mercer

Since I'm here... I may as well post a couple shots from my newest copy of the Nikkor 35mm 1.4 lens on the FP. I've owned a few of these over the years and always make the mistake of selling it. With the uptick in prices, I thought it would be out of reach... well patience pays off and I was able to find one for a reasonable price.

I've been meaning to comment on this... I think these look great. I've always read that this sensor needs a ton of light, but I've always liked the look of slower native lenses on the OG cams. As you may remember, this is a lens I've wanted for the BMMCC for awhile. Stick it to f/5.6 and it seems to be a nice little set up with OIS. Since this is a power zoom, does it work like a camcorder lens... can you zoom all the way in, grab your focus and then zoom out?

I think you may have read too much into my suggestion... I was merely stating that a simple turn to B&W could eliminate chroma values as a possible reason for the OP's issues. I never intended to suggest for him to deliver all of his footage from the S1 as B&W.

If it's a 4:20 vs. 4:22 issue, then you could desaturate the footage you already shot and the artifacts should disappear.

The 1080p wasn't necessarily bad, it's just nowhere near as good as on the 5D3. I really want the 8bit 4K to be better than my first test. I'd like to shoot as bare bones as possible and although the DPL is a solution, it still adds unnecessary bulk to the camera. But the storage for the 8bit 4K CDNG is pretty hefty and the SD cards are astronomical. We'll see. Like I said I want to do another test before I completely give up on it. I also want to test the 48p option.

Okay, thanks that makes sense. That may be the problem with the drive I was using. It wasn't really full at all, but I guess after a bunch of quick recordings, it was too taxing on the buffer. It's a shame the T5 drives aren't as readily available, or as cheap as they once were. SmallRig makes a side handle where the T5 can be inserted into the handle. It's a pretty nifty solution. Can you confirm this... I just watched a YouTube video and the guy said the the picture profile was baked into Braw footage. Well, he specifically said that the OFF profile was baked in, but I assume that all are? If so, that's kinda weird. I suppose it seems like I am contradicting myself... I probably am. My goal is to make the rig as compact as humanly possible, for most shooting, but I can see some benefits to rigging it out with a V-mount and using it on sticks and/or a dana dolly for more controlled shoots. In those instances, is my curiosity about the Sandisk Blade system.

MPB seems pretty reasonable when you're looking to trade. After answering a few simple questions, they give you a quote and how much it will save you toward whatever you're looking to buy. They'll even hold the camera/lens for you until they get your gear and assess it. To be clear though... I've only gotten a quote from them and never went through the entire process. The offer seemed reasonable but definitely on the lower end. For the ease of the process, it may be worth it. I've never really had an issue with eBay, but I have heard horror stories. I make sure I am extremely honest in my listing, but also make it clear that I'm not an expert and that this is used gear so it is being sold AS IS. The last I checked eBay takes 12%. If you're a new seller, there may be a grace period for you to receive the funds until there is proof of tracking. That said, I'm always wary because I'll get offers from people with very few feedback scores. I usually only sell at a Buy it Now price with a Best Offer option. I usually list on the higher end to weed out the riff-raff but I still get a lot of lowball offers I'll either ignore or decline. Sometimes you get some sob stories... "it's Christmas and I really want to surprise my pregnant wife, whose about to give birth in a manger, a camera, can you accept 10% of the asking price... blah... blah-blah... blah"

Honestly, I don't quite understand why Panasonic shooters are still complaining about their AF? This isn't 2014, if you need AF go buy a Canon or Sony. It's not like Panasonic is leaps and bounds ahead of Canon and Sony with video features any more. In fact, they're probably lacking.

Okay thanks. Do you remember what brand you're using? Also were you doing a lot of starting/stopping when using your Dark Power Labs set up? I abbe to test the internal recording a bit more... I was hoping I'd like the footage more than I do. Like I said, other than the higher ISO capabilities of the FP, my 5D3 seems to look much nicer than the internal 1080p on the FP. Granted it adds some slow motion options. I think I need to go out and just test the 8bit cDNG. I hate the amount of data it burns through with the cost of SD cards, but it's definitely the most option of the camera.

