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Hallo friends, now here are the photos of my camera. I already revealed my choice in this awesome thread: the semilegendary Lumix G6 and the Fujinon 12.5mm 14. C-mount lens. Beautiful lens and awesome to hold with the G6. It does not quiet cover the whole sensor in 16 to 9, of course. I also used the 2x digizoom to really feel free from worries and creative limits. I think this setup is perfect for cinema verité pieces. Also, it was so enjoyable to realize camera movements without in body or lens stabilization, such a gratifying feeling. I think shooting 8bit 420 and with a rather slim codec was giving me some special kind of concentration during filming. A camera like the G6 or others put the focus on filming rather than to have to worry about battery life or 14 stops of DR. Handling is great and image feels very dear and unique to me. In 2x digizoom it felt like the readout was much faster. I was able to pull off some very steady camera movements. A bit of stabilization in post and sastisfied. Camera movement felt much more immediate than doing it with IBIS or in lens stabilization. Filming was done alot with 7000K in Vivid picture profile with contrast with everyting to -2. Grading and edit in Davinici. Like all of us I enjoyed filming and the results a very big deal and the write ups and crazy camera setups as well. Such a fun challenge and awesome two days of filming and editing! Let´s do it again, guys! Next challenge ahead with great anticipation and exitement!

I'm writing a little late this cause everyone already revealed what camera they used. It was a very good surprise to know with which cameras the different videos were recorded!! The results were quite amazing! I had a little doubt about whether if my choice was within the rules or not. I shot it on a LG V30, yes, I shot it on a smartphone, which tecnicaly it's not a camera, but it can shoot video, I didn't used or paid any third party app, I used the stock camera. And the phone (which obviously comes with the lens) costs way less than $200. It shoots 4K with an amazing stock camera app, with all manual controls and shoots in LG LOG. It has quite an amazing dynamic range (s-log2 dynamic range level, not kidding). It has some quirks, which I'm gonna talk about in a video. It has some weird color shifts in LG LOG that need to be corrected, it has a really low 48mbps bitrate in 4K, not good for lowlight. But still, it is a camera under $200. The youtube compression didn't helped with the image quality so I've uploaded a 4K version of it. If someone is in the look for an affordable smartphone that shoots AMAZING video, I see this as the BEST ONE.

To be fair to the P4K, its Preset function does store many more of those complete camera setups (12 as opposed to 3) that you can switch to easily enough off the touch screen. They can also have meaningful names attached to them such as "Slow mo" or "Indoor Interview" or whatever so its a bit more intuitive than having to remember what the generic C modes mean. They can also be imported/exported from any of your attached media which is useful for sharing between multi camera setups. Against that, you don't have the comfort factor of being able to quickly reference which setting you are using by glancing at the top panel like you do with a Panasonic.

I'm in favour of keeping it a cinematography challenge, instead of a test of scriptwriting skill or something else. Happy to do another one. The more limits, the more creative. A phone challenge might be an option. I have my RED Hydrogen at the ready

Hi, congrats to all the participants. The reveal is really entertaining. My story: Based on recent improvement with Magic Lantern I purchased an EOS M to do some experiment a month ago, then the EOSHD challenge appeared (but with the Magic Lantern restriction ?). The EOS M was $150, still $50 left for the lens. The easy choice was a Canon FD, Minolta Rokkor, or the mighty soviet Helios or any vintage lens under $50. But I wanted to try something "different" to stay on the challenge track. A round trip to my treasure chest (my wife has a different name for that box) and I found something quite interesting, an enlarger lens : Beseler-HD 50mm 2.8 - I remember paying something around $30 max. but after checking the invoice and I actually payed $9 + $8 shipping - Then ordered an adapter in Russia - M42x1 to Canon EOS-M for $25. After 2 weeks, I received a snail mail with some nice Russian stamps and the adapter inside the letter. Added a 17-31 helicoid for focusing infinity and voila an unusual bokeh. Cheers.

After doing some research it seems all ursa mini might actually use Fairchild sensors. The new ursa g2 to my eyes has a different look, but it’s rumored to be an updated Fairchild sensor. With that said, it’s still the earlier blackmagics that do it for me.

I know you're talking and saying stuff but now that you've changed your avatar all I can hear is "a spooooon full of sugaaaaaaaaar helps the medicine go doooown!"....???

https://www.l-rumors.com/l5-panasonic-s1h-will-have-6-stops-in-body-stabilization/

A commercial for the craft-beer brand, Patanel. A Local brand deeply rooted in the Carabanchel district. Shot on Gh5s (minus a gopro timelapse)

Sounds good. I think having magnification to check focus when recording as well as more accurate battery levels would be a great help. GH5s low light at least.

themed that gives everyone a common place to start, perhaps the winners of the last challenge could pick a theme, that frees up andrew from doing all the thinking. Im in favour of using cameras but could use a phone as well i guess. you got 92 likes double the nearest person, you needed some down voting ?

