BTM_Pix

And if you would like to help by voting on what functions the controller will be used for then please see this thread

And if you would like to help by voting on which controller to use that would be great

14 hours ago, mercer said:

BTM can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this discovery is based upon turning on existing code within the camera and not hacking the code. Since the GX85 only shoots in MP4 and AVCHD without any MOV codec, I would think it's unlikely to up the bitrate. But I also vaguely remember seeing the high bitrate MOV codec in the original command list, but I think VLog was there as well and that wasn't possible.

It would be great if someone from the NX1 hack could take a look at BTM's work and maybe together, they could come up with some more options, if it's even possible. If it is possible, someone should do it soon, because I have a feeling Panasonic will turn off all of these options in an upcoming firmware update.

Its just remote control of features that the camera has so its all very high level.

If it doesn't flat out reject them then it has an understanding of them but from there on its at the mercy of whats going on in the camera.

So it doesn't reject the VLOG command it goes to an internal table and makes the settings that relate to that entry. The fact that it selects the Standard profile suggests that that is a holding copy that occupies that entry in the table which you could speculate means that maybe VLOG was considered as a future paid option for if not the GX80 then the G7 or G80. 

Ditto with the higher bitrate commands it doesn't reject selecting the highest bitrate one it currently allows.

Anyhoo....

Just a bit of a hint that if you are interested in hardware control of your Panasonic camera then now would be a good time to go and vote for some features and which controller you would prefer to use.

Threads are here

and here

36 minutes ago, mmills said:

@BTM_Pix What about changing frame rates in 4K Photo mode? It would be great to get 24fps vs the stock 30fps in this mode for shooting video with various aspect ratios.

No, the rate is fixed internally.

Your best bet to get it closer would be to do the region change to PAL so it would be 25fps

And if you're looking at that picture thinking "Thumb? What sort of freak hands has he got if that's his thumb going through the hole" I, of course, meant index finger.

As per the other thread, the functionality of the controller is now pretty far along and nearing completion so its time to finalise the actual input device itself.

The two options are shown here (with a GX80 to show scale).

How this will work is that a small module speaks to the camera over wifi to do the actual commands and it will receive its input from one of these devices, both of which are bluetooth.

And cheap.

They both have a combination of buttons and a joystick but the main difference between them is that the joystick on the larger one is analogue so can be used to progressively drive focus speed whereas the smaller one's joystick is a digital affair. This doesn't rule it out for progressive control just that it makes it a bit more work to fake it.

The other difference of course is the form factor.

The smaller one is quite neat having that hole in it as you can use it like I've done there with your thumb through it or, depending upon the width of it, mounted on a tripod pan handle.

The larger one benefits from having the indented grip so its six of one and half a dozen of the other really.

With both of them though, a bit of superglue and a thread adapter will have you being able to mount them on anything you want to.

The hardware controller for Panasonic cameras is coming along nicely and I’m looking for a bit of feedback regarding what you might want on it.

As I’m settling on the controller type (the two front runners will be another poll) there is a bit of a dilemma over the number of switches and how they might be implemented so I want to make sure I get the best core set that will satisfy most people. 

Basically, I don’t want to have the controller be some massive unwieldy thing that defeats the object of having small cameras like the Panasonics so by sticking to something compact there’s obviously a trade off regarding how many simultaneous controls there will be available. The simultaneous aspect is important as to get as many functions on as possible they will be switched in layers and I want to minimise that too so I’m trying to find the sweet spot of total functions.

My idea with this controller is obviously so that it can be used to give you hands off control so you can operate the camera without inducing movement while its on a gimbal etc, and for general remote stuff like if you had it on a jib or even just for vlogging. 

However, as it will also do focus control as in controlling focus but also pulling focus, both at defined transition rates but also by manual control so that in itself requires a fair amount of controls to set positions etc. 

In addition, its other purpose is to get functions that are in menus or a few presses away (like exposure comp or ISO) under direct control to make the cameras easier to operate and add functions like a joystick driven focus point function for the cameras that don’t have it.

So…..there’s a fair bit to find space for!

What I’d be grateful for you doing if you have any interest in having a controller would be to just check as few or as many of the functions as you’d like to see on it.

There’s no order of importance so just click away.

Cheers

1 hour ago, mercer said:

That looks like a great product, Tim? How customizeable is it? I assume you can set tools to the different buttons but can you also set up the F commands and full screen play? I often turn the scopes on and off and enter the color board, the keyboard shortcuts are fairly intuitive, but a one button push on a mouse would be great.

They are great products. 

They have a configuration app which has presets for popular apps but you can configure it to do your own things. The PRO version that Tim has allows you to create your own macros to be triggered by any of the switches so you can fire off a chain of commands from one press.

The Express version doesn't offer that feature but if you're travelling or don't need as many keys then its a lot more compact form factor.

Its smart enough to know which app you're using as well so it won't go off blindly sending out the wrong commands when you switch from Resolve to FCPX etc

28 minutes ago, Orangenz said:

That's a pretty incredible number of robot bloopers. Don't the teams talk to each other?

