Cinegain

I for once thought it was a terrific and honest piece, well done! Good post as well. People are getting desensitized and desocialized because of this digital realm we've created. They try to look for the points to apply pressure, where it might hurt, pointing out flaws in others and reflecting on their own lives to reinforce how much better theirs is. And to them you're just an internet entity, you're not a real person you'd have to say this stuff face to face to, so no harm done, right? Or then there's the one that actually gets a little kick out of it when you take the bite, take a stand and respond (usually suddenly back peddling 'I didn't mean it quite like that' or just having nothing to respond with at all). Because most of the time all they want is attention, as apparently they do not get enough of this in reallife. And for some reason people aren't allowed to be different. Imagine a world now, in which everybody had the same vision, the same preference and opinions. We'd all be chasing the same women, living in the same place, doing the same job, making the same content. We can't all do the same thing. It wouldn't be much fun at all and it would collapse on itself. So why not embrace different visions, opinions, different lifestyles, different choices... not to bring that up, but religion as well. Why always keep defending your way is the one true way? Why does it hurt you when others don't take the same path as you did? Does it make you feel insecure about the choices you've made yourself? But seriously, what's it to you when someone leaves the big city because it's just not for him? You do not like to hear bad things about your city, well, hey, it's just an opinion, you do not have to agree with it, but guess what, you can respect it. If you didn't know by now, life's not a sugar coated candy land and not everything is perfect, not even your city. Not everything is black and white. You could acknowledge there's some truth to something someone else has to say, or atleast respect the different opinion. The same way you should show a little respect for someones hard work. You lose interest the soon someone has something to say that's not in line with your way of thinking? Have you ever considered there's more to a film than agreeing on every aspect of its content? Always looking for the bad, instead of valuing the good. That's just a downwards spiral of negativity. I mean, if you get legit critique and feedback, do respect that as well, you can even turn it into something positive by taking away something from it. But purely these sad under the belt cheap shots... don't even bother with 'em. It's poison without an antidote. Not worth wasting your time and energy on.

Well actually... got this in last week: Straight from China. The cheapest price I could find online at some handler. They offered me an even better deal if I directly purchased from them and not an intermediate site. 225 EUR below the lowest price I could find through Geizhals.eu (happened to be at Amazon.de). Fantastic experience to be honest. Even flew below customs radar. And look, it's an actual physical and brand new lens. 'Bout third party batteries... Yeah, I know the 'so you've spent all this money on an expensive camera and then take the cheapskate route on the stuff that can ruin that very camera?'-philosophy. What can I say? I like being a bit of a 'rebel' and living 'dangerously'. But seriously though, they're friggin' batteries. That's not rocket science (it's potato science). You can pick up A-brand batteries all shapes and sizes for close to nothing. But wait. Let's make each individual camera take its proprietary battery and charge the sh- out of 'em (pardon my language). Wait... what now? Where did the money go? It didn't go into making the battery, that's for sure. So in all fairness, I respectfully decline buying original batteries. Just do some research. No brand = no go. Don't buy any brandless stuff, yeah, I actually have to agree, that's pretty silly. Don't just go for the cheapest option either. But you can just look up reviews. Check if the manufacturer has a site. Does it looks serious at all? What are their claims? What is there warranty policy? Are there a lot of places selling these batteries? Does Amazon trust 'em enough to sell 'em themselves? I myself have now landed at Patona. Their batteries have been treating me nicely. Actually yesterday bought some of their NP-F970 Premium batteries with charger. Already have some other camera batteries from them, but the F970 is a nice accessory powering battery, that kinda gets rid of the problem of needing tons of AA batteries to power one thing. I don't know. Maybe I'm just good at assessing stuff, having a fair dose of good judgement and making the right calls, but so far I've been very fortunate and happy with the products, logistics and customer service I've encountered whilst buying stuff from abroad (and I do need to mention that I buy silly amounts of stuff from China btw, not just that Nikon lens, they have some terrific bang-for-buck going on, like personal audio, smartphones, tablets, all that good stuff... although you do need to know your stuff and put in the research, and that's just 'what' you're getting, not per se 'how' you are getting it). But anyways. Your problem isn't even with the product itself, you are just unfortunate enough to be stuck in the world of logistic mishaps and lousy bureaucracy. Could be partly because shipping batteries usually form a bit of trouble, dangerous goods and all that, documentation, clearance... then there's unprofessional handling of the actual logistic services and customs... and perhaps subpar customer service and if such a valuable parcel just vanishes, it better be insured properly. I had cinema lenses from the States coming my way a week before I received the Nikon lens. Had to be insured and handled properly. And kinda knowing about bureaucracy and procedures it was pretty obvious that paying for it to have that kind of treatment to be done right would also result in it being treated so professional as to tax me for the whole thing (could've bought that Nikon and then some for that). No flying below radars there. But yeah, that was kind of the calculated risk of not taking risks. So... personally, I don't mind getting things from abroad. Also don't mind cheaper items in general, so I don't share the 'cheaper is more expensive' and 'don't ever buy from overseas'. In meanwhile I kinda know the ins, the outs, the risks and have to say that I've been fortunate enough not to have made any losses along the way *knocks on wood*. But yeah, I get that sucky situations suck, so I do hope you get this sorted out somehow.