So, I wasn't too clear there, but I saw on the B&H specs page, for the FP, that the native dual-iso, in internal cDNG (8bit 4K & 12bit 1080p) is 100 on the low-end, and 640 for the high. B&H specs aren't always correct, but they usually are. I need to do more research to see if that's the case. I'd imagine the image is still fairly clean regardless, but I am planning on only shooting on the two native ISOs on the FP. YMMV. I totally agree about ISO 3200... it's one of the best features of the camera... in the woods, even in mid-day, bumping up to 3200 and using ND filtration makes a drastic improvement in overall IQ without the need for extra lighting, and/or reflectors. I love the way the highlights are handled as well. Even a bright sky that's basically blown out has a nice softness to it. I love the clean, modern image I'm getting from the FP, and it's small size, but if not for the 3200 ISO feature, I may not even keep the camera. I find my 5D to be an overall nicer shooting experience with only a minimal bump in IQ for the FP. The workflows are actually very similar so it seems like a great in-betweener camera for me when I need higher ISO or where a little extra resolution can be beneficial. In their marketing Sandisk try and sell that this product is already part of established professional productions and workflows... I think it may be a little hype. But it seems like a cool option. I'm also looking at the Dark Power Lab option. I almost purchased their basic set up last week, but after looking at the cost and availability of the internal nVME drives, I was a little discouraged. It seems like the size could be outdated soon enough. I also saw on YouTube that they tend to get kinda hot. What brand nVME are you using? It seems Sabrent, Samsung and WD are the only options. I'm very run and gun, so overheating frightens me a little and compatibility is a concern. I may shoot a dozen short shots in as many minutes, and then jump right into a dialogue scene that I'm getting coverage for. I need it to be reliable. Shooting with the Kingston SSD the other day, which is not on Sigma's recommended list, basically made the camera unusable. I haven't had ANY hiccups shooting with my 5D and the ML Raw hack for over 5 years... so having my camera recording stop in the middle of a take was pretty disheartening. This isn't a hacked camera. Perhaps the supplied cable has something to do with it... I read somewhere that 3.1 generation is important to how the FP operates with the USB-C. I believe the Kingston and others like the T7 are using 3.2 so even with the faster speeds, I guess there may be some kind of compatibility issue. I may buy a new cable and test it out because the size of those Kingston drives is pretty tiny. Sabrent also makes one called the Rocket Mini, so if you, and others, are using Sabrent nVME drives with your DPL, then that might be an alternative option as well. I think I need a little more testing and some research before I drop the money into DPl... even though that seems like the best option if it works and the drives aren't too expensive.

After purchasing a Sigma FP a few weeks ago, I realized that the SSD route is really the only viable option with the camera. Sadly. As cool as the camera is with its tiny size, I think most users would have preferred internal recording to a larger memory card solution. I know I would have. CFExpress or whatever the newfangled cards are, couldn't have added too much to the size of the camera. The internal 12bit CDNG 1080p isn't any better than the video quality from my 5D3 w/ ML Raw and I don't think the Dual ISO for the internal CDNG modes share the same 3200 ISO rating that makes the camera so appealing to me. That said, I do like the camera and the 4K image, so I've been testing a few SSDs and it seems that the popular Samsung T5 drive is either to0 difficult to get now, or is too expensive. According to the internet, the T7 doesn't seem to get along with the FP as well as the T5 does... which doesn't make much sense to me since it's a faster drive, but either way, that leaves only a few Sigma recommended options... the LaCie Rugged... and the Sandisk Extreme. The LaCie Rugged is an orange monstrosity that seems as big as the camera... so... NO. I've been using the Sandisk Extreme and it works pretty well so far, but it's a little bigger than I'd like... so I searched online for some smaller drives. I found a Kingston and an Adata. Since Kingston is a better known brand, I decided to give it a go... and... it worked really well. It was recording for over a minute during my tests without issue. So I decided to take it out for a test shoot... again no issues... I recorded a bunch of clips without any issues... even a few that went over the 1-2 minute mark. So I thought... SCORE! This thing is tiny in comparison to other drives and the cost is reasonable enough... but then at the end of this test shoot... it decided to hiccup. Every time I hit record, there was a lag and the recording would barely last 3-5 seconds... so not a win. I then plugged in Sandisk Extreme and no issue whatsoever. Again this is weird since the Kingston is "supposed" to far outpace the Sandisk Extreme... like double the speeds. Maybe it has to do with internal heat, or something, I don't know, either way it didn't work. I assume I'll just continue with the Sandisk Extreme SSDs and buy a couple more, but then I happened to notice a product called the Sandisk Pro Blade system. It seems marketed to video productions... they even use pictures of it being used with a BMPCC 6K Pro in their marketing. Now it isn't particularly small or cheap, but the mags are about the same price as the individual Sandisk Extreme drives and when shooting in more controlled environments, or when using a bigger rig, it seems very simple to just pop out a mag and replace it rather than unplugging the Extreme SSD, detaching it from the rig and then hooking up a new one... Anyway, sorry for the long post, but I was just wondering if anyone has any experience with this system?

