jonpais

best for what?

I may just bite the bullet and get the Samyang 12mm f/2 for u43 after all. It's gotten great reviews, it's cheap as hell and lightweight, around the same as the Sigma 30mm Contemporary lens. Center sharpness from f/2.8 onwards is quite good, the edges are acceptable. Most reviewers say there is quite a bit of vignetting and apparently, the infinity mark isn't accurate on any of their copies. There is also no depth-of-field scale, which is kind of disappointing. However, if closed down to f/5.6, it will already be sharp from 7 ft. to infinity, which would be useful when flying on a gimbal. Now I'm just trying to decide whether to buy the cine version or not. As far as I can tell, the only thing that differentiate the lenses is the gears and declicked aperture ring on the cine version. Price difference is negligible.

Oh well, it's pretty much a physical impossibility to put either the Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 or the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 on the Crane, let alone balance. I don't know how in the world anyone put the Tokina on in the first place, but I'm not gonna even bother with it anymore. I never thought I'd say this in a million years, but after shooting with the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 DCDN this afternoon, I think I'm going to try to find a couple more outstanding primes to fly, preferably under $1,300. The good news is, I'm through testing lenses on the Crane, and I have no more excuses not to put up my review soon.

Okay, I tried downloading the Zhiyun Tools for Windows, but I keep getting a message that the network connection was lost. Sorry.

I don't give a ... what DXO mark or DPReview have to say about anything. I finally had a chance to go out and shoot with the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 DCDN for u43, and it's one of the sharpest lenses I own, if not the sharpest, and color rendition is superb. If it were a Leica, it would be getting lots of press, but very few have even bothered to put up videos shot with this lens, which in my opinion is as good as any in Sigma's Art line. It is fast, light as hell, tack sharp and you could buy four of these puppies for the price of one Leica Summilux. If Sigma ever get around to releasing a 12mm f/1.4 for u43, I'm dumping my Vario G X 12-35mm f/2.8 and good riddance! I'll try to post some clips straight out of the camera tomorrow afternoon.

Looking good!

@Iwestfall I'd be happy to download the installer and upload it here, but I'm about to meet my buddy at the cafe in around 20 minutes. If you haven't got it by the time I return home, I'll give it a shot. Or perhaps another reader can give a hand?

First of all, even though I watched the video on my iPod, it was quite thorough and informative. The reviewer also demonstrates that if you have some interesting movement or subject that holds your interest, the camera shake is not always so obvious. In the real world, I would never just run up and down the street to see how steady the horizon is. ? And I agree with Michael, I don't see IBIS or electronic stabilization replacing gimbals any time soon, but they can help get even smoother looking shots when used in combination with a handheld stabilizer.

I tried the link I posted last night, and it seems to be working fine this morning. I have a Mac, so not sure about that download. Has anyone else here had the same difficulty? A buddy called me last night to ask if he could try out his his 5D III on my Crane this morning, so I'll have a chance to report on that later today. I'm guessing the gimbal should work with the GH4 and Tokina 11-16mm F/2.8, since it is just a hair over 1,200 grams, it is nicely balanced, and even before the update appeared, users said it handled fine. What I'm interested in learning is whether it can now handle the Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 and 50mm f/1.4 lenses. When mounted on the GH4 with a Metabones XL, ithey are very front-heavy. The Sigma zoom+Metabones adapter+GH4 weighs in at around 1,541 grams.

The Olympus is made in Vietnam, Panasonic's GH4 hails from China and Fujifilm's XT-2 is made in Japan. Japan's hourly compensation for manufacturing jobs is over $30.00, China's is around $2.00, and while I couldn't find any statistics for Vietnam, it's the mantra that labor here is from 1/3 to 1/2 that of China. Here's a chart from a few years back. Vietnam didn't even earn a spot... For a comparison of wages in the service sector, a barista at Starbucks in the States earns from $8.00-$11.00/hour, while the average barista working at your run-of-the-mill cafe here makes under 50 cents/hour. chart.svg

