Quirky

I happen to have the Olympus 2.8/17mm pancake, but I take it you're talking about the 1.8/17mm version, right? I consider the old pancake as an inexpensive 'pocketable standard lens' for my BMPCC, as 17mm isn't actually too wide with a 2.88x crop sensor. Surely the 1.8 version would be clearly better, but as the sensor is only using the centre of the lens, the pancake is not too bad a standard lens for the price and size. More usable than the lens cap, and better than it was with the E-P2 I used to shoot stills with a few years back.

Surely you mean military and spying market. Big Brother's gotta get the new tech first. ;)

...and it'll start making sense. As usual. I actually hope that the rumoured A9, which is supposed to be the top of the line photo/video model, will not be like a pimped up A7s with a full frame sensor. Or at least I hope such a camera wouldn't have the new sensor tech, yet. As nice as the A7s may be, I don't think that a FF sensor behind the existing E-mount is an ideal long-term solution for pro (or prosumer) models. I wish Sony had the balls to come up with a new lens mount solution soon. The introduction of such new tech would be a nice excuse to do just that. I wish they either re-purposed their existing A-mount and came up with newly designed set of cine lenses for it, or came up with an all new lens mount. Slightly larger and more rugged than the E-mount, and with a flange distance close to Leica M or thereabouts. The existing E-mount would be just fine for the existing APS-C consumer and serious amateur photo/video line. Well, maybe for the existing S35 pro video cameras, too. I doubt that this leaked sensor tech will be introduced in the rumoured A9 around Q1 2014, though. Suppose the logical step for Sony would be to come up with a model above the new FS7 first, something to replace the existing F5 and F55 models, wouldn't it. Start from the top of the line pro video cameras, and then let the new tech flow down to the more prosumer oriented hybrids. But we'll see. Wouldn't mind a reasonably priced (for a mere mortal) model with those kinds of specs, either. But so far this is all just wishful thinking. Premature GAS, perhaps? :P

That's quite a non-sequitur. A weird double whammy at that. But nevermind. FWIW, I was neither negative, nor am I angry at anyone. I'm looking forward to seeing the actual new non-Bayer sensor cameras in action, some time next year. As well as some other models with some different new tech from some other manufacturer. Which I believe is quite possible, if not even likely, eventually. Even though all we've got so far are just rumours. That's all. Nothing more to see here, carry on with the regular script.

Thanks for the reply. I think you're on to something with the firmware thing, and I think I kind of figured it out myself, too. At least I hope so. I did some research last night. Apparently the latest firmware has changed the sensitivity of the power button for some unknown reason, and it no longer works like it used to. Before the latest update you were to give the power button a good push before the camera powered up. After the update only a short push is needed, and if you push it longer, like you used to, the camera will power off right away, resulting in a quick flash of the screen as described in the OP. At least I hope that's simply the case. Unfortunately I had already sent the camera in for a warranty repair before I discovered this, so I can't confirm it right away. That's why I haven't commented about it in this thread yet. I'll come back with a confirmation as soon as I get one. I really hope it's something as simple as that, so that I'll get my camera back as soon as possible. Meanwhile, another tip I found yesterday was that if you face the same kind of problem, try pushing the power button for 10 seconds, and then release it. After that, try powering the camera on again normally, with just one short push. That ought to do it, I'm told.

Isn't that indeed one of the key elements that makes it such a usable lens for cinema-like digital video? In the sense that it's not 'too sharp,' and it doesn't out-resolve the sensor it's being used with. What I mean is that if a lens is 'too sharp' and capable of out-resolving the sensor, it'll amplify the digital artefacts like jaggies and moire, and make the footage look 'video-y' and dull, albeit tack sharp. Which is one reason why many of the legacy lenses made for 35mm film work so nicely for video. I don't have any Nikon lenses currently, but I just thought that this lens together with the Metabones first Speed Booster for BMPCC might be a nice, simple combo. The Nikon version of the Speed Booster for MBPCC is cheaper than the Canon one, albeit much more limiting in lens choice. Another niggle is that the wide end would be slightly less wide, too, because of the ~1.7x crop factor. I wonder if someone is using such a combo, and if yes, what might be a matching lens (character-wise, as described by Andy above) (prime, perhaps) for the wider end?

