maxotics

Having worked in Hollywood I can say categorically that the marketing department (money, budget, etc) is less connected to the filmmakers than the person filling the popcorn at the movie theater. Also, the money can come from different sources. Even back in 1985 when I worked in the biz foreign distribution money could give/take-away a green light. That is, there are many "interests" in the film, from academy nominations to simple worldwide gross. When I was at Orion they made "Dances with Wolves" only to keep Kevin Costner happy so he would make other films with them--who saw Waterworld coming? ;). While it was being made, people practically laughed to his face about that movie. Blade Runner is partly a vanity project for all involved. I remember when they were making 2010, or whatever that 2001 sequel was and had to build all new sets because Kubrick had purposely destroyed the old ones. At first I thought he was a jerk. That changed after watching the sequel. They must have known it would be no 2001. They didn't care. For many reasons, various people wanted to invest in it. Bottom line, if money was the only reason to make blade runner, I doubt it would have been made. It's an adult story. They're not money makers. All the money makers have children in them as lead characters--well, children to me

So I take it you're using an arduino to fire the flash once it "hears" the gunshot? Cool!

My favorite is the slider control box. Shows expertise with both flat-head and phillips screw technologies

I've been playing around with the Sony FDR-X3000 (4K) Most of you will laugh, but it IS minimalist. I should have bought the HDR-AS300 (1080) because I only use the X3000 in 1080. Anyway, that camera is $300. It weighs a couple of ounces, can fit in any pocket. Fast on/off (ignore my incompetence in video below). Has amazing image stabilization. Can view while recording, or for playing, through smartphone. In good light, the camera is superb. In low light, it gets noisy fast. To be expected. I've used it with the Rhode videomicro because YES, believe it or not, it has an external mic in! Built in mic is surprisingly good. Does timelapse, quick photos. Menu is very easy to use once you get the hang of it. The biggest thing that bugged me was that if I shot myself, or something closer than 10 feet, it was slightly out of focus. Like most action cams, the camera is fixed focus. So I invented a gadget to pull the focal point in a bit. Still working on it. If you're interested, here's a video I did on that. There's some sample footage at the end, goes black for a second or two beforehand. There are some videos I've shot on YouTube, like "Going to get C100" which use the camera in the way the OP has in mind.

That's done using a laser cutter. Makes it easy to dimension everything exactly. I need the top part to be higher, so a longer 1/4 screw could fit in. Thinking I should make it wider so 1/4 things could be mounted on sides, one hole pass-through, another 1/4 threaded. For example, one could mount a boom mic on the side, or a receiver, etc. Any thoughts anyone has here please let 'em fly!

For now, just looking to solve a problem Here's where I'm at now. I can already think of some improvements. PM your address if you'd like to try it out and give me some feedback. Don't want any money!

I can put it on Amazon (where I sell my vlogging mirror, and X3000 attachment). At workshop now, will see what I can cobble together! No obligation for you to buy! It's a problem I've had before too so I'd like to have a solution ready.

Those seem very expensive. Maybe I can build you something. Are you in the U.S.? Optimally, how far above tripod head (clearance) would you want camera to be?

I don't believe Andrew posted this, or we have responded, to get laughs? Anyway, I believe there are more problems created, not solved, here on EOSHD (okay, that's a joke .... well, sort of ) Nikon showed prejudice, not us, I think? Sorry, don't understand what you're driving at. Can you elaborate?

Digital medium format isn't as, I don't know how to put it, standardized or commoditized, like full-frame and down (as if anyone can agree on those). There is little resolution to be gained, they're mostly 50mp cameras and you can now get similar resolution from Nikon, Canon, Pentax and Sony. The slightly shallower DOF you can get up close would not be noticed by most people. My guess is 95% of all commercial work gets stopped down from maximum DOF. In short, no one would buy one for price alone, at least I wouldn't, unless it was like $1,000. And then I'd need to use old MF lenses which will have issues (because modern MF lens prices will NOT go down ). And then I wouldn't really need it As soon as you go into larger format, you generally want some sort of tilt-shift (unless you're strictly doing portraits), so I would include @j-oc sweet spot camera. Call my crazy, but MFs as straight-on DSLRs are one-trick phonies for people with money to burn.

