Cinegain

Started watching the new season of Narcos the other day. I started noticing how quite a few shots had some shakiness to 'em. There's no smooth hovering with a locked feeling. It moves. It adds something raw. It's organic. It's real. That's the thing if you don't take care of overdoing it... everything is just articially floating, like a virtual camera through 3D space. Now that has its use, surely, but like everything, it's a tool. You shoot stable footage when a situation is under control... when a character's thoughts are running around or there's an intense dialog, you shake things up a bit. Like just about everything in life... enjoy in moderation. Put it to good use, but don't overdo it. To have the possibility and choice though, I think is great!

And if it does in fact work in video mode? Not sure if I've seen that anywhere. The GX7 had in-body stabilization for stills only too. Though, Sony has the A7RII/SII, so you'd expect the same... -- again my bad for not reading... 'and movies'. Just funny how they casually mention it instead of making a bigger deal out of it.

Read/write/buffer seems pretty dope: _

Yeah, personally I'm looking forward to a LX100 successor. M4/3 sensor with fixed Leica zoom! Hopefully this time around a little bit more versatile (vari-angle touchscreen, live HDMI out, mic-in), better stabilization and less noise. But that's probably pushing their willingness to give us a camera that does it all... so we'll probably won't see that happen. Still though. Another effort by Sony. But is it rushed? Or did they learn from their mistakes and are ready to prove it? I'm skeptical. Guess we'll have to await the first user reports.

Yeah, but for taking cool stills it will be a bit of a hassle to go that route...

Think the Nikon D750 with a Shure VP83F LensHopper might serve you well.

EOS M5 has 5-axis Digital IS. So apparently, why not. But going through the specs the Sony's supposed to have mechanical not digital after all.

Says 'gyro sensor provides an image stabilization effect'... so digital stabilization like the EOS M5, not actual suspended stabilization like Olympus/Panasonic is doing or what..? -- Ok, it's a mechanism. So I'll just take it it's the proper thing. Still though... that and the same kind of body as the A6300 worries me. I hope they've made that processing quick 'n efficient... but I'm preparing for the worst here...

Yeah, I was so stoked for the A6300 when it was announced. Went and got the conversion kit to E-mount for the Veydras. And then... Sony happened. They always deliver on paper... and then in practice... grmpf. Between the overheating, rolling shutter, color channel clipping and out of camera colors and lack of fully articulated touchscreen and headphone jack... maybe meh-ish batterylife... Why don't they indeed take the A7-body style and just throw in an APS-C sensor? The thing that's really going to make the difference is the lenses you're going to throw in front anyways, so why not up the body in terms of ergonomics, features and have solid heat disappation, room for a bigger battery, proper audio interface, maybe even dual card slot, vari-angle touchscreen... yeah, basically more like an APS-C Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II what I'm concerned! Actually, exactly that! If it wasn't for the up in sensor performance (mostly noise profile), better selection of wide angle lenses/easier to get shallow depth of field (and being close to S35 right of the bat) and the possibility to boost towards fullframe... I would've happily kept true to the M4/3 format. But I would like to dial in 3200 ISO without worrying too much, use lenses and have less of a crop factor and the ability to boost towards fullframe (that is why I don't need fullframe cameras, which are chunky and expensive cameras (some with 4K crop!) and the beauty of APS-C is that you can also use some more compact APS-C lenses, although Sony hasn't done enough with that themselves I think). Neways. Probably not a good idea to get your hopes up for this one... but maybe, just maybe, they've learned something over the course of this year? I'll stay tuned!

Tutti frutti! Yeah. There is something off about it though even when focussed correctly. It's like it renders distant scenes into one big blue greyish atmosphere. Only the foreground subject looks as you'd expect. That is why top down mode looks the best (to me), because basically it's a flat plane without any depth to be messed up. Also something unnatural about the colors maybe. I don't know. But... it's almost a 180 from the first impressions, so I'm starting to warm up to it. Been flying toy quadcopters before (after planes and helis) and tried a couple spy cam DIY solutions, but when things got lawyered, I just gave up on stepping it up. Still don't know if I have the guts to just launch it in the air around here... but I get where the Italians are coming from, that this would be the more innocent option. I suppose this is more of a camera I would take to Spain or Thailand and shoot some footage of silly beach fun. I guess for actual aerial video production work, I'd either need to fully commit and do it as a legit business, or hire someone that has already done just that.

No worries and I agree, I think that's the best move to make! In which case going EOS mount (adapted) lenses (-> EOS Speedbooster) next gives you the most mounting flexibility I think. Going with Nikon mount for your Speedbooster (thus Nikon mount (adapted) lenses) is a little less flexible (like Contax Zeiss for example, with either a hardware mount hack (not for all lenses) or adapter with glass), but would allow direct dummy mounting with aperture control on the cheap (which was my personal preference).

Find out if Sony/Minolta MA adapts to a Canon or Nikon mount. Then get a speedbooster for that mount and use it with an additional adapter. But what I think is that you'll need the adapter itself to have optical correction to allow for infinity focus. Which is a bad bad idea to use as these degrade image quality.

