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PINK DOT REMOVER: If you have a Mac you'd have to find the old Java pink dot remover. Don't know where the last one is. This might be it: https://github.com/Foorgol/PinkDotRemover It seems the EOS-M is a bit of a dead end since ML doesn't work on Digic 6's yet (EOS-M 3) and may never do. #1 MISCONCEPTION ON EOSHD: Some people here don't shoot people in story-telling formats, so often gloss over one of the primary benefits of RAW, which the EOS-M has, even in low resolution--high dynamic range and color depth. My experience is, even in a perfectly lit scene, if you shoot any H.264 of someone in a consumer camera, and then shoot that same scene in RAW, the RAW will have a more natural look (even though, in the end, you end up with 8-bit output like the H.264). Why this is I don't know. Perhaps someone can say. Anyway, the point is, it wasn't the resolution that got me away from the EOS-M. Even at 720, it looks beautiful to me--better, again, in a certain color feel than any 4K camera from Panasonic (I currently have the LX100). The problem was dealing with the pink dots, and worse, the "shutter bug". If I'm a filmmaker wanting to do documentaries, or I plan to shoot a lot, I'd go with Sony or Panasonic--each have their strengths. If I wanted to do a evocative piece with depressed people in the woods I could shoot RAW with the EOS-M. Anyway, shooting RAW on the Canon cameras is a huge pain, but NO ONE who has ever done it has complained about the results RAW, on any camera, gives a look that can only begin to be immitated in H.264 on professional cameras like Canon's C line. What about S-LOG, V-LOG. I'll probably get flamed. 8-bit is 8-bit. The log curves are useful for some lighting situation where you want to favor exposure (in highlights usually). It does NOT make 8-bit 14bit! What you gain in the highlights you would LOSE in the shadows. That can hurt skin tones and other things. End of rant If I only had $300 for one camera it would be the EOS-M. Remains, to me, the undisputed best utility still/video/RAW camera of all time! The next would be the Canon 50D (no pink dots and near 1080 RAW).

Shall I rename this forum DVXrefugees? Personally, I wear my ban as a badge of honour.

This is a first of a series of test. The goal is to save money and still shoot stuff that feels like film or vintage-y. It was my first camera, the dvx100, and this The DVX100 was my first camera. I bought it with inherience money. I was nervous to spend 3k on a camera but my dad told me if it doesn't work out I could sell it. Well I sold it about probably 7 years ago. I used it with the redrock micro m2 adapter, then I think a letus extreme adapter. Then I went to HD with the HVX200. So I just rebought a Panasonic DVX100 on ebay for $200. Hooked up to an AJA Composite to SDI signal converter then into the Sound Devies PIX 240 which can upres SD to HD! But I kept the bars and zoomed in resolve for 16x9 - you can crop it via the PIX but it added I think some artificial sharpness. I shot CINE-D which is the flatest I think (If I can remember Barry Green right) and FLOURESCENT as the matrix - turned sharpness all the way down. Don't know if there is a way to shoot with less contrast. Oh well. In resolve, I put on REC 709 to Impulz Lut Kodak 5209 50D CINEON color space. Added Gorilla Grain and actually unsharpened it even more. I messed around a ton with color - has some weird telecine-esque deinterlacing to do since it sends out a signal as 60interlaced. And just messed around. I think it feels a lot like super 8mm and bad 16mm and maybe if lucky bad s16mm. The motion is nice, not too smooth. Shot at 1/48 shutter. Anyway it's kind of interesting. I like super8mm film stock but I don't like how expensive it is to shoot and develop and do a telecine. Sorry film friends. This is cheaper and a way to try to make digital feel less like digital. Next time I'll put some soft fx over the lens to make it all feel more defracted or that glimmerglass to add some shininess. Shot this in really crappy light. The last shot I used a astra 1x1 light to make it look a little less poopy. I am putting the dvx100 at 400 ASA up to maybe 640ASA on a good day. Shot wide open which I think is a 2.8 on the lens. No idea really.

Yea, I'm at a point where I just completely dislike Sony colour now and hate grading it.... Some will say that you can get the colours great with the right amount of grading on any footage, I simply don't buy it (of course, sometimes Sony footage looks amazing, but sometimes isn't enough)... I have the luxury of time, I consider myself a good colourist... Yet Sony footage just leaves me cold when shooting outdoors. Even with the raw files from the FS700, it was still a little off. If Ursa Mini were just a little smaller and lighter, with NDs... It would be a no brainer. Seems that no matter how my camera budget rises, compromises are always there! (I think the C500 mk II might be the first compromise free camera, for my shooting, if it has HFR and internal raw).

