BTM_Pix

Looks like it didn't last long outdoors in 8K for Toneh before it got Smokeh.

I've no doubt that this is a financially advantageous deal for AP but no amount of inducement would be worth jeopardising their core business of being able to push images to news desks around the world from anywhere in the world with the same speed and quality as their rivals. The fact that they have determined that they can now do this with Sony equipment to the extent that they will change over their entire inventory is a huge statement. Its also a big statement from Sony that they are confident enough to put themselves in that position of responsibility because them getting kicked out of AP will be a far bigger story than them getting in there. It might not be of particular, or indeed any, interest in the here and now to most people on this forum but the ripples of this particular pebble being dropped in the pond might well become very relevant in the next few years. Canon and Nikon have primarily only been concerned with what each other does for a long time which has only led to incremental developments to keep up with each other but they will have to react to this and take Sony far more seriously in what has been their own private battleground. Not least because this will have put every other agency on alert about whether they can get a similar deal out of Sony.... Lenses were one of the reasons that Sony were never really able to take a seat at their table because they didn't have the full arsenal particularly when it came to the long primes but that is very different now. Ironically, when you look at the lineup of RF and Z mount lenses, it is now Canon and Nikon that actually have the gaps in their lineup and have to play catchup with Sony when it comes to offering a complete system for anyone going mirrorless.

The electronic shutter in the original was a bit of a stick to beat them with as it was the only way to get decent fps but with the A9ii they've got the best of both worlds now that the mechanical shutter has been upgraded to a healthier 10fps. The silent shutter is becoming increasingly important to sneak shots during press conferences as they routinely limit stills to the first few minutes now because of the racket of the shutters.

Considering that the A9 was their first serious attempt at breaking in to the photo journalist/sports photography market and how that was hampered by a lack of some key lenses at launch, the slow mechanical fps and incomplete feature set regarding field work, its quite something to have gone from where they were to doing a deal like this in only three years. Honestly, a year after the A9 launch, I'd have put far more money on them not being in this market any more at this point than I would on them having got AP on board like this. Its the stills aspect thats the bigger deal than the video journalists really as AP have a lot of features, news and sports photographers who would thus far have been almost exclusively using Canon or Nikon DSLRs. Funnily enough, that last UEFA Champions League match that I shot was notable because for the first time I did actually see a couple of photographers using Sony A9s, although they were still outnumbered thirty or forty fold by the rest of us. I'd presumed it might have been UEFA's photographers using them as Sony are a sponsor but in light of this I'm wondering now whether they were actually AP photographers trialling them.

The broader point is what it does to the duopoly of Canon and Nikon in that field and what implication losing that stranglehold may have on their future camera developments, particularly Nikon. Having to try harder would be one implication.

Associated Press have signed an exclusive deal with Sony for the supply of imaging products for all of its news photographers and video journalists worldwide. This is pretty big coup and its the photography side that is particularly big news for me and it will make for very uncomfortable reading for Canon and Nikon. Its taken Sony a while to get everything in place to be a genuinely viable alternative to the big two for field work as its not just the cameras and lenses but all of the image transmission capability and pro support but it looks like they've certainly proved its all in place now if it passes muster for AP. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ap-to-equip-all-visual-journalists-globally-with-sony-imaging-products-301098857.html

Strangely enough, I've just developed a combi BLE/RF repeater module for one of my new product so I'm good for about a kilometre ! I suspect that is probably what happened.

Oooh...this video shows that the 10% wins 😉 Partly at least. (Its cued to where he connects the F6) As I'd only currently have a very simplistic one to one requirement right now between the Ninja V and the H3-VR then this would do for me although the benefits of using the UltraSync Blue in terms of repeater/hub mode are definitely worth the additional cost for more involved scenarios. Well, I suspect that the AtomX sync is their first new product just that its not listed as such 😉

I'm trying to work out whether this will work directly with the Zoom recorders that support UltraSync Blue or whether you need an actual UltraSync Blue box in the middle to do the translation ? I feel (hope !) it should be the former but the picture on the Atomos site is a bit ambiguous and suggests it might be the latter. I'm a bit bummed that they appear to have dropped the NDI AtomX module.

