Mark Romero 2

Yeah, I know, couldn't stop staring at her Lav!!!

I notice a lot of panasonic users on other forums have said things like, "If only panasonic made a full frame sensor..." so I see there is a lot of interest in it. but on the other hand, then you have the lens issue: All the people who own the m43 system are going to have to go out and buy FF lenses for the new FF panasonic bodies (or use adapted lenses). With full frame bodies you can stick an APS-C lens on there and at least shoot in S35. Maybe not great, but at least workable. But if you have a full frame panasonic body and stick an m43 lens on it, what are you going to get??? I think competition is wonderful so I truly HOPE that Panasonic come out with a killer full frame camera. But the lens situation has me wondering how feasible it is.

I am sorry for your loss.

I have a good excuse: I am lazy. On a (somewhat) more serious note, I often watch 80's music videos to be inspired. A lot of it is low tech (compared to today's tech) and I marvel at how much time and creativity that most have gone into shooting, editing and producing them. A lot of the techniques are hackneyed but I think for ultra low budget they can be revised again.

Going off topic a bit regarding vintage lenses... While I am tempted to pick some up, my concern (for video) would be regarding barrel / pincushion distortion (and vignetting to an extent as well). I understand that that cameras will automatically correct (to a certain extent) for distortion and vignetting when shooting jpgs and video. But with vintage lenses (or lenses that don't communicate electronically), how do you correct for distortion and vignetting??? I am assuming that lenses which were designed to be shot on film cameras - and thus had no automatic corrections - were manufactured to have less distortion / vignetting (at the sake of probably sharpness or CA or flare control or something else). There are certainly a couple of minolta lenses I would like to use on my Sony cameras.

Thanks for posting. Looks real good. Very detailed with out being overly sharp.

Thanks for posting. It looks good. Were you hand holding? Or did you have some sort of rig? And did you just dial in the focal length for IBIS? Thanks in advance.

Looks good. Thanks for sharing. I look forward to hearing what more you have to say about SLOG 3 and Sony cameras in general.

As mentioned above, the best thing is to try an a7 II first if possible. One thing I didn't see asked before is WHY you want to use the Nokton 40mm f/1.2 lens? what is so special about this lens? I think if you are going to be shooting close to wide open, then you will be less bothered by the moire and aliasing than you would if you were shooting with a larger DOF (that's the way it is for me on my a6500 shooting in 1080p). A few people have mentioned various soft filters as well for shooting on the a6500 in 1080p. There are other "interesting" things about Sony cameras you should consider as well, like the color science, the ergonomics, the LCD screen brightness (or lack thereof), the menus, the battery life, the SD card placement... And note that this is coming from a 100% Sony FanBoy... I mean, I am seriously considering buying a FF a7 III and using my aps-c glass on it - and taking a hit in resolution - for the sole benefit of the better ergonomics / usability. Granted, the ergonomics on the a7 II are probably much better than on the a6500 / other Sony aps-c cameras. Still, something to think about.

Yeah, the P4A has the same camera, right? Just P4P has the side sensors to prevent crashing I think.

Agreed. I will stick with my P3A (and try and find an inexpensive P4P) until they have a one-inch variable aperture camera.

I am sorry that I don't own an a7 II and can't give you exact advice. My a6500 has poor quality 1080p and for me it is very annoying. My understanding is that the 1080p out of the a7 II is supposed to be as bad or worse than out of my a6500. You might search youtube for things like: a7 II cinematic a7 II test a7 II 1080p a7 II grading a7 II voigtlander And look at the clips that show up. That should give you a pretty good idea of what kind of quality you can expect from the a7 II. Of course, the best solution would be to rent one from a place that has an option to buy it if you like it.

Thanks!

@BTM_Pix Would you mind terribly uploading your DNG file to drop box and making it shareable? I have always wanted to try editing a DNG file in resolve.

Best to use resolve 14 or 12.5 while 15 is still in Beta.

Ahhh.... the Mavica.... It was actually great for getting a lot of (poor quality) product shots on to a website real quickly. I remember the day I sold it and got an Olympus 3030 Zoom instead. One of the only affordable little cameras that had a hot shoe mount. I put a PC Sync shoe in the hot shoe and used that to run my Paul C. Buff White Lightning (the Original Coffee Can) strobes. Good times.

Ahh... I remember John Waters' Polyester with Smellorama.

Well... there is a cheap 19mm Sigma f/2.8 (don't know how good the AF is in video mode though), and there is a 20mm and a 16mm f/2.8 sony lenses that are inexpensive. I don't know if the Sony lenses are much better than the kit lens though. The sigma 19mm f/2.8 should be pretty sharp if it is anything at all like the Sigma 30mm f/2.8 and the sigma 60mm f/2.8, which are some of the sharpest budget lenses around for Sony e Mount. Which Nikon prime lenses do you own???

