BTM_Pix

For anyone in a country that isn't locked down, you'll love Day 6. Out on a brief exercise walk with my other half this evening (which we have been doing 3 times a day around our little empty housing complex ) we fell foul of the newly introduced additional restriction today of not walking with anyone else. On the surface it does seem a bit of a mad one for couples who are living together in isolation anyway but due to us being in isolation we didn't get informed about it directly as we would have been by the administrators of the community. So, if we'd known about it, we'd have complied. Simple as that and no problem to us because due to our Japan trip we've been practising COVID-19 awareness before it became fashionable But hey, even though we didn't know about it, ignorance is no defence so hands up and we'd take what was coming from the Police.... Except this wasn't the Police it was another resident conducting some sort of paramilitary neighbourhood watch scheme. After shouting at us about whether the security company who patrol the estate had told us about the new restrictions we said no and remarked, as you do, that it seemed daft considering we lived together but were shrugging and turning round to go home. And then it escalated beyond all reason. I have a bit of a thing where if I'm in the wrong then I have no problem with being told. You can even re-iterate what I've done wrong and I'll go along with it. But its the third time that pushes my buttons. You know the third one don't you? The one when someone is talking to you like you are a child or an idiot? Anyway, I politely(ish) informed him that I understood it the first time and the second time and there was no need to fucking repeat it again. Of course the farce of this is that due to isolation, this whole exchange was being shouted across a road at each other Anyway, he gets it into his head that I'm an arrogant prick (I'll plead the 5th on that) because I'm utterly non-plussed by his attempts to intimidate me. That wasn't because of some sort of hardman deal just that it was such an unlikely turn of events that I wasn't really reacting beyond thinking he was a complete tit. As I crossed to the middle of the empty road to re-iterate that I wasn't going to be receptive to any of the threats or abuse, he reveals the concealed Nikon DSLR to try and takes a sly pictures of us, presumably to try and "non singular walking" shame us on Facebook. Recognising that it was an utterly futile exercise to engage any further, we started to head back the 300 metres to our apartment when the frothing lunatic appears (breaking his own isolation no less) claiming that we must stop where we are to await arrest by the Police and he will personally ensure we are both fined €600 each. He had undoubtedly completely and utterly lost his mind so I told the other half to start walking back to the apartment. I started walking towards him to try give him some pause about whether he needed to dial this down because this particular arrogant prick wasn't buying it and also to put a bigger gap between him and my missus in case he did act on it. (Spoiler alert, I wasn't fully buying it but had put down a hefty deposit on it because I could see he had become unhinged, was twice my size but I'd jumped off the diving board at this point ) Plus, there was no way I was going to turn my back on him at this point ! Anyway, he whips out the phone this time to video me and then says I have to remain where I am because now he was going to arrest me I think I may have laughed at this point which sent his rage-o-meter off the charts and he was bellowing me at a distance of about 40cm. Oh dear. The self styled Isolation Warrior of Murcia had saved his community from the threat of two of its residents walking together and was now firing his frothy rage fuelled spittle all over one of them. Of course, I pointed this irony out to the camera on the video he was still recording of me and it was abruptly stopped to be replaced with more threats of physical violence at an SPL level that even AC/DC might deem to be a bit on the high side. I backed away from him slowly at this point and then turned and walked back slowly to make sure that my missus was back in the apartment in case he came after me again. Even walking slowly was an act of arrogance apparently which got his motor running again. So I sit here patiently awaiting the arrival of the Guardia Civil to take all my toilet roll money (I hope @Grimor can put in a word for me with the authorities in case they cart me away) or perhaps this lunatic might just settle for sending his dog around to perform a canine arrest on me. Of all the insults he brought forth on me, I think the worst one was him taking pictures of me with such a shitty zoom kit lens on that Nikon. From the moment I saw that, he had no chance of taking the high ground Oh and for context, this confrontation was between two middle aged British men in Spain proving that, even when we are in full lockdown isolation , we can always find new ways to lower the tone.

Or indeed whether you were patient zero for the outbreak in the McLaren team

Yeah, I saw that and its really great to see it happening. I was going to offer my 3D print expertise but as this is an example of my handiwork they'd be better off using toilet roll tubes and sellotape.

And then in an act of stupefying hypocrisy Lewis Hamilton decides to make use of his newly acquired free time in Melbourne to toddle off doing indoor rock climbing and surfing with a bunch of strangers. What really fascinated me about the F1 circus when I went to the testing with @Andrew Reid before the world stopped were the buildings the teams erected in the paddock for entertaining sponsors etc. They were full on apartment blocks with elevators in them and as we were looking at them I said that I can't help thinking that if the F1 teams can turn up all over the world every two weeks building those structures then they could easily solve the housing shortage in the UK within a few months! Of course, now, with the impending seriousness of the peak of the virus thats coming, they should seriously look at using their skills in doing the same to build overflows for hospitals. I can't help thinking that the UK government's appeal to manufacturers for anyone with capabilities that could be used to help build ventilators could be addressed by the F1 teams that are based there as well as I'm sure they have the associated engineering skills and small scale manufacturing ability to help out.