As @IronFilm has said, its a lot more than a monitor. Even just taking it as a monitoring tool though, it is going to improve those capabilities on virtually every camera that you put it on and not just the LS300 as there aren't many that offer false color, waveform, vectorscope, focus peaking and 2:1 zoom tools built in. It is also 1000 nits brightness so is perfectly viewable without a hood even in very, very bright daylight such as I'm using it in here when every other camera screen (notably the BM4K that I was also using that day) was absolutely useless. With the addition of the AtomX sync module, the Ninja V also enables wireless timecode sync which, whilst not necessarily important for your needs right now, could well be if you are working multi cam or with external audio. Something which isn't relevant to the LS300 but might well be if you move on to or add an additional camera is that the Ninja V can record ProRes RAW from a growing number of cameras by Nikon, Panasonic, Sigma and Z-Cam. So, although you will definitely get an instant hit of improvement when you use it with the LS300, I'd also look at it in more general terms of it being like a great lens or microphone that is going to improve every other camera you use it with on some level so can stay with you as you change cameras over the coming years.

Yeah, he's done really well there persuading London to switch on its Christmas lights for him to shoot that test.

Yikes ! £167 is a different story.

According to the page, its 1500Yen which is about £11. Pretty sure they'd make far more money even if it was £30 as a kit. The shipping costs will be far more than that and yes you will likely have to pay import duty to get it back. Far better if that money went into the pockets of the creator rather than UPS and the HMRC.

It looks like you have to send it to them ? It would be good if they supplied it as a kit as your local phone repair/screen replacement shop would have the tools and skills to fit these.

When Veydra finally closed their doors, part of the statement referenced that the closure was following the conclusion of litigation between the founders. I don't know the ins and outs of what that was but if anyone is curious enough about it they can register and presumably pay to access the records of it here. https://unicourt.com/case/ca-ora-veydra-llc-vs-ryan-avery-871484

Well, it was hardly the biggest mystery in the world but confirmation at least that the Meike lenses are the genuine successors to the Veydras and good to see the co-founder being involved and discussing how they have actually been improved rather than being the low quality rip offs that many were widely opining they were. The real mystery this video solves for me though is how you actually pronounce Meike.

$900? Seriously, at that price, I'm tempted to say buy it first and then ask questions later. I can't see how even if you hated it that you'd not get all of that back re-selling it so at the very least you'd be able to have a free rental period of it in which to evaluate it. More to the point, you'd probably end up making money on it too. With it being a video camera, it is a completely different beast to a mirrorless ILC or DSLR so just comparing on imaging capability alone isn't going to tell you the whole tale, which is why there is a scarcity of comparison videos around. Having said that, there is no question that it does not perform in low light like the A7sii or give you anywhere near the AF capability of something like the A6400. If those two aspects are critical for you then you should definitely look elsewhere as the LS300 won't satisfy either to the extent you are looking for. With regard to streaming, then, yes, it is ideal for that and can do it straight out of the box to YouTube etc with no problem. What you will be getting with the LS300 versus a DSLR is something that you can put to work straight away when you pull it out of the bag with no rigging, additional audio modules or adding ND etc. and it has tactile switches for primary functions so you don't have to go ploughing through menus. The choice of lens mount and the tricks behind it with the Variable Scale Mapping make the LS300 the most versatile camera out there and it is equally capable of being run with a tiny MFT pancake lens as it is with a cinema PL mount lens. Again, with it being a video camera as opposed to a stills camera that can take video, you also benefit from longer life batteries and it not turning into a hand warmer when it is running. The really big achilles heel with it though is the monitoring as the fold out LCD is just about adequate but the EVF is atrocious. However, there is a magic bullet to solve this in the form of the Atomos Ninja V. With the Ninja V, that issue goes away and you get all of the monitoring functionality you need, ProRes recording and the big bonus of it enabling you to use 4K60p so its pretty transformational for the LS300. So, in your case where you can get an LS300 for $900 then adding another $700 for the Ninja V gets you a bit of a powerhouse for $1600. Its all about the form factor though so none of that spec matters if you aren't comfortable with that. As a device of its type, I don't think you are going to do better for the money in terms of versatility than the LS300 and certainly not at the price you've been offered but if low light and AF and other aspects of DSLRs are important to you then there will be better bets for that overall $1600.