Looks like the 4.6K Mini is out to non BM employee beta testers.

So yesterday i stumbled apoun this product on ebay ( http://www.ebay.com/itm/new-Nikon-F-G-focal-reducer-speed-booster-adapter-to-Canon-EOS-M-EOSM-M2-M3-/361376870358?hash=item5423bd6fd6:g:u84AAOSwHnFV4muu ), its a Eos m to nikon g focal reducer. I knew that the Eos M have some magic lantern raw capabilities and after further research i found out that it can shoot at a resolution of 720 x 1280. A eos M can commonly be found for about 150$ (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Canon-EOS-M-Body-Gehause-black-schwarz-TOP-wie-neu-OVP-/151853015439?hash=item235b25218f:g:vYQAAOSw~bFWI-fz). If anyone has tried a common combo i would be interested in knowing more.

Photoshoot Sesion BTS, with GH4 and Optex Anamorphic adapter. Comments are appreciated

I wasn't even being a jerk this time! They found out I was banned before for life. This is my only forum now besides nofilmschool and cinematography.com. Until I get banned here.

Have you guys been working with the Lumetri Color in Premiere Pro CC2? I haven't heard much talk about it but I think it deserves some attention for people who may have missed the release notes. Just found it myself, but it literally has changed my entire workflow overnight. My old workflow used to be Levels, RGB Curves, and maybe either Filmconvert, Colorista II, or a LUT. But....I find none of that necessary anymore with Lumetri Color. Everything corrects and grades so easily like you're editing a frame in Adobe Camera Raw. Temperature, Tint, Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, Blacks, Saturation....all the sliders are there. And surprisingly, it seems to work very well with 8 bit frames. It knows of S Log2, S Log 3, etc. The rgb curves are incorporated into the filter. It also has tools with Color Wheels, LUTs, Vignettes. And it renders fast. One more thing. Not sure when it appeared but the Lumetri Scopes Window has a live histogram that I've always been wanting and needing.

Can't really be blaming him now... you're grown up enough, time to start taking your losses like an adult. You took a risk, then pushed your luck even a little further, and now that it's coming back to bite you, you're dumbfounded. It's in the past, bud, can't do much about it now. What you're left to do with is figuring out how to put it to use now. Focus on that. Take the advice some of us already offered, manage to somehow get yourself a BMPCC, T3i (I believe it could be put to C-mount crop?), G7 or so. You'd be doing yourself two favors. Getting yourself a camera that works with the lens you visioned having... and the camera is a probably a definit upgrade from the T2i... there's still future for what you said out to do... just takes a bit more effort than anticipated. Anyways, we all make mistakes, it's part of life really, take something away from it and use it for good in any future endavours. Maybe the lesson here is before jumping to any quick weighty decisions, first explore your options, take your time rather than thinking of all the 'pros' to find the 'cons' instead, rationalize and sleep on it, get others with experience and an objective look to weigh in on the situation... then you can make a deliberate decision. Don't want to fall? Don't take these huge impulsive leap of faiths... And if you do... brush off your shoulders and get up at it again!

I feel the same. I would like to like Sony so much. Specs/$ is amazing but the result isnt. BMD, Bolex, Canon and lately Nikon delivers the footage I want. So Im done trying. Ive had 8 different Sony cameras. Feels enough

It's a pain, and was a weakness of the software. If you can figure out which settings correspond to the mode you're shooting in, you'll be set. I'd try to get crop mode working first. Just shoot very small clips of a white wall and try out difference cameras/settings in PDR until the dots disappear.

I used a Canon C300 on a shoot the other day, and now I'm back with the Sony's. It's evident how "empty" Sony colour science feels (in comparison). I think i'm getting bored of using Sony now, but er.. they have HFR. BMPCC has one of the best images I've worked with - what a little gem that thing is! Still in the pre-order list for this URSA Mini 4.6k... I hope this means we get to see some footage soon!

