BTM_Pix

I've just done a small test if anyone is looking at options in the 28-35mm prime area. I've got a Sigma 35mm ART 1.4 in Nikon mount (with a Zhongyi Lens Turbo II booster), Fuji's own 35mm 1.4 and for a bit of an older school alternative the Contax Zeiss Distagon T* 28mm F2.8 All collages have the images in the following order : Top Left - Sigma 35mm ART 1.4 with Lens Turbo Top Right - Sigma 35mm ART 1.4 Bottom Left - Fujifilm 35mm 1.4 Bottom Right - Contax Zeiss Distagon T* 28mm F2.8 All shots are OOC jpeg with the simulation set to ProNeg STD -2 -2 with the lenses wide open and shutter speed of the exposure used to compensate. The first collage shows the full field of view each lens produces. The second collage is an adjusted matched crop which makes it a bit easier to see OOF rendering etc. The third collage is an adjusted matched crop of the focus chart to compare sharpness and DOF differences. For me, if I had to choose one to put in the bag now, then the Sigma and the Lens Turbo combo offers the greatest flexibility. Yes, there is some degradation in IQ with the booster but its by no means near enough to not use it considering the advantages it brings. However, its bigger, its manual focus and the weight of it unbalances the camera completely. Plus, I'd have to carry the dumb adapter with it too. The Zeiss is small, slightly wider to give a nice 40mm-ish equivalent FOV which I prefer to 50mm-ish from the 35mms and with the extra bit of crop of the X-T2 in 4K its even more important and is sharp enough without having the razor edge that the other two have. I also have the 50mm,135mm and 28-85mm from this range and I'm on the hunt for an 18mm so I'll write something up about them as a set at some point if anyone is interested. That leaves us with the Fujfilm lens which, to be honest, is probably the one I'd go for if I had to put one in my bag and go out and shoot right now. It's far lighter than the other two, performs as well as the much vaunted Sigma (albeit without the ability to do the extra tricks with the speed booster) and has the massive advantage of AF. As you can see on the closeups of the charts, even with relatively short focal lengths like these and even on a crop sensor, you are still looking at a depth of field of around 6cm when you are shooting wide open. The X-T2 has brilliant focusing aids like the split view and really good peaking but when you're dealing with such low tolerances its still nice to have something quick when you need it. EDIT>>>>> Mmm.....hosting them on tiny pic has bollocksed the resolution. Forum was having a lot of problems uploading anything so it was the only way of getting them but I'll try again if anyone feels the need to see a bit more detail

Which part doesn't make sense mate? That on most decent headphones if you have a knowledge of how a broad range of reference pieces sound comparatively on your headphones then you can make a better fist of mixing on them ? Or about the near field monitors that were used as a check reference of average consumer equipment (the Auratones in AM radio times, the NS10s for FM and home hifi) and how there is now an argument for using the iPhone in that capacity? I didn't mention anything about actually mixing on them to be fair. Either with or without headgear

I'm using the ATH50s at the moment. Like all the others, they're detailed enough for analytic and corrective work and if you've got some reference stuff that you know on a range of systems and you yourself are able to make that averaging compensation then you can make them work very well for mixing on. It then just comes down to practicality and the ATH50s are comfortable enough to wear all day long and isolating enough to use in the field. Years ago when everyone used Auratones and then Yamaha NS-10s in studios it was to approximate what people would be listening on. Nowadays, there is a definite argument to use Apple earbuds and iPhone speakers as your reference as it is more like literal representation than approximation of what it is that the vast majority will consume on.

I've got my eye on the Atomos Ninja Inferno and desperately applying some justification economics to it ! I'm rationalising it as £500 for a pro spec field monitor with all the exposure and focus aids I'd ever need and the other £450 split between three cameras so I'd be giving each of them a ProRes record module for £150 each. Which is a bargain when you think of it like that isn't it!! Just need to find somewhere with one in stock so I can test it to confirm the promise of FLOG I saw in my quick test.