I think that they could combine both and have the main exhibition hall(s) with the small housing estate sized stands that the big companies set up and then one hall filled with single table stands for the little guys and have prices to match. These Pod Stand packages for IBC2020 are along the right lines and they have them in the connecting spaces between halls so you do get decent footfall. The only snag is that the package price for the show is €5000, which when you add in the travel costs and the jacked up prices of hotels around such events its ends up putting it out of reach. If they piled aisles and aisles of them into a dedicated hall in a record fair style they could easily get that price down to say €1500-2000 and make more money than they do now from having only a limited number of the €5000 version. They could also mitigate it by allowing us to sell products directly as I always think as a visitor that gives a show a bit more buzz. The Photography Show in Birmingham is a good example of being able to see the latest gear on the big manufacturers stands and being able to buy gear at a healthy discount on the retailer's smaller stands surrounding them. At the end of the day we will miss exhibitions if they disappear because, and with all due respect to anyone who does it, God help us if the only way we get to see or show new products is through the prism of YouTubers.

So..... About the original point of this thread then. Has anyone got up to anything interesting yet whilst in isolation that they can share with the group? Yesterday I posted this live scene from my workbench and I'm pleased to share with you all the outcome of what was going on in it. With having that ability to concentrate fully on a project that only fully being in isolation can bring, I have completed eating both bars of chocolate.

As such guys, this is another blow as was CP+, NAB and I'm going to venture IBC will be as well. Not because we were exhibiting but in terms of meetings to discuss licensing, co-development and distribution opportunities. We have some hope that things might be back on track for InterBEE in late November but who knows what long term restrictions this may bring travelling to and from Japan from Europe. I know a lot of people think that exhibitions such as these are relics and that this might be their death knell but I'd be sad to see that happen as they are more than just people getting their grubby hands on new gear. What I would definitely like to see if they do come back though is a lot more of the "single table" type stands for us little guys to be able to afford to show our wares.

Sony had a setback in the trial of theirs when Doctors mistakenly thought patients were getting sicker due to the green tint it gave their skin colour.

File this under "Just checking it works/Isolation Cabin Fever" but just had a quick go with the UVC output function to see if a makeshift external monitor can be deployed if you need one but aren't carrying one. The short answer is yes it can. You'll need an Android device (its doable on iOS but only with a costly adapter last time I checked) and with older devices such as mine you'll need a USB OTG cable which are only a few quid and useful anyway to connect USB drives etc to the phone. You'll also need a viewer app and there are a myriad of free and paid ones on the Play store so just search for combinations of "uvc" and "usb webcam". I haven't tested enough of them to draw a conclusion so best to use your own judgement based on whatever downloads/review criteria you normally use. When you have the software installed, its a simple case of connecting the USB-C of the FP to your phone (either directly if your phone is USB-C or via the OTG adapter if not) and the default setting of your FP is to auto-detect what you have connected to the USB-C port so you will see a prompt telling your to switch to Cine mode. So, is it useful? It could have been and might still be if you don't mind the caveats. The first caveat is that it will only work in Cine mode. The second one is that you don't have access to any of the menus (not even the QS) when it is in UVC mode and won't be able change anything, although if you have a lens with manual aperture, set the mode to shutter priority and have Auto ISO set you can some minimal non-optimal control. The third one is that on my phone (which is only USB2 on the OTG port) the performance isn't great or even approaching not that great in terms of lag and frame rate. On better devices this should be less of an issue. With those sort of caveats, the question is whether its of any use whatsoever and again the answer for me is still a very frustratingly "almost". The biggest boon is that with a cheap 1/4" 20 mounting mini ball head and phone grip attached to the FP you can have the elusive tilting monitoring solution which I find invaluable without an EVF. It can also be fully articulated to be front facing if required. Would you use it to actually do meaningful monitoring with ? Its performance doesn't make that viable on my device at least but for framing when the camera is not at eye level then its perfectly fine and also for focus checking as most of these apps have a finger pinch function to zoom in. Do I need that all the time ? No but as my phone is Android anyway, its far more convenient to have a cable and adapter in my bag to press it into service when I do rather than having to carry a real monitor and all the additional power and mounting stuff that goes with it. The fourth caveat of course is that it takes up the USB port so no external drive and if you are thinking "well if I'm recording on SD thats not an issue" then welcome to caveat number five which is that you can't record internally either ! So you can frame with it but have to unplug it every time you want to record anything. Oh well at least it passed a bit of time while we are confined to our house !

As you can see, I'm managing to combine both at the moment. I do have a couple of ideas about how to do something interesting regarding the multiple exposures but not necessarily conventional approaches....