So the manufacturer knows whats best for us now ? i'm not sure i agree with that view of yours, 24fps has been with us since film was invented. Its been a standard for a long time. personally i dont think removing it has anything to do with licensing fees or technical hurdles that need to be overcome they've already been there and done that. This is more about segmenting the market and bigger profits. I do have ridiculously high expectations, basically because its 2019 not 1980. If canon want me to buy a camera it needs to have all the bells and whistles, regardless of whether canon think i will need them or not. Not something that's been shot in the kneecaps and i will have outgrown in 3 months as my expectations and knowledge increase. There's a thread on here about how canon profits have plunged well if canon thinks they can keep doing dumb things like this their profits will keep plunging. perhaps media influencers and fan boy bloggers can keep flogging these cameras to new adoptees However all it will take is one smart blogger to say save your dollars and get the xyz camera as you'll probably outgrow your bargain basement camera in three months. so save yourself some dollars Another point that arises is the environment, can we really afford to keep buying tiered consumer production systems ? Say you buy a cheap camera outgrow it in three months buy something newer/ better. Hand it of to your wife, sister or brother maybe even your niece, they break it after using it three times and toss it, pretty soon we are all going to be living on top of trash piles. But the polar icecaps will have probably melted so we needed the elevation anyway ?

If you're a Mac user, there's a tool called Activity Monitor and in it you want to enable the CPU History and GPU History from the Windows menu. That will bring up graphs that show how much each of them is doing. Then you try and use Resolve and see what the graphs are doing. Typically you'll either see the CPU graphs (one graph per core) all at maximum while the video card isn't maxed out, or it will be the other way around. On PC I'm not sure what the tool is, but I think Windows will have something equivalent? Maybe someone else with a PC can help out here.. However, all of this is to work out what the bottleneck is, which will just tell you what hardware you have to upgrade. Back in Resolve, try reducing the timeline resolution, engaging Playback -> Proxy Mode, or disabling any colour grading you have done. To test if it's your disk drive (and assuming you're not editing off an SSD already) try copying the clips to an SSD and editing them. With multi-cam you're asking the computer to read and process multiple video clips at once, so if you have high-bitrate low-resolution clips (eg, 1080p clips) then reading the files off the HDD might be the bottleneck.

No ideas, but have you looked at your CPU/GPU/HDD usage and seen where the bottlenecks are? I can't find it, but I swear I read somewhere that DR16 moved a lot of processing from CPU to GPU so maybe that's what's causing your issues?

Now the P6K is with us, I think this changes the landscape a bit for the hotly anticipated cameras like GH6, A7Siii, etc. From my own perspective, I think the following improvements over a GH5 would be 'enough' to sell a bunch of them: Built-in ND that can be controlled by auto-exposure Being able to set the camera to a set aperture, a set shutter speed, and then having auto-ISO and auto-ND control the exposure for me would be spectacular. Higher bitrates / resolutions This would be some combination of: RAW 4K, 6K 16:9, and "8K-like" 4:3 anamorphic mode. Mix-and-match codecs and bitrates and framerates Being able to choose from any combination of bitrate (eg. 100/150/200/300/400/600/800Mbps), and codec (H264/H265), and frame rate (1/2/4/7/10/23.976/24/25/30/50/60/HFR) that the hardware is capable of would be great. Low framerates are great for time lapses or special effects too. Better stabilisation Not sure if better IBIS is possible, but adding a GoPro/OsmoPocket type EIS on top of IBIS would allow great SOOC clips in difficult situations. For bonus points, having a removable mount so you can either have MFT and use adapters, or go EF or Nikon if you wanted to (and maybe a S35 sensor with the smarts to know what lens is attached and adapt appropriately). Better low-light / dual-ISOs wouldn't go astray either. The GH5 is a workhorse, so keeping the ergonomics and practicality / reliability but adding an ND, bumping up the image, and making it more customisable would be spectacular. I am a very happy GH5 user, and when I look at the P4K I think "No thanks, I don't want the huge data rates of RAW, but I do need IBIS", and when I look at the P6K I think "No thanks, I almost have 6K, but I do need IBIS". The GH5 was released in early-2017 and is still winning against late-2019 cameras. Assuming that the GH6 is released early-2020 and needs to still be winning against late-2022 cameras, it will need these things, although they're not out of reach technically, it just needs a company willing to put them all into a camera, and Panasonic has a track record of that.

Basically, going to "f8" meant that you would be minimizing the technical variables --so you could concentrate on the stuff happening in the world. The things that are actually more important to creating nice images. Lighting, content, composition, etc.

Indeed. Someone as skillful as Mattias could use any camera, but the Canon EOS R helps him achieve his vision easiest. The $200 challenge should have shown people that it's not just about specs. We're incredibly lucky to have so many tools at our disposal, whether your budget is $200 or $2,000,000 there's no short supply of cameras that can help you create your vision. The issue with Canon, and I think some people maybe forget this, is not that their cameras are inadequate but that they take features away that hinder creativity while every other manufacturer has done the opposite, at least to some extent or another. Do you need 24p? No. Do you need DPAF in 4K? No. Can you use excessive crops? Yes. You can still create works of art with these cameras, even if it hinders your creative vision. But why should you have to, when you can use a GH5, X-T3, a6400, or hell even an old T3i? You shouldn't have to deal with those limitations because Canon decided they wanted to segment the market more and take away features in their lower end models that they've included for years.

