Cal

Hi.

Just seeing if anyone has had any experience with Secced tripods? Been told that Sachtler didn't renew patents and the some designs were picked up by Secced, a chinese company.

I'm told the build quality is very good and that you wouldn't be able to tell them apart in feel, but I'm unable to check them out in person due to location.

So, any advice much appreciated. Thanks a lot.

I use a older model Seagate GoFlex dock which will accept any standard connection hard drive, although they don't advertise that fact, and then it's as simple as swapping them out depending on the project.

However, as mentioned earlier, you'll probably find it's the codec causing the issue not the drive access speed. I edit GH4 4k on a fully spec'd imac and it still will lag. I use EditReady to convert to 4k Prores and even though the files are massive, probably four times the size, they play without issue. H.264 is hard enough on your processor in 1080, so unpacking the 4K version is a whole lot more effort. 

Coincidence? Maybe...

http://photo.net/digital-camera-forum/00d2Dt

​If I'm bumping something, then I'm doing it an awful lot!

The annoying thing is that it's happened a few times now but I can never seem to recreate the issue back at home.

Been trying for the last 15 mins to recreate the problem. And you guessed it, I can't! Everything behaving perfectly.

Point taken re the peaking reliability but the focus is out by metres, not just a little soft.

Constant preview is on - but yes, that's the issue I suppose - the image looks nothing like what I see on the LCD or viewfinder.

I'm using the default metering mode. Think it's called Multiple. Just reading about those now and I think there's certainly room for improvement there on my part, changing to a more selective option to get that closer rather than just lifting where need be in post.

But yeah, it's the crazy focus that's the main problem. I have another shoot on Friday so will try and either sort it out or post my further failings!

Thanks again, really appreciate the advice.

Thanks a lot for the help.

The shutter does vary as you'd expect but doesn't seem slow.

I've experimented with different apertures with similar results. Don't think I have any manual controls on the Speedbooster? 

The thing that bugs me, which I probably didn't explain well, is that the whole image isn't soft - it's like my focal length has moved (often fairly drastically) from what it looks to my eye and confirmed rightly or wrong by the peaking. So a car I thought was sharp is soft and a sign 3 metres behind it now looks in focus.

The other thing I didn't mention is that the picture are often very under exposed too. Not always but maybe 50% of the time.

I'll try and dig out a photo which I haven't deleted in shame and upload!

Thanks for the lens advice. My only hesitation there is most of my stuff is doco style and with little to no setup, often no lighting etc. So to carry and change out a lens would be a pretty big hassle.

Hi there.

Having a bit of trouble with a focus issue and wondering if anyone can help? I notice a few of these posts cropping up on google but no answers.

Anyway...after a tonne of reading and test video watching I ditched my low end Canon and bought a GH4 with EF flavoured Speedbooster, and got myself a Sigma 18-35mm 1.8. I love this thing for video, set it up with a Cine V custom profile based on Andrew's Ebook with a few changes, and have been really impressed with what I'm getting out of a cheap "video" camera.

However, I can't seem to take a sharp photo if my life depended on it. I reckon I'm one in five on a good day.

I'm not a photographer, should get that out the way first, and while I used to get nice stuff out of my Canon it was more to do with the wonders of RAW than skill on location. But they were always sharp.

With the GH4 combo I'll be on a shoot and the video looks great. I need to get stills for web promo stuff so I flick it over to one of the photo modes (usually aperture priority but even tried on full auto when desperate), check my focus using peaking assist (the same ones I get my video in focus with every time) and snap the pic. And it goes horribly wrong. Sometimes will look sharp enough on the LCD but put it on a computer and it's way off. And a lot of the time it will look way off even on the GH4 LCD.

Any ideas?? Driving me a little nuts.

Know the lens doesn't have stabilisation but mainly shooting off sticks, and haven't had issue with the same lens on my old camera. So, thinking it's most likely a speedbooster thing, but as I don't have any M43 native lenses the GH4 can't clear its name either. 

Thanks a lot.