Andrew Reid

Got the app, will be installing soon. Android only for now but iOS app coming October. I noticed the phone battery drained from 95% to 0% over night because I left the LukiLink plugged in to the USB port... They could do with fixing that in the final version. Remember, my hardware is pre-production!

I wish we didn't have to guess at the size of the various markets for cameras. They vary a lot and even depending on the country or region. Do small chip camcorders really matter more? Or is it speculative nonsense? Do pro DSLRs make more money than the consumer range? We don't really know. Personally, I think the mirrorless camera market is very large, and makes a larger turnover for the manufacturers than the pro DSLR market, but with smaller profit margins per unit, therefore they have to achieve enormous scale to make a profit. Perhaps the overall profit is larger from the pro divisions... But again, we are speculating until we know the truth. The "DSLR video" market, a catch-all term that includes mirrorless cameras, is very large and broad, across a number of different customers from consumers up to pros and even Hollywood, it has a high aspirational quality to it and a lot of the next great DPs and filmmakers will start with these cameras. I'd say it matters beyond the numbers. Canon Japan Corp. would probably disagree. By the way judging from 7 years of EOSHD visitor stats, the largest market for DSLR video is in the US, by quite some margin. Asia barely registers and it's not just a language thing. Perhaps the local disinterest in filmmaking and video is skewing Canon Japan's judgement. In that case, Canon US should be pushing them a bit harder.

I don't consider removing features like Canon LOG a committed spec bump for video users. The 1DX II is the kid at school who could have been president if only he did his homework. So two things going on here... the market for professional photo journalists and sports shooters... And the market for consumer electronics and televisions. In the photo journalist market Canon and Nikon rule and it is very hard to break the deadlock, props for Sony to try with the A9 but it's a first effort in a VERY long haul, especially to break the stranglehold of the Canonikon lenses. The consumer electronics market, the 1DX and D5 are nowhere, they don't often appear in shops or even on Amazon, and that is where 4K is most important for Sony and Panasonic, because it doesn't just sell cameras, it sells TVs and other AV equipment as well. Canon don't make TVs so they don't think they need to be a part of the market. Where this will hurt them is with the pro video and rental market, and with us enthusiasts... They are dropping the ball. The C300 II wasn't as successful vs the FS7 and FS7 II, as Canon would have hoped for, and it has already had a big price drop or two. The C300 is old, past it, people are selling them in large quantities... how do I know that? Because the used price has fallen so much (increased supply vs falling demand). The C200 II is the real replacement for the C300 but the reception has been lukewarm and the codec isn't competitive vs Sony. Perhaps they will drop the C300 II price further or quickly bring out a Mk III instead and drop the C200 down a peg. The reason the C-EOS camcorders are going to struggle due to poor video on Canon DSLR range is complex but all to do with the eco-system of EOS bodies, EF lenses, halo effect, marketing, brand perception, upgrade paths, up-selling, enthusiasts turning pro, all sorts of factors. Canon need to get a grip and fast.

Those hoping for a follow up to 2012's Canon 1D C may want to curb their enthusiasm. Read the full article

Right so that's a full sized USB 3 female output, and you can get a cable from that which goes directly to USB C. Quite ok with that. Hopefully Frank can send me the final unit to review as well. I think it is due out in October?

The h.264 is pixel binned as well, so it isn't just compressed to hell, 8bit, 4:2:0 and probably with some weird Canon intentional crippling in terms of resolution The 3.5K is a full pixel readout of a Super 35mm width window of the sensor with no binning or line-skipping. Crop the centre out of a full frame 22MP RAW still and that's now your video mode. Enjoy!

Good to know, I must have overlooked that info from Frank. What sort of female connector, did they say? USB C female connector is a bit more solid than the older USB mini connector, not as wobbly.

Fitted it for first time to one of my Android devices... I am using a spare Axon 7. Could use Samsung S8+ as well but that's my main phone and Axon 7 is right up there with OLED screen and great battery life. Whole thing is super small and light... Can't say the same about many much more expensive HDMI-monitors. A real relief not to have to add Canon batteries to the back. It is nice how incredinly light it is... In total (cable, clamp, LukiLink) it adds a barely noticable weight to the smartphone. Very impressive on that front. The only thing I'd like to see changed is the cable on the LukiLink. It isn't swappable and has a large legacy USB connector on the end, when my phone is USB-C. That means the cable sticks out quite far from the phone because I have to use an OTG adapter. My link to download the pre-release copy of the app from Frank expired before I got to it, but will hopefully get that installed tomorrow on my device and start testing. As you can see from the photos I stuck mine to the back of the smartphone clamp rather than the phone itself, so phone can be de-attached in an instant and used seperately at any moment. So yeah initial pros and cons... Pros Super light Small physical footprint on the phone Clamp and locking velcro work well HDMI port can exit at any angle, lots of choices with mounting the port (I have it pointing downwards from back of screen) Cons Wish it had a USB C slot instead of a fixed standard USB cable Wish the hotshoe ball socket for connecting to camera was just a small hinge about 1cm high instead. Always hated these ball-socket things and spidery arms.