They are on a glide-path to exiting the consumer camera market completely and exploring other avenues. And it shows!

Yes that would be awesome. Mayby some uncompressed DNG raw too...

A bit of an unnecessary poke at Mattias for sure, who is after all completely RIGHT about Canon's colour science, completely right that it's all about the image. Take colour, feel and the image composition away and add specs... and what do you have. Yes that's right... Shit all.

guys.... u kno theres p*rn online, right...? theres like... a million sites and the women are COMPLETELY NAKED

Let’s do a phones only challenge. And you can only use the default camera app!

Kye's guide to film-making for beginners: Step One: Go somewhere cool Step Two: Point your camera at awesome stuff Step Three: Go home and edit out the boring bits Step Four: Now edit out the bits that aren't completely awesome Step Five: there is no step five - you're done. Just enjoy what you made and show it to your friends. If you don't have something awesome happening in your film, basically at all times, then the settings won't save you! I actually give this advice to people IRL. Of course, it's basically useless. The people who need to hear this won't listen, can't edit, don't have time, or refuse to learn. The people who will listen have probably already worked this out

My vote is for GH2 and Helios challenge!!

The situation is worse for US users than for Europeans and PAL shooters, because I can't see anybody in the US wanting to switch to PAL mode and shoot 25p, with the interference pattern and banding under certain light sources that brings, and the loss of 60p. Constantly switching back and forth between PAL and NTSC is a ballache, especially if camera requests card format like Sony. It may be that YouTubers are all shooting 30p and Canon is only listening to the market, but I don't really believe for a second that this is anything but a cripple to protect higher-end 4K cameras from Canon including EOS R. Same situation on the GX7 III and new G5X II as well, only 30p and 25p on those. Let's hope the death of 24p doesn't become contagious and other brands start doing it. Canon set a bad example for the entire market.

I can’t wait for @Mattias Burling to tell us how great the camera is. You know it’s all about the image. Forget the specs. The Canon mojo!!

I reckon the 30p lovers should all go and tell Hollywood and Netflix to switch. I don't care if the camera is aimed at me or not, only Canon's marketing people do. The founding principals of the cinema look include 24p and it's as important as dynamic range, RAW, etc., 25p looks similar but 24p is the standard and you can't mix the two on one timeline. Canon know this which is why it's another Protect the Cinema EOS margins cripple. Which is a shame because the new sensor technology looks good, and has finally caught up to the readout speed of others. If you are calling yourself a filmmaker but prefer to shoot 30p over 24p you should be a bit embarrassed. 25p is another matter, that has the same cinematic feel to 24p. I shoot 25p quite a lot because I live in a PAL region. I am glad it has 25p. But I'm not happy with the 24p bullshit spreading on this forum and screen Hz judder-stutter-bullshit. Stop doing it. Tiresome to read.

The F3 did not initially launch with S-log, but it was promised to come in the future. And it did, with a VERY HEAVY PRICE TAG! (I think it was around three thousand dollars?? But then again compared to the price of the camera itself... perhaps not so extreme after all?). Then in response to the heating up competition (such as the Canon C300) then Sony dropped the price to just a few hundred dollars, and then later on released S-log "for free". (But the free version lacks 444)

Yes of course we all know the story with the M6 Mark II is that compared to earlier efforts such as the 60D or T2i, Canon finally had to drop 24p to save on the H.264 licensing fees which were really racking up a huge debt in their corporate bank account, and the other reason they had to drop 24p was that it takes just so much processing power to drop those 6 frames compared to 30p which is much easier, and the virtual garbage bin kept filling up with those frames and overflowing causing a memory leak and a security issue for people with smartphones connected, so 24p just had to go, and also the uncompressed 16bit 8K HDMI output could only run at 60hz for the screens on Atomos recorders so no 24p externally either, plus in Japanese the number 24 is associated with ghosts.

Everybody stop, we have been wrong all along for 10 years since the 5D Mark II came out with that silly 24p firmware patch, why they bothered with that and didn't just stick to 30p I don't know. All that stutter and judder from the cinema frame rate, damn my computer screen for not being a flickering 24hz scan rate, it's all the fault of those damned LCD panels!! Yes I wondered why the Arri Alexa looks so shit on my LG OLED. Bloody 24fps strikes again. Tut tut tut. *Checks notes* Canon are completely right to remove 24p and it has *checks notes* nothing to do with protecting the higher-end cameras. Better warn all those C200 users shooting their silly mismatched 24p for Netflix. They should all be shooting at 60p to avoid judder, and recommending people turn their TVs to Motion Smoothing mode, especially for those fancy daytime soap operas we used to call "films" like Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk. Quick somebody tell Scorsese! Why won't he get the 30p 60p memo??? Doesn't he know his scan lines are juddering and stuttering? And damn that bloody Spielberg still living in 1984. An affliction you mean? Yes, the look of cinema is the scourge of filmmakers everywhere. They should really go to a doctor for that 24p disease. I don't know how much you guys in these PR offices get paid by companies like Canon but I am fascinated by the work and script writing you put in. Should do a documentary about it... Shot in 30p of course.