​About that price drop, now see that it's actually GBP £4,995.00 (£5,994.00 inc VAT) at CVP.

I'll just quote this from the other topic... Compare that to that Erik Naso video with the Nebula 4000. You thought that looked fine. Well, here the Pilotfly just seem to handle motion like a boss. It's kind of like... eh... like... eh, what am I looking for here... Ah yes, Doakes, thanks. Kinda like that indeed.

​I'm no expert either, but... evaluative noise reduction is a thing? Doesn't the processor just have a preset degree of noise reduction it should apply? This should be regardless of the actual amount of noise perceived/recorded. To my knowledge there's no controller that measures noise and then applies a variable degree of noise reduction to suit the needs of that particular recording. You set it to 0? It will reduce noise according that set degree of noise reduction. You go for NR - 2? It will apply noise reduction accordingly, from what I know, there's no response to operating sensor temperature. That's why you actually experience what John describes: 'The impact of the sensor working at higher temperatures is that you get more noise and other sensor faults like FPN and dead pixels are more likely to show up'. I had this with a few cameras. For obvious reasons most notably shooting with the BMPCC. So... IF heat was that drastically effecting performance to the point it could be perceived as worse peformance (but it's 2015, cameras can handle quite a bit), noise reduction won't just apply a more agressive noise reduction, the quality output will degrade as you keep rolling. Never experienced any noticeable color shifts btw.

By the looks of it it basicly is a lens accessory mount -> 58mm step up ring. Instead of mounting a ring at the end of the barrel, this tube attaches to the camera body (keeping weight of a filter set-up from the lens). It has a fixed position for the filter, the lens barrel should be able to move (zoom) freely within. The LX100 has a 43mm thread on the lens (it has one, so you'd think it's meant to be used, right?). There are 43mm filters and set-up rings availlable out there. This would do the same, but not be attached to the lens. I'm worried though, the closer you have your filter to your lens the better. This might generate some ghosting/flares and on wide angle vignetting? Not sure what your end game is here. If it's adding a clip-on matte box, then yeah, you don't want to attach it to the lens directly! Otherwise... a simple filter, even with a ring in between, can't do that much harm, can it? With the LX7 I even used fish eye and tele converter lens modules attached to the lens (37mm).

Good stuff. Gotta love the way the FZ1000 resolves detail in some of these shots without looking like some sort of digital sharpening is going on. Leaves (freeze frame at 1:35, look at all those leaves, it's not all mushy mushy like a Canon would do), stone/rocks (3:26)... Slowmo is pretty great too (like the shot starting around 0:16). Some of the dolly like shots you were trying to pull of worked quite well (1:29 looked like something from Jurassic Park! 3:15: Nailed it!). Also integrated some nice depth layering, making sure most of the time there's object throughout the depth of the frame; creates a more immersive experience. Even over distance, with added motion, like 1:23. The monkey on 4:16 turning his head and then cover the monkey turning his head in the next shot is greatly done (although there's a bit of inconsistency in color, first a contrasty magenta, then a somewhat flat green). Overall there's hardly any moments for me to go 'ai, there's that 1 inch sensor'. FZ1000 really is an awesome travel companion. Lots of flexibility and nice results without weighing down/too much fuss. There's not much to critique, pretty good job, I'd say. Keep it up. Maybe just try to nail levelling that horizon from time to time a bit more. Perhaps could've cut it a bit shorter and leave some footage out. You know people these days, it's hard to keep people's attention for five minutes. But as a personal travel vid, pretty awesome to have and look back on.

