QuickHitRecord

Andy is right, this one is in pretty bad shape. They do pop up quite a bit though.

I am assuming that you are talking about Ed Lee's videos. You should ask him directly what he used. Typically, Lomo primes are not ideal for pairing with anamorphic adapters because the front barrel will rotate when focusing. At least this has been the case with the lenses that I have owned. You won't be able to have a light-tight connection between the front of the Lomo and the back of the Hypergonar without some crudely taped solution that you have to untape every time you want to change focus. If you really like this look, you ought to look into the Lomo square front anamorphic lenses: [url="http://youtu.be/YNclBJZR9mE?hd=1"]http://youtu.be/YNclBJZR9mE?hd=1[/url]

[quote name='Mirrorkisser' timestamp='1347548017' post='17895'] I read it too at personal-view and tested it: its true. Really weird. It also happened with other settings, not only flowmotion. I wonder what the issue is. Its not much of a deal if you know the workaround, still its another routine to go through... [/quote] It's just another thing to forget. I hope that the GH3 resolves this.

[img]http://www.eoshd.com/comments/uploads/gallery/album_14/gallery_18451_14_27471.jpg[/img] After looking around and trying a few different things, I came up with this mounting solution. The rubber holds the anamorphic in place and does not allow it to slip when the lens is being focused. There is plenty of support. Though with some force, the anamorphic can be twisted and re-aligned.

Psst! http://www.ebay.com/itm/180971989708?_trksid=p5197.c0.m619#ht_760wt_1165

Typically, it isn't your lens that needs the diopter's magnification. It's the projector lens. Your camera lens can probably focus as close as 2' or 3', but the projector lens is designed to focus on a movie screen 20' to 50' away. If you put the diopter between the two lenses, the anamorphic does not get any of the benefit. You'd be focusing sharp and close on a blurry image. The slight exception to this that I know of is the LA7200, behind which you can place a very weak +0.25 diopter to help the edges be a little less soft. But you can also accomplish this by using a longer focal length on your taking lens as well.

I have a HiFi-2 and in my opinion it is a lot more cinematic than just about any other anamorphic lens on the market. It's even on par with my Lomo square fronts. I can't comment on the 16mm version because I have never owned one, but the samples I have seen are nowhere near as film-like. I bought my Hypergonar for $120 a while ago but lately I have seen them going for up to $350. You have to decide what it would be worth to you. The only thing I would say is that many of these Hypergonars have old pieces of marking tape on them that make them look like they are in worse shape than they actually are. I've been able to remove the tape and residue very easily with a little carefully applied acetone. Don't let tape deter you. If you do buy one, order a Velbon SPT-1 and a lens collar on eBay as soon as possible. Most of these ship from China and it can take a full month for them to get to you. You will also need one of Redstan's adapters and probably a step ring to attach the Hypergonar to your camera, and I'd also recommend an 82mm-77mm step ring to superglue to the front of the lens (it fits nicely and looks very clean) so that you can attach a 77mm +1 diopter, which I would also highly recommend. It's a bit of a task to get one of these things up and running, but absolutely worth it in my opinion.

[quote name='Germy1979' timestamp='1347479136' post='17850'] I have this patch! All I can say is, thank you! haha! I always keep it on 160 to avoid this very thing... (unless i can't.) [/quote] I am glad that this could be of help. ISO 640 is just slightly more noisy than ISO 160 (but only if you select ISO 800 first, then go to ISO 640). It's very usable. There is also a theory out there that higher ISO will cut down on color banding so a little noise on this camera may not be such a bad thing!

It's the eleventh hour for the GH2, but it will still be a few months before I have its replacement in my hands so I am still trying to get the best possible performance out of it. And I'd still like to hang onto it as a B-cam, but not until I work some issues out. I did a full-range ISO test of my GH2 with the Flowmotion 2.02 settings, starting at 12800 and working my way down to 160. I did this after reading a little more about the GH2 ISO bug. Initially, I had read that if you wanted to use ISOs 320, 640 or 1250, you had to switch the camera on and first go to [i]any[/i] higher ISO, and then back to one of these three to minimize noise. Then I did some more reading on Personal-View and apparently what you want to do is go to the next ISO increment up, and then back down to the desired setting (so if you want ISO 320, go to ISO 400, then back to 320; if you want 640, go to 800, then back to 640). This seemed to result in a MUCH cleaner image than my initial tests with the first image. The footage is pretty usable up to ISO 1250, at least with the Flowmotion hack. What really surprised me was this: [img]http://www.eoshd.com/comments/uploads/gallery/album_13/gallery_18451_13_3510.jpg[/img] ISO 160 Flowmotion 2.02 Noise enhanced for visibility 500% crop [img]http://www.eoshd.com/comments/uploads/gallery/album_13/gallery_18451_13_74801.jpg[/img] ISO 320 Flowmotion 2.02 Noise enhanced for visibility 500% crop This tells me that working around the ISO bug as I have talked about above, ISO 320 is actually much [i]cleaner[/i] than 160. In fact, it's the cleanest ISO (at least with this hack on my camera). Thoughts?