Hi All, and well done to everyone who entered - a lot of fun was had from my part. Reading through the other comments, in comparison, my choice of camera was quite unadventurous as I used my Canon EOS M that I bought for £135 at the start of the year. It came with a 35mm F1.6 APS-C Television TV Lens/CCTV Lens For 16mm C Mount Camera and C Mount adaptor and 3 batteries. I felt like I cheated because I also used two other lenses for a few shots - whereas everyone else seemed to use one lens. As you can see in the picture below, I also used a Helios 44-2 58 mm f/2 Lens M42 Mount and also a Canon EOS EF-M f2 Pancake Lens (both borrowed from work - I work in a Photography department at a Univeristy). I also used a Zeadio mini tripod and cheap variable ND filter. I shot the footage using the Prolost Flat picture profile. I think that's most of the info. Oh yeah, I did a bit of primary and secondary grading in Premiere but nothing that major. So there you go. I guess I get to keep my camera - he he! Thanks to the peeps who voted for me!

That's genius!! You can, on this occasion keep a hold of your webcam I do love the fact you have fitted it to a rail mount, I say you build a shoulder rig for this! Extra points for rigging it up haha! Now I loved the image quality on this, for me it looked very filmic, granted its not terribly sharp but much sharper and better looking than I remember from EOS M footage. I guess that is down to a decently sharp lens which works wonders on the Canons. I was half thinking this was shot on a Sony of some kind but the skin tones and colours were just too good Had you said this was an EOS M from the start I wouldn't have believed you, there appears to be no aliasing and moire from what I can see, perhaps YouTube's compression is hiding some of that. Great job! Now for my reveal and I am really surprised to have won the vote for image quality! When I saw some of the entries I was sure I wasn't going to get anywhere near the top. Not that I was aiming to win, this after all was just a bit of fun! Now I will be honest, I nearly didn't enter. I saw the post on the blog and immediately took interest. I thought over it for a few days and done some research on what could be had for the £200 budget. Andrew- as a side note I did manage to find a large sensor, interchangeable lens 4K camera and nearly went down that route! At the time of Andrew announcing the competition it was peak wedding season for me (my full time job as a wedding and events filmmaker) and that had to take priority. When I checked back a few weeks later on the closing date for entries it was literally a week away! I took the plunge and bought something cheap in order to take part, paid for express shipping and bought a lens adapter via Amazon Prime. And here she is in all her glory! £69 body only from MPB photographic in the UK, and probably the ropiest one they had! It was pretty manky, didn't come with a body cap (omg that exposed sensor!! ?) and the SD card door doesn't close properly but I was determined to make this work. The lenses I used were two m42 vintage lenses I had lying around, first up a Pentacon 50mm f1.8 which I actually use in my professional work from time to time - its surprisingly good! For some longer shots I used a Carl Zeiss Jena 135mm f3.5 with the aperture blades stuck wide open - again surprisingly good considering the aperture doesn't function and it has been sitting in a bag without any caps on for years. The eagle eyed amongst you will notice in the above photo there is a Speedbooster attached. This is where I hold my hands up to a little bit of cheating! I bought a Gobe dumb adapter from Amazon as mentioned but knew that for some shots I had in mind the 100mm equivalent FOV I would have would be bit too tight. So for a handful of shots I did run with this - this potentially aided in producing slightly sharper results in some shots. I also used an SLR Magic Variable ND, again not the cheapest of filters! So feel free to disqualify me for this technical infringement! Before shooting my sequence I done a few test shots in the garden the reviewed the footage on the computer. I knew the AVCHD codec would be a potential struggle but didnt realise how bad it was until looking back on these test shots - the footage was already falling apart before my eyes! 17 Mbps is a long way off the solid looking 100+ Mbps i'm used to off my GH5! Not to mention how much moire I saw in the footage! Despite this, I found the 720p mode better with it's Motion JPEG codec so considered using this in my film. I shot with the "Nostalgic" setting with Contrast and Sharpness all the way down. For me this looked to have slightly better dynamic range and better roll off between tones than the "Smooth" setting, although the over all colour wasn't as nice. So, on one of the hottest days of the year I went into my home town and done some people watching. The little GH1 was a fair challenge to use as one might expect with how lucky we are with modern cameras these days. No focus peaking, no zebras, low resolution screen and viewfinder. Despite this, I relied heavily on the histogram to check my highlights, made sure not to film anything with too much motion which would exploit the weaknesses in the codec. I also threw in some 720p shots and upscaled them in the final edit. My biggest mistake was not taking my proper video monopod out to film, instead relying on handheld or a basic photography monopod. It wasn't until I went out for some golden hour footage I took along a proper tripod. Good old Warp Stabiliser came in handy! The edit was a quick couple of hours piecing together the best shots, no real story part from the obvious changing of time and I graded using one of James Miller's DeLUTs as a starting point, tweaking to my own taste. For me this was a refreshing challenge. Normally I opt to do some photography or go a bike ride to escape from my normal work but this was a cheeky day out filming to keep my creativity going at the height of working season. Filmmaking should always be about the fun and not about the expensive gear and with that I think I will arm myself with the little GH1 and see what we can come up with in the future. I will be writing a more in depth blog post on my own website so when that is done I will link that back to here. Finally I just want to say well done to PannySVHS for winning the best cinematography, I love the home video feel about this! Thank you to Andrew for coming up with this challenge and getting this little community together to create. Looking forward to more like this soon! Dan