This is what I've been working on for the past year and a half. This is an early test with my daughter. Bad photo (she was tired) but shows the shallow DOF. you can get ONLY A FEW FEET AWAY In this is use a Graflex 4x5 with my "digital" back, Sony A7. Image is 200 megapixels. Eat that Hassablad Here one I did the other day using a pano method. It's around 250 megapixels. Again, all the inventing (and embarrassing myself with comments on EOSHD ) leave me little room for taking good photographs. However, I think this image shows that special look you can get with larger format images. I'm hoping to get some knockout shots in the next few weeks now that the "Large Format For A7" thing I'm building is working well. The problem with pano heads is they do too much and are too heavy and difficult to work with (at least for me). So my thing is made for a specific camera, in this case an A7R and 55mm. It's only meant to take 25 shots and stitch them together. The Brenzier method relies on a telephotos and a lot of shot duplication where you could miss something, or have a parallax issue. Here's a shot that shows how much color richness you get from hundreds of megapixels of data. One could blow these photos up to 10 feet and they wouldn't pixelate.

A company generally doesn't count its profit from the first few days of (I agree mostly men) buying the latest camera, like the D850. It counts them up at the end of each quarter. After a few months, I wager a lot of those (non) buyers will be women. I believe those marketing execs who did this have a distorted, life-in-a-bubble, view of camera buyers. My guess is that after the numbers come in, and I believe they will be short some women, those marketing execs will experience the fallacy of confusing first-buyers with all buyers through the size of their bonuses, which will be ZERO

Probably a function of my age and experience. I'm 56. There are many people who seemed so together in front of the camera, from Dick Cavett to Robin Williams, that I could never imagine them depressed. Yet they were. It's not natural to be that happy all the time. It's impossible to be married and not slip and complain. He never does that; at least I've never seen in. He travels all around and never mentions anyone in his life--again, the same sort of detachment that other depressed people I know exhibit. They are so afraid of their depression, and being judged, that they avoid all talk of negative things. I certainly don't mean to malign him and hope that I'm 110% wrong.

I started following Peter before he exploded and thought about posting about him here, as an example of how to do a video channel. As long-time readers here know, I sometimes get frustrated with Andrew's sometimes bashing of the camera companies. McKinnon got it right. He's always positive! I felt good watching him. Yet I stopped a month or so ago. For all his positivity, he seems a text-book case of a depressed person heading for a breakdown. I wish I didn't see it that way. I agree, he's a great personality and produces excellent videos. So I feel between a rock and hard place. I can watch Peter and not feel insulted and frustrated, or I can follow Andrew and get insulted and frustrated. Why did I choose here? My guess is that Andrew would find Peter annoying because McKinnon doesn't optimize his equipment as much as buy expensive stuff. He shoots with the 1DX (C?). He has a C100. He couldn't give two-figs about camera tech, far as I can tell. His editing is well done, but he doesn't go into that a lot and may farm it out for all I know. Like many successful youTubers, he sells the fantasy of making a living with your camera doing cool things. I'm always wary of any YouTuber who doesn't show their family somewhat, like Matt Day. I don't feel it's healthy. While I'm here @Oliver Daniel I used to enjoy Simon's video but he's also come to a wall and is now full-on studying his navel, what it means to be an "artist" type of thing. It's a big problem for all YouTubers and all people who produce videos for TV, or anywhere else. What do you do when you must move on and there is a smaller audience for your grown up interests? Simon needs to use better equipment and do more sophisticated videos, in my opinion. When he does, yes, he is capable of doing great stuff and I'd watch him again.