I'm finding it's better to protect the highlights as much as possible with the FP, no matter the mode. But there is a lot of latitude which is making exposure a breeze. Between the center-weighted meter and the waveform, it seems near impossible not to get a workable shot. That said, I still want to test out the 8bit raw mode a bit more and the 1080p, especially in higher frame rates. I like how it has a 48p option. I had a look at the DPL products and they do look nice. I watch this guy named Justin Phillips on YouTube and he mentions them in one of his videos and it seems the drives get a little hot... have you noticed that with yours? I'm also looking at a couple other brand SSD's... Kingston and Adata both make very small, external SSD drives and Sabrent has a small one called the Rocket Nano which is self-contained. I'm gonna have a go at those and make sure I'm happy with the camera before I send off for the DPL caddy/drive... even though that's probably where I'll end up. I want to keep this thing as compact as possible.

I need to mess around with the 8bit, internal raw a little more. I tested it for a few minutes and it seems to take a big hit in the highlights, but since the footage seems to handle underexposure pretty well, I could try protecting the poop out of them. Thanks for the info regarding the DPL drives. I'll have to figure out my FB login and have a closer look.

Cool set up! How do you like the FD lenses with the FP? I like the smaller adapter. I'm probably going to buy an M-mount lens to keep the camera nice and small.

Yeah that's a bit pricey, but it's better than the equivalent cost of SD cards... obviously not to mention the bump in resolution you get using the drive. Can you purchase two enclosures and one rack? I doubt I'd ever need any more than 50 minutes of footage in one day, but I guess it doesn't hurt to have two set ups. I bought a SmallRig enclosure the other day but I haven't ordered the drive or the cold shoe attachment for it yet. One of each could probably do.

Smart, my natural inclination would have been to leave the grip on the camera and take off the drive. Your way is quicker. If you don't mind me asking... how much is that DPL Drive?

Nice! I'm using the same handle, but in black. That DPL rack is pretty sweet!

Today I decided to just rubber band the drive to the top of the camera... definitely not ideal but better than the L-Bracket I was using. I must admit... it's a damn nice image. I love shooting at dusk at 3200 ISO with a VND...

Although, I couldn't possibly portend to understand what is required of a wedding shooter, I don't think I could recommend the FP for such a task, unless you were doing smaller, movie trailer type of wedding videos. As I understand it, being a solo, hybrid shooter, your specific workflow requires a specific set of tools that you've worked out over many years, so nobody could probably tell you what's best for your specific circumstances. With that said, the FP is small enough that you could keep it stowed away in a small bag and pull it out when you have some extra minutes to shoot some candid footage of the bride and groom. I'm not familiar with the 24-105mm but I cannot imagine any bulky lens would be fun to shoot with the FP. I found even small lenses to be a bit front heavy... of course I'm using vintage lenses where the adapters are damn near the size of the lens. And with that said, I can't say for sure yet if I'm going to get along with the FP. On the positive side, the 4K 12bit raw is pretty nice, but I probably don't really need 4K raw and unless I can find a simple, ergonomic solution to the external SSD, I may find the camera too cumbersome to my sensibilities... even with its multitude of positives... But that 4K 12bit raw image is pretty damn nice... and it didn't cause my computer to implode.

In some ways it does, but like @BTM_Pix has said, it also feels like a true successor to the original Pocket camera as well, but yes I used a similar workflow in post as I use with the 5D, so there is definitely a familiarity. But I will say that the those extra bits of color info really helps the ML Raw image. It looks a bit thicker to me. Needless to say, I still have some tests to do.