Thanks a lot to all the competitors. This is a great idea for a contest and I love it. For the story, I went ahead and tried to participate. I picked a setup from what I had lying around, went to shoot and was pretty please with my day. However, when I saw the footage on resolve, it was so shaky that I couldn't use it. This was my last hope for this camera, and I had no time to re-shoot :s Just for laughs I went to shoot with this stuff. (Don't try this at home, this is the crappiest camera ever made for video) I can't wait for the next round ! Congrats to all participants you all did great jobs !

Looks like I can keep my camera! ? Congrats to the winner! And to others as well. You guys are all amazing. My setup is a Canon EOS M and a 7Artisans 25mm F1.8. I got the EOS M in a local store in Hong Kong. It costs me HKD $680, so bascially USD $86. Of course it is a used camera but I don't think the original owner used it much. As for the lens, I brought it from my friend. It is HKD $400, so about USD $ 50. It is really amazing that one can buy such a capable setup in under $150 US dollars! The moment I picked this camera up I fell in love with it. Even though it doesn't have the best ergonomics, I just want to shoot something with it immediately. And the colors is great. The auto white balance is actually really accurate. I would say even better than the other Canon cameras I have used! While the 1080P is quite soft, in my opinion, it looks more vintage than cheap. That are plenty of details. I don't personally like overly sharp image anyway. The lens is a manual prime lens but that isn't a problem. The focus ring is quite smooth. The build quality is nice enough. The vignette is very pronounced but I think it looks good so that doesn't bother me at all. At first I was planning to do a simple and low budget "music video". But due to some horrific things happening in Hong Kong, I didn't have the time and opportunity to do it. So I have to use the footage I shoot during a trip to Disneyland with my girlfriend and her friend. That was my very first time using the camera. My biggest challenge is that the EOS M does not have focus peaking. My eyes are quite bad. I need to rely on focus peaking to manual focus. That's why I missed my focus quite a lot in the video ?. Other than that I find this setup really easy to use. I shoot the whole video handheld. 1080P 24P. I even use auto white balance exclusively and it just works. I did a little bit of color grading and some stabilization in post (only for those panning shots). Many people buy the EOS M to use it with Magic Lantern. But for me, even without the Magic Lantern, the camera still works very well, even in 2019. It just becomes my new favorite!

Hallo, congratulations to all filmmakers and to your great films! Thank you all who voted for my film. @Nordee, very beautiful film and images you created and edited. It was one of my favorite pieces, with visual grace, taste and soul. Please keep your camera! By any means! I filmed with a semi classic, one of my favorite personal cameras, the Lumix G6. I bought it four years ago with the classic 14-45mm lens for 240EU. Nowadays you can buy the body for 100eu on ebay! Once graded in Davinci Resolve, I like their 709 image better than from the much more recent G7 and even GH5 cameras. My lens was the beautiful Fuji 12.5mm f1.4 C-mount lens, which I bought some time ago for 40 EU. My approach was semidocumentary, with half a handful shots staged. The cat didnt bother the lighting, of course, because it was of the tungsten kind, WB all way up to 9000K I think. I used the 2x digital zoom a good deal to give me two focal lenghts in one. The aliasing was a fair tradeoff for convinience and immediacy of filming. I graded and edited in Davinci Resolve, with some stabilization and noise reduction. I feel a bit euphoric now and also a bit honoured! So, thanks everyone! Oh, thanks Andrew, for "making" me buy this camera.:) Shots of my setup to come of course, when I´m home. best, Marty

Really fun to see the variety in cameras used, and I'm really happy to see I got some votes! Camera wise, I guess went the boring route. You can just about see in the picture, It was 138€ for the kit if you exclude shipping. This is my first M43 camera, and unfortunately the chinese adapters I ordered didn't arrive in time. I have a nice Zeiss 50mm 2.8 I could have used for some more creative results. I shot on the Smooth "film mode" with -2 contrast and sharpness, and used a preset "LUT" from Filmora, can't quite remember wich one. I was very happy with the picture quality.

