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Hands down.

Apologies in advance if this is widely known. Personally, I've never found a really good explanation of why front anamorphs produce oval bokeh and rear anamorphs don't, despite reading my fair share of patents, technical papers, internet gossip and the like. Feeling that my own understanding needed some firming up I finally set up some paraxial models and went through the math in gory detail. It all boils down to how front and rear converters alter (or don't alter) the f/#, and basic DOF type circle of confusion calculations. It has nothing to do with higher order aberrations, or the shape of the front lens, or various mechanical aspects of the lens. Briefly: 1) A front anamorph is just a special case of a front afocal attachment, and as a result it preserves the f/# of the lens its attached to. With an anamorphic front lens the focal length is shorter in the powered axis than in the non-powered axis. For example, consider a 2:1 anamorph attached to a 100mm f/2 spherical lens. In this case the net focal length is 50mm in the powered axis and 100mm in the non-powered axis, but in both cases the aperture remains f/2. If you venture into the weeds to do circle of confusion calculations for a given object-space defocus you discover that a de-focused point source evaluated at the image plane is an ellipse with an aspect ratio of 4:1. However, you only need to de-squeeze the image by 2x to correct the in-focus geometry, so you are left with de-focused ellipses with an aspect ratio of 2:1. 2) A rear anamorph is just a special case of a rear-mounted teleconverter, and as a result it *does not* preserve the f/# of the lens its attached to. In particular, in the powered axis the aperture becomes slower. For example, consider an 50mm f/2 spherical lens with a 2x rear anamorph. Here the net focal length is 100mm in the powered axis, but the aperture has dropped to f/4, and is still 50mm f/2 in the non-powered axis. When you do the circle of confusion calculations with object-space defocus you find the on-sensor defocused image to be an ellipse with a 2:1 aspect ratio. When you desqueeze by 2x this defocus ellipse becomes a perfect circle. Bottom Line: Rear anamorphs have circular bokeh because they *don't* preserve the f/# of the spherical lens in both axes, while front anamorphs have elliptical bokeh because they *do* preserve the f/# of the spherical lens in both axes.

I'm using these little cams for a modest project, and after a few weeks run n' gunning with the gx85, thought I'd give a quick critique. First of all. Great cam. Wonderful IQ for such a small price. So, there's that and it's a really big deal. Now for the big "but." Outboard audio: I knew it was going to be a pain buying into the gx85 insomuch as the post side of outboard audio sync'ing was going to be a hassle. Now that's it's on the NLE in front of me and being unwieldy, there's a level of regret that's certainly frustrating. Until one is actually dealing with hours of unsync'ed audio, (again) it might be hard to empathize, but believe me, it's not fun. Sync'ing interviews? Not a problem. Trying to sync each and every b-roll clip when your 2 cameras are wandering to various distances from the subject? Not an enjoyable experience to clean up in post while the clock is ticking on the deadline. Big compromise there when deciding to use the gx85. The EVF. Just not good enough for me. And this is important. I'm an older guy. My eyes suck. Trying to focus on that crappy EVF for a few hours can literally make me queasy and leave me with eyesight issues after using the cam for awhile. Compared to the ease of using the EVF on our Fuji/Oly cams, it's like Panasonic is foisting some cruel joke on it's consumers. It's really quite bad. You can just never tell if your image is in focus on the damn thing, and the eye strain that mushy image generates is very much a big issue. I'm attempting a work around with various loupe set-ups, but those things are awkward to use AND make the camera look like some sort of filming device; both things I'm trying to avoid. Otherwise, the camera delivers as advertised. On gear like this, it's all a compromise, and I think we know that. Shooting a semi-pro doc with consumer gear is do-able, it's just not as elegant as it could be...maybe at this point in consumer camera development it's fair to even say it's not as elegant as it SHOULD be. Now...if the EM5II video was just a tiny bit better I probably would have stuck with my Olympus for this assignment. But, IQ tends to trump all else. Anyway, if you're a hobbyist, you're probably going to love the value of this camera. Having that stabilizer for most people who are awful at doing handheld will be worth it alone. -- But for doing actual work? It's can be a slog in the documentary style of production. All that said, my wife and I completed a doc last year (https://vimeo.com/140524680) using the GM1 and GX7, so we knew what we were getting into going into the production, it's just that our newer Fuji/Oly cams have kind of spoiled us in the interim, as the Oly allows on board audio recording --and the EFV's are actually an asset rather than a liability.

