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First I'd like to say that I appreciate that the Lenses sticky thread is now it's own Sub-Forum. It really allows members to post more specific topics and it allows readers to ignore topics that may not be useful for them. With that said, @noone had a great idea creating a topic with one of his favorite lenses... so I figured I'd follow suit with one of my favorite lenses... Nikkor 35mm 1.4 ai-s As I started writing this brief, real world review, I realized that this lens represents a larger story of me as a filmmaker as it chronicles the highs and lows of my life since I started shooting my film... So what started as a brief review morphed into a much longer story. If you don't have the time or inclination, stop now. For those that are still interested... here we go... I love fast, wide angle lenses. They offer shallow depth of field while allowing you to get close to your subject. And a fast 35mm straddles a wide angle FOV and a normal FOV making it almost the perfect full frame, focal length for my style of filmmaking. This is my second copy of this lens and truth be told... I've almost sold this lens a half a dozen times over the past year. My first copy I bought when I started shooting my film. I had a simple game plan... the Canon 24-70mm f/4 IS lens for daylight and the Nikkor for lowlight. Here are a couple frames from the first shots I took with the lens for my film. For some reason I decided to go a different route for my lowlight shots and bought a Canon 35mm f/2 IS lens. In most ways, the Canon is a better lens, but it lacks the charm of the Nikkor even if it did match my zoom a little better. At the time, my film was moving along at a steady pace, so I decided to keep the Nikkor for a different, upcoming film... Well... Life had a different plan, like it often does, and some unforeseen medical issues in my family slowed production to a near grinding halt. With those medical issues came some unforeseen financial issues and I was forced to sell a bunch of lenses. For a brief time I thought I'd be forced to sell my camera as well, but I luckily made it work. Before I sold the Nikkor, I decided to take it out for a final spin. Here are a couple frames from that last day with the lens... By this time, I was also forced to sell my Canon zoom and my Canon 35mm f/2. Over the next 6 months I raided my closet to test any and every lens I had that could work for my film. Luckily, during that time, I found a Canon 28mm 1.8 listed on eBay "For Parts" for peanuts. Needless to say, I won the auction and found another one of my favorite lenses born from need. For the next 6-8 months, the Canon 28mm 1.8 lens became the only lens I used to shoot my film and at the time, I couldn't be happier with the results. But I still missed my Canon zoom and my Nikkor 35mm 1.4. Last year, I came into a little extra money and immediately sought another copy of the Nikkor and after a few weeks, I found one. With the extra money in my account, I took the opportunity to test a bunch of lenses I couldn't otherwise afford but always wanted to try. I tested some beautiful lenses but being a hobbyist, I needed to contain my obsession and build a couple logical lens sets. I used the end of my sporadic shooting days to test a lens. My method was simple, use my main actor as a model in the same locations I was shooting my film. Here are a few frames from those tests... After hours of deliberation and footage, I finally realized that I don't change lenses that often and I grew to like the idea of a single POV, from a single lens, as if the lens' FOV represents an invisible narrator's eye. I used my feet to zoom and put together a simple rig consisting of a closed monopod with a tilt head and a tape measure pouch clipped onto my belt. The bottom of the monopod fits snuggly inside the tape measure pouch giving me a stable image with a handheld-like flexibility. During these tests, I realized that I had way too many lenses and could easily shoot a short film a month, for well over a year, and never reuse the same lens... What was I thinking?! I am just a hobbyist with no delusions that I will make the next great indie film. This was getting out of hand. So I set up a final round of testing and narrowed down my keepers to a grand total of 5 lenses with the only "set" consisting of my Canon FD 50mm 1.2 L and my Canon 28mm 1.8. At the time, I even contemplated selling the Nikkor 35mm 1.4 one more time to keep with my minimalistic utilitarian approach. But after some careful thought, and some good advice from some other EOSHD members, I decided to keep it. Although I was still unsure if I needed the lens, after a recent go at some of the footage with my mediocre color skills and my crappy monitor, I came up with these frames from one of my test shots... Although, I realize that none of these shots are particularly spectacular, but each one represents something I like about cinematography and tells a story about my life over the past 3 years. Sometimes the gear we buy is more than just tools for the stories we tell... they become part of the story... part of the journey. Maybe I am being too sentimental but when I look at these perfectly imperfect images taken with a perfectly imperfect lens, I remember the moments that brought me from then to now and what I learned during that process... This lens taught me that my equipment is better than I am. I learned that I don't have to shoot everything wide open and that I probably shouldn't if I ever want to pull focus on an actor walking. I learned that some lenses have a vintage look when wide open, but when stopped down can look crisp and modern. But most importantly, I learned that I need very little to make a movie and gear is the least important. If you're interested in a more technical review, I recommend Ken Rockwell's review of the lens. He gets into the nitty gritty of the characteristics of the lens. I feel he's a little too hard on the lens but everything he writes is dead on accurate... https://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/35f14ais.htm For me, I can sum it up in one paragraph... The Nikkor 35mm 1.4 ai-s lens has a warmer tone and when shot wide open, the images are dreamy, a little soft with a ton of coma on the edges. Stop it down to f/2 and it cleans up a little. By f/2.8 it's like you're using a different lens and that lens is as sharp as a knife. It's like having two lenses in one with both being sharp enough with a bunch of character. So there you have it... thanks for reading.