The robots have regular meetings about it but they're easily distracted.

I've just bought an EOS-M for £100 which will arrive next week.

Ironically, its red.

So expect a Red RAW for £100 post soon !

Or a million questions at least.

10 minutes ago, sondreg said:

Was never a big fan of the screens or ergonomics on the A6xxx series, maybe I should get used to it though. Not sure where the cheap prices come from though, as the cheapest camera body I find is 980€, 1700€ with adapters. Definately a strong camera but personally not a big fan of it

Sorry, had a senior moment there. Well a double one actually.

Sony are doing a £150 cash back deal which I took to the price I saw one in a store for (which had sneakily already had the discount applied!!). I was also using the not far off parity exchange rate but the pound seems to have made a slight comeback.

With the real cash back deal its £679 (not the £529 I had in my head!) which is about €750.

So, yes, apart from it being way more expensive than your budget and you hating the screen and ergonomics of it then it was a very sage recommendation

On a lower level, the Mevo from Livestream is a pretty cool trick faking multi camera from a static shot.

If they made this as a box you could plug any 4K camera into (rather than its own go pro-ish internal one) it would be a big seller I think.

DataVideo make a higher end one but its £5K. If BlackMagic made it then it probably would be the same price as the Mevo but not sure if they would as it would impact their ATEM product sales.

6 minutes ago, Mattias Burling said:

BTW, pretty sure Canon already held such an event when they released the first 4K DSLR back in 2013.. must be one hell of a party if its still going and adding more people to the crew

Damn, I knew I should've put sub £3000 in brackets after DSLR

9 minutes ago, Mattias Burling said:

Yup, my first contact with a fully preprogrammed and automated TV-studio was back in 2005-2007. 
And it was used for national broadcast of a kids television show. 
Pretty nifty with an editing timeline ready even before shooting. Camera movement, repositioning, zooms, focus, cuts, lights, all automated from a preprogramed timeline.
They had one operator standing buy incase they wanted to go in different direction but it wasn't really needed.

The BBC use them for BBC News and it doesn't always go well.

My favourite ones are when the content seems to trip the boredom circuit and the cameras just wander off

If you're not married to having an OVF, you might want to look at the Sony A6300.

With a speedbooster adapter you can have FF FOV, even better low light performance and AF from your Canon lenses and with a regular adapter you can still have the AF and take advantage of the crop for extra reach for your wildlife. 

And if you have some ice packs around, you can also do a bit of 4K on it as well if you need to.

I think it will give you a far more versatile setup for your budget and IQ wise you won't be suffering for it either.

With the current price of the camera, you should be able to get all 3 pieces (the body and both adapters) for €1000 budget new.

I've just a got a job with Canon to work on the launch event for 4K in their DSLRs.

That should be me safe for another 7-9 years.

I expect Reduser will be collectively moist and greeting it like the invention of fire but I have to confess that I've no idea what it even is.

I read the press release twice and still don't know.

I felt like this fella.

2 hours ago, tomekk said:

Why? In what genre? If someone is just a picture taker and that's his only skill then of course automation could potentially harm him because he relies only on the capture part. Digital is already harming picture takers, anyway. Great capture part is more often than not basic requirement to an award winning photograph nowadays. It's one piece of the puzzle (least important, IMHO). I'd love not to have to worry about AF/DOF/retouching people and just get on with what's important in the photo ;). Automation of the capture part only could wipe off bottom end of "photographers". Admittedly, this could be most people who think they're photographers nowadays? We would need to define who a photographer is in the first place and then run this algorithm ;).  

I'll give you one example that isn't at a low end where people don't just think they're photographers.

Light field capture will massively impact the area where I now work of sports photography.

A live event like a football match can sustain the number of photographers it does (120+ at major events like CL Final) because of diversity of coverage from around a large field of play. When that can be achieved by several fixed position devices then the human work switches to the editors. As a lot of editing is done off camera remotely anyway now this will not be new jobs created either. So that will be the end of those photography jobs as the editors will have the raw material to work from themselves.

With light field, you certainly won't have to worry about AF and DOF again.

Fairlight had the OLED keyboard thing going on in their Xynergi system at the same time as the Optimus.

Maybe BlackMagic might do something with it now

10 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

Good stuff.

I always thought the Olympus E-M1 II would make quite a nice compact telephoto choice for sports, with it's blazing speeds and nice 300mm F4 pro lens. Pair that with the 40-150mm F2.8 pro lens and it's quite versatile even in low light at ISO 6400. Wouldn't go much above that though.

Its a decent combination and value thats for sure. I don't know whether the subject separation on that 300mm with it being on an M43 would be ideal and its really hard to judge any long lens on M43 because flickr pools which are my normal gauge only ever have pictures of birds, planes or the moon for anything over 150mm on an M43 !