C100 II. DPAF, 60p, and significantly improved low light performance make it pretty boss for doc work.

Imo the design is more professional and look more like a real cinema film camera. But people like DSLRs. Same thing when the BMCC came out. People and reviewers ripped on a cinema camera not being designed as a stills camera?? strange imo. Regarding the "toy" design of the box etc, that is the same graphic design that all professional Bolex cameras have had, always. They just stayed true to the legacy. And no, it did nor come in a leather bag, it came in a box, nothing more. But I agree with you. They didn't do the best of marketing. If it was me I would have let the team step back and hire some snappy gents in suites for the publicity. Also I would have lended it to reviewers, they didn't. The only reviewer was PB who bought one and he is alway (imo) very unclear and doesn't have a broad perspective. So the pro use got lost in his review since he compared it to a F55, like everyone owned one of those. (BTW, "Hipster" as far as I know means "I dont know what this is and feel embarrassed so I call it Hipster to hide my insecurity". Just saying )

Vasile's new 'nx on wake' hack is marvelous... Camera behaves exactly the way it does without any hacks, super quick to turn on and off whenever, hacked bitrates are loaded instantaneously since we don't have to wait for Bluetooth to load like we used to (and still do with the KS mod). They've recently added some nice tweaks to the UI as well, give it a shot!

I'm always trying to get the Super 8 look, and this thread motivated me to try again. This is my bmpcc treated to look like Super 8. I want to post footage, but for some reason, a lot of my gorilla grain files cause red flash frames when composited over the footage. Fine grain works, but anything heavier has this problem. I'm pretty satisfied with this look. It's the closest I've gotten I think.

Shot on A6000 with Sigma 19mm 2.8. All handheld. Thanks for watching!

I am quite curious about this one, specs seem great for a hybrid. Who knows maybe it turns out great for low budget video, just hope that it isn't cropped in 4K mode and have decent DR. Unfortunately it seems that the grip is required to shoot 30min of 4K. http://www.fujirumors.com/fujifilm-x-t2-full-specs-images-leaked/ – 24.3MP CMOS sensor – Image processing engine X Processor Pro – Video 4K30fps. Full HD60fps – Video of the bit rate is 100Mbps – The maximum speed of the shutter is 1/8000 seconds. 1/32000 sec electronic shutter – Synchro speed of the flash is 1/250 seconds – AF 325 points can be selected intelligent hybrid phase difference AF – The body is in a magnesium alloy, improve the durability of the dial. Dust and water specification – EVF is 2.36 million dots. Refresh rate 100fps – 3-way tilting 3 inches 1.62 million dot LCD monitor – Dual SD card slot. UHS-II support – AF-C custom settings – ISO range is ISO200-12800 (RAW) – Wi-Fi built-in. Remote shooting correspondence. Instax Share printer support – 16 kinds of film simulation modes, including the ACROS – That can customize the settings screen “My Menu” – Normal / boost mode switching – 14bit RAW lossless compression. Camera RAW development – Exposure compensation +/- 5EV – 256-segment metering (multi-spot average, spot, center-weighted) – Interval Shooting – 13 kinds of creative filter – The battery is NP-W126S. The number of possible shots 350 sheets – 3.5mm microphone jack. 2.5mm remote terminal. USB3.0 terminal. Micro HDMI terminal

Not really. It allows me to find focus of the actual shot, but because the evf image is so soft (and slightly distorted as well), my eye is always straining to comfortably focus on the image. This is is not an issue with my Olympus EM5II Hard to empathize, I know, unless you've got old person eyesight. Which, btw, seems to happen within a few months. Beginning of the year you have good vision, by the end of the year you need bi-focals.