On the topic of women, there's a woman Jacie in the Netherlands who has a camera review channel. (don't watch her latest piece on her health scare, that isn't typical). She's very down to Earth. Have you heard about Mattias Burling? I believe Maarten Heilbron does the most detailed, no-nonsense getting-started reviews of cameras. Here he discuses what he uses (not his usual video though) I know it's not video, but you music guys might like Red Means Recording if you haven't seen him. He shoots when there is good natural like and uses Canon cameras with ML. His videos are exceptionally good. Shows one what can be done with a camera and creative editing and effects. (And yeah, I want me an OP-1) Finally, for Premiere and other tutorials there is no one better than chinfat (I forget his real name)

I'm not sure Andrew's server could take the load of a thread dedicated to "white wronged husbands", if that's the right translation? If he can, sign me up When I had children I expected them to rebel. I never imagined that I'd deal with weeks worth of wrath because I forgot to call one of my daughter's 15-year old friends "he" (because the girl identified that way). Then all the lectures I received from my daughter's cabal about the rights of their gender identity--fluid, transgender, bigender, pangender, etc. I eventually went ""vit kränkt man" on them. That earned me another few months of stink-eye. I had a friend who went to visit Japan. I said, how was it, did they talk to you. "Only when I did something wrong" he said dryly. The country is almost as nutty as North Korea--and I don't say that lightly Decades ago the world has moved past (though hardly a dead issue of course) female rights to gender rights. And yet Nikon Asia marketing, the very people who should be aware of what's socially acceptable, pick an all-male group to represent a camera? Is the phrase "what planet are they on?" an exaggeration?

I follow a young woman on Flickr because she liked one of my photos. She's a young photo enthusiast, not a professional, just a "consumer", somewhere in Europe. I saw this in my feed so believe Andrew is right in his "nightmare" assessment. Then she reached out to her friends. So women may not "market" your camera, but they sure as well will "badmouth" it! HA HA. Her text below: Cheval Tatin Following Fuck you, Nikon. I've always wondered why their cameras had such a bad rap. Then I owned one and kinda understood... but it might as well be terrible PR. But, hey! It's a good pretext to tag the female photographers we like on this platform! Anne-Sophie Landou Alison Scarpulla Britt Grimm BellaJCosta Christine Francou d i a n e p o w e r s Edith VdW Esther Hernandez Jane M Kathleen Mercado Katharina Jung Liz ▴ luci d'inverno Lauren Withrow Maria Kappatou Mo Vidal Olivia Bee Rachel Baran Silvia Grav Veronika Gilková

Women are different. I have three girls. The middle is close to a "rocket scientist" and recently said, "if Apple doesn't get its shit together I'm moving to PC". She also dropped her state-of-the-art smartphone and instead of replacing it with the next model bought a model 2 revs back because she said the new phones weren't worth the money. Like it or not, many men do buy cameras as statements of their power, or whatever you call it. It makes them feel good. Makes me feel good. Just like many women feel good with the right shoes or handbag. This is what I see; I don't understand all the fuss. What shouldn't be confused is that women understand what's important about the tech just as much as men. The only difference is they don't make a fetish of insignificant technical differences. So @Arikhan 's Mom is moving towards Nikon because (I assume) she focuses on the one thing she wants--stills image quality. She doesn't care about video, doesn't care about skin-tone "color science". She just wants the best dynamic range camera she can get that won't die by a single raindrop (like the Sonys). The ONLY people who knock Nikons are the ones that 1) don't have those priorities and 2) haven't used a Nikon camera. Nikon probably also considers this--men talk cameras. They write blogs. Show me one big camera GEAR blog-site run by a woman. Again, it's not that a woman may not be as good as a man to represent Nikon, it's just that they won't talk up the cameras the same way. So Arikhan's mom tries Sony because of her son (I assume again) but she knows her own mind. At the end of the day, I'd wager there are more successful photographers that are women, or just as much as men. Who Nikon wants to push their gear has nothing to do with that. In short, women don't push cameras but they do recognize when the camera gives them what they want. Nikon should include women. Not because they deserve a spot, but because I ACTUALLY want their take because I do feel they're often more practical. When my daughter gives her verdict on some piece of tech I don't second-guess it for a nano-second. Same thing for movies btw. My youngest has an uncanny ability to predict whether I will like a movie or not just by lookng at the advertisement.