Thought I'd have a look at external recording with it today. Just a quick test to compare FLOG, a flattened PRO Neg Std and an internally recorded regular PRO Neg Std. I haven't got a 4K external recorder so thought I'd just plug it into my Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini and record straight to the MacBook and do it in HD. Well, that was the plan anyway until I discovered it just won't play nice with the Blackmagic and, erm, doesn't output FLOG in HD. The former I can understand as sometimes it can take specific switch on sequences getting HDMI handshaking working but why the hell does it only output FLOG in 4K?? And even then it won't do it when you are recording internally so its an either or situation. So I was left with having to make do with plugging it into a 4K monitor and just looking at instead! I was only messing about pointing it towards a wall in my office that has a window in it and adjusting the exposure manually so that the clouds (against a very blue sky) were just about blowing out. The camera meter was showing this exposure to be +2.0 and even with that overexposure there was barely any detail visible in the rest of the room around the window. Switching to FLOG, the meter was now showing -0.6 and I was able to adjust exposure to bring everything up and maintain the highlights in the clouds. It was a very rough and quick test and only by eye on a monitor so I wouldn't be too committal about it until I've been able to test it properly and actually record the output but it was definitely interesting. Anyone here actually recorded any FLOG?

I'd vlog but I can't bring myself to say "Hey guys, what's up" prior to opening a cardboard box. I really admire Neistat to having his production so well set that he can turn stuff out every day with the quality consistency he has. He offers a window into that New York creative character that so many people aspire to and whilst I just can't warm to him I can see why his audience does and good luck to him and them. Unfortunately, the constant need for content is fuelled by and fuels the short term product cycles and attention spans of manufacturer and consumer alike (with its consequencent product shaming if you don't have the latest and greatest) so it's not entirely healthy. Having said that, because you can quickly go back over years of content, it can also serve to quell GAS as you can be readily underwhelmed by just how tiny some of the incremental upgrades of products actually are under real world conditions when compared to their predecessors. It probably needs less unboxing and quick run throughs of a product that came out 30 seconds ago and more "look what you can do with the one that came out 3 years ago and I picked up for peanuts" In terms of non-tech content, it SHOULD be the greatest source of investigative and niche interest documentaries but you have to plough through so much man in a basement ranting stuff to find anything decent. Mind you, it's a platform where we get the content we deserve as it's totally in our control to make better stuff so I've got no room to be sniffy about it if I only consume and don't contribute.

What I'd like Apple to do is produce an eGPU enclosure. Even a ready filled one if they want to maintain control. There are new thunderbolt docks with gpu slots around now which are less hacky and considering the daft cost of typical thunderbolt docks they are decent value for money. If Apple did one that was optimised for fcpx then I'd happily hand over my readies to them. It would be a bit of an old school offline/online edit paradigm but being able to do the edit on my macbook and then plug the eGPU in for the final render would suit me down to the ground. As would plugging it into my old macbook air and breathing some new utility out of that for the same purpose. But the other back to the old days thing that interests me is this Liquid Sky project branching off from gaming into video applications. In a nutshell Liquid Sky is cloud computing with crazy spec gpu computers. If it's good enough to satisfy gamers performance wise then it looks promising for our applications. For someone old enough to have written code on teletype that was then executed on the regional university mainframe at night so all the local colleges could share it's performance then remote rendering is definitely a nostalgic concept I could get behind! And it's that democratising aspect of it that's the intruiging point really of Liquid Sky for me in that it let's us access extensive and expensive back end power through whatever device we have to hand or can afford (playing top end games from cheap tablets while on the go is a major part of its pitch) Sometimes we might not have access to the grunt we need for financial reasons but also for practical ones. I'm currently on a train and cutting together some stuff in imovie on the ipad for example. It has a two step convoluted way to get its projects into fcpx for finishing ut I'd love to be able to hit a button and be able to hand it off remotely and have it returned rendered to me. Doing the edit on the ipad is the most efficient thing for me to be doing the edit right now but the device lacks the horsepower to truly be an end to end solution but a cloud element would solve that. Its that sort of stuff that Apple needs to do to keep everyone onside and offer a tightly integrated approach to recognising that we all not only have different needs but we all have different needs of those different needs at different times! Truth be told, we're not ALL rendering all the time and we're all in different time zones so if 100 of us on here threw in £300 each instead of spending it on incremental individual upgrades we could build our own Liquid Sky render monster that we could share time on!!!