The camera used was a compact stills camera, the Fuji FinePix E900. I bought it new for £140 in May 2007 and haven't used it for seven years (the first thing I had to do was reset the clock!). The 4:3 video it shoots (auto exposure only) is 640 x 480 x 30p. I enlarged this with a video utility to make it 1440 x 1080 x 30p before editing on a 1920 x 1080 timeline, so the "Academy" shape was retained. But absolutely no exposure or colour changes were made, so the colours you see are straight from the camera. Interestingly, it's the auto exposure (and it's sudden changes within a shot) that makes it look amateur, more so perhaps than the ultra low resolution. A sad sign of the times regarding increasing obsolescence: I took out the xD card to put in my computer multi-memory card reader, only to find that xD was not one of them! Luckily, the camera features a USB socket, so I could connect the camera directly to access the files. Michi: "I'm particularly curious to see what camera @TrueIndigo has used. I liked the colours of that one the most." -- This camera features a 9MP 5th generation Super CCD HR sensor. From the days when Fuji photsites were octagonal in shape and some were of a different size -- wild times!

I'm just going to provide my write up here. My shoot went from "What the fuck!?!?!?" to "Fuck it! I'm done, I don't care anymore..." I was excited about the contest and thought, I hit gold when I got the winning bid on ebay (see pictures) - cause it was mft sensor, had 4K and it was under $200. The lenses, I borrowed from friends and family, same with adapter. While I was waiting for the camera to come through mail, I started scouting locations and pre-planning shots, and coming up with a mini-story in my head. When the camera arrived, I had a solid 1.5 weeks to film and edit - I said perfect.... Thats when work (my real job) started getting busy and I was forced to take work home to complete the overloaded workload. Even then, I said... no problem.... I will just film during lunch hour, but everyday that week it was raining, and my co-worker who was willing to be the main subject of my video - he got busy and started working from home. One production delay after another... Now, the actual camera... I didn't know its flaws until after I purchased it, I should have looked at the reviews before even looking at this camera as a contender.... Its only 4K @ 30p no 24p, and there is zero aperture control while in video mode - so had to shoot wide open on the canon lens (and use variable ND adapter). There is no log, just 5 picture profiles, but I'm sure most here were facing that problem (if it is even a problem) - I just used standard profile. It had this flickering (modulating ISO, even when it wasn't AUTO) issue , but I figured out a work around (select Auto and then select HDR mode and call it a day). So, camera flaws plus production delays - then I see this shit: So, I got Used Yi camera without lens for $175, just to find out I could have waited to get a brand-new one with lens for $150. A day before the competition was supposed to end, I said "Fuck it" came across a parked old school taxi - filmed it for about 30 to 45 min. and editted it for another 45 min. Oh, by the way, did I tell you guys about how my macbook pro's audio jack was fucking up too... it was interfering with the audio speakers as well. So, I went over to my older editing computer which is still running FCP7 and some old version of Premiere. The only thing creative I did was add "Taxi" theme song to the track... lol... I didn't even color correct it, thats SOOC.

Sony A5000 (£100) and Nikon 18-55 (£49). ...And justify the €12.99 or whatever it was you spent on some delectable objet d’art!

Hi! My camera is an Olympus OM-D E-M5 (2012) with an old Canon FD 50/1.4 lens, used with a basic, cheap adapter. With a bit of luck and searching you can find an E-M5 for €200 (or a bit less) on eBay. I bought the lens also on eBay for a low price (I don’t remember exactly how much). No other equipment or colour grading was used.

It's fantastic and great fun to see what people used for this challenge. I bought this used Sony WX500 fixed zoom (30X) lens compact about 22 months ago on ebay for £133 plus postage. It has a 1/2.3 type Exmor R CMOS sensor and seems to be a cheaper version of the Sony HX90V minus the EVF, and I believe is missing some of that model's more sophisticated manual settings. It does have a flip-up LCD screen (not touch), which is useful for waist-level video and selfies. I shot the video using the XAVC S HD format at 25p which tops out at around 50mbps. You can also choose the same codec at 50p. AVCHD and MP4 are other options, but no 4K. Leaving it on automatic is ok but you can get blown highlights, and the ISO is pumped up to get a useable picture inevitably resulting in some noise in lower light conditions. However, there are some manual tweaks available. You can adjust and fix the ISO setting and, in the case of the Bexhill video shot in bright sunlight, I chose 200 ISO. I selected Multi Metering Mode, Focus Area Wide, Daylight white balance, Steadyshot Active, face detection ON and Low Soft Skin Effect. I didn't grade the footage, it's straight out of camera. Being a small sensor camera, optimal image quality is achieved by shooting in well-lit situations, which was the case here. I was impressed by the fine detail captured by the WX500, and the dynamic range in the scenes isn't bad at all. It's fair to say it's a surprisingly capable and inexpensive pocket video-cam with effective stabilisation.

i got a bit fixated on the losing camera bit, completely missed the fine print about entering just for the judges category. But thats life. I'm a bit surprised with the amount of entries or lack thereof, as i bid on 3 or 4 cameras but was out bid on everything. I was sure you guys must have been buying everything up for the competition. The old video camera segment of ebay must be quite abit more active than one would have thought. Too cut a long story short i ended up using a logitech c920 webcam with a letus anamorphic adapter taped to the front. My reasoning for using the letus was to help differentiate my entry from the others. i figure if speedboosters were allowed if you already had them an anamorphic should be ok as well. Not sure if anyone else shot anamorphicaly. Considering i went to the trouble of using the letus i did forget to get any footage of the lens flaring which was kinda dumb. Since my entry has proved surprisingly unlikely to win the point is moot i guess. I'm glad i entered i learned a whole bunch of things that i can apply to the next challenge. i am fairly confident i can increase my vote rate by at least a 100% next time round ? So dan the man pm me your address if you need a webcam for the odd late night online dalliance. Mind you, you can keep those tips,tricks and footage for your own personal gratuitousness ok ?

