do 240fps via a firmware update. That would be insane and incredibly useful for skateboard vids. Maybe wait and see how much of the NX1 vid capability gets passed down to the NX500. They already announced a firmware update for the NX500 and it's not even out yet. So maybe they'll keep improving it.