There have been countless pages on that topic here and at other sites. My preference would be to dial down contrast, saturation, sharpening and leave noise reduction alone. But some think dialing down saturation isn't a good idea because with 8 bit, you don't have enough color information to work with as it is. Others like to turn NR all the way down. Some think reducing sharpening will alleviate moire and aliasing somewhat (I didn't find that to be true in my experience, but heh). What I did is just dial everything down a couple notches. When I got home, I'd look at the footage and tweak the settings gradually over a period of months. I prefer Natural profile, and that's what many of the LUTs I used recommended, but others like Cinelike D, if I'm not getting that confused with the GH4. So, in a nutshell, there is no consensus. As Andy Lee said to another forum member at the time, buy Andrew's guide and you'll find out!

@Trek of Joy I think you summed up many of the advantages and disadvantages of both systems very well. And I get the feeling from what I've read here and elsewhere on the net that crossing the $2,000 barrier for a u43 camera is a tough pill to swallow for many photographers and video shooters. But having IBIS means you can get a lot of shots that would otherwise be impossible without lugging around a tripod (and a proper one can run from $500-$1,000, but I'm expecting a lot of debate about this) or investing in a stabilizer costing anywhere from $600 on up. And in the case of Panasonic, while we don't yet know how much the GH5 will retail for - if it is actually able to record 4K 60p and 10 bit internally - that would save thousands of dollars that would otherwise be spent on an external recorder. Of course, nobody knows the true specs of the camera yet.

Perhaps it's worth noting that both popular camera reviewer Chris Niccolls of TCSTV still carries a GM camera and photographer Ming Thein regrets that Panasonic killed off the GM lineup. And he's accustomed to shooting with big guns like the Hasselblad X1D.

@mercer I color corrected it this time around.

Zhiyun announced yesterday a new firmware upgrade allowing Canon 5D owners the ability to use their popular Crane brushless gimbal stabilizer. Formerly, Zhiyun rated the payload of their pistol grip stabilizer at 1,200 grams, which many here at EOSHD thought was an overly conservative estimate. The new firmware, v1.50 5D RC2, will enable camera/lens combinations of over 1500 grams payload weight. Zhiyun is now saying over at their Facebook page that the upgrade allows the gimbal to carry as much as 1,800 grams, a remarkable 50% increase over their initial claims. Although Zhiyun recommends using the standard firmware upgrade if not exceeding 1,200 grams, they maintain that with the upgrade, the gimbal's minimum payload remains unchanged at 350 grams. I downloaded the new firmware this evening, but haven't had a chance to test it out yet. I am obviously eager to fly a couple of my Sigma Art lenses with the Metabones. The Zhiyun Crane currently sells for as little as $586.00 USD over at AliExpress. Edit: The problem is, I was hoping to test the recent Sigma 30mm f/1.4 DCDN for MFT on the stabilizer and put up a review of the Crane over the weekend, but now, I've got to test a whole bunch of other lenses. Which means, I won't be able to do reviews of the iFootage Shark S1 slider and iFootage Wild Bull T7 tripod as soon as I'd have liked.

I received my repaired Zhiyun Crane back from China this week and had my first opportunity to test it out with my newly purchased Nokton 17.5mm f/0.95 and can confirm that it does indeed work. After testing the Sigma 30mm f/1.4, I will be publishing a mini-review of the Crane with various u43 lenses.

This is great news.

Funny coincidence, I was just passing through Ben Thanh market here in Saigon this afternoon, when I saw a young woman shooting with a GH3 - possibly only the 3rd or 4th time I've seen anyone using a Lumix camera in the four years I've lived here. It turns out she is a film producer from Australia. I asked how she liked the GH3 and she said she'd gotten it just before Panasonic released the GH4, that she loved it, and before I could even ask anything else, she added that the one feature she regretted not having was focus peaking.