Now, that's called dedication! Great work, kye. Here is a picture of my setup: NEX5 (the original one, not N /R /T), which I bought for ~40 $ (it was missing battery, charger and, supposedly, its battery doors wouldn't close [they do, though]) + Helios 44-4 (which I bought many years ago in a combination with working Zenit ET for 20 $) and a cheap (10$) ND filter. It's got one of the quirkest video modes. You can lock the exposure during recording only by holding down the shutter button, otherwise it's full auto and shows a tendency to quickly ramp your ISO quite high. That's why some people came up with and idea like this: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:8270 Waiting for next reveals. (( :

Congrats to the winners - well deserved! I figured I would lose the competition so would have some fun with it, so went very very budget. I also wanted to see how far I could 'improve' the footage in Resolve. Camera #1: Fujifilm J20 Point and shoot - 2009 - 640x480 30p (final video was cropped to 16:9) Price is about $15-30 on ebay (mine was purchased by my wife when new, so has been sitting in a drawer for about a decade) Final video: Unprocessed footage: Camera #2: Fake action camera It claims 1080p, but is FAKE and shoots the worst 640x480 30p I have ever seen (final video was cropped to 16:9) Price was AU$17 brand new on ebay (which included free shipping across Australia - about 5000kms) Final video: Unprocessed footage: Camera #3 was going to be a D-Mount lens on my old GoPro, but sadly didn't survive the modifications..

He wasn't comparing it to a cheap Sony lens, but a very expensive E Mount lens:

Cheers, then we leave it there and I don't have to waste my time either explaining to gethin or others why I bothered with the sidetrack of editorial integrity. Back to lenses. I am primarily a stills photographer that sometimes work with video. I make very large prints for walls and/or publications. My knowledge and experience in photography is substantial. My knowledge and experience in video is limited. When considering the development of where lenses for still cameras (that can shoot video) are going the trend seems pretty clear. The large and heavy Otus lenses, the large and heavy but less expensive Sigma Art lenses, the Tokina Opera lenses as well as the lenses released for the Leica SL and for the Panasonic S1. Highly corrected optics that render incredible amounts of detail only necessary for prints or heavy cropping. In my experience, a sharp lens is as important as the sensor for large prints. I'm not a fan of the huge and heavy 1.4 lenses from Sony, Panasonic, Leica or the Canon RF 1.2 or the upcoming Nikkor 1.2. Not for general use. Sure I would have use for them in some situations, just as I would with a tilt shift lens or a telephoto, but for general use? No. A single focal length prime weighing around 800 grams or more is a specialised lens. As a much longed for contrast to the enormous and expensive 50mm 1.4 lenses we have the excellent Zeiss Batis line, the f2 series for Leica SL, and the Nikkor S 1.8 primes and compact zooms. Smaller, lighter and less expensive but without compromising optical quality. They're typically around 400 grams or lighter, while also being far less expensive and smaller. The Nikkor 50/1.8S is nothing short of a game changer. It's Zeiss Otus level optics for 600$! I've made prints from the 50mm 1.8G, the 50mm 1.8D and a bunch of manual fokus Nikkors, especially the excellent 55mm 2.8 micro ais. Stop the G lens down to 5.6 and its still not even close, the corners never catch up. The 55 micro has good sharpness across the image plane but not as good as the 50S. I can comfortably work at f2 with the S lens and still outperform older Nikons. There is no comparison. This would be remarkable enough, but then I also get top level weather-sealing, silent and fast autofocus, practical build with high grade plastics and build quality that puts Fujifilm to shame. Certainly better than the D lenses and personally I prefer them to G. The 50S is 400$ cheaper than the comparable Sony 55 f1.8 but the Nikkor is the better lens. The only other lenses I can think of in the same size class is the Batis 40mm f2 and the Leica SL 50mm f2, both quite a bit more expensive. The cheaper Sony 50mm is not on the same playing field at all. Neither the older Nikon 50's. It's laughable when I keep reading you can buy the 50 1.8G for 200$. Yeah? It's a crap lens in comparison. Doesn't mean its useless, just means it's not comparable and in my opinion the 50S offers far better value for money too. More or less the same is true for the 24-70/2.8S and the 35/1.8S. The 24-70/2.8S is apparently amazing while the 14-30/4 stomps all over the old 16-35/4G while being practical and small. For this reason, the optical performance together with the small size, low cost and practical features in comparison with other modern lenses, the S lenses are the best reason to buy a Z camera. There is not one bad lens (contrast with early Sony years). Over half a year in and I'm still ecstatic with what I get from these lenses. Doesn't mean I don't enjoy or want lenses with "magic sauce" or character. But there's endless lenses I can adapt to get that. I don't wan't my main workhorse lenses to have quirks. They should be as sharp as possible, with as little distortion as possible, to produce an image that is as transparent as possible, and that allows me to do anything from an instagram post to 1.5 meter wide prints. So the statement that S lenses aren't good I don't understand. I agree that non-linear electronic focus is a huge pain, but otherwise I'm not sure. I love using my 500CM which puts the haptic experience of any contemporary camera except Leica to sorry shame. The S lenses don't have head-line making specs like the RF glass. But for me, and I think for many, the S lenses are a lot more practical, offering similar or better optics at a much lower cost, weight and size. All of these modern lenses and sensors are extreme overkill for screen and social media use. All the manufacturers should release small and light lenses for 200-500$ that would be good enough for a lot of things.