I am confident everything will be fine with this. They have had a very good response with over 800 backers and it's well on track to get to 90,000 euros from 70,000. I've received my review unit already, so it's not vapourware. Let's see how it performs...

Indeed. The older versions of MLVFS don't recognise the new lossless compression used to make 3.5K possible at reasonable data-rates. Update all your Magic Lantern workflow software including Resolve 14 now it's out of beta.

Yeah would love to. I'll let you know, Always wanted to visit Stockholm! You can see that in reality, the light makes more difference than 10 years of sensor improvements I still can't quite seem to part with my M9 even though I got a bargain on a M-P (based on Typ 240) recently and the live-view is a great bonus. It has video, but not used it much for that yet. Kodak did the best sensors in the world before they flushed it all down the toilet. The Hasselblad medium format chips were leading the entire world in sensor tech in 2007, before Sony was even in nappies and lagging Canon. Sure today Sony has the march on tech specs vs everyone else in the CMOS market and the largest share too. But do they have SOUL???!

Sweden must have a very cool used market because in the UK the Q goes for a minimum of £3000 second hand (last year it was £2700... it's gone up because of rarity) That's £1000 more than a used A7R II. Leica are keeping stocks low on purpose to uphold the prices. Hardly anyone has new stock in the UK at the moment. I should visit Sweden and tour the classified ads before I get another Leica I will probably sell my Sony RX1R II soon if anyone is interested, I'll post it on the forum for sale section! So around £2400?... A nice bargain. Red Dot Cameras in London has them used quite regularly, in mint condition with warranty... But you will pay £3000 for one. Easier to handle if you divide it in half and say £1500 was for the 28mm F1.7!

The Batis is a very good lens and with 42MP you have ability to crop to 28mm, 35mm, even 50mm no problem. So it's a very capable choice on paper. I just dislike intensely the way it handles ergonomically as a stills camera... With the amazing video specs you kinda forgive it for being such a potato... But not for stills, vs a Leica. And it is of course much heavier and larger than the Q. Badly balanced, soulless feel, fiddly buttons, you name it. The live-view is 60fps on the Q and super sharp, it feels 3D and has a pop to it... The A7R II live-view feels slower, mushier, with iffy colour. I also prefer the JPEGs from the Leica and the lens is a 28mm F1.7 - longer and faster aperture means more shallow DOF than the Batis 25mm F2 The EVF is much sharper on the Q and it's a more responsive camera in general... start-up, menus, continuous burst, etc. I also find the AF to be right up there with the A7R II, sometimes quicker, which you don't expect from a Leica. The RX1R II has a dreamy rendering, the 35mm F2 feels very different to the 28mm F1.7 on the Q It lacks some of the 'drama' and 'excitement' of the Q's lens when you nail a shot though. It has less 'energy'. Personally I like both for image quality and it depends on what you're shooting which one comes out the better... The RX1R II is quite a bit smaller... But not as nice ergonomically, it feels cramped and the pop-up EVF is very uncomfortable - pokes you in the eye socket. And of course 35mm isn't quite wide enough vs 28mm, to be considered for wide-angle work. Ideal for general purpose stuff though. Sony should have put a 28mm F1.4 on there Yes but the AF-S is better on the Q most of the time and the lens is quieter focussing. The RX1R II lens still grinds like the old RX1. It's close with video, I don't see better DR on the RX1R II - it lacks S-LOG for a start. Both 1080/60p images are quite nicely detailed on the Q and RX1R II. Maybe slight edge to the Sony but better colour on the Q. It's easy to underestimate the Q and think "is it worth the money"? I didn't think it was the first time I tried it, so sent it back to the shop. This is my second go, because I missed it A LOT, thought it all the time, especially every time i took a one-off nice photo on my Samsung S8 and realised it would have been even better on the Q by a factor of 10. There is nothing else like it which is full frame. There's only the RX1R II but that has a very different design philosophy behind it... It lacks the Leica minimalism and the features don't have room to breathe. The value of it isn't just in it's scarcity though, the images are insane. Both are superb cameras (RX1R II and Q) - the most fun you can have with a stills camera aside from maybe the Noctilux on a Leica M. Until there is a mirrorless camera system as good as the Q and as small, it will remain very unique.