I'll spare you the photo But we already have the bigger breasts, we just need a camera to cover them! Score another point for the D850! Also, I watched one of those videos about how Canon cameras are made. Everyone is in what looks like to me striped prison suits. Cracks me up to no end! No wonder Japan is having a dating problem.

Okay, so Nikon would rather watch a man fall to his death than hire a female photographer Here are two female Nikon photographers I took with a Sigma dp2s @Mattias Burling

It's been very interesting reading everyone's experience as professionals. I'm certainly a data-point in Andrew's observation that Canon has no real plan for video on the DSLR. I'm about as hard-cord a camera junkie you can find, yet I couldn't tell you the difference between the Canon 1DC and 1DX. I also couldn't tell you if the 5DIV has better 1080p than the 5DIII. I understand all the Sony and Panasonic cameras (I think). All that said, I love my C100

Sorry, looks like I didn't explain very well. I posted the photo to show why I don't feel I need a Leica to get the image quality shots I need. I wasn't trying to ruin your dinner, again, apologies. The GR does 2.8, which is shallow enough for me and which I set the camera to. I was just making the point that I believe I can get Leica image-quality shots with the GR at a fraction of the price (and a smaller, lighter camera too). It is a disturbing shot. Do you think I REALLY see myself that way? I consider myself a fun guy. And there's nothing my family doesn't find funnier than the fact that I think I'm funny And I'm not trying to discredit anything you or Mattias are saying. Again, just my thoughts on the subject, which I do think about a lot.

The artistic delusion is believing more expensive, or Leica-branded gear will provide better quality in all situations. Of course I'm not arguing they're bad lenses! AND, I'm not saying I'm above the same desires. In fact, I have them too, which is why I LOVE Mattias' videos. And I have already watched Thorsten's. Fortunately, he's too much of an art snob for me to relate, unlike Mattias.

That proves my point. Some people can't handle the emotional truth of photography. What are you scared of? If I was a 19-year-old female (male?) model would you say the same thing? What about that photograph gives you that reaction? Good one! But no.

This is what I think about in photography. Who am I? Who are you? Who are we? I get into photographic ruts (like recently) and start shopping for digital Leicas, like the M9. Mattias's videos really had me close to buying one of them then I already have my Dad's M4-P (not Leica's finest) but I don't use it. I can't see using a Leica Q much because I'm not rich enough, or rich at all. If I drop or lose my Ricoh GR I wouldn't feel guilty about what I've done to my family. Not so the Leica Q, which I wager is part of the reason Mattias isn't holding onto his. Leica is not about better quality. It saddens me when people fall for that, especially people like me who go through cameras like french fries. A leica would not take a better quality photo than the one attached (which I took while writing this). A JPG right out of the camera. Leica's are there to boost up our confidence. To make us feel part of some special club; to make us feel part of a long line of great photographers! There's nothing wrong with that. If I was going to do a video about a Leica camera I'd be honest about that. This is the camera that gives me the confidence to take good photographs. This is a camera that freshened my interest in photography. To argue it as a technical benefit? Would be an artistic delusion. Photographers who never shoot family and friends (or people professionally), or even themselves, are afraid of the emotionalism that really makes for meaningful photography. Even Thorsten understands that; which is why he shows that portrait in the above video (not a picture of his dog). Shoot some portraits, shoot the people who make up your emotional world. Of course, I know the reason why many people don't. I know it all to well. It's often painful. Still....