BTM_Pix

Does it do anything at all when you change "Preview Exposure in M Mode" from on to off ? Might it be a conflict with Brightness in the LCD Menu being set to Auto over riding it ? A real downer if something as fundamental as that doesn't work properly.

No, I was just desperately trying to remember who "they" were that I was talking about !

I had to search to check who "those people" were, where they had gone and when they were coming back to get the full context ! The full reply was ---------- "I'm curious about this to be honest. Its still quite rare to see one out in the wild isn't it? There were obviously a gazillion pre-orders when it was announced but I wonder what percentage of those turned into actual delivered sales after all the delays? How many people cancelled because they got fed up and moved on to another camera (after all people couldn't just put their projects on indefinite hold) or their circumstances changed or they didn't like CDNG being removed? If those people now come back I'm guessing it might well be to the 6K and that the 6K will have a longer life so might well outsell the 4K in the end." ------ So the pondering was about people who had originally ordered the P4K, had got bored or distracted or poorer etc and didn't end up getting one and then decided to re-visit getting the camera. With the paucity of availability of the 4K and the immediate availability of the 6K, along with the absolute glut of YouTube reviews from the "hey guys whats happening" bros, it seemed likely that anyone coming back would be more drawn to the 6K. In the very first post in that thread, I also wrote this with regard to the presentation video of the 6K and what Grant Petty said about P4K delays -------------- Instant availability as well, which is another surprise, so whatever those components Grant Petty referenced that had 72 week lead times in the 4K version that have been crippling deliveries are obviously not in play here. ------------- To be honest, I had the suspicion that whatever component(s) it was that had those lead times for the 4K would not only restrict past and current supply but also likely artificially shorten the overall product life itself. Which is why I pondered that the 6K would have a longer life with more ready supply and hence sell more units in the end. Having said all that..... The 6K seems to have about as much buzz as a sex toy with flat batteries so I was completely wide of the mark !!

Yeah, they are still around not far off £4K new and if it had the GH5 internals instead of the GH4 ones then it might have legs. Maybe something might come up at NAB. Ditto an SDI version of the Ninja V so people can start hoovering up all those used FS5s ! IBIS is bridge too far but, looking at this teardown, adding a tilt mechanism to a BMPCC screen is just a few FPC extension cables and a couple of 3D printed cover panels and hinges away.

I still think a lot of people might end up back there given the right option just to get back to the simplicity and actually make something. I keep expecting Panasonic to do a refresh of the DVX200 with the GH5 internals as that might kickstart the move back but they're all about 1" sensors at that end now, although their AG-CX350 certainly doesn't skimp on the spec front.

Well I can do the fist two for you but not the GH5 The screen stays on so its basically marginal difference to running it for continuous video. I've just done a 5 second of content time-lapse with a 4 second interval and it took 20% of the battery. Because there is no power saving between shots, then changing that to an 8 second interval would have yielded more or less the same battery hit. For me, having to go into the menu to change ISO and WB are the biggest grumbles operationally.

For the purposes that you've described you want to use it for, the answer is a massive one. The 2.88x crop factor will mean that those sweeping vistas from cruise ships aren't quite as sweeping. The limitation in shutter speeds will hamper timelapses, particularly for lower shutter speed equivalents. The power requirements for it will be a challenge as it eats internal batteries so you'll need to carry a bigger external solution, particularly for timelapse. Don't get me wrong, its a fantastic camera and you should probably look at getting one anyway on its own merits, just that for this specific role its far less suitable. With the BMPCC, RAW doesn't just describe its recording capability but also its shooting experience.

When you compare the magazine version to the original, its quite interesting to see how much SI changed it. Not just in terms of burning the background OOF areas which is quite common but also in terms of the colour. Helmet is orange in one and almost yellow in the other.

I don't have any direct personal experience of them but I these two Canon ones do get full coverage albeit at a reduced short end.