I think one of the BlackMagic products will be able to help you with that. https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/miniconverters

Ignore me, I was just being flippant. I meant it has about 8 steps per revolution on that lens and you can feel every one of them.

Yeah, you can pretty much feel each step on the 27mm pancake. Its feels like you're safe cracking !

Half a turn gets you to 1.5m and another quarter turn gets you to infinity. On the upside the manual focusing aids are pretty good and the peaking certainly announces its presence loudly enough! Swings and roundabouts I suppose.

Picked up the 10-24mm on Saturday. Shot in 4K so its slightly cropped in on these frame grabs than it would be in HD. Some frame grabs from the cheap 50-230mm from the same wandering about. Shooting in 4K gave it even more range !

I've been interested in the Moondog Labs anamorphic adapter for the iPhone and didn't know they did a version with a 37mm thread on it until I came across this video. OK, so quality wise its not going to have people ditching their Isocramas but its a cheap way to get into having a go and can also do double duty for its original target platform of the iPhone (something which is now even more interesting with the new LOG version of FilmicPro)

I must admit, I presumed it was 10 bit external based on comments section on this video made by producers who seemed to be working with JVC but can't find a confirmed spec from JVC.

Everything I've been doing with the X-T2 AF testing wise had been stills and the new firmware coincided with me looking at video performance so I've got nothing to compare it to in terms of previous testing. I did find it performed very well though in a bit of an uncontrolled task but it was decent (if only available) light and no motion in the background for it to be attracted to so it needs more of a challenge perhaps. What I would say though is that it pissed all over the G7 I was using last week which struggled to hold focus on a locked off talking head shot.

And an approving nod for being able to change the ISO whilst recording as well. Having the dedicated ISO dial on the X-T2 makes for a very ergonomic and fast solution for a quick and dirty exposure correction when pushing in or out with variable aperture zooms.

Atomos looked like they'd got great timing releasing the new Ninja Inferno at the same time the GH5 became available but its even better timing with this upgrade of the LS300. For a total price of $3550 from B&H these two make a massively specced package. JVC did packages with Samyang lenses and if they've got any sense they'll do a bundled version of the LS300 with the Ninja Inferno. Everything about the LS300 on the front end is there (Super35 sensor, 4K,LOG,flexible mount,ND,XLR,dedicated controls) as are the clever features like Variable Sensor Mapping and the brilliant Prime Zoom function and mating it with the Ninja Inferno now takes care of the rest of it as on top of all that you get 10 bit 4K60p direct to edit ready ProRes on affordable media and a no compromise professional monitor with all the bells and whistles thrown in. Thats a hell of a system for $3550. Its probably not going to be attracting the same sort of user (or buzz!) as the GH5 (to which you could of course attach the Ninja Inferno and get all the back end stuff) but for people who really need a solid camcorder for broadcast work that can also be used for digital cinema then I can't see any better options than this. But they really need to up their marketing game and let people know about it.

From my tests today, the face detect AF in video is very effective indeed. I tried it on 18-55 f2.8-4, 35 f1.4, 50-140 f2.8 and the 50-230 f4.5-6.7 The weakest (although its all relative as it was still good) was the 35 f1.4 I was just shooting someone cooking (all handheld) so the subject was nipping around a bit and being front on, side on and facing away from the camera and moving towards it as well and it performed brilliantly to be honest. I was doing some manual crane ups from foreground objects such as bowls and appliances with the subject in the background and as soon as the face came into view during the raise it locked on to it and racked smoothly without overshooting. The big downer of course is that in only does this in HD rather than 4K but you never know with Fuji and they might bring it in next time. The other niggle I have is that AF Lock doesn't work when you have face detect on and it would have been nice to be able to hold focus on a foreground object and then let it got to choose when it racked to the face. All in all though, I must say that if I had to shoot a similar subject in a documentary type style then I'd go as far as to say that I'd forego the 4K and choose to shoot it in HD so I could use the face detect. Focus beats resolution all day long when you have to get the shot.