@mercer The GH3 was my very first mirrorless camera. If you do decide to pick one up, you should be aware that it lacks focus peaking, something which many here consider absolutely essential when working with manual lenses or a Speedbooster. There was a huge outcry from the internet community when Panasonic issued a statement announcing that they could offer no firmware update to enable peaking on the GH3. If you already have an external monitor (sounds like you do), or have eagle vision, no problem I guess. Now I shoot C4K with the GH4 and downsample to 1080p for delivery on the web. Aside from an improvement in color over the GH3, the image is virtually moire-free. Nevertheless, as you pointed out, some filmmakers are still doing fine work with hacked GH2s. And incredibly, many shooters continue to create stunning video with cameras with no IBIS, no touch screen, no histogram, no viewfinder, no headphone jack and 10-minute battery life. A couple years back, many of us were taken aback by Kendy Ty's short films shot with a mere t3i (forgive me, I'm not really familiar with Canon's model numbers) on Vimeo, and more recently, I was impressed with Jase's clips made with the miniscule GM1. I'd say if you can find a GH3 selling for around $500.00, go for it.

Yeah, stabilized lenses might be a better choice, since there is no IBIS.

@jase You are the bomb! Really nice videos (I just peeked at a few). I shake like the devil, but if I didn't drink 10 cups of coffee and smoke 2 packs of cigarettes a day, I could probably handhold better. Mercer, when he saw a video I uploaded shot with the GM1 and Vario G X 35-100mm, said he probably enjoyed the look better than Pansoniic's 4K. And now, it's my turn to say - I love the look of your clips.

GM1 - amazing fucking camera. Smaller than a pack of Marlboros. Magnesium alloy body. A touch retro. Gorgeous 1080p (a little moire here and there, but that's nitpicking). Snappy autofocus (for single point anyhow). But... no IBIS, so unless you place it on a tripod or stabilizer, your pictures will be shaky as all hell with a non-stabilized lens. Which kind of defeats the purpose of having a small, discrete camera. Now for the fun part - you'll have to either find a spacer online or make one yourself, because without one, you won't even be able to mount the camera on anything.

Sorry to be blunt, but just go ahead and buy it already. From what you've described - mostly stills, a little video here and there - that's the camera I'd purchase in a heartbeat. Most recently, the 23mm f/2 lens (35mm full frame equivalent), which doesn't cost a fortune (but which isn't stabilized either to the best of my knowledge) is excellent.

Many online reviewers seem to have no problem at all with the astronomical price of the Sony A7S Mk ii or A7R Mk ii (body only around $3,000 at B&H). Which is one reason I stopped subscribing to some reviewers who switched over from Panasonic - after all, many of us are hobbyists, not professionals with wads of cash lying around. I did speculate that the GH5 would see a big price hike over the aging GH4, but that is just that, mere speculation. On the other hand, anyone expecting it to come in at around $1,500 or so is just fantasizing, just like those wishing the Sigma Cine line would come in at around $2,000. After all, the GH5 will offer 4K 60p and 10-bit, two features which, by the way, I absolutely do not need, but which differentiate Panasonic from Sony and other manufacturers of mirrorless cameras, and which also entail a cost. And if it does indeed have 10 bit, and can really record 60p internally, I imagine that would mean not having to purchase a $2,000 external recorder, so it would actually represent a savings in that regard. (I haven't kept up with all the different recorders lately, so I pulled that number out of my ...)

It would be a dream if Panasonic and other camera manufacturers weren't such huge, aloof entities beyond reproach, that they would regularly scrutinize forums and respond to customers' issues, rather than greeting us with silence. After all, how much effort and cost would it entail to hire a college graduate whose job it was to do just that, or to offer a bonus to other office workers, who spend all day reading Facebook or playing Candy Crush anyway, to handle these issues? But we don't live in that world, at least not yet. There are still a few, like John Brawley (Black Magic), and Brian Caldwell (Metabones), who regularly contribute to the online community, but they are the exception rather than the rule. I think it was Chris Oh who said he only had $1,100 dollars or so, I think that was for both body and lens, though that figure seems rather small...but, if I were him, I would beg, borrow or steal to get a Nokton, new or used.