​Ah! Good find. I was wondering about that one. That demo video that was posted a while back looked very promising. With a lot of these stabilizers there's some obvious vibe that there's a gimbal involved. Motion looks digitally corrected, it just doesn't 'flow' very well, whereas the Pilotfly had a pretty organic feel to it. Someone should do a shootout and compare some of these things head-to-head. Anyways, for the time I'll hold off on buying one. Like you said, 700-ish... not sure. And there's bound to be more like this out there in the next months, with new features and sub 500 USD pricing. No rush here.

They should've made the D5500 mirrorless. Away with the mirror. For all I care keep the body more or less the way it is, the GH4 or NX1 isn't your typical mirrorless body either, slap on an EVF, add stuff like peaking and it's pretty much golden! TCSTV's impression makes it look as if it's a tiny bit better than the D5300. It's using the same sensor tech and processor, but the D5500 does seem to perform a touch better. Talking about touch, it's seems a nice addition. But are similar final results worth the extra cash because of handling? I think the D5300 is better value.

I come across Full Sail a lot online... http://www.fullsail.edu/admissions/international Not sure if it's just hipper marketing (a lot of YouTube presence) than others that are more legit though. Just thought I should mention it.

Gotta love that LX100 though. Crazy little bastard. If they would take away all my gear and I could have one thing left, I'd probably pick the LX100 as the one to keep.

Yeah, the warping seemed pretty strong with this one too (see Mathieu's video I posted earlier)... It's great for handheld stationary or slow pace shooting, but there's only so much stabilization that can be achieved in-camera, there's literally not much wiggle room. Externally with a pistol grip or handheld gimbal, such as the Ronin or Nebula... there's a bit more that can be done, so there's still going to be a place and time for the use of external stabilization. But yeah... about that adding camera movement, maybe not the most ideal results depending on what you go for, but just to remove handheld shake in a stationary shot, it's pretty effective without the need of a shoulder rig, mono- or tripod as fuzzy demonstrated (with the old E-M5 even). ​Anyways. They've cancelled the order for me. First of all, because it was a pre-order and they expected stock over a week ago, so I was hoping to get it quickly (and with a bit of discount even), well, it hasn't shipped yet and their supplier can't give them any information although it has already been availlable in stores around me for a couple of days now, so I might as well pick it up there should I still want to... But for now... I'll just let the others be the guinea pigs and wait to see if there are any improvements/Olympus listens to feedback as time passes, if not, then I'm hoping Panasonic does something crazy with the GX7 successor and get that instead. I was really rooting for Olympus to get it right with this one though...

The D5300 imho is the best APS-C reflex camera out there to give you great 1080p (although perhaps the newer D5500 has an ever so slight edge over it). The fact that it comes at a rather affordable price just makes it even more awesome. Would strongly suggest it (in addition to Ebrahim's and leeys' support for this camera). Yeah, sure, better would be: full frame Nikon (D750/D810) or Canon 5DmkIII with ML RAW... but full frame pricing and with the ML RAW the workflow... not to mention the size and weight of it all. Have you considered going mirrorless or do you really need to stick with Nikon? Because going mirrorless I'd say might just be the best bet entirely. If the A7S, GH4, NX1 are too expensive, there's still the GX7, G6, GM1, A5100, A6000 and soon NX500.

If Panasonic really does come out with a GX7 successor in a few months... and integrated stabilization to work during video recording... that would be golden. Doesn't have to be 4K if they're afraid of sensor overheating and making it impossible with the sensor stabilization at the same time. But just awesome 1080p and sensor stabilization would come a long long way. In meanwhile, if I really really have to... I still have the E-M1 lying around for now (just don't want to shoot 30p, but hey it does stills really well). But in general for video I'd rather pick the GH4 or BMPCC and lock it down or rig it. And then there's the LX100 and FZ1000 that have pretty good stabilization and some flexibility to them, with 4K recording for on the go. An E-M5II that just did everything right, combining the best of all worlds would've been great to have though... especially because of vintage, 3rd party and cinema lenses. Camera movement can add a lot to a clip. But a gimbal is too elaborate for me to be somewhat casual walking around with. Guess it's like you said fuzzy: 'One day, just not today'.