This from VariZoom might fit the bill for your LANC needs as it has all the functions you are looking for and is small enough to mount on most things. https://www.varizoom.com/product/vzstealthlx/ I'm not 100% certain of how much of that is supported by Blackmagic's LANC implementation on the BMMCC but I'd say it was worth asking VariZoom about it as I'm sure they'll know.

Depending on which vintage of GoPros you use (the new(er) ones don't have the AV output), you can go the old school quadcopter route of using FPV transmitters and monitor on either a dedicated FPV monitor or one of the plug in receiver adapters for phones. The FPV transmitters are cheap, have a much longer range obviously and far lower latency than using WiFi. Whether you'd get enough channel separation to run more than a few in the same space is something you'd need to look into. As an alternative If you are going to use cameras that have live HDMI outputs then you could get something like this. This lets you put 8 different feeds in a variety of different splits (one big one with seven small picture in pictures etc) onto one screen simultaneous so you would put this in the car and then attach its output to a single Acsoon CineEye HDMI transmitter (which has enough range for the sort of distances you would be running) to monitor in the other car on a tablet or a phone. It runs on 12v so will be easy to power from in the car and small enough to put under a seat. There are 4 channel versions as well if you don't need to monitor everything. Total price including the CineEye would be under £300 and you'll get a lot of bonus use out of the CineEye on other jobs when the car one is over ! https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000089013424.html

The best backup solution rather than just a camera would be an LX100 as it has a (very good) lens built in so will cover you in case a catastrophe befalls your other kit. As its a standalone (and compact) solution you won't have to juggle with lenses either to be able to shoot two angles simultaneously and it has timelapse built in. The downsides are fixed screen, no external audio, electronic only stabilisation and no specific flat profile like Cinelike D. For their current used price of £250 and falling its great value for money and as has been mentioned on here frequently it a great lens with a free camera. This is a good run through of it as travel camera. In terms of its still capabilities, when shooting RAW in particular, it was involved in a supporting role comparison I did a while back between the SD Quattro and the Fuji X-T20 where it actually ended up more than holding its own. If you want to have the flexibility to change lenses then the GX80/85 is the obvious alternative to the LX100 and adds tiltable screen, IBIS and Cinelike D with the easy hack but still lacks the mic input. If you want all of that with a mic input then the G80 is the way to go and adds the articulating screen as well albeit at the cost of a larger but still pretty compact form factor. If you want the G80 but aren't bothered about having IBIS and want to save some money, then the G7 is the one. If its pure travel/backup/supplementary role then I'd personally go with the LX100 and for something that can be a more junior GH5 then I'd choose the G80. And if you only need 1080p and want a left field MFT suggestion that will give you something entirely different then get an OG BMPCC

Was the genius of the 4 channel assignable rotary pots to control aperture,ISO,WB and focus for £15 not enough for you then ? Give me an idea of what you would want to control and how (ie pots, sliders or switches) and I'll see what I can do. Its quite lo fi to do something for it so as long as you don't mind soldering a few wires it won't be too daunting.

OK, nothing elaborate but did these today with an A7Rii. All standard profile, straight out of the camera JPEGs. To make a reference, this is a daylight one, which the AWB does OK with and as expected is pretty much identical to manually white balancing it using the knock off Expodisc. This one is using AWB. And this is the one using the Expodiscalike. To make it make a more challenging comparison, I set the X-Rite up against a white wall adjacent to the window with the left side being lit by a lamp and the right side being lit by daylight. This is it with the AWB. And this is it after setting a manual WB with the Expodiscalike. The AWB is slightly cooler and the Expodiscalike is actually a more accurate representation of how it looked to the eye. Putting the dropper on the same colour patch on the X-Rite, you can see the broad difference in RGB values. AWB on top, Expodiscalike below. So its a subtle difference but even on a quick not exactly that scientific test its definitely there and of course the advantage is it will be locked in for the whole shot.

I don't disagree with the article but to be fair to the Pocket4K, it does now have a Super16 mode albeit within a much bigger form factor.

Ironically, the very day after I was wafting that thing around proved that when it comes to politicians that rule certainly doesn't apply either ! The Expodisc balances a bit warmer IIRC One of those times when the knock off is actually a bit better!