Well the new firmware has certainly improved the AFC hunting of my 27mm. It now only sounds mildly asthmatic. Initial thoughts about the rest of it are : Refocussing works well off the AF-L button (which I have remapped to be AF-ON) Histogram is welcome but they could've pushed the boat out and put zebras in. The new Eye Sensor + LCD Image Display mode is great for weaning myself off the traditional DSLR chimping method. I actually quite like the playback through EVF method as its a boon in bright lighting but most of my work means you still have to keep one eye on whats going on around you when you're looking and marking images so being detached from that by having the camera to your eye isn't always a good thing. Its a bit niche but the voice memo function is a boon for anyone doing editorial work with it. Copyright in the EXIF ditto. I'm going to test the face detect AF tomorrow......

Well if you're going to bring facts into it John..... DOH !!!! Thanks

I'm probably very late to this but prompted by a discussion in another thread about editing on a MacBook I thought I'd flag up what I've been using as an additional monitor when editing. As you can see here, I'm using my iPad Mini in FCPX as the Secondary Display using an app called Duet which was developed by some ex-Apple staff. Basically, it allows you to use any (and multiple) iOS devices connected to the USB port to increase the screen real estate of your MacBook (and any OSX machine actually) when running the Duet app on your Mac. OSX just sees them as additional screens so you can arrange and orient them anyway you like just as you would normal additional monitors. And because you aren't dealing with big monitors on stands, you can quickly reconfigure your setup depending on what you're doing. For example, if I'm using Aperture, I'll have the iPad on the left of the screen with all the tools on it and the main MacBook screen just having the image I'm editing. Also, unlike proper external monitors, you can take them with you easily. So if you're away somewhere and you have your iPad (or even your iPhone) then you can setup a dual screen system wherever you are. Or a tri screen system if you can borrow someone else's iPad there! I attach mine using the Ten One Design Mountie which at £20 is a bit harsh for some plastic and rubber but it works well. Other types are available cheaper on Amazon. The Duet app is £14.99 on the app store and the OSX control app is a free download. So, all in all, £34.99 to turn what you might well already have in your bag (or your pocket if its an iPhone) into an additional monitor is decent value. https://tenonedesign.com/mountie.php https://www.duetdisplay.com

I've got the 27mm f2.8 and I put it on earlier in AFC as I'm starting to look at video features on the X-T2. It sounded like it was gasping for breath !

Might as well post them. So, the grip then. I wasn't sure about the extent of the bottom lip protrusion relative to the rest of the camera as it seemed awkward at first and digging into my wrist a bit but after a small adjustment to how I was holding it then it actually felt very solid so thumbs up for that. I don't like the connector being covered by a removable rubber piece rather than a slide as I won't always want to have the grip on so its going to be a pain to remember to have that piece in whatever bag I'm using at the time. Performance wise, I use the X-T2 in boost mode anyway so its a marginal gain in some respects but the blackout time reduction did feel noticeable. But the move up to 11 fps is a big, big win for me. But obviously, it doesn't matter much if it can't nail focus consistently at this higher rate! So, quick test, focus was held on the golfer for a burst till the ball was out of the frame, then a brief pull out to reframe and lock on the ball and then a 37 frame continuous burst tracking the ball across the green. The grey frames are where it lost focus or in the case of the first one didn't acquire it. Considering the size of the object it was tracking relative to the frame and I'm judging focus by being able to read the markings on the ball then I've got no doubt that every single frame would've been acceptable with even a slightly larger target like a tennis ball. I would not be troubled in the slightest by this performance in similar circumstances if it came off my Nikon D5 to be honest. And I've done a blow up of what was causing the last frames to be out which was that it was attracted to some blades of grass in front of the ball. With the custom AFC settings tweaked to the option to ignore obstacles. I like this camera more every time I use it and the grip has moved it on another level. With more tweaking of the settings that I've been doing then - long primes aside - its getting towards being indivisible from shooting with my Nikons.

Well done for your diligence and honesty Mattias. I bet the original owner is a thrilled as he was stunned to hear from you. Talking of things that might have been stolen..... I was looking for JVC LS300 videos and this one popped up. Is this you or has it been appropriated? If it actually IS JVC then their subscriber count might explain a bit about why they haven't had much success marketing it !!

FFS!!! I popped in to share some results of the tests with the grip that I've literally just finished and the buggers have rendered the results a bit moot because of their fancy dan new updates. Damn you Fuji and your on time deliveries on promises