Yeah, although it's availlable practically everywhere I look (I went into a store close by just now, they had it), the only place it's not availlable is where I pre-ordered (silly me, I thought that would put me ahead). I think it's the universe trying to tell me something. So I'm going to listen and told them they could just go ahead and cancel it...

Here's a translation of a review left on Amazon.de by someone...

GH4 4K is 2.3x crop. BMPCC is still the worst though at close to 3x. But that's why there's focal reducers. In meanwhile... (FT4) UPDATED: Yes, GX7 successor is coming in May/June.

I love this bit with Larry Jordan on reading waveforms and vectorscopes (ok, and histogram) to color correct: Basicly without even having seen the image (last few minutes where he crops a part of the image and uses that small portion to correct the whole thing is pretty cool), you can roughly tell where things are balanced out evenly. Now, that's just color correction, I mean, you can grade it what you want. Depends on what you're going for. But if it's meant to go on television as a part of a talk show... I'd say stick close to something balanced and lifelike and not so much something with a baked-in stylized look to set a certain mood. I can't recall talk shows that looked shot by Michael Bay or J.J. Abrams. It kind of depends on the context... yes, less contrast perhaps is more cinematic and that would work if you're making a (short) film. On a regular tv broadcast... it might look a little out of place. And adding contrast doesn't mean you have to crush the blacks and blow out the highlights... you can just keep them below their breaking point and spread out the rest of the levels a bit evenly. Not that everything is compressed in the mids. As Larry pointed out: 'you need to read scopes. Never ever make decisions with your eye, because your eye can make a mistake and many monitors are not calibrated'. Fair point. To answer the question of 'which'... I'd go with something close to the first. The first might be a tad bit too poppy, but the second is way milky. Lifelike is probably somewhere in between, but closer to the first one.

Here are some alternatives: http://lenshero.com/lenses/nikon-d5300-zoom-wide-12mm-lens-less-than-950 . Find reviews on the web and examples on Flickr, Vimeo and YouTube. Personally actually think the Tokina does a pretty decent job (recently they've added a new 11-20mm f/2.8 http://photorumors.com/2014/12/24/tokina-at-x-11-20mm-f2-8-pro-dx-lens-officially-announced/ and a 11-16mm VDSLR lens: http://photorumors.com/2015/02/03/tokina-also-introduced-a-at-x-116-pro-dx-v-lens-with-an-interlocking-follow-focus/ , not sure how they hold up though, but according that last link: 'razor sharp images are achieved through the inclusion of a new aspherical lens and super-low dispersion glass') and I'm not sure if any of these other lenses will have less distortion. It's hard not to at these kind of focal lengths you know.

​Well, not quite, but blatantly lying is something else... for sake of comparison the latest 750D/760D from Canon when mentioning video in their press release: Sounds like your typical soccer mom camera to me. Don't make claims you can't uphold. I might not like the Canons that much, but atleast I can't give them crap for pretending to be something they're not. They don't say 'go shoot cinema-quality stuff' with it. Same for the 7D's successor (the mark II) and the 7D has been used for video content for ages! Pretty much sounds like listed specs... not what applications the camera is designed for to be used videowise. Not really exaggerating what it can do. But anyways. I guess you get the picture. I'm done with hating for today, hoping for a brighter tomorrow.

​That's just the thing that kinda drives me mad. They aren't considering video on the E-M5II to be an afterthought. Video on the E-M5II is regarded as a 'main feature' of the camera. They mention two other 'main features' (in other words: 'why should you really buy this camera?'). One of them is build quality/weatherproofing; the other is the 5-axis stabilization. So... stills performance is not even considered to be the main reason for buying this particular camera, but video is. Note as well... nowhere do they mention 'video'. They have been listening real close... too close. They know there's a (much hated on) 'video look' and a (rather appreciated) 'film look', so instead of marketing this thing to be great for video, haha, no, it's meant to be used for creating 'cinema-quality movies'. Oh no, it's not a video camera. We're basicly dealing with a cinema camera here. It's for 'professional level movie making'. I mean. I'm not pulling these words along with a bunny out of my hat, this is what they're telling us the E-M5II is. I mean, I can live with the E-M1 not being the best for video, you know. I knew that from the start. It's a stills camera, they never claimed you could use it in a professional level movie making environment. But I was led to believe that with the E-M5II I would be handed something different, a camera with just about everything I could ever have wished for... well, call me Gullible George, but I guess so much for that, eh.

