Bioskop.Inc

I went for the following combo & really impressed: Hoya IR/UV cut filter - amazing, it really does the trick. Genus Eclipse - really surprised me how good it was & saves me a lot of time changing filters.

I suppose its each to his own really - the GH4/A7s don't really excite me. Also, they are the first of their kind, so would rather wait. Don't want/need more detail & low light is really a non-issue for me. Just wait till you see what you can do with the Pocket (ProRes or RAW) & you'll see what i mean - the images just look creamy. Well, on the good news, BM didn't announce a new camera @ the LA meet. So, the cut in price is either a clever marketing ploy or........? My only thoughts are: if you didn't buy one, you should have & don't get dragged into making it a hole for your money.

Really?! I'd never have guessed that's what people would do - downscale you say?! Come on kid, stop trying to be such a smart arse, of course i know that! The White Paper i read talked about improving 1080p & yes, downscaling from 4K is an option. However, in terms of the Pocket it does all shades of ProRes in 1080p - so you've got all the resolution & DR you need right out of the box. I'll start talking about 4K when Arri update the Alexa to shoot 4K, not when Panasonic or Sony say so. There is a long way to go on the 4K journey & there's no point claiming that those 2 new cameras are the best thing out there. Anyways, we'll find out what BM are planning very soon...

Sorry, a friend let me read a print out. But this has been bantered about for over a year now - Panasonic came out last year saying that no TV Broadcaser, that they spoke to, was remotely interested in 4K Broadcasting since they had only just sorted HD 1080p (& barely at that). This doesn't mean that 4K TVs won't be all the rage, but you'll be hard pushed to get anything in 4K to actually watch - TV broadcasting is 3-5yrs away for most of us. I'm not sure if you remember when HD TVs first came out, but it took quite a few years for it really cement & TV has only really just caught up to HD. This is interesting to understand a little bit about the battle that is going on - 1080p/50 or 4K: https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/techreports/tr014.pdf Might be worth backtracking through the above link for more interesting info!

It was funny that BM dropped their price of the Pocket about the same time that a TV Report came out talking about dropping 4K Broadcast TV & concentrating more on improving the quality (DR etc...) of the current HD 1080p. So basically you won't need a 4K TV anytime soon, but what people will need is a small camera that does stunning 1080p on a budget! Also, never heard of a camera company dropping a great product within a year - really think this might've been a ploy to entice GH4 or A7s buyers. But i suppose we'll wait & see.

I've been using a cheap £10 Z-finder knock-off from my 60D (with a little modification) & apart from it cutting off a bit of the screen on the right hand side, it works just fine - the Zacuto one will be sooo much better for handheld/small rig use. However, the Pocket screen suffers from the 5D syndrome of being a fixed screen - not being able to flip it out to any angle has proved annoying for some locked down shots. So I was thinking that something like a smallHD DP4, with its loupe attachment, might be a better investment - well its this or the EF Speedbooster.

You should be able to make custom Project sizes now, but if you can't... If you want to create a bigger anamorphic template or just have a template that dispenses with the black bars within a 1902x1080 wrapper, then you can create a blank template in Motion (with a custom size etc..), export it as a movie file & then lay it down in a FCPX project & then place your footage on top of it. This video explains how to make a custom template: http://library.creativecow.net/articles/payton_t/FCPX_Custom-Resolution-Timelines/video-tutorial

Also, remember that you can now set a manual aspect ratio for the project - this means that you are no longer stuck with 1920x1080 & the black bars, but can now choose to stretch & not only squeeze the footage. This means you can get 3840x1080 & not just 1920x540 - it should mean that you could also choose other aspect ratios such as 2.93:1 or 2.66:1 & automatically crop the footage by adjusting the x or y axis in the Transform tab.

As you know the Russain lenses aren't perfect, but that's what gives them their character. And yes, you get [some of] that character back with this type of cheap speedbooster simply because you have a reduced crop factor - its still m43 size, but its better than S16 in terms of how much of the lens is used. For video they are perfect & i'm not an anal pixel peeper, so i haven't even bothered trying to see if they are soft at the edges. They probably are a little bit, but i don't care as the images look lovely & no one ever looks at the edges of a shot/screen anyhow.

