kye

The "like everyone makes the same script" option was a real example from a short film event of some kind where the organisers wrote a script, IIRC 10 groups each made a 9 minute version of that script, and they showed them back to back in the cinema as a 90-minute film. It was great because the script was really quite vague in places, so could be interpreted in many ways. One interpretation was a Japanese horror version in a train where one of the characters was the reflection in the mirror of one of the other characters who kind of gradually went insane. Other films included radically different genres and styles, but they were all word-for-word the same script. It was quite something. Unfortunately, me, my sister and her friend were the only ones in the theatre for the session. It meant we could talk if we wanted to, but I don't know how the finances of it worked out.

That looks like a great general-purpose lens. I really like that it goes wider than ~25mm FF equivalent - my second favourite lens is a 16mm FF equiv which gives those great wides. If I could only own one lens then that one might be it, but of course, that's not the case, and I like fast primes

Kye's guide to film-making for beginners: Step One: Go somewhere cool Step Two: Point your camera at awesome stuff Step Three: Go home and edit out the boring bits Step Four: Now edit out the bits that aren't completely awesome Step Five: there is no step five - you're done. Just enjoy what you made and show it to your friends. If you don't have something awesome happening in your film, basically at all times, then the settings won't save you! I actually give this advice to people IRL. Of course, it's basically useless. The people who need to hear this won't listen, can't edit, don't have time, or refuse to learn. The people who will listen have probably already worked this out

Wow.. such a huge budget! That is a cool idea I must admit that that part of the challenge played on my mind quite a bit too ??? Cool idea, but GH2s on ebay are still pretty pricey, for those of us that don't have one already. Luckily I already own two Helios lenses AND a m42 speed booster, so naturally I would win.

The $200 camera challenge was great fun. Lots of people commented about doing something similar again. Let's talk about what that might be...

lol about differing options on photo vs video with these things! I totally agree about dream sequences or other-worldy feel, that's definitely the vibe it has. To me the photos you see with these are always models in nature which has a positive/enticing feeling, whereas I think they might better suit a distorted / closing-in / claustrophobia / descent-into-madness kind of vibe. Make all the trees rotting fast jump-cuts for confusion dark music and grim/awful colour palette and you're there with a strong aesthetic.

Doesn't help with the viewfinder or to improve the touchscreen functionality. It's a pretty weak aspect actually - adding some additional options for this would be pretty easy in software I would think. How would I go about petitioning Panasonic and would anyone actually listen/care?

Personally I don't like the aesthetic of these lenses at all, the Helios or this one, anything with directional distortions in the corners (either blurring around the centre or towards it) but I think it's different for stills photographers as that's a different vibe. But it's a taste thing and there are no wrong answers, so... What would you shoot with such a lens?

For those shooting with the 5K 4:3 mode who crop the image in post, how do you set framing properly? I know there are guide-lines that you can put up on the display, but they're so feint that my brain completely ignores them, and so I instinctively frame up in the 4:3 view and then have difficulty cropping in post because I filled the whole frame. I don't want to put tape on the screen, and can't put it on the viewfinder (which I use a lot). Is there a hidden setting somewhere that I'm not aware of that shows stronger framing guidelines, or better yet, actually blacks out the top/bottom parts of the frame to only show the aspect ratio you set? Thanks!

and now for something completely different... Just in case the Helios was too modern and soul-less for you! ???

I agree, and this is why I posted these videos... People on here seem to be perpetually confused: Canon has terrible everything, how are they still selling anything, they can't be selling anything, they're definitely not selling anything, they're doomed The future of cinema is FF P6K has EF mount, why on earth would they do that, it doesn't work for me and my preferences That Canon shooter is now interested in P6K - why didn't they love the P4K with it's MFT mount and its tiny MFT sensor Maybe the thing that is missing from the conversation is that Canon sells plenty of cameras, there are plenty of people with EF lens collections, and the EF mount was a good commercial decision to attract customers from a different segment of the market. What's surprising to me that it's surprising to anyone else.