Sadly, even today, the zealots are trying to make some Brexit capital out of the crisis so the lunatic isolationist project is still very much in play. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-brexit-dominic-raab-uk-cuba-foreign-secretary-a9406736.html

Or 10%, -8%, 2%, 7% and then finally 5%

The UK Government has just stepped up to the plate with a similar financial aid package, pledging 15% of the UK's GDP to bridge gaps. I'm sure there will be some devil in the details (particularly for one man band self employed people) but on the surface this is will come as a huge relief for millions of people affected. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51935467

I have an MC21 but its the Sigma SA to L version so its Sigma lenses only and on the FP whilst they do work I can't get the OIS working on them so I need to dig into that a bit, though I suspect its because the two lenses in question aren't on the compatibility list. @Andrew Reid has the EF version and has been using it on the S1 and FP with EF lenses so hopefully he will break cover long enough to comment. Here is a video of someone using it on the FP with a couple of non Sigma EF lenses in the meantime. As a more general look at how the adapter copes with a broader variety of non-Sigma lenses this uses quite a wide range of them on an S1and a crowd sourced list of tested Sigma and non-Sigma lenses and how they perform on it on the S1. https://www.tttphotography.com/sigma-mc-21-ef-l-lens-adapter-compatibility/ As always with these things though, the difference between stills and video mode is where all the performance caveats live.

We've got three countdown clocks going on while we are sat locked in the house. When we left Japan on the 8th of March. When we transited through Madrid airport on the 9th of March where not one precaution was in place by officials or staff and a bunch of people were coughing their heads off on the connecting flight to Alicante. When we went to our local supermarket which had about 3 people in it (all of us wearing gloves) to buy some Frosties on the 15th of March. I'll be honest and say I'm far more bothered about clock number 2 but with this thing it might easily be clock number 3 so I'll be wracked with angst until that one finishes. And then it will be clock number 4 when I run out of Tony The Tiger's really ggggreat corn based breakfast treat and have to venture out for more. Having to live in 14 day cycles of uncertainty will be enough to make anyone a fatalist after a few rounds of it. Or at least to explore the possibility of switching to Crunchy Nut Cornflakes.

They are now attempting to gaslight the country that herd immunity wasn't on the cards despite them crowing about it last week. When this is all done, I hope that not only have the country developed herd immunity but also developed turd immunity so the country stops electing absolute shit to lead them. They can't sloganeer, focus group, war game and micro target Facebook ads their way out of this one.

The contrast between Macron's handling of this in France yesterday and Johnson's in the UK couldn't have been more stark. While Macron offers up a €300 Billion aid package and vows that no company will be left to go bankrupt, Johnson tells everyone not to go to pubs, restaurants, theatres etc but doesn't enforce their closure thereby leaving them unable to claim on their insurance and dooming them to bankruptcy. Along with everyone over the age of 70, my mother is now confined to home for a period of 3 months from this weekend with absolutely zero plan on how food supplies and visits will be organised and managed for her and the other residents of the sheltered accomodation complex she lives in. The centre did manage to have enough of a plan to ban their bingo game in the lounge last night for contravening the social gathering restrictions though. Good luck to everyone on here, particularly those in countries without adults in charge.

I'm guessing he's referring to activating it using the Android app that I wrote a while ago that is linked in this post. I don't have a G9 so can't offer any advice over how it responds.

Not sure if this was a question specifically for me ? I don't have a 5D Mark iii so better leave the specifics to those who do - particularly around usability/practicality - but, yeah, the image quality is certainly there from all I've seen of it.

Day 4 of lockdown confinement. Some projects have been looked at but now I've discovered marble racing videos then I may have no need of any distraction. Sound on so you can hear the commentary and I defy you not to get invested in Comet's performance here

Keep the little fellas safe though.

No, I know. Germany has a specific foreign trade law to scrutinise and prohibit takeovers from non-EU countries if it threatens national security and order. https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/guides/germanys-foreign-investment-regime The issue at hand really is whether he tried rather than whether he was thwarted Scooby Doo style by the meddling of those pesky kids.

The German government are taking the report seriously enough to be discussing it today in their crisis meeting so we will see what we see. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/16/not-for-sale-anger-in-germany-at-report-trump-seeking-exclusive-coronavirus-vaccine-deal A cynic might wonder why if such a report as this, with attributed comments from named German politicians is indeed "fake news", why a certain someone who is so enamoured of that phrase isn't tweeting precisely that. With caps locks on and many, many exclamation marks. Great exclamation marks. The best exclamation marks ever, in fact.

And yet here we are. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/15/trump-offers-large-sums-for-exclusive-access-to-coronavirus-vaccine

Probably worth pointing out to younger readers that "Kiki Wipes" are not, as the name might otherwise suggest, an alternative product with which to circumvent the current toilet paper shortage.