Have fun and enjoy. Gary Friedman might have some free videos up on youtube about the a6300 / a6500. He often explains the "hidden" features of cameras. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=gary+friedman+a6300 Maartech has good videos on "video settings" so you might want to check those out as well. Learn how to set up the Fn menu and the M1 and M2 settings. Without those, you will go crazy. For 4K video, you need a 64GB card.Don't get a 32GB card (or smaller). It won't work. Forgot to mention that. One of the quirks. Welcome to Sony land... I use a Sony SDXC U3 10 95MB/s card (that's what it says on it... heck if I know what it means). If you are ok with manual focus and want to pick up a cheapo minolta lens, look for an LA-EA1 (about $50 used), and then you could put a Minolta AF lens on it and it will read the EXIF data for IBIS on it. Don't confuse Minolta AF lenses with minolta MC or MD lenses, which are older manual focus lenses (nice, but they required different adapters). The placement of the video record button will drive you crazy. There are little clear rubber buttons that you can buy that will stick on to any of your camera buttons. I don't have a link to them. I keep meaning to buy them and put them on the Fn button and the record button. If you are going to be using your Nikon manual lenses, then you want to set 1 of your custom buttons to punching it to confirm focus. As good as the focus peaking is on the a6300 / a6500, I find that punching in is still more accurate for critical focus. The 35mm f/1.8 OSS is supposed to be a good lens. You will probably get a lot of mileage out of it. You might be able to rig up a very lightweight dummy battery to use handheld / on a monopod. It should allow you to shoot longer and (theoretically) help reduce the likelihood of overheating since many people claim that the heat from the internal battery accelerates overheating. Pulling the LCD screen away from the body reportedly helps with overheating. I saw one person who had a rig with a small fan on it. He says it works well. a6500 doesn't have a headphone jack... Here is something to just tease you a bit: A lot of people like the AndyCine monitors. I would avoid the IKAN monitor. It is supposed to be nice but it isn't all that much bigger than the LCD on the a6500. Hope this helps. Despite the quirks, and the naysayers, lots of people use the a6300 / a6500 for videos and they create some really nice stuff. Check out Brandon Li's stuff. Or just search youtube for "a6500 cinematic" and you will come up with lots of nice stuff.

a6500 pros: More detailed 4K Better AF 120fps with AF Better low light performance Better dynamic range Allows you an "upgrade" path to full frame (or maybe you can say that allows you to have a "system" that incorporates a full frame camera) Great stills camera Access to inexpensive Minolta glass with the right adapters that will have some limited AF funtionality a6500 Cons: Horrible LCD screen Limited touch screen functionality More likely to overheat 1080p is chock full of aliasing / moire (mostly a nuisance in static shots with large DOF and architecture, but depends on your level of tolerance) Colors are wonky (but the EOSHD pro color packages do seem to help this out a bit) Battery life is short Poor ergonomics??? You can buy a cage and add a monitor and external battery and grips, or you can mount a monitor on to a gimbal and use an ultra-thin hdmi cable, and can mitigate some of the disadvantages to a certain extent. But do you want to do that?

Yeah... well, when you register your Sony camera online, there is some small text in the End User Agreement that says: "Camera user accepts that the word 'simple' is no longer in their vocabulary." You will never see the word "Sony" and the word "Simple" in the same sentence unless it includes the phrase "Why isn't... ?" in it as well. Yeah, I will probably pick up an LA-EA4 (to go along with an LA-EA3) if I move up from the a6500 to the a7 III. I can certainly AFFORD to buy two a7 III (got to have a backup camera) and the Sony lenses for them, but I can't really JUSTIFY it. I am too much like my father was... and I guess I am ok with that.

How about this: Maybe a synth with twice the number of oscillators but only a limited two-octave range??? (Sorry if I am not using the correct terminology).

Well, there are advantages and disadvantages to the LA-EA4 (just as there are to ALL adapters). Mostly, for me, the LA-EA4 has only a limited number of AF points, while the LA-EA1 / LA-EA3 allows one to use ALL the AF points. Also, the LA-EA4 MIGHT require one to compensate (micro adjust) AF since the AF module in the Adapter might be at a distance different to that of the Sensor. I got sick and tired of doing that with my Nikon lenses (I had some Nikon zooms that needed -10 micro AF adjustment at the wide end, and +8 micro AF adjustments at the tele end - I have heard rumors that canon allows for micro af adjustments at two different focal lengths per lens). That is one of the reasons I went mirrorless in the first place; to avoid micro AF adjustments. But the LA-EA2 / LA-EA 4 sure do open up a whole new world of lens options for sony users. Some nice minolta glass out there that is cheap as chips. Just need to watch out for ghosting / CA.

How about, "More Cowbell!!!" In all seriousness, I find 4K helpful and to be honest, I think most of the really good 1080p cameras now have 4K. My D750 has 1080p only, and it is a fairly good 1080p image with very good dynamic range and nice colors, but it is soft, no focus peaking, horrible AF, limited zebras, and is already pretty big so rigging it out makes it quite a lot bigger than most (mirrorless) cameras that have better video features... and have 4K to boot. I also did a low light test / high ISO test, and I thought the 1080p of my a6000 was better (and certainly the 1080p of my 4K-capable a6300 was less noisy). So most really good VIDEO camera already seem to have 4K in them. Of course, there are a LOT of people using Canon cameras for 1080p video and they seem to be doing well. The other thing about 4K is that it does save me time on site, because I know that I can punch in during post for a different framing (I export at 1080p), so I don't have to stop, move in a little bit, and restart.