I've written another article for DesktopDocumentaries.com (as has young Master Ebrahim Saadawi recently - a great breakdown for beginners of what technical features make a camera's video image "good": http://www.desktop-documentaries.com/10-elements-of-a-high-quality-image.html). Mine is an appraisal of the current line-up of "affordable" video cameras on offer, looking specifically in the $2500 region this time (as requested by the site owner) and narrowing it down to a personal choice of the GH4 and XC10: http://www.desktop-documentaries.com/best-documentary-video-camera-2500.html It's a long one. Would love to hear your thoughts on any of it ... Note: A certain member didn't like it when I posted a link to my last article for DD.com. As a previously active member of this forum I'm here to get feedback from my peers and betters - out of personal interest only. No ulterior motives. Please go ahead and tear my article apart as you wish - I expect and even invite that. I will however not respond to personal attacks or comments made by anyone who has clearly not bothered to actually read the article. It's easy enough to ignore this thread if you don't like it so please do so. Thank you.

Similiar conclusions here after having used Premiere for a couple of days. I tried to cut an entire project (that I cut before in FCPX) in Premiere to get familiar with the program. Some things seem a lot less intuitive because I'm not used to the program, other things are a lot less intuitive because that's the way the program works. I think the overall color grading in Premiere is great but editing, clip organization etc. in FCPX suits my workflow much better. I'll stick with FCPX if I need to edit something quickly. Knowing the basics in Premiere will definitely be helpful in the future though! Color Finale is a plugin that I regularly use, mainly to apply LUTs to my footage. That's one of the things I hate about FCPX; you can't use your own LUTs. So I usually do my basic color corrections with the built in correction tools, apply a one of the IWLTBAP LUTs that suits the footage and set the LUT opacity somewhere between 30% and 70%. Another really cool plugin for FCPX is Oliver Color. It allows you to adjust exposure, contrast, saturation, highs mids and lows, hue and a couple other things... and it's free. https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2015/06/07/building-a-free-fcp-x-color-correction-filter/

Have just been having a similar discussion with my business partner... BM 4.6k, RED Raven or C300 mk II..... Such a difficult choice. Colour and DR are top of the want list. I have been using the BMPCC alot this week and have fallen in love with their image again.

I used first FCPX, then switched to Premiere (for some reasons but the main one being the easy workflow with After Effects dynamic links) and now I switched back to FCPX a few days ago because I decided I would give it a new try. Things I like about FCPX: ergonomics and timeline, clip organization with easy keywords and so on Things I like about Premiere: After Effect dynamic link Lumetri and overall color grading But I just found out the plugin Color Finale on FCPX is exactly like lumetri in better: basic color correction, lut utility, curves, ... AND opacity selection for each setting + a master opacity which is great. I am sold. bye bye premiere https://vimeo.com/119422039

Canon is selling tons of overpriced glass and outdated sensors, every single manufacturer would love to be in canons shoes. They even have thousand of users on internet forums that are convinced that a magenta cast coming from channel scaling is something positive. A professional canon setup costs the same or more than a professional medium format setup, and it only performs better in sports, for the rest the performance is an order of magnitude worse, but still canon is a lot more successful.

Just tried this weekend with some footage I had, to do something similar. Its far from good, needs a lot more training, only the last transitions worked, I think. But still its quite fun to edit this type of thing, and including all the little sounds (no camera sound) is quite fun and something I dont usually do. Anyone know any good webiste to download free sound effects ? I took all of those from youtube, but it would be great to know a dedicated place for it.. https://vimeo.com/143796710 Password : Test

Nice, at the end of the day, if you're in the right places and build the right relationships, you're going to get amazing footage no matter what camera you use. So good luck and have fun! I'll be shooting my first big (well, short at around 30mins) documentary early next year in London and am slowly putting all the gear together so I can be the ultimate one man band.

Cheers for the info, the C100 is a great doc cam but I thought a lot about this the last few months (as you know!) and the IBIS is a big plus for me as I'd love to be able to use vintage glass and probably won't be in situations where I can use a proper rig. I also love Canon colour straight out of the box, but I've been messing around with Impulz Luts recently and have come to really love the image you get from them paired with a Sony cam. And lastly, I still need some sort of stills ability, so the A7SII is still looking like a good option. Did you end up opting for the C100 MkII?

After having the luxury of EVF for manualy focusing video/stills i would find it very hard to go back to dslrs. But who knows, maybe canon will release something interesting.

