BTM_Pix

The sales manager gave me a very icy stare and said ominously “Oh, we know who you are” If its any consolation, the 'we' he's speaking on behalf of there undoubtedly do know who you are but probably have absolutely no idea who he is.

The two cinema zooms are on their roadmap in X mount for later in the year and it would be a bit of a stretch to think they see them being mounted to XT-2s so a cinema camera would make sense. If it is a more pro version of the XT-2 primarily for still shooters then they've still got some way to go to break Nikon and Canon's hold certainly in my area of shooting sport. I've been doing field testing of the XT-2 this week at the World Snowboard And Freestyle Skiing Championships and at a La Liga football match shooting for live agency distribution alongside my Nikon kit and its just not there yet. The image quality is good enough (at 6400 in the football stadium it surprised me with how clean it was) but the handling just isn't up to it. I got used to the EVF blanking but it never gave me much confidence that my timing was right. And it generally wasn't so the ratio of Nikon to Fuji shots that made it from the memory card to the newswire was about 20:1. For the football match it was even less as it inspired such little confidence that it was swapped out for another Nikon at half time. Battery life (especially covering the winter sports) was poor and all of this is also turning a blind eye to the lack of long primes. Which all adds up to me being the only one out of 60 odd photographers at both events mad enough to be trying mirrorless out! It has its place though because not everything is shot on a 400mm 2.8 so I'll be persevering with it again for the closing weekend of the championships. The roadmap shows that longer primes are coming late next year so, again, that would give more credence to this new one being cinema oriented. http://www.fujifilm.com/products/digital_cameras/xf_lens/roadmap/

What a shitty thing to happen. Coincidentally, I was looking at these at THIS year's BVE show a few weeks ago and they are very impressive. Hopefully they can get back on their feet supply wise soon. Decent comparison video here for anyone interested in them.

So on the one hand we have a thread where people are pleading with Andrew not to stop doing the blog as his content is so refreshingly different and then on here we have some people up in arms because he's produced the only video related blog post I've ever seen that contains an invitation to join the local tennis club with the author. Tough crowd. And it immediately put me in mind of what one of Andrew's fellow Mancunians might have said about it

Man alive, I've known less high pressure selling at a timeshare event. And I'm now getting follow up after follow up email about it. A real pity because it would be worthwhile at a FAR more sensible price.

Just a heads up that Color Grading Central are hosting a free DaVinci Color Grading webinar in a few hours from now. Just sign up and they should send you a link and you can download the media files that will be being used so you can play along. No idea about how it will be as its the first one of theirs that I've attended but definitely looks worth a view if you've got a chance https://app.webinarjam.net/register/26741/9508fb8776

If it's anything like other blackmagic products the person will have died of natural causes by the time it's delivered

My eye was particularly taken by his post about promising to cure relationship problems using black magic. On the basis of that, I've ordered an Ursa Mini Pro. I'll keep you posted on whether it does indeed stop the missus nagging me about doing more around the house.

So I was bored enough this afternoon to shoot a quick comparison using 3 different formats and a couple of lenses. Representing full frame,APS-C and M4/3 we have my battered Nikon Df, slightly less battered Nikon D500 and criminally underused Panasonic GX80 respectively. Lenses are my - even more battered than my Df - Nikon 24-70 2.8G and Nikon 70-200 2.8GII with an original Metabones Speedbooster for the GX80. A multitude of caveats for this quick comparison are The 24-70 shots are a bit soft but its the same for all cameras (mis focused on the Df then it was left in manual for other bodies so error followed through to them) so doesn't really impact the results. It was quick so a couple of (minor) crops and exposure adjustments were done in Aperture. These were corrective for uniformity where I was a bit sloppy with the setups and again do not change the spirit of the results. Included in number 2, because it was a quick comparison, I've took a slight rounding liberty with the speedbooster calculation to make it easier to 'centre' the tests around the APS-C sensor. By this, I mean the 24-70 should really have been shot at 23mm on the APS-C to match what the M4/3 was doing at 24mm with the 0.71 Speedbooster but, well, that would've meant a different lens and I was already losing the will to live. Everything was shot in jpeg with standard profiles and then mangled into these lowish res comps so pixel peeping is moot but, again, it doesn't impact the spirit of the results. For everything else, did I mention it was a quick comparison ? The first comparison is at 24mm on the 24-70 and is 'centred' around the D500 at 24mm/f2.8 so the GX80 is 17mm/f2 and the Df was set for 34mm/f4. The second comparison is at 70mm on the 70-200 and is 'centred' around the D500 at 70mm/f2.8 so the GX80 is 52mm/f2 and the Df was set for 105mm/f4. My conclusions are : With the same (high quality but pretty soulless) lenses on three different sensors representative of popular formats there is not enough difference to be losing sleep over. I need to have the Df serviced. I need to pressure wash the patio.