Today I am told there is no 6K/60p. Maybe they can do 6K/24p, or most likely it will stick to 4K/60p. However the rest makes it all worth it. Can't wait until the announcement later this month.

Any word on video record limits? Seems like if they wanted to go after Panasonic for the hybrid video king, you would need to figure out how to never overheat and have no clip limits. I am actually unhappy with my S1. I've had issues with various (expensive) SD cards. about 1 in every few hundred clips will not write to the card forcing me to pull the battery. This happened on a paid shoot and was very embarrassing. I don't want to record onto an external device (loud/power hungry/heavy/expensive). I was planning to get an S1H as an A cam and S1 as a B cam, but now that I'm having trouble with the S1, I am considering getting 2 XT-4s and moving to the Fuji system. But if there are overheating/video clip limits, that is going to be a deal breaker no matter how great the images are.

I usually have to watch 9 YouTube videos to get the information I could read in a single paragraph on a blog post... Always remember that the message is the medium. Certain people are good at certain mediums, and some people suit other ones. I prefer to write and shoot. I don't enjoy presenting. So this is a fundamental choice to make if you want to set out on a YouTube adventure. You may be better putting your talents into a written blog instead. The big reason people like Peter McKinnon and Philip Bloom suit YouTube and have made it successfully in that medium, is that they are both big on presentation and charisma. If you add that to the lusted after skills they seem to demonstrate and their glitzy lifestyles with thousands upon thousands of dollars of gear, then you start to see how there is a strong element of showbiz to it all, which allows them to take over so much airtime. The truth is that this is an unrealistic job for 99.9% of the population. Thankfully there are far more paths than just this to getting noticed as a filmmaker.

seriously guys, this is like a conspiracy theory sequel, you guys just need to sign julia and mel 😉 from the photos, seems like someone got a lemon and understandably h'e'd be upset. Most of us would be upset too. Sadly life is not a box of chocolates, not all the time anyway. This is precisely why i bought new, so that i would be covered under warranty, that way, i was covered if anything did go pear shaped. Really i cant say how many units bm have shipped around the world however i'd expect a very small percentage to have issues whether thats manufacturing, transit or something else. but the same could be said for any company. I think the facts bear this out we haven't seem a mass recall of p4k's or p6k's. Certainly some people for whatever unexplicable reason got a defective unit. Sadly in this day and age after about 5 minutes to resolve the issue ( no pun intended ) its all dumped on the internet for the consumption of the whole world. Which seems like to me at least more of an attempt to vilify rather than resolve an issue. I cant see how airing dirty laundry in the forum is productive at any level, bmd is not the empire striking back 🙄 it seems extremely optimistic that someone would buy a new model of camera then take it on a professional shoot days later. Nobody buys a rocket, lights that thing off and expects it to make it to the moon and back the first time 🙄 any piece of equipment needs a suitable time of testing and proving, regardless of what it does. If your doing something special with something brand new and said equipment fails, well i think you only have your self to blame. I'm all for whistle blowers, their the last bastion against wrongdoing, be that at government or corporate level. But if two individuals having a bad day they but heads, its going to get messy real fast regardless of it being corporate or football, add a bit of pride and the situation is generally unrecoverable. Ultimately rightly or wrongly its the boss who pays the cheque so he gets the last say. Not sure we need a royal inquisition to sort everything out all of the time. Unless you could prove bmd are using a child labour slave force i don't think its any of our business. what goes on. mercer i cant say i agree with you about bm cutting corners. I haven't owned any earlier bmd cameras. For me i can hold the p4k in one hand and a canon and a number of older but still usable still cameras in the other. it looks and feels like any of the other plastic housed cameras that i own, it seems solid enough after 8 months or so it hasn't fallen apart, the pcb hasn't fallen out neither has the battery door been an issue. sure it would be nice to say that the frame was magnesium and all that crap but that may have put it out of my range perhaps. Personally i cared abit about the image, there was enough evidence from previous bmd cameras for me to justify lashing out on a new p4k. I figure bmd is australian, i'm australian, i should be a little bit patriotic.🏳️ with a p4k i should future proof myself for little while. Anyone that denigrates the original image from the pocket has to be an idiot. I suspect that some people have a need to feel special or privileged perhaps, any thing that impacts on that aura tends to get denigrated pretty quickly. There are many cinema cameras out there that give a great image, it really shouldn't matter what one chooses to work with. I chose the p4k others may opt for an arri or something else its their choice. i''m kinda blunt at times i may or may not of inadvertently trod on some toes if i have offended you thats too bad, but feel free to downvote me 😀 if i appear like a bmd fanboy so be it, btw i'll get my own box of chocolates😉

If you don't care about filmmaking, then "peak camera" hit for DSLRs years ago. For most buyers a Canon 5Dmk2 / Nikon D7100 / etc (zillions of older cameras out there!) are plenty overkill for their stills needs.