They also weren't on my radar because APS-C was the limit for me regarding low light but 6400 would generally be OK but you'd be surprised how poor the lighting is at some major stadiums. Its improved a lot in the UK since BT got the rights funnily enough and insisted on additional lighting. They obviously wanted to shoot on M43!

I've actually used M43 cameras as remotes behind the goal a few times (the OMD-10) but the battery life just couldn't hack the amount of exposures it was having to do.

My faith in Fuji being serious about getting into the game is dwindling unfortunately so I think its going to end up being a system I only use for covering stuff like cycling and boxing etc where you don't need the longer stuff.

Just now, Andrew Reid said:

Enjoy the Spanish footy! What gear are you taking?

I'm still in this Fuji trialling period but the lack of 400mm 2.8 is a bit of a killer.

Their 100-400 is OK (some of those CL pictures of Ronaldo used it) and the AF is fine but the 5.6 cripples you even in an elite stadium like the Bernabeu.

I'm off to do the UEFA Women's Euros next week in Holland for a month and all of the matches are evening kick off which is a bit of a concern when none of them are even on UEFA's 4 star list. So, I'm still going to be doing a bit of a fudge using Nikon D4s for the longer stuff. The whole point of trying to switch was to get the crippling weight down (not to mention the cost savings and maintenance prices) but at the end of the day none of that matters if you can't actually get the images. 

So it will be a combination of X-T2 and X-T20 (for remote camera stuff mainly) with 10-24mm f4, 50-140 f2.8, 16-55mm f2.8, the 1.4TC and I probably will end up taking the 100-400mm f5.6 to shoot training sessions and crowd build up stuff.

From the Nikon side it will be a D4s with 400mm f2.8 and a D500 with 70-200mm f2.8 and the 1.4TC.

I'm going to be doing some press conference and training session coverage live to YouTube so I'll be taking the JVC LS-300 and the cheap Angenieux B4 lens I got off eBay! 

I put in Photographers and was surprised to see it was only 2% as I can see definitely technology emerging that will make the capture part of the process far more automated. 

However, underneath Photographers was Models.

Now then, surely we must all be very worried considering the score given for them.....

Although, on the other hand, I can see an awful lot of undatable nerds getting ready to welcome this apparently imminent army of fembots.

https://willrobotstakemyjob.com/41-9012-models

56 minutes ago, Grimor said:

All the season?

Great places/food/weather here in Spain.

No, I only did their games against Real, Barca and Atleti as there is always interest in coverage of the players from those clubs so I doubt games against Lorca and Corboda etc will be as sellable!

37 minutes ago, jonpais said:

I knew you would have a solution for that too.  I probably won't be able to find what I need in Vietnam, but if it's under $50 or so, customs here shouldn't be able to rip me off too much. Not sure what happened, but my friend has some bluetooth device for listening to her phone on a speaker, so there might have been some interference. BTW, this isn't the first time not being able to monitor the audio has caused me headaches. I recorded a pretty long vlog, no way did I want to redo it, and when I listened to the audio during the edit, I realized there was a hum from the air conditioner, which I'd forgotten to turn off. So I'd strongly recommend monitoring audio. And yes, it's kind of chintzy of manufacturers to omit something that probably costs just a few pennies. If they sold a monitor that wasn't shiite here in VN that accepted 4K out, 5", 1280X720p, with a waveform scope, false color and a headphone jack, I'd use that, since I really can't use the crappy focus peaking on my G85 when shooting with my Voigtlander. I might take another trip abroad just to buy something like that.

The really annoying aspect to this is that Panasonic's image app does actually allow you to listen to the audio on your phone headphones when playing back a video but not while preparing or recording one.

So I guess that might be a half solution for you where you could just record a snippet and play it back using the app to do a quick check that there's nothing untoward.

With regard to your AC problem, Crumplepop make a good plugin for FCPX et al that is very effective at removing noise.

There are tons of stuff out there that does this stuff but the Crumplepop one does it without hours of twiddling !

Theres a demo of it here. Its $99 but I don't consider that to be outrageous for what its doing, particularly when dealing with a camera's own internal mic amps which aren't always exactly noise free.

9 minutes ago, jonpais said:

The level meters looked fine before I began recording. Since I vlog, I don't wear headphones while recording, but if I used a solution like the one BTM_Pix linked to, at least I could monitor the recording when I'm done and do it over if need be.

 

Use a small Bluetooth earpiece and you can monitor it live with those two bits I linked to Jon. You don't have to wear it all the time (unless you wanted the 'And now over to our correspondent in Vietnam' effect!) but just pop it on as you go into record for a quick confidence check.

1 hour ago, Grimor said:

Granada - Real Madrid

Indeed.

I'll be covering Granada against slightly smaller clubs next season after their relegation!

38 minutes ago, cantsin said:

It bugs me that the word "banding" is wrongly used in forums everywhere. "Banding" doesn't refer to shutter artifacts, but to artifacts caused by a lack of color depth (such as: color stepping in blue sky gradients).

I was using their description of it for continuity purposes but yes you are quite correct.