Never tried the 3x crop on the EOSM (nor on the T3i), but I can't imagine that a pixel peeper would be happy using the RJ focal reducer in crop mode. Lenses only have a finite number of resolving lines within their image circles. The more one crops into the image circle, the more one reduces the number of resolving lines in the frame. Focal reducers squeeze more of a lens' resolving lines into the frame, but at the same time the focal reducer causes a slight loss of sharpness by introducing another piece of glass into the optical chain. If the focal reducer is high quality, this tradeoff is optically "equitable" and no loss of sharpness is noticed between the images with and without the focal reducer. I don't know if the RJ focal reducer will hold up to such a crop, but if you like the look of the Cosmicar 12.5mm-75mm in 3x crop (I love it), it might be okay. Also, the RJ wouldn't bring the 3x crop close to APS-C size. The RJ focal reducer crop factor is 0.72x, and the crop factor of the EOSM's crop mode is 3x: 0.72 x 3 = 2.16 So, the effective size of the frame in 3x crop mode with the RJ focal reducer would be 2.16 times smaller than (or slightly less than 1/2 the size of) an APS-C sensor.

Your videos are inspiring and informative. The "Angry Toddlers" video is what induced me to get the EOSM along with the Fujian 35mm -- that's a magical combination! For those unfamiliar with the Fujian 35, it is an inexpensive C-mount lens that has a wonderful "wonkiness" in its plane of focus, and its image circle covers the EOSM's entire APS-C sensor. Using the Fujian with such a large sensor maximizes its focus wonkiness so that it "pops" across the frame. I avoided raw with ML and TL, as the "work flow" early on seemed to be a little tedious. It was okay to sacrifice a little dynamic range and sharpness, for ready-to-use files that are full HD with all I-frame, high bit rate h264. Setting the picture style sharpness to "1" (not 0) and then boosting the sharpness slightly in post gives clean/flexible camera files and plenty of sharpness in the final image.

Regular Magic Lantern for a while has allowed one to boost the h264 bit rate. The main advantage of Tragic Lantern's h264 is the ability to set all I-frames, so that there are no inter-frame artifacts. The all I-frame capability combined with a boosted bit rate eliminates almost all perceptible artifacts in h264 at the EOSM's full HD resolution. By the way, TL also provides this same all I-frame capability on the 600d/T3i (not sure if it does so on the 7D). On the other hand, I believe that regular ML has all I-frame capability in the source code, but it is not "switched on" in the provided builds. I seem to recall reading in the EOSM thread that someone had enabled all I-frames in the ML source, compiled it and used it without any serious problems.

I've got the EOSM and this RJ focal reducer. Essentially, it makes the EOSM a full-frame camera and gives an extra stop of brightness. It goes a little soft (with a slight chromatic aberration) on the edges, but most don't notice it unless they are looking for it. When I received the RJ adaptor, the back mount (EF-M) was loose/wobbly and could not be tightened. Basically, the mount screws were too long and/or the threads were not tapped deep enough into the body of the adaptor. RJ was diligent in corresponding on the problem, and RJ sent shorter screws which eliminated looseness/wobble. The RJ adaptor mostly stays mounted to the EOSM, as all my lenses except one are old Nikkors and as it prohibits dust from getting to the sensor. Sometimes the RJ gets replaced with an tilt-swing adaptor ( EF-M-to-Nikkor-F), which is a lot of fun. Almost never used are my EF-M-to-Nikkor-F dummy adaptor and my EF-M-to-EF adaptor. On the RJ adapter, I am considering using tape to fix the "G" aperture adjustment ring to the smallest position, as I don't have any "G" lenses and as you can inadvertently bump it so that it keeps the aperture on "F" lenses from closing without your realizing it. By the way, the EOS M2 can currently be had new for almost the same low price to which the original EOSM sunk, but ML is just now starting to explore the M2.