​I can imagine. That's another idea... I already have the GH4, but I could add the A7S to the mix and just forget about the E-M5II altogether. Does add something different to the toolset. Then it becomes stabilization VS full-frame/lowlight/image quality. Although personally I feel there's not really the need for something more elaborate than the GH4/BMPCC, needing to be fed with different glass. I just wanted to have something compact in the toolbox with IBIS for hybrid shooting minimalistic style. Why couldn't Olympus just do it right from the get-go? I don't want to have to consider other options. It does look like they started caring about 'functionality' but in the process forgot about what really matters... the final product you pull out of the camera. You'd think it's an obvious thing to keep in mind. But if image quality is a step back from the E-M1... what gives? Anyways. *sigh* I'll just let 'em ship that pre-order and see for myself. Saw that Amazon.co.uk gets 'em in tomorrow ('This item is due to be released on March 6, 2015') maybe my store as well. Maybe with changing a few settings, profiles and being mindful how the camera behaves when you shoot certain type of scenarios stuff might come out acceptable enough. I mean, there were a couple of videos that were certainly alright. And then if I keep it, hopefully it gets better from there and they continue to listen to the video people to make future efforts to enhance user experience and foremost: image quality. I just want the camera that was promised in the press release you know.

​That I can try to avoid. Just lacking quality in general... not so much. If you get something in your hands that's claiming to serve the 'professional level cinematic quality top class movie'-market and apparently doesn't live up to the claims, that's sorta worrying... And obviously 'all these pre-release reviews' is a generalization based on the general consensus of the majority of these reviews, so take that with a grain of salt should some people in particular have made a review that wasn't all flowers and butterflies as there's no need to take offense.

Thanks Andrew, such honest feedback is appreciated! All these pre-release reviews kind of all came to the same conclusion: 'what video concerned the E-M5II greatly improves on the E-M1'. Listen, I wasn't particularly bummed with the look out of the E-M1, for the most part it looked pretty great, just the whole mode was wacky and 30p only sucked balls. So when the E-M5II comes along addressing that, giving us multiple framerates, higher bitrates, vari-angle display, grip with headphone socket... and people said video looked better? Well, count me in! But hearing your side of the story... I guess the reviewers were corrupted. I mean... I get it's cool you have connections with Olympus and you want everything between you and them to be all cosy 'n cuddly, so you only have positive things to say about 'em and continue to have this pleasant relationship getting early exclusives and all, but what's the point of lying to yourself and your audience? So, well. That sorta blows... Very disappointing from Olympus. What bothers me the most is their press release that made me pre-order it. Let's walk through the press release again, see what it mentions: ~ http://www.olympus-global.com/en/news/2015a/nr150205em5mk2e.jsp Now... my pre-order hasn't shipped yet... so hum. What now. Knowing this it's almost tempting to stick with the E-M1, but I won't, because I'm done with the 30p only BS and I'm pretty sure that, although they could, they're not going to update the E-M1's video mode anytime soon (not even using it hybrid anymore, just stills only here). And the successor to the E-M1 won't be video centric, so I wouldn't get your hopes up for that one either. Then there's just hoping they can magically improve on the E-M5II's performance with firmware updates... well... that's somewhat of a long shot, but I guess there's not much else to do here. If you want handheld stabilized video, on any lens, with a bare essentials set-up (so no pistol grip gimbal), you kind of have to go along with Olympus. Or Panasonic has to do something crazy... GX7 successor... if the GH4 and E-M5II had a baby and it would turn out to be the GX8... something like that would be rather exciting now... but... yeah.

The dress is white/gold, the moon landing was staged and clearly 9/11 was an inside job as the footage shows explosive charges going off! * puts on aluminium foil hat - Oh, and I saw Jesus' face in my toast this morning... just a silly coincidence? I think not.