Interesting. I can't help but wondering if this new tech will become the one to replace the Bayer one eventually, though. I'm no expert, but my gut feeling tells me that the next 'industry standard' tech, should there ever be one in the future, should be something simpler, electronic or not. I bet there will soon be other rivalling technologies out later on, at least on paper. I also wonder if this will just replace one set of digital artefacts (rolling shutter, interpolation artefacts) with all new ones. Oh well, s'pose we'll see, eventually. Anyway, getting a global shutter as a bonus sounds good to me. Meanwhile, what a nice 'leak,' whether it was deliberate or not. It'll be an abundant source for nerdytainment, and it'll keep the hardcore geeks busy for weeks, way before any actual device with the actual tech hits the shelves. As soon as someone introduces the obligatory and inevitable N-word and C-word into the debate, this thread will no doubt have 17+ pages by the time CES and CP+ take place in early 2015. I'm not bashing no-nonsense comments like those by AndrewM here, they are interesting reading per se. Just predicting the likely near future before we see the actual sensor in an actual camera, in a not too serious fashion. Carry on. ;)

Well, I won't go into details, but just a quick suggestion about one thing; don't be a hipster, use slo-mo sparingly. There actually *is* such a thing as too much slo-mo. ;) Some of the slo-mo clips in that piece were absolutely fine, but I think there was too much of it, and in some cases it just looked daft. Case in point, the first twelve seconds of the video. A couple pacing slowly across grass, in slo-mo.... seriously? I know it's the hip thing of the day, but too much is too much. Don't use it just for the sake of having slow motion, or as a workaround to minimise handheld jerkiness. May be a matter of taste, but that's my 2c.

I don't think the firmware update can do much, if anything to improve the existing video quality beyond the promised manual control for aperture and shutter speed. I don't see how that alone could help getting rid of the false colour and aliasing artefacts. I believe going beyond that would need new hardware, too. The X-T1 is indeed quite interesting and appealing as a stills camera. Can't say I'm not tempted, at least a little bit. It's comfortably sized, The old-fashioned control dials are nice, although I think the ISO dial is a bit too much, the viewfinder is nice, for manual focusing in particular, and it's one of the few bodies where the record button is in the right/natural place next to the shutter button. Sadly that's pretty much the only nice thing about the video side of things of it, so far, and even after the firmware update it'll have that 2.5mm mic input/remote control jack.

I honestly believe the 5dmk4 is going to be meta. That is all.

Got to agree with the comments above. The misty clips are fine, the brighter clips are a bit oversaturated, but more or less tolerable. But the clipping audio track is destroying the whole video. Be it a cultural preference or not. Without the distorted speaking voice track, and perhaps with slightly toned down saturation at some clips, it would be a nice engagement video.

Looks like my BMPCC is dying. Or something is wrong with it. I've had it for a few months, and it worked just fine until now. With the latest firmware update. I haven't used it for the past three weeks, and it has been stored appropriately in a closet during that time. Today I took it out to prepare it for a shoot, and noticed that it wouldn't power on normally. First I thought the battery had dried out inside it, so I swapped it. Same result. When I press the power button, the screen will flash on like it normally does, but after that the camera goes dark, in less than a full second. Another press of the button either does the same, just a blip on the screen, then nothing, or it doesn't do anything. After recharging and trying out four different batteries and even with the power chord plugged in the camera, with or without a battery inside, the result is always the same. The camera powers on for less than a second, then becomes a brick. The camera does still have a warranty, obviously, and I know I'll probably have to send it in for a warranty repair, but I was just wondering if anyone has had a similar problem, and if anyone might know if there's anything I could try before sending it in. After all, sending it in for a warranty repair will probably take quite a while, and I'd like to avoid the hassle, if this happens to be some known issue and fixable by the user.

Yes, yes yes, thank you for your opinion. I'm sure the entire planet has established it by now, as you've mentioned the same thing three times on the first page alone. So thank you, thank you, thank you. It's an m42 telephoto lens, we get it. ;) Like I said, the 58mm focal length with a crop factor of 3 is an obvious downside, with or without a focal reducer, but not always. Sometimes that can be exactly what we want for a particular shoot. As such, the F2.0 Helios has a pretty decent price to usability ratio, and thus it is worth a mention. Especially if it's the model with that separate aperture control ring. It was an impulse buy, but I've actually had the Helios for a good while now, and I've been using it with a multitude of different sensor sizes and even film for stills, so I do know how it behaves. I haven't used it with the BMPCC earlier because I haven't had a mFT adapter, until now. I already did one quick low light test shoot and the result didn't look too bad, for such an inexpensive lens. Stills shot in bright light against the sun didn't have too bad a flare, either for an old school lens. Telephoto or not, I think I might as well keep it.