Remember this from the other week I originally got this years ago as there were a couple of stadiums on my beat with mixed sets of floodlights that produced a horrible light that all manner of white balance settings couldn't tame and this made a much better fist of it. I use it with the Pockets for ProRes but its just generally a useful tool, especially if you're shooting the same thing with differemt brands. I'll do an A/B with it on an a6500 tomorrow if you want?

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin used to mention this sort of feeling whenever they saw films set in the Nevada desert.

Oddly enough, you'll actually see a Renault engine on some of them, including the A class. https://www.smartmotorist.com/mercedes-engines

It uses Variable Scan Mapping to scale coverage for different lens types (default preset for MFT is a conservative 80% but this is assignable as most lenses are 85-90%) to give the correct native field of view for whatever lens from Super16 to Super35 is attached so the corner sharpness of MFT lenses on it is moot when it comes to why it wasn't popular because you never see the corners. The perception of the mount being indivisible from the sensor size was the biggest hurdle to it being accepted. Well, that and the abysmal EVF obviously. But because of the VSM you can do tricks with it that give it incredible flexibility, such as being able to put an APS-C lens such as the Sigma 18-35mm f1.8 on it using an EF>MFT speed booster and using the VSM to rescale it to maintain the native FOV of 18-35mm but gain the extra stop and additional sharpness that the speed booster brings. This is in addition to using the VSM in the "Prime Zoom" function making a 2x virtual zoom controlled on the hardware zoom rocker control for any prime (or zoom) lens. Or re-mapping the zoom rocker control as a focus control for any lens while still retaining Prime Zoom control through an external LANC zoom control. And on and on. No one could ever say JVC didn't have a serious go at packing the innovation in when it came to that camera !

The prosecution rests m'lud

Its not hindsight because I argued it at the time as well but I think the EF mount for the 6K was a mistake. The MFT mount was the best of all worlds because it would have allowed for cheap lightweight primes, speedboosted EFs to effectively make it a full frame camera and of course the shallower mount to take PL lenses or the MFT mount Meike Cine Primes which cover the s35 sensor anyway. Most other MFT lenses give at least 85% coverage so a simple window mode (which they have done now with the 4K for Super16 without the sky caving in) for when you are using those lenses would have been sufficient. There is absolutely no benefit to having the EF mount on it so you have lost full compatibility and inter-operability with the 4K and permanently restricted your lens options for the sake of having native control of a lens that you could already use anyway. Its like the Brexit of lens mount decisions and like Brexit I've yet to hear a single tangible benefit from the choice. I have both the 4K and 6K and I certainly can't give you an example of a benefit. The only way the EF mount makes any sense is if BM see it as a B cam for the Ursa but its surely more logical to see it as the A+ cam to the 4K. Unfortunately, the JVC LS300 wasn't popular enough to dissuade a lot of people about an MFT mount only being able to have an MFT sized sensor behind it so that inevitably plays a part too.

I've never tried one. MapCamera have a bunch of them for around £400 so you can pick one up when you take your FP to be fixed ! Main criticism I've read about, aside from not being constant aperture, seems to be size and weight.

Yes but its push/pull zoom so thats a bit moot in this case! Funnily enough, the 35-70mm is featured in that Media Division's Zeiss Super Speeds vs Contax Zeiss episode on YouTube. I actually only got it because the shop I bought the 85mm f1.4 at for what at the time was a cheap price (under £300) and the 35-70mm was sat next to it so I thought it was worth a punt as I didn't really know too much about that particular one at the time. Ironically, prices for the 85mm seemed to have stopped rising while the 35-70mm has carried on so it ended up being by far the shrewder deal

Let me know how you get on with it. I completely fluked the 35-70mm f3.4 for about £160 in Tokyo last year and its an absolute belter. The UK price is daft even by the usual differentials. Currently the difference between the used and new price of them Japan is so small that I'll likely buy a new one in a kit with the 45mm f2.8. They've got six weeks to sort out that firmware before I hand over my cash though !