BTM_Pix

I'd take a look at the Fuji X-T20 and the 10-24mm F4 4K, can turn things round quick because of its OOC looks, light enough to mount on the Crane, A/B as a stills combo against a D800 and Nikon's 14-24 f2.8 and its not embarrassed in the slightest, you can put an ND on it without jumping through (expensive) hoops, the lens has IS, touch screen focus etc etc And you can put a lens turbo on it to use all of your Nikon lenses. I used the 14-24mm far more than you'd imagine a sports photographer might (stadium views, low ringside at boxing,in the melees after a trophy presentation etc) and the key word there is 'used' as its been put into retirement now by an X-T20 and 10-24mm for ALL of that stuff. Might not be the total answer to what you want (and by the wrestling you're having there probably isn't one) but its worthy of a look if you have a local camera store that stocks them. I could've saved myself a load of typing if I'd seen this first!!

As soon as I've got everything on it that I want and settled on what I'm running it on I'll sort out a guide to how people can make one. It should be a matter of just buying a board and putting the software image on it then sorting yourself out for how to power it and getting a gamepad. Total cost for the bits you need to buy should be no more than about £45 even if you got for a wireless gamepad. There'll be a bit of a challenge sorting out an easily deployable software image that people can flash themselves but I'll sort that out over the next few weeks. Presuming anyone wants one that is of course.

So...... A bit of an update I've spent the past few days redoing this from the ground up and there's been what you might call 'a bit' of progress. The camera functions are now controlled by a gamepad, which gives a bit more scope in terms of buttons etc. By separating out the part that does the actual talking to the camera, this means that that can be smaller for mounting and the choice of the input device is now far more flexible as it can support pretty much any USB device that can be attached to it. In this version, the gamepad itself is wireless too so not only is it a lot neater but it can also be used to extend the overall distance of wireless control (its range to the control box is added to the range from the control box to the camera). I can also make it support multiple devices so you could have something smaller just to do basic control (or a USB numeric keypad would be quite good for that actually) and then use a more elaborate one when needed. Or do both simultaneously if you want control of exposure and someone else to do focus etc. Speaking of focus, this is now controlled by an analog stick so has a bit more feel to it (ignore the transitions in the video, the debug mode makes the control much coarser) with a press in the centre of the stick activating a one shot AF. If your camera has a powered zoom lens (hello LX100 etc) then this is controlled from the same stick by pushing forward and back. I believe that this will also work with those MFT lenses that support power zoom but I don't have one so I can't confirm that. I've made a drivable AF joystick point mode which you activate by pressing in on the right hand analog stick and then using the D Pad to drive the focus point around the screen and then pressing in the stick again to action it. There will be more focus enhancements coming......... The shutter speed and aperture are now controlled by the shoulder buttons on the gamepad and the ISO is now also directly switchable on two buttons. I've got a few more enhancements coming over the next few days as well so I'll keep you informed. In the meantime, here is a video of it controlling a GX80

I've had a bit more of a dig about this because I was pretty sure that I remembered that the viewfinder app was upscaling to fill the phone screen. I had remembered correctly as it turns out the live stream resolution is only 640 x 480 so that would immediately rule it out.

Yes, it does all of the same functions (and a few more actually) and you could fit in pretty much whatever worked ergonomically. Once its in its finished much more compact form (just the size of the blue-ish control panel in the video) its pretty small. You could probably gut something like this PC Joystick (which is about £15) to use the handle part which has a similar ergonomic approach to the Sony grip and mount it in there. For me, its better as a pocketable thing but thats the beauty of it being a bit of a DIY hack, it can be a lot more custom than an off the shelf product.

Cool. I've got an arduino development board called an Esplora thats got lots of interesting sensors built in to it. If I did this remote on it I was going to incorporate the temperature sensor on it to give the Panasonics a Sony emulation mode where it stops the recording when there's a whiff of warm weather

That version is running on a Pi to prototype it. The final version will either be on a PiZero to get the form factor down or an Arduino based small one like the Feather HUZZAH.