Flags can be very handy in a studio setup - often much quicker to adjust or attach a flag then get a flag on a stand and position it. If I'm shooting in a setup where there are lots of light sources potentially visible, I stick all the flags on. And keep in mind, just because light isn't hitting the sensor, it can still be hitting the lens (esp, say, a full-frame lens on a small sensor camera). Sometimes you don't even know you're getting some flare until you see the same shot flagged. A variable ND isn't an ND at all - it's two polarizers. So yes, it can jack up a shot pretty badly, particularly skies or expanses of solid color, or long camera moves. And for close ups with skin, it can really deaden the skin. And they can be hard to match from shot to shot. A matte box with a rotating stage is really handy for ND grads and polarizers. You'll stop thinking of a grad as "just for the sky" and use them to, say, knock down a bright sidewalk or wall. And with pola's, it makes it easy to kill (or enhance) reflections. A pola in a rotating stage eats a lot less light than a circular pola, which is 2 stacked polarizers. If you're 100% "run and gun", a matte box could be a hassle (but then, you should be shooting with a camera made for run & gun, with switchable ND and a good EVF and so on). (I see a lot of newbies say their "style" is "run n' gun", when in reality run & gun is a situation). I don't find 4x4's slow me down significantly. If I were shooting an event, I'd use my big "video" camera. Most other situations, you have a few minutes to frame a shot and work out the DOF and exposure you want. I'd say the minimum to look for is 2 stages, at least one rotates - adjustable height; flags that attach securely and can be removed and adjusted without tools; and flags with no open slots at the mount, as you'll get reflections of your FF gears in your footage!

I have mine on order now to sell my DSI! Thanks Mattis for the info love your stuff!

Probably, but all the test shots are with a 24mm ff equivalent and OSS.

As far as synching goes, yes double sound is a major pain in the ass. FCPX does make it a helluva a lot simpler with it's automatic synch... Which is insanely accurate btw. Also I think Max developed a simple analog workaround that created a tapping noise, similar to a slate, minus the annoyance of a slate, when he pushed the record button on his Zoom. With the GX85, doesn't the focus peaking work with the evf? Shouldn't that make focusing easier on your eyes?

@SMGJohn Yeah the README is definitely a little intimidating but Vasile just wanted to make absolutely certain that nobody bricks their cameras. As long as you follow the directions and don't skip any steps you'll be fine, I did it to both my nx500 and nx1 and have been loving it, the hack is super quick and responsive now.

So even after purposely leaving it unbalanced, the stabilization looks great. After balancing, your battery probably should last all day. Also, very nice video too and grade.

I have looked matte box options quite a while. For long time been keeping my eye on Tilta MB-T05. But also Fotga DP500 mark III matte box is interesting. Those are in the price range I think, is ok investment. Sure if you want top quality and best materials you most likely have to use a lot more. But I don't need that. Here is my thoughts on your questions: 1. It's a matte box needed at all? It depends what you prefer and how you shoot. If I have crew and time I like to use it. But if I am alone and in hurry, no it's just extra weight and bulkiness... 2. Given the huge range in price, what is good enough? For me I can get everything I need from matte box around 200-500€ price range 3. Do flags matter in a controlled studio? If I am in studio usually have better and bigger flags + c-stands around. So no, I don't need flags. 4. Are dedicated NDs really that much of an advantage over variable NDs? There is certainly differences on variable ND's and hard ND's. With variable ND's I have ruined some face shots, got some bad colour shift and weird glares. With good hard ND's: never. --- Even that I am looking for matte box set and nice hard ND's, I definitely are not going to lose my variable ND. Has it moments and places for me, always. But I definitely want quality ND's without quality loss to be found at edit table. It sucks. IF you don't want to use matte box and decide to invest in hard ND filters. I definitely recommend XUME adapters. I use 77mm XUME adapters on my all lenses and Variable ND + Polarizer filter.

You bet! It gives you that color depth that is missing from normal s_log. I've always felt the Sony stuff I see online was missing that "thick" color that you get naturally from canon and Blackmagic.

So, here is the first time I put in the batteries, mount the camera and turn it on. No tools, setup, no nothing. Just out of the box. When running Im not trying either. I wanted to show what the worst type scenario is.

true thanks I've just come back from a day out with the kids - party, dry ski slope tubing cannot believe how much better video is with the GX80 vs my G6 - obviously 4k vs 1080p, but that aside, the overall quality seems better, and what a difference the extra stabilisation makes, makes the videos seem far easier on the eyes to watch - no constant jiggling it even coped with me taking a video from one tube to my daughters, whilst zooming down the ski slope that video looks smoother than ones I've taken with the G6 just standing ! very impressed - great little camera

Ok, I did some tests, and you were absolutely right. i was wrong all these years, thinking that std 0-0-0 was unprocessed. Thank you again for the tip.