I should receive my One R this week, the 360 module does not seems any better than the One X that I have, but the waterproof and the screen is a good upgrade for me as the venturecase is a piece of c.... so I will sell the One X as I used a lot in the snow and water. The 360 reframe quality is not yet ready for prime time but is so good to reframe in post that for certain type of action is unbeatable. The 1 inch module seems a good step up from the hero 8 and similar. One cool thing is that you can enable or disable the stabilization and the fov in post..... the hero 8 is already processed so if you set the wrong one or you don't know if is better with what level of stabilization you are toasted…. I was shooting last week some rally cars with some hero 8s and when I wanted the hypersmooth on I had it off and vice versa….

I have had this lens for ages. Not something I have used a real lot but I do love it and think I am going to use it as the only lens I use for a few weeks. Mine does not have a build date mark (that I can find anyway) and is a battered old copy externally but nothing wrong with the glass. A small lens for the speed. Is actually usable in a pinch for landscape infinity shots though much better stopped down or close in. Has a large hand ground front aspheric element. On Sony it also works great as a super fast 2x zoom for jpegs and video. Well worth getting if you can get one at a decent price (there are some that are at collectors prices on Ebay). Just snaps walking around. wide open and 5.6 at distance. Close in at 1.4 and again at 2x clearzoom. I took a photo of a friend I met that i would love to post but do not think she would appreciate it. Will have to find a nice stranger to shoot and post as well as video from it.

My partner's last feature to be currently distributed in NZ with the support of NZ Film Commission, Australia, U.S., Brazil, Europe, among more than a dozen of territories worldwide, shot on Blackmagic Production 4K camera recommended by me BTW @CaptainHook @John Brawley with more than 20TB cDNG native footage. Just my two cents... The feature is much more interesting than the trailer. Superb cinematography and grading BTW, without mention directing work and original soundtrack by one-man-show Bernie Rao:

Yes a lot to look forward to... Top of my list would be: Better RAW codecs, all internal, smaller file sizes GFX 100 specs coming down to a lower priced Fuji medium format camera Fuji digital cinema camera Sony Venice colour science... in an A7? Canon catching up with Sony and Panasonic on specs with R5 X-T4 ProRes in more cameras (or will hell freeze over first?!)

absolutely. running a youtube channel isn’t about the channel itself. it’s about the other streams of income you make to pay for everything else. again... brand deals are where it’s at. i only make around $900 a month off ad revenue for example. the rest of my money is from all the other things like affiliate and brand deals

it’s a combination of subs, views, comments, audience engagement that led to getting an agent who lands the brand deals. that’s the majority of my income. half of it is through sponsorships. the rest is all related to ad rev and affiliate

The point is that Andrew can only write a review based on his experience with the camera and his experience with their customer service. He never said that the BM image or what they offer at the price point is bad, he merely wrote his experiences with it... what more can a blogger do?

Here's a curious comparative sample:

I don't feel BMD is perfect... what company is. Perhaps they're guilty of having bitten off more than they can chew. A small company trying to over reach themselves in delivery; but they've at least delivered a product that has made a mark on the video industry. One only has to look at how many have viewed and replied to the Pocket 4K thread on this forum to see that. For all its faults, there are plenty of people using this camera and using it very well.

Whilst bashing BMD seems to be the main ingredient of this thread, I should counter that I've owned 2 Pocket 4Ks and they have both been free of faults, dust on sensor and any imperfections or marks on the body. I've also having met some BMD staff found them polite and open to dialogue. We have enjoyed numerous updates for the Pocket 4K. Not paid updates like Panasonic have recently introduced, but free updates that have added BRAW, new functions and recording resolutions, plus fixes that have addressed issues raised by customers. Which at least proves they do listen to customers. However they may run their Business and frankly their reviews whilst bad, show no difference to any other company I have worked for or dealt with, they did release a camera that has given internal RAW at a remarkable cheap price, along with a superb editing software for free. A software that comes with free updates. Unlike Adobe, which makes you pay a subscription to use their software. Where is the Sony camera offering 60p internal RAW, or Panasonic or even Fuji. Which DSLR or Mirrorless offers Professional functions like ProRes recording, punch in focus during recording, SSD recording, with a price tag at this point. I'm not denying there are other great cameras out there, but whilst some can speak differently, there are also many owners of the Pocket 4K and 6K, who don't have an issue with either the form factor of the camera or their communication with the company.