Well, that's more like it. Still remains the issue of occassional washed out and purple bits, but I haven't seen it occur in all clips. And if shots can look like that, why didn't all of their own footage look like that??! (Or is the video a hoax? Shot with something else?) That's the thing that puzzles me the most... these companies often mess up the choice of people who they let shoot their promotional stuff. But yeah, the convenience VS quality Casey was talking about might just slowly starting to get in favor of the Mavic again. Might be a nice little start into aerial videography and then having it mastered by the time the successor comes out next year. Still think the Karma is a fine system though. This is where it really gets tough between the two.

Well, not if people criticize videoquality based on that 720p bad rip upload (of their already questionable 4K original video). That's free badvertising.

I think you don't go and use it out in daylight without the loupe... Also like the mentioned topic states 'being able to monitor and pull focus perfectly in bright daylight'... no need for a loupe if it would've done that out of the box just fine without one! But you can always go and try to contact them with a personal message.

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Cameras, drones, it's always the same thing... they have the oppertunity to make it the ultimate thing out there... but they all just focus on one aspect instead of doing it all. I guess that's what running a business is about... not neccessarily beating the competition, but doing something different and leaving room for improvement so you can sell another one at a later time. Ugh. Need more people like Elon Musk that try to push the boundaries of what is possible with technology.

Yeah, I can see how that would work better for Casey, he's riding his board to the boulevard, stops to get a smoothie, let the drone follow him as he rides around. It's compact, it's smart. It might not have the best quality, but then again, he's shooting a Canon 80D for the ease of use, not for its steller image quality and sick features. Like I said... 'So the one platform is more of a social tool, like an enhanced selfie stick... that puts you in the moment, having something cool to show for... while something else might be more just to stun and wow'. He definitely falls more into the first category (else he'd be going around in a van with a Freely ALTA 8 w/ ALEXA Mini). I already said as well I thought the footage looked to fall short of the Zenmuse X3 and this really seems to be the case. So personally, I'd lean more towards the Karma system right now. But that's the beauty... a lot of whishes, a lot of different options. Mix 'n match. To each their own. -- another video, this time Jon! And it's smaller than her shoe!

Do you have a macro or manual focus setting enabled maybe? If not, then I'm not sure, contact Panasonic for their thoughts on the matter. I went with the 12-40mm f/2.8 PRO from Olympus. It might not have optical stabilization, but it's a super duper built lens and nice to work with. Gotta love the pull de-clutch that enables manual focus with hard stops.

Yeah, it's like I said last week!

Yeah, but this for me is kind of a throwback to the days where we would stick 808 keychain spycams underneath a cheapass WLToys quadcopter. It had issues just like that. -- Anyways, years ago I was inspired by videos like: and Then DJI made it possible for normal (but talented) human beings to get creative with stuff like that! Now it is more advanced and cheaper than ever! And with a whole lot more competition. There's also Yuneec, 3DR and Quanum (Cheerson) for example and then there's all these Kickstarter/Indiegogo projects (that may or may not come to fruition)... it's exciting, but also worth checking out what works best with your... budget/expectations/needs. A lot of people will say 'content is king', but especially with aerial video I find there's a whole lot to the image quality. So the one platform is more of a social tool, like an enhanced selfie stick... that puts you in the moment, having something cool to show for... while something else might be more just to stun and wow. I like the diversity and the fact there's more options now.

I think the plastic protective dome might degrade image quality quite a bit by generating reflections and flares. I mean, if that's the best footage they have to show for... then I'm not all that into it (the girl running on the beach just looked washed out or something? The shot at 2:43 I would never have included. There's like washed out bits and purple). What the hell is going on here?? Surely they can not strap a big camera to it, given it's compact size, so I think there's some consessions going on. If like the video shows, you're hiking about and absolutely don't want to be weighed down... want something that is aware of its surroundings and have a high level of automization... this is the one to get. However... I think that if I were to get one, I'd more lean towards the Karma... I also think bigger and heavier platforms allow for a smoother flight. Will have to see how this pans out... P.s. make sure to watch the official video in best quality here (4K VS 720p in the topic lead post).

Not sure about the image quality and stabilization. Seems a step back from the X3 even I think..? That said... we'll need to await further footage and reviews. But man, that thing is sexy like hell. Compact like nothing else! And unlike GoPro, this does have more safety features. The worst thing to happen is it hitting something and crashing down. This certainly wins as a quadcopter... not sure if it wins when it comes down to image quality. But I have a feeling there's bound to be a lot of comparison videos once these start to ship out! Crazy exciting times! Although I'm still not sure this is worth my trouble... operating aerial video platforms like this remains a legal hassle in some if not most areas. Used to be a grey zone and an expensive endavour... but with it getting cheaper and cheaper and getting in the hands of people who are unresponsible with it... I'm not looking forward to be getting one so I can shoot some gorgeous footage of... pastures... just about the only place remaining you're allowed to shoot (if you're lucky... and with permission from the land owner).