I don't have a dog in this particular fight but with regard to the storage issue won't everyone just be using the CFAST eSATA breakout adapters like they do with the URSA and going straight to SSD? The whole kit is around $120 so you're saving money straight away. Because you can have a 2 metre cable limit for esata it can also mitigate more restricted access to rigged cameras too even if you can't fit what you're doing within the greatly extended record times offered by the higher capacity of SSDs. It also takes away the not exactly readily available in your local supermarket aspect to using CFAST as well as you literally can get SSDs in my local supermarket ! Even if you did decide to go the CFAST only route, a Nexto DI will make offloading pretty much hands off, portable and quick. I built my own DIY one for less than £50 so if anyone wants to buy one for their new C200 then form an orderly queue

And here it is

So as I've hinted more than a few times in the other thread, the discovery of the Cinelike D and other bits and pieces for the GX80 etc was actually a bit of a happy accident while I was trying to do understand the Panasonic wifi stuff for something else. And here is that something else. Well at least a prototype of it but it is fully functioning and will just be finessed a bit more. Basically, its a wireless hardware remote for the G series cameras that operates over wifi and can currently control record start/stop, shutter speed as well as aperture and focus if you're using a native lens, including a single shot AF switch. For the non-Cinelike D cameras that can now be hacked to have Cinelike D there is also a dedicated button to toggle it on and off so you don't need to mess about with browsers and computers or smartphones anymore. Focus and aperture control are done on a joystick and everything else is switches. I'll be putting a layer switch on so that it can be toggled back and forth to a different control mode for ISO, WB and other stuff. As this is the prototype it is nowhere near the finished piece and it will be reduced in form factor to just be about the size of the control board. Power is by any USB source so there are billions of options. There is a lot more finessing and feature enhancement to go on with regard to the focus control (and yes, I know exactly what you'll all want it to do !) but the hard part is done now. It does support the display of the values on a screen and I'll be sorting some options out for that. The purpose of this gadget is primarily for use with a gimbal but it can also be really useful on a tripod bar for anyone shooting live event stuff. For cameras with inbuilt lenses I'm going to add a zoom mode on the joystick. A very quick very rough demo so you can see it in action. Any lag you might see between me operating the controller and the camera video is just a sync issue between me throwing the two recordings on very quickly

I'm about to start a new thread with a practical application of all of this poking around that some of you may be interested in.......

Mmmm.....complete red herring with this. Seems that European cameras can't be switched to Australian region. Sorry about that ! Guide for booting up to get 30p and 60p modes here though For G7 owners, there seems to be some odd way of doing this to permanently lift the 30 minute limit but it seems quite temperamental //////EDIT///// Tried it on my G7 and I can get the 30/60p but not the extended recording time. Definitely seems to be different things these cameras can do depending on what mode they are in when you try them. //////

I think someone has done a live viewfinder app for smartphones based on it but to be perfectly honest as a recording proposition I think it poses far more questions than it answers. Considering how much you'd need to invest in the hardware to do it and creating the software to control it and the storage situation if you wanted it to be in a portable format (i.e. a smartphone) then, as with the higher bitrate HD quest, the Atomos Ninja Star at less than £200 is a far better proposition for me to eek extra value out of these cameras.

I've got one from a GH4. Its not an app controllable function on there so without having a thorough poke around with an actual GH4 its a bit of a dead end I'm afraid. However..... Panasonic do an iOS app for the DVX200 (which is basically a GH4) that does allow it to be controlled. If someone had a DVX200 and a packet sniffer then, well, maybe..... http://pro-av.panasonic.net/en/4k_camcorder/ag_rop/index.html

I can't see any reference to the master pedestal control in the G7 files. It would be very useful to have control of it though because I suspect it might be what prevents Cinelike D from working properly on the LX100.

And you switched the camera to Australian region too? I was told their version did not have the limitation It is a quirky stream of jpegs that a computer can be persuaded to display but it requires quite a lot of configuration to achieve

Thanks, I only had a G7 to hand at the time and just dug my GX80 out and it takes the ISO commands but doesn't action them in video mode. ISO50000 in stills is a go though! The Cinelike D Hue controls are definitely working on my GX80 though and I think I've seen a GX85 user confirm them on his somewhere else in the thread.