Wondering if he might want to part exchange it against my scooter.

Equivalence seems to be in the air on all sites this week..... Steve Huff weighs in with a different take on it, eschewing the maths and saying "Yeah but I have this 35mm f1.4 on FF and I mainly shoot it wide open so I'm not compromising that and setting it to 2.8(*) just so I can properly match this 23mm f2 APS-C and lose that power". Essentially in thats respect he's berating APS-C for bring a knife to a gun fight but still asking the question "But what does it actually LOOK like in comparison?" and "Is there THAT much difference to the LOOK between f1.4 and f2 with the equivalent focal length?". I think the images he's produced to do this with will support no ones side of this argument as some may say the only equivalence he's really proven is that its possible to take bang average images equally well with a $9000 or $1000 dollar camera. http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2017/03/03/quick-compare-full-frame-dof-vs-aps-c-dof-at-the-same-aperture-leica-vs-fuji/ (* He should have set it to 3.2 of course but he's not arsed about the numbers so its moot)

And by a strange coincidence, a post has just popped up on DPR with an ad hoc equivalence test someone has done with MF,FF and APS-C. As an aside, the amount of gear he seems to have had with him on a (presumably) non-photographic related business trip makes we wonder if he needs sherpas when he's going on a fully fledged shooting outing. https://***URL removed***/forums/thread/4125975

Are you using the Sigma MC-11 adapter on your FS5 Daniel? Using one of those and hoovering up some mint used Art lenses in EF mount might give you some different options and retain double duty on your 80D? They're more economical with the light as well as the money in the main too versus native equivalents.

Good to hear. As you say, its such a good natured area and one I've always enjoyed visiting and if my planned trip there this week had happened I'd have been in the Irish bar in the Europa-Center there watching the football tonight. Bought a few lenses in Saturn there too over the years as well as I'm sure you will have yourself. Anyway, hope all of your friends check in with you soon.

Andrew I know you often use the Christmas markets when shooting tests so just hoping you and yours have not been affected by whats happened there tonight. I have been a frequent visitor myself to Breitscheidtplatz, particularly at this time of year, and my thoughts go out to everyone involved in this horrendous incident.

Brilliantly contrary sir. Well played. And the most interesting choice as well IMO as it might be the one where Sony get everything right, for me at least. I've so very nearly bought both A7S's, both AR7s and the A6300 (as in been in the shop with the card poised) but always just stepped back at the last minute. I reckon this one might be the one I finally go through with and make use of the lens adapters I'd already sprung for before backing out of the purchases!

You're making a New Romantic comedy with a cast of five? Surely there aren't going to be too many laughs to be wrung out of a biopic of Visage. Presumably the last shot will fade to grey rather than black though.

I'll be honest, I'd want V-Log in it for that price. Mind you, if it was eight grand we'd probably all be a bit keener on extracting every last drop of use and performance out of what it did do rather than fixating on what next week's version from another manufacturer might have in it. Sometimes stuff being too cheap is a problem all of its own.

Those two QX cameras from Sony a few years ago might have been a hit if they hadn't made them the size of a can of coke and stripped a load of features off them. Seemed the perfect way to let someone who was ostensibly a casual smartphone photographer to have a bit more performance for holidays and special occasions. And for pros too actually so they could have something on them all the time if the need arose. But, being the size of a can of coke (albeit a mini bar one) kind of negated that, as did culling a lot of features. If something like that had become a hit and become the ubiquitous way of offering consumers a special occasion cameraphone (which is all they want really) then manufacturers could have kept their offerings completely separate and, ahem, focused on the needs of each user instead of constantly trying to shoehorn features up and down their ranges. The one that would be absolutely ideal would be this one but it would rely on a) More phone manufacturers offering the clip on concept and b) It not being abysmal quality. How Hasselblad have lent their name to something that actually downgrades the capture quality of the phone its connected to is beyond me But if they got it right then I think that due to the way people live their life with their phone welded to them it would be the product that would put most consumer cameras to bed once and for all.

Apologies for adding to the confusion, I was referring to the spec of the lens being a 2.8 rather than that the actual aperture that has been set.

Exactly. And this is the salient point here. Go and actually put a 200mm f2.8 on a M4/3 and then put a 400mm f2.8 on a FF and point them at the same thing. They'll look completely different. This web page is actually a decent source for it and the differences would become even more obvious with longer lenses than the 58 and 85mm used there. http://neilvn.com/tangents/full-frame-vs-crop-sensor-cameras-comparison-depth-of-field/

If there is only a marginal image difference between the two then due to the size differences it might well come down to that old adage that the best camera in any situation is the one you've got with you. The Mavic is very seductive to me because of that form factor. Even a 'small' drone like the Phantom ends up only being taken out when you specifically know you're going to do aerial stuff - and often only aerial stuff - as its not something you can pop in your bag on the off chance. Completely different proposition with the Mavic. The Karma might long term prove to be the better platform as you can change the camera but the Mavic looks the better product today to me.