Gethin, make an A2 inch print from that zhongyi and one from any of the Z lenses and see what happens. I don’t have the 14-30/4 but I hear it’s more than comparable to the 14-24/2.8G? I will get back to Andrew later. I understand his perspective, but it’s a niche perspective which he doesn’t specify. He cares about very specific things, which is fine, but a reviewers viewpoint should be clear and not be made to sound like a general matter of fact. On the other hand, generalising and simplistic statements that stir emotions through dishonesty for the sake of clicks is the name of the game these days.

“Of the Z lenses I have the 35mm F1.8, 50mm F1.8 and 24-70mm F4 – all of which cost me far too much money, only for them to be discounted almost to half price just a few months later.” Where can I find the 35/1.8S for half price? I will buy it immediately. Thank You Also Andrew, you keep saying how much you dislike the Z glass without making an argument for why they don’t work for you. It makes it difficult to take you seriously. I’m curious to hear why. Had I held off I could have bought the superior Z7 for almost the same money as my Z6 but I fail to see how this is Nikon’s fault? Early adopters often pay that price whichever the type of product. I fail to see how aggressive discounts (from all the manufacturers btw) in the face of a quickly shrinking market would not make sense? I disagree with you regarding the Z lenses. Great value for money. Better built than G or D lenses. Better put together than any Fuji X mount I had. The XF lenses may be metal on the outside but with far lesser tolerances, wobbling barrel on the 16-55/2.8 and slightly loose bayonet fitting on all lenses except the 50mm f2. I don’t think high quality plastics is a bad thing. It’s more practical in cold weather and often deals with impact better. Not to mention lower weight. The control ring has perfect resistance on all the Z lenses I have and the optics are better than anything I’ve ever seen. The choice to first release superlative quality F1.8 primes is more practical to most than what Canon has done. Super speed exotic heavy specialist glass with far fewer use cases, even if they do make for more exciting news it’s true. Theres nothing as good at the price or compactness as the 24-70/4S out there, the 14-30/4S is unique and optically on even footing with the twice heavy 14-24G. The new 2.8 zoom is supposed to be incredible. The primes so far are both spectacular. They’re quiet, fast and has what looks to be the best weather sealing out there (just look at the design of the seal at the base of the lens, I’ve never seen that construction before and it’s a much better design than just the rubber gasket you find on everything else). No focus breathing or other weird focusing behaviour. Almost no aberrations and no coma Extremely sharp with good rendering and neutral colour. Lens control ring awesome for exposure compensation or step-less aperture control. For sure it’s not like an old charming Sonnar, but I don’t need my standard glass to be full of “character”, I want it to be as neutral, sharp and true to the world as possible. The only problem I see is the lack of a setting for linear focus behaviour of the focus ring. And that the lens line is still small. But what we have so far is arguably the correct order of release for most. As of today the single best reason to buy a Z camera I believe is the lenses.

The TA-GA3 I assumed working as stacking a Techart adapter on a Techart adapter, you'd think they'd talk to each other. Seems I need to correct that part of the article as amazingly it doesn't! More worryingly still, no luck with the Leica M AF adapter either... The motor fires up but it just parks at infinity and does nothing in any AF mode. In the full review I'll make all of this clear. Need to test more and ask Techart what the firmware update situation is.

Hmmmm, for my purposes as a wilderness and adventure shooter where everything is on my back in the mountains and in the back of bush planes, I couldn't disagree more about the native Z glass so far. Small, light, razor sharp edge to edge, no focus breathing, no chromatic abberation, weather sealed and built really tough, I've been hit by a big wave with the 24-70 on my Z7, rinsed it with 1 litter of fresh water and kept shooting. I've got the 24-70 F4, 50 1.8 and 14-30 and I love them. Sure, the focus by wire stinks for video focus pulls and star work, but that's where the adapters come into play. I'm personally selling a lot of my 2.8 F-mount glass and all of my Sony gear except the voigtlander 10mm F5. 6. That lens is the only reason I'm looking at this adapter.