BTM_Pix

They’d already gathered in Osaka, shot with it and left by time BM announced the price cut. With the amount of leaks coming out of there about the S9, it’s more likely the panic came from BM rather than the other way round. There was a lot of talk about there being a fixed lens camera (aka Panasonic badged Leica Q3) so it’s possible that may have been something that was held back. Perhaps Leica didn’t want Panasonic overshadowing their own announcement this week of their new fixed lens camera. Although them releasing a £1500 version of the few years old Panasonic LX100mk2 kind of overshadowed itself anyway. My theory is that the leaking about all this stuff comes from the manufacturers of the cages which are always coincidentally announced on the same day as the new cameras so they have the most prior knowledge.

Discussing them is all I’ll be doing as, unfortunately, I’m just too washed up to be using them anymore. Oddly enough, there is exactly the same type of WW2 re-enactment event taking place on Monday (which is a Bank Holiday so guaranteed flat lighting ) at a heritage railway 20 mins from where I’ll be. I can’t even be arsed going to watch it let alone taking a camera and filming it. On the topic of your endearing love for the 5D3, I think it’s quite common for people to still have the strongest affiliation to the first camera that offered the “great leap forward” for them in terms of their image making. That’s why there is still so much love for cameras such as the BMPCC and the GH2. Possibly also because they all represent peak enthusiasm before the gear ridden descent into being so jaded 😂

Yeah, if you go to their main site which defaults to USA then the offer is up there at the top of the page. https://www.blackmagicdesign.com Change it to the UK (or any European country) however and it is not there. https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk But if you fancy a little break in Cancun, though, you are back in business https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/mx

I'd give even money on him doing the same with a Chocolate Brownie. His XH-2 stuff is very good.

Interesting to see how relatively lukewarm the YouTube videos have been about it. Particularly considering that an all expenses paid trip to Japan and an indefinite loan of a camera usually engenders a certain degree of "goodwill" from the "reviewers". For me, that means its either really, really average or they've all suddenly got religion. Which one is your money on ?

Authentic Maidens sounds like the name that members of the original lineup would have to tour under after an acrimonious split where Bruce Dickinson ends up with the sole rights to use the Iron Maiden name.

The offer would appear to be unit limited rather than specifically time limited then.

I've also been waiting for a cheap used 6K Pro as I think its the sweet spot with the internal NDs, tiltable screen and reasonably priced EVF. This changes things for me there too. This with its EVF is about £1700 (cheaper really as there are quite a few used EVFs round that will knock £200 off that price) so its still cheaper than the 6K Pro and it puts into sharp relief the PIXSYS 6K with its EVF which is about £2000 more. I think at this price that if I was getting PIXSYS then I would pick one of these up as well to get a 2nd matched camera, albeit it with a very different form factor.

Quite surprised by this really. Means it’s now slightly cheaper than the regular Pocket version and a lot cheaper than the 6K Pro version. Not sure how “limited” the time is that it is actually this price for I but think it’s a very good deal.

At least the real time LUTs are confirmed. https://x.com/photojoseph/status/1791337358216077501?s=46&t=5rTDhHeUafLdFmL78MFFYQ https://x.com/photojoseph/status/1791337382324900303?s=46&t=5rTDhHeUafLdFmL78MFFYQ

I was quite intrigued when the rumour was that there was a fixed lens camera coming from Panasonic as it pointed to it being "their" version of the absolutely-not-a-Panasonic-on-the-inside Leica Q3. Maybe they will surprise everyone and release that as well. S9 looks decent to be fair though and they also seem to be releasing a compact zoom to go with it.

What I've noticed amongst the "oooh look at me, Panasonic have flown me and my objectivity to Osaka" social media posts in the past few days are that a few of them are actually from channels that predominantly cover MFT. Added to the most recent "confirmed" rumours of this new camera (named after my favourite Berlin train line by the way) is pretty much Panasonic's version of the ZV-E1 with an S5ii inside, I think this is Panasonic finally saying out loud that "if you want that new GX85 then you are going to have to go full frame". I suppose this then squares the circle of their form factor kinkiness. With the G9ii they put an MFT sensor in a FF body and now with this new S9 they've put a FF sensor in an MFT body.

I did a first impressions thing here when I got my H3-VR. It has examples of the auto down mixed binaural output for general city ambience and you can download the original ambisonic files to see the extent of the steering that you can do with them in post if you every wanted to. I think it obviously punches above its weight and even in binaural mode it does add more pickup width outside of the visible frame as well as a certain degree of rear and height cues so for 180 video I think it might do the trick for what you are after without having to do anything in post. The step up would be the Rode Soundfield mic paired with something like the Zoom F6 or even the new H6 Essential but, obviously, you will then need a more elaborate rig versus the diminutive H3VR and, of course, with no down mix you'd have to do that in post.