Which reminds me.... Updated html attached that will now let you have ISO100 in video mode. Unfortunately, this setting does not persist on power cycle and can't be saved in the C settings so if you need it then you will have to deploy it through a browser each time. For now at least.... ///// EDIT /////// The GX80 accepts but does not action these extended ISO modes in video so it is ISO200 to ISO6400 only for that. Thanks to @Rizky Ramadhan for the update ISO50000 works for stills on GX80 The extended ISOs are working for me on a G7 so please feel free to chime in with results from other models /////////////////////// DEPLOY CINELIKE D V HUE EXTENDED ISO V2.html

Fuji need Nikon's long lenses thats for sure. Or more to the point, my Fuji's need my Nikon long lenses on them! Which you could turn round and say means Nikon need Fuji's mirrorless bodies for their lenses. Fuji want to get into the sports and photojournalism game in a big way and Nikon want to stay at the front of it with Canon (who you feel could push out a mirrorless quickly if the potential Sony threat actually materialises) so its a partnership that would get both of them where they want to be a bit quicker from that point of view. If all that ever came of it was an autofocus F to X mount adapter it'd be worth it ! Sounds more like a deal that is to do with 'Japan stuff' (for want of a better way of describing cultural and/or political nuances that don't always seem obvious to Westerners like me) than it does with actual products though?

Octopus boot up mode and change to Australian region should be your friend for that The last html file I put up should be enough to establish whether it can talk to the GH 5. Put the camera in WiFi mode, attach computer or phone to its wifi network, select handshake and then connect It will probably fail first time while it stores the connection Just repeat the handshake and connect steps again and then it will connect Then just try the iso and cinelike commands to make sure it selects them. That will establish if we can talk to it (which we defo will be able to) The real bounty will then be in harvesting its commands and the best way to do that is with an android phone with an app called Packet Capture which is free on the play store. Get the basic thing going first and we'll take it from there !

The ISO trick works in video mode as well so you can have up to 50000 if you fancy it. Higher shutter speeds than 4000 can be formed and sent to it and it will respond correctly to them if its in electronic mode but it won't go beyond 16000. The flash sync speed is not something I've looked at. Is it an explicitly set value in any Lumix camera ? Tele mode is something I've looked at brielfy but it didn't work as I expected it might but don't rule it out as I need it for my gadget so I'll be looking at it again. Battery saving mode isnt something I've looked at as I don't think it's changeable from the app and is a camera only selection? ////// EDIT ///// For those wanting extended ISO New updated HTML file with Cineline D, V, Hue controls and switchable extended ISOs of 6400/12800/25600/50000 DEPLOY CINELIKE D V HUE EXTENDED ISO.html

I think you'd have to go some way to beat this

Great effort. The ed ones are for cameras such as the FZ2000 that can have the high bit rate. These are what Panasonic refer to as editing type of formats and switch those cameras into MP4(LPCM) mode that the other cameras don't have. From this systematic testing I think we can probably now put it to bed at least with the G7 regarding activating these different formats. Unless there is some interaction when switching from a 'semi legal' format (the ones that say OK but dont go to the 4K24p setting) to a different 'semi legal' format but the number of permutations to test then becomes like adding another rotor wheel on the Enigma machine. My view is that it confirms that it gets itself very confused by those MP4(LPCM) based formats and doesn't know what to do. This is supported by the G7 being unable to play a legitimate recording from one of these modes from an FZ2000.

At the moment, we don't have 100% coverage of all the permutations. The only way we can do that is to start from a single point 4k24p for an example selected on the camera and then switch to all of the other possible values in sequence from there and see what happens. And then repeat that from 4K25p and then from HD25p etc etc We have had a few incidents where this state has happened but we don't know exactly from which combinations it can be produced. Until we know that then we won't be able to reliably reproduce it and see if we can do something with it in that state. Testing each possibility from each starting point will provide the answer to that. Whilst so far there hasn't been a combination that has been useful (ie a non corrupted file) that doesn't mean that there isn't one that we haven't come across yet that is. As I have said a number of times on this thread, I'm not convinced at all that there will be but at least it will show definitively for those that want to keep going at it if there is or not.

There is no killer app for my curent purposes on PC but it wouldn't bother me to change back if there was, as there has been in the past. Ditto with ios, it does have killer apps for the majority of my current purposes but I have no hesitation in using android when I want to do stuff that Apple don't approve of. I basically just go where the functionality is. Fortunately, where I need to supplement my usual system to get that extra stuff there is no price premium because Android stuff is dead cheap. It would be a right twat if it was the other way round though!