The chroma smoothing defeats the purpose of shooting RAW. Here's why. When you shoot RAW, you are getting a 14bit value for every 1280x720 pixel. Each of those pixels is either red, green or blue. When you "smooth" the red, green or blue pixels you're essentially truncating the 14bit values down to who knows what. The pink dots are removed at the expense of color depth. Since you don't know which pixel is a focus pixel, you have to degrade them all. The strategy behind the pink dot remover and the software I wrote, is to figure out the exact locations of every focus pixel. this can be down because they have a pattern that radiates out from the center of the sensor. Anyway, if the pixel is a red one, you go out and get the red value at the closes red pixel and use that value. It works very well and is very similar to the whole de-bayering process where you fill in missing color information. Unfortunately, which pixels are focus pixels changes with the crop mode you use. In crop mode they are closer together. when is full-sensor mode, so to speak, they are more spread out. If you have a Mac, find a copy of the Java pink dot remover and use that. You can use it on PC too. But if you have a PC, and shoot in crop mode, my software is very fast.

I can't tell you how happy I am that Bror posted about ML Raw on the eos-m because I have recently started using it but I figured nobody would be interested in discussing something so out dated. The reason I started using it was because I recently learned I could use my vintage c-mount lenses with it in crop mode. Which is great. I was getting ready to sell them off when I realized it. Anyway, I am getting some mixed results, and I am wondering if it is due to my workflow? I am recording in .mlv and then using mlmystic to ingest and convert the clips to's .dng. I click on the chroma smoothing option, at 2x2 to remove the pink dots then open those files in mlrawviewer where I fix the wb and convert to prores444. Is the chroma smoothing softening the image, or is that how the pink dot remover program works? I also stopped recording sound because it seemed to cause the dreaded threads failed to start issue. Now I read that it is okay to have in camera sharpening up a notch when shooting raw, but if the camera doesn't acknowledge the picture profile, then how do you use in camera sharpening? Now I have seen other people's footage online, Max and a kid named Ryan Moorman, and they both were getting amazing, sharp results with raw, and I am just not sure what I am doing wrong? Are the c-mounts the problem... Can they not resolve properly for the raw footage. I also am only using the 64gb Transcend card that writes at 60MB, could that be the issue? Bror, I saw that focal reducer and was wondering the same thing. With just the 3x crop on, the camera is insanely better than the original canon specs, so I was wondering what the image would look like with the Nikon focal reducer shot in 3x crop... Would it bring it back to apsc sized without the aliasing? Here's a jpeg grab from a raw clip I took last week using a 12.5 to 75mm Cosmicar c-mount zoom. I really love the look and the colors.

Added an ** to the min focus distance, with corresponding notation to the description for Kowa B&H.

Yes, like TheRenaissanceMan says, you can do 1280 native focal length, but get moire. However, if you have shallow depth of field and are not shooting anything with hard edges you'll get that rich color look. The biggest problem are the focus pixels. You need to remove them or they create "pink dots". I wrote software for windows that does it well (but only in crop mode) https://bitbucket.org/maxotics/focuspixelfixer/downloads For other resolutions, you want the PinkDotRemover. The best combo, IMHO, is a 10-20mm type lens, then shoot crop mode, which will make it 40 to 80. Also, you'll need a 95MBS read/write card (even though it will max out at 40mbs). Here's a cool video I did using the EOS-M to show you what your sensor really sees in Bayer mode: https://vimeo.com/79857693 And here's one that show the basic quality, it's VERY filmmlike to me. Here's one with the kit-lens https://vimeo.com/76181035 And this one with a Sigma 10-20. Finally, here's a good one in H.264 with the EOS-M. I LOVED that camera. https://vimeo.com/75122636 I now have a BMPCC. But I LEARNED so much using the 50D (another great ML camera) and the EOS-M.

It can do 720p or so from the whole sensor, but it produces pretty bad moire. You could also go the Tragic Lantern route and just get a jacked up bit rate for h.264. If you're a stills guy, pair it with the 22mm and you've got the best, cheapest 35mm compact on the market.

We did some just for fun: The Walkind Dead tribute in 2012, with a Panasonic SD700 camcorder, lot of mistakes but it was very fun to do it, and I learn a lot (I´m the zombie :)) And an english homework for my little cousin class, my first training with the BMPCC:

You'll need a European invoice in case you are controlled at the customs back in germany. They don't have to prove anything, you have to prove that you bought in in Europe. :/

take the camera as hand luggage. put the box in your luggage. how can they prove you didn't bring it with you when you came into the US? They're too busy stopping people taking drinking water onto the plane to worry about your camera:)

Dam, I just watched a preview video on Lumetri and wish FCP X had this kind of panel. These tools are perfect for about of 95% of what I do and I find FCP X's colour board clunky. I can't move fast as I want to. However, I'm a big fan of FCP X and the magnetic timeline, I can work very quickly and not sure a switch to Premiere just for Lumetri makes sense. Anybody switched? How do you find Premiere?