That's just color filters on top, you can use the same sensor.

While I think your point is valid (event if not my personal thoughts), I don't think a Canon EF mount is a plus. m4/3 is a much better option as there are more adaptable lenses available out there. (Anything with a shorter flange distance than EF/M42 cannot be adapted). And you can still use EF & PL glass if you want. Of course m4/3 will not give you access to full frame ... but I think it's overrated anyway :D S35 is just fine

If I was doing a music video I would definitely get anything BUT the C300. 50/ 60fps in important to me. If 25p is all you need for sure then okay but even basic slo-mo can be quite useful especially for music videos. I would take the FS5 but if you had to go Canon then I would go for the C100 mk2.

Heya John, even my el cheapo focal reducer just seems to give some sort of s35 thing to my little gx7 - I use mostly vintage manual lenses, really should have got it ages ago! Highly recommended, and I will be moving up to a lens turbo 2 soon, eventually an active speedbooster - plus I hate maths, so now I never have to translate for s35 sensor equivalent!

This is true. It's taking the light and condensing it onto a smaller sensor than the lens was designed for... a crazy-useful trick that results in more light on the sensor and less DOF. In my case, I'm just saving for a native, wide-angle lens for the moment. Shallow DOF and low light are not my issues- content and budget are.

Rent an Alexa:)

Just remember, if you are on a speedbooster, adjust accordingly - so if the focal reduction is 0.71 it would be ie: 50mm x 0.71 = (approx) 35mm

Thanks. Yeah, I'm loving my Pocket cam. I might have posted this on the board somewhere, but this is the alternate Super 8 footage to my short film "The Ballad of Crazy Pete". It was conceived as a Super 8 short, but one roll didn't turn out, and I couldn't get the digital backup footage to match, so I went with an all-digital version. This is telecine I did at home by taping a Lowel frost gel to a cardboard box, projecting the film onto the gel and recording it with a GH1. It ended up having kind of an interestingly shitty look:

Hey Thanks. For hyperlapse, check a tutorial on youtube that show how to stabilize a sequence using the tracker on AE. For HDR I use a software called SNS-Pro because photomatix sucks big time at batch processing (generates bad flicker). Last, for the Hoyl grail, you'll need LRTimelapse. The rest is a matter of practice and I hope that you have time because hyperlapse requires a lot of it !

Sounds interesting. Personally I couldn't care less about AF. So the question for me is all about the DR at this point.

took a few pics - late at night here - took a few videos - image and video stabilisation works incredibly well I'm very very impressed only big BUT at the moment -is currently audio is a bit unusable - I could hear fan noise when I took a video of my daughter - couldn't work out what it was (pretty loud and very obvious) - its the noise of the OIS in the 14-140 which is only a cm or so from the microphones on the GX80 ..... mmm

well size caught me out (no local shops had one to demo) after thinking grip way too small - putting a finger underneath and all good build quality seems better than my G6 EVF "OK" - useable - no real issues

@DaveAltizer - Loving it as as well. Seems like we are seeing the maximum quality 8 bit 4:2:0 can give with an 11bit equivalent log file. It not only grades easy, but does not seem to fall apart like S-Log with standard settings. I really appreciate you sharing this profile - Thank you!

I concur. Sensor size has nothing to do with focal length. Sensor size will determine only how much of the projected light coming from the lens is recorded.

This is exactly why I'm now only buying used cameras. Camera's go down in value so fast. Not worth buying one new anymore. Especially canon c-series cameras. Their new cameras always go down within a year or less.

It's a business, they all do this... Apple, Ford... everyone. Bodies are not investments in hardware, they are investments in your talent. If you want a healthy return on that investment you need to produce paying work.

Focal length is focal length. So, your answer is 20mm and 50mm.

I'm picking up my GX80 tomorrow! So excited.