And I doubt we ever will. There is an entire eco system involved that, as with Nikon evaluating getting into the cinema market, is just so well developed that it wouldn't make sense for other manufacturers to get involved. Its not just the obvious stuff like where are their 400mm 2.8s but everything else that is needed to get a picture from a camera to a picture desk in seconds under any sort of environmental conditions. That goes from everything like bullet proof wireless and ethernet modules through to the basic robustness needed to cope with the elements and the general physical battering they get. Its not that we don't want the advantages of mirrorless in terms of the weight reduction and cost reduction (particularly the ongoing highway robbery maintenance costs with shutter replacement) but unless it helps perform the overall task better than what we've got then we won't be changing. Ultimately, as RED found out with the RED ONE, its the overall task that really counts when its being used professionally rather than just the imaging module itself, as thats only one piece of the puzzle. If it doesn't fit into an overall eco system it'll be a big ask to get working pros to take a chance on it. Because of that, when we go mirrorless - and we definitely will - it will be with Nikon and Canon because the rest of the puzzle is already there. As for stills extraction, leaving aside the quality issue there are numerous reasons why it would need serious work to get it to fit into an editorial workflow. For one thing, we just don't have time to be scrolling through video to do the extraction. If a goal goes in then we're currently dealing with probably 10 or 12 frames to pick the best one and it then goes in one button press to be ingested, edited, captioned and ftp'd to a picture desk. And all of this is going on while the game is continuing and you're still shooting. Switching modes, scrolling through, marking frames, doing the translation to a still before we even start the rest of it? We just don't have the time for that and I know this for a fact because I've done live trials of it. However, the biggest issue is a bit more fundamental than that and its to do with media rights. Stills shooters are subject to heavy restriction at events as broadcasters have paid eye wateringly large sums for the motion rights. These restrictions determine how many sequential shots of a particular incident you can wire and a restriction on the overall number of shots per event so they cannot be reconstituted into a motion sequence. The restrictions are also related to the capture device itself so you can't use a DSLR in video mode unless you hold the broadcast rights. If you are seen using one in this way then you won't only be asked to stop, you'll have your accreditation revoked and removed from the stadium or event. Because of that, I'm going to say that the amount of pro sports shooters Nikon and Canon are losing D5 and 1DXii sales from to the likes of GH4 or anything else with stills extraction is likely to be zero.

I've got a foot in both camps with this really. I shoot with Nikon professionally as a stills shooter and it would make my life easier not to say cheaper if they were to push further/harder on the video side so that I wouldn't have to use my Panasonic/Blackmagic and RED gear for motion projects. On the other hand, I don't really want them to be diverting any resources away from developing and supporting what the core discipline it is that I'm using it for. Whilst its true that they don't have a cinema line to protect they do have their base to protect and, at least in the area of the business I'm in, they are in hand to hand combat with Canon for control of it. I can't imagine there'd be much appetite for diverting any resources away from those areas and risk losing that battle to fully open up a second front that they would already be playing catch up in. When I'm working at a major event and one of my bodies or lenses develops a fault, I'm not going to be too thrilled to go to the Nikon service desk and find out that they're all doing a roadshow at a local dealer trying to flog the D5 as a film making tool. Thats not me being conservative or a luddite, it just that I'm making a living from using their gear for what both they and I have determined its best suited for. Its a trust thing where I trust that they'll build and maintain a system that I can use for the purpose I need it and they trust that I'll keep buying 5 grand bodies and 8 grand lenses off them if they do! These things are only tools and as it currently stands, Canon make great chisels and great screwdrivers and frustratingly compromised chiseldrivers. Nikon make great chisels and maybe the lesson they've learnt from Canon is that chiseldrivers aren't just a bad idea merely because you've got a screwdriver line to protect but because chiseldrivers are just not a very good tool full stop. RED tried this the other way round. I was suckered into the idea that EPIC would herald a brave new world with its stills extraction and whilst yes it could do it, it was just so clunky to be rendered useless for anything other than very specific controlled circumstances. And could be outperformed by a dedicated device a fraction of its price just as my D5 is for video by any number of consumer mirrorless devices. What I don't really get though is the scorn for Nikon and by extension its users for them not diving headlong into this stuff. They make very good chisels and people who just need chisels are quite happy with them. It doesn't mean these people don't know what a screwdriver is or even don't have a use for a screwdriver. They just, you know, use a screwdriver for that stuff.