After months... years of lusting over the Sigma FP, I finally found one at a price I felt comfortable with. Other than a few, short-lived, camera purchases, I haven't bought a camera, that I use regularly, in 5 and a half years... I still have a BMMCC, I bought nearly 3 years ago, sitting in a box on my shelf that I only used once to test the rig. The FP arrived a couple days after I purchased it (big hat-tip to Used Photo Pro) and although I knew the measurements and saw plenty of photos of the camera, I was still really surprised by how tiny it is. It really isn't much bigger than a deck of cards. but out of the box, it also isn't very ergonomic, so I picked up a grip for it, and it now feels like an extension of my hand. While I awaited its arrival, I researched lens adapter, SD cards and external drives and settled on a few that could arrive in time for the weekend. When Saturday came, I had two lens adapters (Minolta MD and Nikon F), an Angelbird 128gb card and a 1TB Sandisk Extreme SSD. I instantly chuckled at the sizes of the adapters and SSD compared to the camera and thought.... this is so dumb... why am I going to attach this huge SSD to this tiny camera ( FYI - the SSD is quite small actually but in comparison...) but I still packed it in my camera bag and found an extra L-bracket I had laying around so I could spit and glue something that resembled anything usable for my first, and possibly only, test of the FP... As some of you may know, I have been quite happy with my current camera and have felt a very little need, or want, to upgrade my camera. When Saturday rolled around, I had my camera packed, I asked some questions to a fellow EOSHD member, and I was ready to test this miniature cinema camera. It was a gorgeous day for mid-November, so me and a friend drove to a familiar spot down the shore to see what this little thing could do. Due to my distaste for external monitors, and tentacles of cords, my first intention was to shoot internally to the SD card, so I wanted to test the 8bit cDNG files, hoping they'd be good enough for B&W delivery or a quick downscale to 1080p. In fact, on my drive down, I convinced myself that I wasn't even going to test the external drive. Since we got off to a late start, we quickly hit the boardwalk for some quick tests. After formatting the card and turning on the camera, I was a little shocked to see that a 128gb card, that cost more in dollars than its GB storage, only provided 10 minutes of footage. Now I already knew this, but seeing the ticking clock made me really slow down and think about what I was going to shoot. My main camera has been a 5D Mark III with Magic Lantern Raw, so I'm used to a lot of storage, but CF cards cost a bit less and provide a bit more footage than what the Sigma FP was offering... Anyway, I walked around and took a handful of shots. With the camera strapped to my neck and Minolta 35mm 1.8 lens locked and loaded, I instantly enjoyed shooting with the FP. I had a few minutes to set the camera up the day before, so every function I needed was in a logical place for my brain and fingers... So... the FP is a lot of fun to shoot with. In fact, I am used to people looking at me, or stopping, when I shoot with my 5D, but the FP seemed impervious to the passersby as they went along their unseasonably warm, Saturday afternoon stroll down the busy boardwalk. After a half hour, or so, and a trip to the bathroom (I drink a lot of coffee) we headed back to the car to hit the next spot. When we arrived, I decided to change lenses before we headed down a coastal trail. After a few shots with the Nikkor 28mm f/2 lens in 4K 8bit, I decided to give the 1080p a test. Other than an occasional slow motion shot, I'm not too interested in the 1080p from the FP... I already have a perfectly capable full frame, 1080p raw camera... but I was here and the card's storage was getting smaller and smaller... so why not? When I switched to 1080p, I gave a sigh of relief when I saw that the available storage nearly tripled. So we continued down the trail and I took a few shots... One thing I noticed while shooting with the FP, at this point, was that although the LCD is sharp and bright, the footage didn't have any kind of discernible look. Perhaps it's the small size, or using the OFF picture profile for viewing, but with my 5D, you can really see the magic of the footage while shooting it. The Sigma did not have that. So the process didn't feel as fulfilling as it is when I shoot ML Raw with my 5D3. But I carried on... until we quickly realized that we were surrounded by mosquitoes. I don't know if we were near a nest, or what, but we were surrounded by a swarm of these buzzing, blood sucking monsters. Apparently, nature forgot to tell them that it's mid-November in the Mid-Atlantic. Needless to say, we retreated back to the car. There was still enough daylight to hit one more spot, so we drove a couple miles down the road to the next spot. As I was driving, I decided that I may as well test out the external drive and 12bit 4K raw. I was already here. So when we stopped, I quickly jury rigged the SSD to the L-Bracket with a zip tie and headed to the beach. With the sun in tis final descent, I decided to test out the Dual-ISO function of the FP... which is one of the reasons I've been so intrigued by the camera. I intend to shoot horror/thriller type of stuff, so the one downfall of my 5D is chroma noise in lowlight. I can push the camera to 1600 ISO, but it can get ugly very quick and you really need to push your blacks into oblivion to rid the footage of that the blocky, patch rainbow goo. With my jury rigged SSD and the Minolta lens back on the FP, I turned on the camera and was surprised to see that it automatically changed itself to 4K 12ibit via the SSD and I was really happy to see that I had near an hour of possible footage... way more minutes of footage than daylight to shoot. But that's okay, I had ISO on my side... TOO MUCH ISO... so I'm glad I tossed my VND into my pocket. After a few awkward screws, I was ready to see what 4K raw footage is... Well... other than the awkward rig... the IQ in the LCD looked instantly better... but what was more surprising was how clean an image can look at 3200 ISO... So as the sun set on the horizon, I hit record... over... and over again... Sorry for the long post... but fast forward a couple hours and I was home. My girlfriend was taking a nap, so I quietly grabbed my laptop and uploaded the footage... I won't bore you any further with my post details... hell... I'm still trying to figure them out, but I did manage to get a few shots in 4K raw that I didn't hate. Here are a few samples from my first outing with the FP... hopefully they don't suck too bad...