EOSHD Pro Color is doing its job in this one... It looks much better than the Sony default and Canon 60D, which has an anaemic, zombie like quality The white is clipping on the 60D shot, which is why it looks bright-white compared to the EOSHD Pro Colour shot (see the book under the speaker and the curtain / window area). The EOSHD Pro Colour shot has more dynamic range and is picking up the ambience of the light cast on the white surfaces better too. As for clinical images, no ambience, no soul... Who wants that?

The thing with scientology is it isn't actually a religion, it's a cult and a money making ploy. So the usual rules of not judging somebody by their religion doesn't apply to scientologists. I instantly distrust them. Watch the Louix Theroux documentary on it... very good and illuminating.

It doesn't, but it does seem to affect his pricing

He charges $700 for his online guides. That is enough to make anyone into a jealous communist! I charge $20 for mine! Maybe I should start LeicaScientology.com

Yes it's experimental. We all realise that. No amount of analogies with mechanical cars and mechanical cameras (Super 16 film) will convince me they are relevant to software and processors though

Haha is he? I've always found him a bit odd... that would explain why.

Nothing to do with the "emotional truth" that's for sure. More that it has nothing to do with the topic. Also that it demonstrates nothing, either artistically or technically. And that it isn't even aesthetically pleasing. Well done anyway!

Dude, why are you taking webcam style photos of yourself, posting them on the forum and claiming that a Leica doesn't give you better quality photos. Am I missing something? Are you a troll planted by a rival blog to make the forum virtually unreadably off-topic? There is no artistic delusion to shooting with Leica lenses. The Noctilux is the most artistic and creative lens I own! Please don't post any more self portraits. If you have a dog, shoot that instead.

Quite interesting to look at the unprocessed DNG raw image from this camera... The JPEGs are 6000x4000 from a 24MP sensor. The raws are actually 6015x4015 and the lens seems a bit wider than 28mm. Here it is in Affinity Photo without the in-camera distortion correction - Here is my same shot graded in Adobe Camera Raw which has the distortion correction map applied by default - This is a big departure for Leica who have been vehemently against digital correction of their optics. Another clear sign of Panasonic's influence in the Q. When the digital correction works this well, I don't give a crap what the optics are doing!

The memory clock speeds and bus speeds are fixed. You are increasing resolution, bit-depth and so on... that's all. Then when it gets close to the maximum of the card controller's transfer speed or the sustained write speed of the card, yes it stops or skips frames. I have it set to stop recording when a frame is skipped. Nobody wants to be fooled into thinking they have a flawless recording when it is actually missing frames. With it stopping instead, I know to reduce the resolution for a longer recording time. The sensor modes already exist. Canon meant this sensor to do 4K. It does so every time you hit the 5x magnification key, to supply that 1:1 image to the live-view display, which you can then scroll around across the entire sensor. The window on the sensor moves around the full 5.5K width, for example. I have been using Magic Lantern raw for 4 years now and my 5D Mark III hardware did not have any issues. There's no firm data on failure rates or whether the lifespan of the hardware reduces depending on how it's used by Magic Lantern. The "not certain that it's 100% safe" is just a disclaimer, to stop them getting into any legal trouble with users. I think it takes away from their achievements a bit by saying that it stresses the hardware to breaking point. That discourages use. Are you trying to discourage use of Magic Lantern? Poor form if you are. Shoot and be happy!

You're still wrong. A car is a mechanical system, with moving parts in the engine, and the engine mapping is under the influence of software. When you force a mechanical system to work faster it breaks. So that would be more analogous to overclocking a CPU without adequate cooling. Magic Lantern aren't doing that. The hardware is still running under the speed limit set by Canon's spec. Is the data throughput higher in raw recording? Yes. But still within what it is designed to do. Does it consume more power and therefore get a bit hotter? Yes. But still within the spec. And that is why the comparisons to removing safety features from cars and adding nitro is complete nonsense. This is sadly what Canon reps seem to believe as well. An image sensor, processor and card are not mechanical parts. It's not a fucking car. The 'manipulating hardware in order to avoid overtaxing the system' you observe, is simply about allocation of existing system resources to different tasks. Reverse engineering and hacking is simply not as efficient with resources, versus rewriting the source code with a full understanding of it. The camera is a black box of ARM processors and everything Magic Lantern knows is a limited subset of what code and routines exist. The only choice Magic Lantern have to maximise the efficiency of their features like 3.5K raw is by memory management and tweaking the running of existing tasks like global draw, so that the ARM processors spend more time on something else. They are not 'working harder'. Oh and by the way, the raw codec is less computationally intensive than H.264.

Except car tuning is mainly hardware based, and you are not changing the hardware in the 5D3 or even overclocking it with Magic Lantern. It's purely software, running as normal, like an app on your phone.