The XLR attachment to go with the A99 is a bit unwieldy. I'm hoping that Panasonic can offer something more streamlined in the GH3 (perhaps built into a new audio-centric grip as rumored).

8-bit 4:2:2 can be recorded externally via the HDMI port on the A99; internally I am not sure (but there is an MP4 recording option): [media]http://vimeo.com/49262093[/media] The VG-900 and VG-30 are 24mbps AVCHD. If I am not mistaken that's similar the FS100, which puts it to good use. Still, I am not blown away by this.

[quote name='sfrancis928' timestamp='1347422557' post='17805'] The a99 has it. It's in the specs on Sony's a99 product page. [/quote] Apparently it only works with E-mount and Konica/Minolta AF lenses: http://vimeo.com/49262093

Impressive. But what happened to in-body stabilization?

The first picture of Sony's new full frame camcorder is up: [url="http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/first-pictures-of-the-fulll-frame-e-mount-vg-900/"]http://www.sonyalpha...e-mount-vg-900/[/url] Specs should be announced tomorrow. I wonder if it suffers from Moire like the VG-20. If not, it could be a force to be reckoned with -- I believe that it is the world's first full frame camcorder.

To make your decision a little more difficult, I am reading now that while the BMC-MFT will be retailing as a passive mount, the Lumix/Olympus connectors are built into it and that it may eventually be "enabled" via firmware update. That would open up the image-stabilized Lumix lenses like the 12-35mm f2.8 ...

The in-body stabilization would be great. Let's just see how good their codec is.

Some years ago, Philip Bloom opened my eyes to DSLR video. His work has helped pave the way for a lot of bigger and better projects for me. Most were lit. Some weren't. A successful image is a successful image. Back to the camera: Sebastian at Cinema5D posted that "full operability" for the MFT model will likely come at a later date via firmware update (probably after they iron out proprietary issues with Panasonic and Olympus; here is the link: [url="http://***URL not allowed***/news/?p=12831"]http://***URL not allowed***/news/?p=12831[/url] ). Put that together with projected firmware updates to allow file deletion-in camera and Ikan's cheap battery solution, and you're well on your way to a pretty shootable camera. Still a lot of variables, but there is hope.

You have a great eye, Karim.

I was just talking to a reseller and heard that the first shipment to the United States consisted of only 8 cameras. Apparently they are all coming through a single distributor.

[quote name='cameraboy' timestamp='1347045085' post='17555'] there is no big sensor 10-bit 4-2-2 camera below 14000$ except BMC ... [/quote] Not yet. ;-)

I am on the market for a 1080P, 10-bit, 4-2-2, MFT camera with at least one XLR input. The BMC is overkill for me, both in features and in price. If it had just one less setback, I might be able to justify the price. But a 2.3x crop factor and no possibility for image stabilization? That's pretty limiting.

This is a big deal.

This lens does not have the focal length to be used with most of the anamorphic lenses floating around eBay. It would probably work on the LA7200 or maybe the Century, but that's about it. However, the upcoming 35-100mm would probably work. And then you'd have a fast, image-stabilized micro four thirds lens to use with your anamorphic. In anticipation for this lens, I tried holding my Iscomorphot in front of the 12-35mm to see if it would flare. It doesn't (or it didn't in my test) and I think that it's unlikely that the 35-100mm will flare either.

Also, some of the camera bodies had significantly less noise at ISO 1250 than 640. But it's not an even spread of noise. There is significantly more noise on the right extremity of the frame. But the rest of the frame is much cleaner than 640. See example: [attachment=297:ISO_1250.jpg] This happened with one of the four unhacked bodies, and then with at least two of the bodies with the Vanilla 44mbps hack. I am not sure why this is happening. Must have something to do with the bug.

I couldn't find the test that I mentioned earlier so I just did one myself with four different GH2 bodies (two hacked and two unhacked). I can report that the bar of death seems to show up at ISO 2500 and will make your video unusable at ISO 5000. Because the unhacked cameras only go up to ISO 2500, you may be convinced that it is not a problem with them. But it is still there. What surprised me is that my camera had this issue start to become a problem at ISO 1250 when I was running the Unified setting. But now that I am using Flowmotion 2.02, it only shows up (and less obtrusively) at ISO 2500. At any rate, I would only recommend shooting at ISO 160 or ISO 320 with the GH2. Anything higher is just ugly. Here are some screen grabs of FlowMotion footage shot with the lens cap on (noise has been enhanced for visibillity with a gamma shift and 3-way color corrector; file sizes compressed for posting here): [attachment=296:ISO-160.jpg] @ ISO 160 [attachment=295:ISO-320.jpg] @ ISO 320 [attachment=294:ISO-640.jpg] @ ISO 640 [attachment=293:ISO-1250.jpg] @ ISO 1250 [attachment=292:ISO-2500.jpg] @ ISO 2500 [attachment=291:ISO-5000.jpg] @ ISO 5000 I have ISO 10000 too, but it's a bigger file because of the additional noise. I'd have to compress it beyond being a useful comparison to post here. With regard to the ISO bug: I started with the higher ISOs and worked my way down to 160 when I was capturing just to be sure. Panasonic really needs to address these problems with the GH3.