Some people use their digital camera to "scan" negatives. If you go on the Moment website, or their YouTube channel, there are some articles/videos that explain the process. I think you can even use your phone. Going with one camera and a few lenses is the smart thing to do, but I went through a vintage lens buying phase a few years back, so I had a few old lenses from most of the major manufacturers. I made a rule that I'd only buy a camera if I had a lens for it. Needless to say, I now have too many cameras and lenses.

@hansel thanks for the reply and the caffenol info. Eventually, I'll look into it more. I am still shooting some stills and I went a little crazy with cameras, but I never spent a lot on any one camera. So far my favorites are the Nikon FM, Minolta SRT 201 and XD11, and the Yashica FX-3 Super 2000... which is just a joy to shoot with. I also have a Canon Rebel G which is kinda neat, with super fast AF. And an Olympus OM2N which is a marvel of mechanics, and a half dozen other ones... but I'll probably end up keeping only a few of them. I was going to sell almost everything and buy an FM3A, but I haven't decided yet. I ended up shooting a dozen or so rolls before I sent any out to get processed/scanned. Here are a few of the ones that turned out okay...

I'm sure there has been. I don't do video for a living, so my upgrades in camera, lighting, audio and post happen at a snail's pace as needed per project. So, @TomTheDP is partially correct in that RAW and ProRes are a lot easier on my computer, with ProRes being a native file in FCPX making my post processing very simple but I'm also a one-man-band shooter, so having the leeway to correct my mistakes while worrying about a dozen other things on set offers a huge appeal as well. But in the end, raw and ProRes both have a thicker image to my eyes and the motion cadence seem more cinematic to me.

After shooting ML Raw for the past 5 years and ProRes on a BMMCC, I don't know if I can ever go back to a highly compressed h.26... codec. That said, I'm not immune to progress so I am tempted by the advancements in tech, particularly IBIS, DCI-4K>DCI-2K, AF, Dual ISO, etc... but at the end of the day, resolution, et al have little effect on story. So I find there is a real sweet spot for 1080p RAW/ProRes for data rates to final look. As much as I am intrigued by the FP Raw (even in 8bit for B&W), GH6 (ProRes), XH2s (ProRes), R3 (RAW)... unless I hit the lottery, I really don't see any NEED to upgrade for a couple more years. And with that said, I might buy an FP tomorrow. I know you haven't been a fan of BM as a company for a little while, but remember that the P4K shoots 2.8K in S16 mode. With the prices dropping on them, I will say I am tempted to trade in my M2K for a P4K for that mode alone.