Well, it may be as goofy as Barbarella back in the day, but you don't really worry about that too much, because your attention is arrested by pretty much the same "thing" as it was back in the day when Jane Fonda was living her prime years. ;) As for your merry way of distributing "constructive criticism" and rooting for your fellow filmmakers, whether you like piece or not, at least he's walking the walk, instead of just talking the talk. With the resources he's got right now. Who knows what all that will become, eventually. Both in terms of storytelling and technical. One thing is sure, though, just talking and criticising technical shortcomings won't take us anywhere. Let's give jcs some credit for actually doing something with the gear and putting it out there for everyone to see, instead of just bickering about the specs of the gear on online forums. Personal projects are the things that get us going, aren't they.

When I've got more time (and actually get on with it) I'll start playing with my impulse buy, a 2/58mm Helios. (A Russian Biotar copy) The obvious downside being the fact that it'll be a 174mm (~162mm) equivalent telephoto lens as is, and either a 85mm (w/ Speed booster for BMPCC) or a 116mm (regular mFT booster) equivalent tele with a focal reducing adapter. Unless a telephoto lens is just what you need, out in the wild, for example. But on the plus side, it's a fully manual m42 lens with no mechanical coupling to the camera body to move the aperture blades. Which means that apart from the regular aperture ring it has a separate aperture control dial that was used to stop down the lens quickly before taking the shot, and that dial has no clicks. In short, it's a poor man's cine lens. It may have a slight colour cast, but I'll see if that's more annoying than just "character." Stills shot with it don't look too bad. Another plus is the low price. Anything from about $35 to $95. If you're interested in getting one, make sure you'll get the right type, the one with the separate aperture control dial, and not the one with an aperture control pin on the screw mount end of the lens. There are both types in circulation, although they're optically identical.

If the lens has OIS and it's on, turn it off and try again. I take it you are not zooming the lens whilst recording, right? Anyway, if that doesn't help, it might be a moisture problem or something. Try letting both the lens and the body be in some warm-ish and dry place overnight, and then try again. Clean the contacts. Or finish the shoot with manual prime lenses. Try if you can find another mFT body to test the lens with, and vice versa.

That was intended as a friendly pun for sure, but the comment does actually have a point, anyway. The EOSHD name may have felt cool back in the day, but it, along with any name linked to a single brand and model, becomes a branding ballast rather than a branding asset at some point. Here's a recent example from the photography blogging world. Surely you have heard of an Aussie bloke called Matt Granger? He was and still is a photographer and a YouTuber with a relatively large following. In YouTube and in social media he was known as That Nikon Guy. Surely that felt cool at the time, but before long his appearances online had more and more to do with all but Nikon gear. A personal brand tied to an industry brand is always a big risk, and it's bound to become a burden at some point. Like it did in his case. So even though Matt had branded himself as That Nikon Guy, he took the risk of changing his well known but increasingly obsolete online brand and changed it to something more generic yet unique, his own name. The risk paid off, as he did it soon enough and quickly enough, and apparently his online success didn't take any significant hit. Looks like he's doing even better these days, with a new and snappier Get Your Gear Out slogan, and being his own brand rather than being tied to any camera brand. The point of this (somewhat OT) story is not to promote Mr. Granger, I don't even subscribe to his YouTube channel, but just as a relevant example. Perhaps a similar move might be a good idea for EOSHD, too. After all, a new domain will only cost around $30 and then $10 per year, and your online community wouldn't disappear because of a new, more appropriate name. It would work even better in the long run, bringing you more new readers who now may be put off or distracted by the Canon (dSLR)-related brand name, at least in the initial search results. Just saying. -_- The world is changing, life is a stage and the players in the play keep changing through time. Even big names exit the stage at some point, giving room for new names. To be or not to be? That is the question. Would we be better off trying to block the door to the stage, or would we be better off seeing daylight through that open door? :P

One little detail seemed to be missing, or at least discussed quite briefly, namely the shooting with the Shogun part. So will there be a part 3 at some point, or perhaps an epilogue for this one?

I agree, there was some progress to the previous ones. This time I won't go (too) deep into details in this thread but I tend to agree with Inazuma about the use of fades/dissolves between somewhat nervous cuts in the first half of the video. I would have liked to hear even more of the ambient sounds and voices from the actual venue, and not just a 'music video.' It was a bit hard to hear what the speakers were saying. The sound will get the audience hooked, even if the footage itself is not Academy Awards level cinematography. I also agree about the link inazuma provided. The featured teaser of Lyuda&Misha's wedding was a great example of how to shoot sequences and how to cut (edit) for wedding videos. It wasn't perfect, either, but there was some beautiful footage, and I recommend using it as an example of using sound and a music bed together. See how he used ambient sounds behind the clips, not just music, and how clear the sound of the vicar was. The sound of the falling water(?) in the beginning never got justified in the video, but perhaps it does in the actual wedding film, and it still worked fairly well, didn't it. Together with the flow of the clips it created a nice, compelling ambience right from the beginning. Personally I'm not a fan of using plenty of slo-mo and sped up footage, it tends to get overdone these days, and thus has become a gimmicky cliche to avoid. Something to be used with caution. When in doubt, leave it out. Nevertheless, it was a nice looking teaser with some beautiful shots and fluent use of sound, a nice example to get inspired by.