Yeah, you are back down to 400 cd/m too with the larger one. The brightness is one of those things I think where you have to see it though to know if it will work for you. As an example, my phone is rated at just over 400 cd/m so I've just gone outside where the light meter reading here is currently f8 at 1/500th at ISO 100 (i.e. very bright sunshine !) and it is absolutely perfectly viewable so you might find that one adequate if you can get to test it in the environment you are going to use it in.

Not an absolute recommendation as I don't personally own one but you might want to look at companies like Elecrow who make slim portable monitors that can be powered by USB or mains. They have a whole range of them but this 15.6 inch one might suit your needs and definitely suits the budget ! https://www.elecrow.com/elecrow-mf156-15-6-inch-full-hd-1920x1080p-touch-screen-portable-ips-gaming-monitor.html They are primarily for gaming or as additional screens for laptops etc so you won't get any monitoring tools and the brightness of 400 cd/m might not be optimal for you but as a budget option it might be worth looking at. If you can live with a 10.1 inch screen then the Feelworld FW1018 might be worth a look as it has focus peaking and is 800 cd/m https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1473463-REG/feelworld_fw1018v1_10_1_ips_4k_hdmi_camera.html/overview Its certainly more made for the job and has SDI inputs as well as HDMI but you are then into 12v power too so that is something to bear in mind and at that size it will likely be less useful doing double duty as an extension PC monitor.

For anyone who is in the US and wants an RP, Canon have refurbished ones on offer for $809.99 https://shop.usa.canon.com/shop/en/catalog/refurbished-eos-rp-body There is a coupon code floating about that reduces it further to $728 if you enter it in the checkout Code is BRN8B7D

Purely anecdotal and no exactly a controlled test but might be of interest regarding cooling in general with regard to the Sigma fp. I took this picture during side by side comparison test between a Sigma SD-Quattro and a few other cameras last year. All of the other cameras were OK (it was still rather than video after all) but the heat triggered a hitherto unknown (to me at least) temperature alarm in the SD Quattro and it shut down but it recovered after a few minutes. The Foveon sensor cameras do run warm so it wasn't completely unexpected but maybe points to why Sigma were so particular about the cooling for the FP not just to handle RAW video but also for when they put a Foveon sensor stills camera in the same body in the future. I might go and re-do this with the fp in video mode to see the difference but its a rather chilly 35c here today so I'll have to wait for warmer weather 😉

You can download the SDK from the Canon developer program sites. These are regional, so just pick the one that is right for you North, Central, and South America: https://developercommunity.usa.canon.com/ Europe and Asia https://developers.canon-europe.com/s/ Oceania: https://www.canon.com.au/support/support-news/support-news/ You just have to create an account and then you can login and download the files. To be honest, unless you absolutely have to have a wired interface then with you using an RP then I'd be inclined to use the new CCAPI protocol that it supports as it uses simple HTTP so it is a much easier and faster method to get something working.

Really sad that spammers can't put the graft in to write their own stuff these days and have to do cover versions. I blame Simon Cowell.

The IBIS did look like it was melting at times though.

Yeah, aside from the additional monitoring functionality versus the Panasonic app, another upside of this is that it doesn't heat the balls off your camera or cut off its LCD monitor after 10 minutes like it does when you use the internal wifi. For Fuji users it also gets round the resolution restriction they impose on internal recording when using their app.