Sigma have announced that they are releasing a range of RF mount lenses, indicating that Canon have softened their “no 3rd party lenses” stance. I say softened rather than abandoned as, whilst these lenses are fully licensed by them, they do not include any full frame lenses. At least for now. The initial offerings are the two f2.8 zooms and four f1.4 primes from Sigma’s Contemporary range that have been available in other mounts for a few years now. The 18-50mm is the first one that will be available but it is not until July and the others will follow in the Autumn. No word on prices but they are usually similar in different mounts so you can take that as a rough guide, although maybe there will be an additional cost on top for the official licensing from Canon. Good news for owners of crop RF cameras to have different options and also for people using the KOMODO (or maybe we should call it the NIKOMODO now). Full details here https://www.sigma-global.com/en/contents/sigma_rfmount_lenses/

I like the look of it too. I think what it is benefitting from greatly, aside from the compositions, image quality and general shooting competency, is what I would call accidental environmental production design. The uniforms and demeanour of the subjects are consistent and tie together as does the station setting and its train and staff. When the shots are framed, as many of them are, to only include those elements then it provides the right aesthetic to sell the "cinematic" image. The proof of that, for me at least, is when other none designed elements stray into the frame and not just the obvious of modern vehicles etc but onlookers with modern clothes (particularly those out of the general colour palette) then the illusion is gone and quite jarring to be taken out of it. No amount of obsessive grading is going to cure that. Oh and the use of a tripod does absolutely no harm whatsoever in this as does the flattish light of what I am guessing is the archetypal overcast Bank Holiday day in the UK. All in all, aside from it being a good advert for a camera from "yesteryear" in modern terms, I also think this is more broadly a very good example of why "cinematic" doesn't just happen when wafting a camera at random scenes no matter what YouTube thumbnails will scream at you. When it comes to trying to do this in the wild, its definitely a case of granting ourselves the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the skill and vision to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

I did a little man in the middle interface for the SpeedEditor a while back so I could remap it to use with other products like FCPX and LumaFusion. If the will was there then I'm sure the other surfaces would follow a similar investigative pattern to evaluate and emulate their protocol. Not to use the surfaces on other software of course but to provide a way for other devices to mimic them.

YouTube link is now up

Only a couple of hours of speculation/prediction time left. Maybe this will finally be the year they boxify the cinema cameras that everyone has been asking for ? Or an actual fits in your pocket cinema camera ? 4K ATEM Mini ? I'm guessing there will be a live stream posted on their site at that time. https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/

Yeah, I know. Its on that basis that I was surprised to see him as an advisor if he was as "retired" from RED as he stated. Agreed. I doubt it will last beyond the next product launch though.

Well, the takeover is officially complete now and no executive roles for Jannard or Land so, with that, hopes fade for the release of the Nikon BASTARD or Nikon CRUSHER Full press release here : https://www.nikon.com/company/news/2024/0412_imaging_01.html

“No changes to product support, warranties or policies” does leave plenty to infer about where there could be changes. Notably product development, pricing and manufacturing.

The camera itself can’t be powered over USB but that hub does allow the zoom on demand to be used simultaneously with SSD recording so that is a positive, albeit that BM doesn’t specify it in the manual. He reports no issues with doing it so that’s all we have to go on and it might well be that BM doesn’t specify it because there are a LOT of USB hub/SSD combos that people could use that would make it a support nightmare. The zoom on demand handle is very much a sledgehammer to crack a nut to get that external control though as it certainly takes away the Micro element and its primary function is only compatible with a few very average lenses. The hub usability (difficult to refer to it as compatibility until BM official support it!) does open up the possibility of them making a more appropriate form factor interface for some external control. Or maybe someone else will if there is sufficient demand from people buying the Micro as a cinema camera…

Yeah, they improved it’s performance over firmware updates but it’s AFS only and still fairly basic, hence why I developed the AFX to give it AF-C without having to use the internal CDAF. Its really bizarre why they excluded BLE on the new micro as it has closed the camera to products such as AFX and other external controllers, something that is actually even more applicable to this form factor as it has such limited direct control. Obviously it’s a differentiator to keep it in the realm of being a studio camera - hence why it can be fully controlled through an ATEM - but it’s a shame nonetheless for people who want it to do double duty as a cinema camera. It has three great uses for the USB-C port in that you can use it to record BRAW to an SSD, connect BM’s excellent and pretty affordable focus demand controller and finally connect an Ethernet adapter to enable it to be controlled with a REST API. Unfortunately, with it only having a single port you have to pick only one of those features when it’s easily foreseeable that you might want to use at least two of them simultaneously. For the purpose that they are offering it, the camera is absolutely fantastic it’s just frustrating that it is so close to being a bit more things to a bit more people.

The P4K does have CDAF AF-S, does this variant have AF-C then?

If you do go down the ATEM path then I think you might be interested in my new product as it addresses exactly this type of operation, amongst many other things.