Quite. In the 'right' hands, any camera can be made to look horrible. So why obsessing about Joe Sixpack's handheld video blog entries, then? That doesn't seem too logical. Patience. Geduld. There will be better samples around, eventually. Soon after the final production model comes widely available. Genau. Now you're making sense. ;)

We have no clear tests on anything yet. The usual YouTube crap does not prove anything, it's just the usual YouTube crap. Better to wait for some actual tests from the usual suspects or our personal hands-on time with the camera rather than make ourselves look like ADD kids in online discussions like this. ;)

Indeed, if. Surely you're not the only one impressed by the (potential of) the new NX1, but there are also plenty of us who choose to hold both our judgement and our excitement until we see some real life hands on experience to confirm the promise. Nevertheless, if the pudding turns out to be as good as it looks on the brochures, as I hope as well, the halo effect created by the NX1 will have a positive boost for the whole NX system. That's why I think Samsung should start delivering the new product or at least offering tasting events for their latest pudding soon, well before CES next year, to keep the positive buzz alive. If they wait and delay the actual delivery too long, the positive momentum they gained in Photokina will inevitably be diluted and possibly drowned by the rush of new releases from the already more established brands early next year. Such is today's ADD world.

Umm.... Canonitis? :P

You don't say what OS and NLE you're using, but based on the recent comment above I assume it's OS X & FCPX. There are quite a few different video converters out there in the App Store alone, let alone out in the wild wide web. Anything from simple and cheap/free options like VidConvert to more sophisticated transcoders like ClipWrap, for example, which cost some money, but do pretty much what what they say in the tin. I used to use one of those kind of converters earlier. I think it was VoltaicHD or something like that, which is no longer available, and it worked well for my needs and workflow at the time. But the OS X support for AVCHD has improved recently, and I no longer shoot mostly AVCHD, so nowadays I settle for simpler solutions. Another, perhaps rather unorthodox approach is to use Aperture to import AVCHD clips off the camera/card. Many people have probably migrated to Lightroom or whatever for photos, but Aperture still works just fine, and for video clips, too. I know we can nowadays import AVCHD files directly into FCPX, but the point of using Aperture, IMO, is convenience. That is, in case you have the app installed already. You can still get Aperture from the App Store, though, and no doubt the new Photos or Videos (or whatever the new replacement is called) will work the same way. Aperture (and its soon to be released successor in Yosemite, possibly free) gives you a nice thumbnail view of all your AVCHD clips on the card, and after you import them, you can click and view them with one click, without having to do any conversion or folder digging first. Then you can trash or trim your clips within that viewing window. You can throw away the unnecessary heads and tails of your clips, as well as all the bad clips, and then send only the trimmed bits over to FCPX. That will save some time and probably disk space, too, when you start working on your project in FCPX. Then, after you're done editing your project in FCPX, you can choose to either delete, move or keep the unedited clips within the Aperture library. No need to keep the .mts files inside the annoying Private folder structure on the card. Unless you really want to. Just one method of many, and the annoyance level is reasonably low with this method. Even though the converted files take up a bit more disk space than the unconverted .mts files.

It depends. Trading the 5d3 is probably a good idea in the long run but meanwhile, if the work you get done with those is good enough, why bother for the sake of swapping cameras? If you fancy the Sony A7s with a full frame sensor and just want to have one, that's another story. Go with whatever fancies you. That's not crazy, that's just normal. Our decisions are 90% emotional, anyway. You could put any brand instead of Sony in that sentence, and it would still be one of the not so good reasons to swap gear, aka on the crazy side of the scale. I for one wouldn't rely on any AF alone. For the time being. Especially in scenarios like live weddings where you can't have retakes. Although the native lenses of each system are always the best option for the most reliable AF in general. Yes, Canon really is uncool, but that's another story altogether. :P Whether you're crazy or not depends on your reasons for buying new gear. People can make great looking footage with both Sony and Canon gear. I've met some with C100/300 and some others with Sony gear, and I can't really say the gear dictates the quality of their work. So pick whatever you fancy the most, and stop deluding yourself with all the wrong excuses. ;)