I thought something similar, but in a meanwhile I learned that them (BM) are arseholes, and those who don't see them exactly as such, must see them (BM) as the messiah.

Looking at a couple of the series from Japan I notice a lot of young beautiful women and a lot of weathered old people. There’s a history of objectification with most of his motifs. Coupled with the black and white hard contrast look that many great Japanese artists have wielded for me the portfolio becomes mostly style and little substance. It’s nowhere near for example Parr or Gilden. They are beautiful photographs but as far as art goes it’s nothing special.

Shot this with an XT3 and GH5.

you'd be looking for a color shift I assume? I could shoot it against a grey card

Obviously, Blackmagic needs to cut some corners to deliver products at this price point. But this generation of cameras seems to be a turn in the wrong direction. The P4K would have been a steal at $1799 or $1999 and would have given them a lot more margin for their build quality. Other than the normal BM annoyances, the OG Pocket and the Micro were solidly built. If you had a YouTube channel, with the instant subscribers and viewers you'd receive, discussing these issues, I'd bet money they wouldn't dismiss you so lightly. I'm sure with your skill you could put together a great looking video showing the pros of the BM IQ and when you add the cons of their build quality and customer service things may change... at least with the way you've been treated. Right now, BM have enough "ambassadors" giving them the freedom to deny, deny, deny. Unfortunately we've seen it on this forum by some people whose work I truly admire. Try saying that you prefer the image of the OG Pocket/Micro to the P4K, in the P4K sticky thread, and you'll see somebody pop up to denounce your opinion. The whole thing is kinda creepy. At least the Red fanboys stay at their own site. Lol.

Good news for us, we can now sell everything and shoot on an iPhone knowing that somebody in 100 years will neural-network the footage to make it look like its shot on an Alexa.

Thanks! We were walking to a location one shooting day and an impromptu shot came up, rather than extend the monopod, I stuck it inside the pocket of my hooded sweatshirt and that worked a lot better than my laziness thought it would... the tape measure pouch was bought the next week at Home Depot.

I hear this a lot, but I have no problems with it at all - what's the beef? Granted, I only do minor adjustments, but I'm not running into anything that's all that challenging.

Very good review / tutorial on how to use Prores Raw by french vloger Emmanuel Pampuri. The video is in french but it's easy to follow his workflow in FCPX. It's acutally quite different, as he doesn't use the "sony s-log" "lut" in FCPX to get excellent results (starting at 14m08s). Enjoy Edit : Also Adobe should give an update on Prores raw support in the next couple of weeks #finally....

Maybe RAF camera can do something? Very good quality and good prices too.

It seems that at least in 2.3x or so ratio Voigtlanders might also work completely without vignetting

The upscaling software is Topaz gigapixel for video, this software is in current closed beta for developers and testers to use, is not in the web page. But, since I'm in the beta test page, i can provide a link: https://topazlabs.s3.amazonaws.com/packages/win/videoenhanceai/VideoEnhanceAI-1.0.1-windows-x64-installer.exe?fbclid=IwAR2fORNpdKqvFvleUeH_xkvNOfmz3c92tjigWOwcMRsKrb5-WP6NseMlaWE Bye!

I was lucky enough to break six figures last year with 73,000 subs. I’ve never enjoyed my work more and i’ve never made more in my life. I highly recommend it if you’re thinking of starting a youtube channel.

Okay, so you're right - there's something going on here. Although my 800 is stable and i got a quick flicker in 400, just once at the start of recording. There was a fix to the original firmware that 'stopped' something that sounded like this. But clearly hasn't. Although it's not something i've seen in the footage i've shot - so i can't say it's always happening. I've gone to the source of the files and i believe there's some scaling to the channels that is the cause, in which case there's hope to fix the data before debayer if it has caused a problem. In the DNG's there is a value called black level, which is subtracted from the image. I see different minimum values for this across two DNGs and i can compensate for that in RAW Digger to see. Even doing that i believe there is a scale going on with the channels. If it's something that can be sorted it would be best to sort this before debayer in the RAW DNG files. I will have a word with them to add to any other reports sent. What we should work out are the circumstances under which the camera does this... cheers Paul EDIT: So i've passed on the files to sigma and see what they say. Useful for others that have similar files to do the same.

Please send your findings to sigma so they can make a firmware update with fixes

H265 most likely.

Why must you do this to my wallet!

I've got a nightmare of a setup (but really, I can't complain) 7D Mark II EOS R C100 (Mark 1) Vixia GX10 These profiles are fantastic - namely, because Canon Cinema 4 seems to match quite closely to the Wide DR setting on the C100 (as well as the GX10). I can now shoot four cameras on Wide DR and have matchable footage.