If you're fine without 4k and RAW the c100 is a great camera. Shot my first feature film on the mark ii and l freaking loved it. I think it's one of the only cameras that can cross over between the 2 different kind of shooting you do in that range. Still getting a professional camera that can output good color externally. I'm in the same boat man thats what I'v been leaning toward myself recently.

I've done something similar. Had an old Sony Handycam Hi8 camera from my childhood lying around at the back of my shelf, and one day decided to see if it still works. Much to my surprise, it did, and even the batteries were functional. Those things were built like tanks, I abused the hell out of it in my teen years shooting backyard movies, and over a decade later it works like a charm. So I fitted it with a cheap 35mm adapter, ran a few tests and then went out to shoot a small art short. Since the 35mm filter was mirrorless, I was practically shooting blind - the loop displayed a mirrored, upside down image, which really messes with your brain when you're trying to operate. Nevertheless, I'm happy with what we got. We dubbed it our punk movie, because it has that look of cheap, grainy 16mm film from old underground stuff.

Nice video, buy why don't you get the real thing (a 16mm camera) and do a piece on that. I mean, you are in NY, you're at the source. This is 16mm and looks really nice:

sorry to hear... I lost my whole camera setup years ago this way.. in france.. along with my car and everything else lol.. I tried local markets the next days.. those markets where people just have a blanket on the floor and on it what looks like the inside of a travelling bag... had no luck. the car was seen one or two month later, two black guys trying to cross border to england... well.. english border control did not react fast enough and they got away.. since your case is already 20 days old.. i guess you are looking for a needle that someone might have dropped into a haystack, or somewhere else... :/

Nice, very interested to see the results. There are few good comparisons on actual image quality between diopters. On a side note, can I ask where you found the close up for the 3.5/85-210? The actual zoom and it's accessorries (including the close up) are quite rare (in contrast to the f4.5 version).

Agreed with Jimmy Trying to have a discussion on facebook is not as easy as a forum such as this one. The internet has really changed. I don't go on vimeo really that much anymore - it is mostly facebook And if I was younger, snapchat - god I hate facebook. Instagram bores me. I just read news sites. I think you have a great spirit Andrew as others have said to promote creativity over pure tech stuff - also finding value in equipment from the past. But, damn, if its wasting your time, move on man. If the costs are too high, just ask people to donate via paypal if they use the site. And yes, buying and selling gear constantly is hard, and it depreciates in value so quickly. I still think there can be a lot of interesting articles on new lighting and lenses and older stuff as well to achieve results. I'm about to post some 16mm style film I did with a panasonic sdx900 hooked up to a pix 240 - yes the dslr revolution is over - that was an exciting and scary time and people turned to you and Mr Bloomy to see what they could do with the transition. anyway, if its not fun for you anymore, just burn it down. Hit that button like Batman does to blow up his factory and go shoot some film or direct or do other stuff. Don't become a fossilized zombie like dvxuser or reduser. God those forums are pathetic.

Only user issue is your reading, I had a iv not a iii

Both A7sii and RX100iv jammed, froze and needed battery pulled almost daily. Never happened on Canikon or Panasonic.

The 0.33 Minolta is nice, achromat also (at least, if it's the one for the 100-500mm zoom). Tito uses it regularly in his videos. I have the 67mm diopter from Asahi Pentax and measured it...indeed 0.33 also. If you want to know precisely how strong your Pentax diopter is, focus on infinity with the diopter attached. Measure the distance from sensor to the focus plane. Diopter strength = 1/(max focus distance in meters). Oh, if you do, let us know, I'll update the list :-) Cheers.

No, they aren't, unfortunately (...as mentioned above ;-)) Could still be useful though. Here's a list I made a while ago https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cEzX4hb0NKbhPetTkVsnORNHeGnji7lhB4OmuCdQC-g/edit?usp=docslist_api

Where are all the surprises? The fireworks? The blackmagic cameras that take 2 years to come out, then don't work as well as we thought they would in our minds? The 6k global shutter CCD 5000 ISO camera for $2k? Has NAB gone back to just being another techy dork-fest that introduces a bunch of side-handles or a recorder that can do 4k? It hasn't been this boring since 2007, the year before the Red One was introduced, and later took 5 years to release in a useable form with a new sensor.