I've got the M42-m43 speedbooster from jinfinance & it works with all my M42 lenses: Super Taks 35mm & 55mm Mir 24M, Mir-1B Helios 44-2 & Helios 40-2 Tair 11a Jupiter 9 & 37a

I remember that, so which short did you shoot or where you on the production team? Here's the one Kendy did & it was the most stylised of the films - the skateboard one was nice too: You can find the others here: http://www.redbull.co.uk/cs/Satellite/en_UK/Article/Concrete-Circus-Videos-021243068366531

Oh i'm with you man! Just imagine never having to worry about the light going & its got s-log too! You're right, Jello be damned! I'd love to see some photos from this as well...

Well it does sound as if you're nearly there anyway, so i'd [carefully] investigate a little to see what you can do. You do ask yourself with the 54, why they didn't put the stopper a little further out by the edge so we could focus closer. Especially since with the 54 you aren't turning 360+ to get from 2m to Infinity. I'm surprised you're getting vignetting with just 1 focar, with 2 stacked together & a v.wide lens i'd understand. The old blu-tack inside the lens cavity works, but there's always a chance it'll fall out!

That's some serious crazy low light shit & it looks just fine - now did they leave it in s-log or did they grade it? Was it me or did they blow the highlights, sorry blacks in the last ISO test! The only thing that troubles me is if the Jello is really nasty, then the lowlight capablities will just be a gimmick for video.

You need to go out & search for some Voigtlander Focar A&B 95mm close up lenses (+1 & +2), they're normally sold as a pair - you can pay as little as £20 or £200. If not 82mm close ups are fine.

nice look to it all! What camera/lens did you use?

Andy, now you're just adding more fuel to the fire, LOL! But IS on the adaptor would really be a game changer! However, that switch could just be for something else - an auto/manual switch? Anywho, the footage looks great whatever & if i hadn't already gone down another route I would probably jump on the GH4 (see no BM owner bashing of GH here). This is also in light of the BBC testing 4K broadcasting during the World Cup - eventhough you can only watch the broadcasts if you work for the BBC. Good news for 4K in the UK.

Haven't seen one listed recently & i'm assuming it was cheap, since you got rid of yours... I'm convinced ebay searches are different for everyone or depending on what part of the world you live in.

Cheers! Well not having to worry about sound made it a lot easier! Yes quite busy & it was a small room too - 4 tripod shots & 2 handheld takes for each player. The Doc won't be too long 5-10mins, its a song "Making of" & an introduction to the band. I'll only use some choice shots from the String Quartet session & it seemed a real pity to bin all that footage, so i put it all together. The Band have got quite a lot of pedigree between them - the man at the controls used to be an assitant at The CoachHouse in Bristol (when Massive Attack made their first album), the new singer used to sing for Smith&Mighty & the bass player has been around.

Perhaps half-baked was a little harsh (bit of a play on words there too - half-bake in your look in-camera) & i'm not saying its not a good camera, its just that its the first really affordable 4K cam that works for general purpose - so if you wait a while there will be better! External recording will probably be the way to go with the GH4 & Sony's offering.

Yep, I've noticed this too - it does feel like taking a huge stepforward & 3 steps back. However, it could be user error? Maybe? Does seem that you need to pretty much nail it in-camera & then ever so slightly tweek in post - its a DSLR after all. I'm glad i got my Pocket - its been a bit of a bitch of a re-learning curve, but it all seems to have come back to me in the end. Funnily enough i've even filmed something on my 60D recently - just seemed like a logical choice. In a years time there will be a much better choice for 4K, no real point jumping on half-baked first runs each time.

As John has said put a book or something 2D with writing on it about 2m away & with you cam on a tripod, focus the taking lens. Then put the anamorphic on & focus that, you might need to do some fine adjustments on both the taking lens & the anamorphic to get a perfectly sharp picture. Also, can you zoom in to help you focus? Do it! Remember, that the anamorphic has a min focus distance of around 1.5m, so if you get closer than that to something you'll never achieve focus.

The 55mm f1.8 is just as good & it doesn't hit the mirror - its also alot cheaper! The Super Taks are great lenses, its just a pity that the wider they go the slower they get - but that shouldn't stop you, as they are cheap & excellent quality.

Had a feeling they looked too good to be true! As JG pointed out, the whole iPhone thing made me wince a little. Like £800 for 2 (1 retails for $600) & google only came up with one retailer in uk. http://www.prolightdirect.co.uk/ledz-mini-par-dual-kit-627.html They do look the business though & would have saved me a few times recently, but some bigish reflectors would have too!

Yes its an M42 lens. Get the black one (not the silver) & pay around £150. Also, with M42 lenses sometimes the adaptors allow the lens to go past infinity, so normally you need to turn it back a bit in order to get infinity - this maybe what you're experiencing.