Hey Michael- I've been using the Lumetri panel for a while and indeed it is very cool. In terms of UI and editing speed, it is much faster. In terms of runtime performance, it feels a little slower than using a combination of Mercury-accelerated effects, e.g. Fast Color Corrector + Curves (1 or more) + ProcAmp + 3-Way Color Corrector + Sharpen [when needed] (12 3GHz cores, GTX 980ti on dual 4K displays, Windows 10). Perhaps turning off unused panel elements will speed things up. A sampler/dropper tool for white balance would be a helpful addition.

Not exactly "horror" but recently we did a Halloween themed episode of our YouTube show called Boxmac: The Search for the Best Box of Mac and Cheese. We shot the cinematic parts using the GH4, vlog, and the Ninja Assassin. It's a parody of Crypt Keeper tales, so we were going for that TV horror feel complete with a 4:3 aspect ratio. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEL4y6ZJdgs

Got another shoot tomorrow and this time it's on the DJI Ronin M! Also found that PP2 has less noise than the other profiles, but I can't remember if I modified it or not. I'm a "character" man, so that's maybe my weird issue with the camera. The combination of fixed lens/sensor has zero character! Something you will get with an A7S II by the bucketload (and some wonky vintage primes!)

I have never seen tree barks that blue, and even on blue conifers, that only have smooth blue shades on their needles... Here we have a massive vivid tint... Come on... i've never seen these oversaturated colors in Nature... even into the golden hours (Morning and evening). But if this man wants to use these luts it is ok... maybe he has already seen this one time in Nature... Only a matter of taste. Personally when i see these strange psychedelic candy style pictures, i forget what the footage wants us to see first... its story or its inner beauty...

I understand what you are saying, but I learned a long time ago that a grade is completely in the eye of the beholder. Some people will hate my grade some people will love it. I have seen grades that are technically too dark and some that were too bright. I have seen grades that I thought were technically too red, green or blue, too saturated( my own included) and not saturated enough. Some times you have to look at a grade not in "your own taste"or on it's technical accuracy but as someones else's artist expression, right or wrong and appreciate it for that.

Dear Sekhar, it depends what you define as "story". No there is no classic story. But thank god for it, we can't live forever with "a guy meets girl and fall in love" and/or "someone killed someone else, let's see who did it" kind of stories. As much as there can be non-verbal communication, there can be non-verbal audio-visual story. Watchtower of Turkey offers a glimpse of Turkey in 3.30 minutes and of course, it can't replace travelling and staying there! But for those who have never been there, I more than welcome to have seen it!

Lol @ Pizza Rat... I was taking into account the fact that it was an amateur filmmaker showcasing his art, and in that respect that kind of response/ dialogue is what we all aspire to generate and I am sure some people here do on on a regular basis. I get your point though. Right now more than ever, as video is everywhere and getting cheaper to produce, story is king. Effects don't age well. I don't really look at this style as something a serious filmmaker would want to be known for. I am sure they would prefer people to appreciate how they use the camera to tell a story. In that respect, this video is a bit 'gimmicky' as it is swapping storytelling for the 'geezus, how did you do that' appeal. If you read comments for some of the more recent videos imitators have made, you can tell that people are kind of getting tired of it already. Everyone now is trying to tell a bit of story, such as Brandon Li to great effect, check out some of the links I posted. But none-the-less, if you are going to make a travel video and you are on your lonesome with a camera and a couple of lenses, it is an interesting skill to master - and tell yourself youve been there and done that. It also teaches you some important skills with regards to composition/ framing, movement, sound editing, organising footage etc. We must also remember that montage, or random shots put together, is a bona fide genre that has been around since the beginning of film. When done well it can have the same impact on the viewer as a great story.

I'm afraid you can't really ignore a DSLR filmmaker that has garnered over 500, 000 views and 1, 393 comments. It is safe to say that this 'gimmick' has inspired a lot of amateurs to get out and shoot, myself included. It is rare to see something inspiring that you could do in your hometown, on a shoe string budget, all by yourself. I would even throw it out there that it is the essence of what the DSLR community is all about.