Yeah, I find that it's either you pay a premium to Apple to make all your decisions for you, or you pay the normal amount to someone else and then you can do (almost) whatever you want but the catch is that you need to learn how everything works first. I was a computer technician for about a decade and it was kind of like you bought 90% of a working system from various manufacturers and had to figure out the remaining 10% of it yourself. My dad is very technical and concerned with privacy so doesn't use Microsoft or Apple, and uses Linux and after being forced to get a smartphone (because "there's an app for that" turned into "there's ONLY an app for that") and now runs Android in a secure little bubble inside a linux installation. It's free and secure and all he had to do was spend about a year figuring it all out and several hours a week being his own systems administrator and troubleshooting things that just break for whatever reason. No model is great, so I just think about it like it's pick the least worst and get on with your life. I use it on my Mac to put music onto my iPhone. I also use it to play music on my Mac because I had to go to all the trouble of creating all the playlists for my phone anyway. It's also good for backing up your phone.

Damn, that is nice... almost makes me want to get one. Almost.... Your screenshots in the lenses thread say otherwise. They also tell me you have perseverance, which might matter more than anything else in the end Skill is the most expensive thing to acquire - it costs time (which isn't something you can get more of) and effort (which is limited) and humility (which might be the most scarce element on earth...). If only it wasn't so!!

For anyone who might be curious what a Canon shooter would think of such a camera (and why BM might have gone EF mount) then check out Matti. and his review.... TLDR - he loves it and is completely blown away with the footage. He's bothered by the battery life and screen and usual stuff, but completely excuses it considering the cost. He also mentioned that it's the first BM camera he'd recommend to other people.

Does anyone have footage of a beach covered in trash? My sister is starting a social enterprise dedicated to help businesses reduce waste (ideally to zero waste) and is still pulling together PR materials. She's funding it all herself and basically has no money, and asked me if I had any, but I don't, and the beaches around where I live are all cleaned regularly. If anyone could help then that would be great, thanks

Hey yeah.. ??? I never noticed that. When did that change??

Yeah, Canon isn't the best for DR unfortunately. Of course, if you're in controlled conditions then you can just light differently, or even just use reflectors to fill in shadow areas etc.

Ah, ok. I've seen adapters that are just threaded with D-mount on the inside and C-mount on the outside, but the description commented that they didn't compensate for the flange distance, so depending on how wide the D-mount lens is, because if the lens is wider than the inside of a C-mount then it won't fit and you'll lose infinity focus (and maybe a lot of middle-focus too). The D-mount I have fits inside a C-mount but only just. I did a temporary mount on my GF3 with a MFT to C-mount adapter and just applied a few layers of paper to the outside of the lens to fit inside the C-mount threads. It created a nice little image circle in the middle but when I zoomed it seemed to be a fairly standard lens, with reasonable performance wide-open and then getting sharper when stopped down a bit. You'd have to focus pretty closely to get any bokeh though, so f1.9 isn't as fast as it seems.

Well, you're very punny today!! ???

Wow - I looked at these on ebay and IIRC couldn't find anything within the price limit. I liked the look of your footage - soft but in an organic kind of way. I also liked your image because it was soft in an organic kind of way, and the colours were definitely very nice. It's hard to tell from YT but it looks like this image would respond well to colour grading if you were so inclined too.

I am.. I didn't go for one because 1) they're EXPENSIVE!!! and 2) I think they're C-mount only? The problem with D-mount is the flange distance is so much less than C-mount, you have to hack parts of the camera out to be able to put the lens close enough. I had a quick scan of their site and it looks like they only talk about c-mount and m12 lenses, but maybe I missed something?

No wonder it's been so cold in the mornings... I set my lenses wrong!

Here's my write-up on how I shot and processed my entries. I created a separate thread in case it turns into a grading discussion In a way I used this competition to test a couple of theories and to try a couple of things I've had in the back of my mind too. Trying to modify an action camera with a better lens has been on my radar for some time now

Turn this: Into this! I entered two terrible quality cameras in the $200 camera challenge and somehow didn't come last, so here's what I learned. In case it's useful to someone Shooting: Low quality cameras have poor codecs and low bitrates, which typically have trouble with a lot of movement. Therefore I used a tripod for every shot instead of hand-holding. This also gives you more options for temporal NR in post too. Go for the 180 shutter by either using an ND or by simply filming in low light. How can you tell if it's 180 shutter? Wave your hand in front of it and see how streaky it is. or alternatively, if your camera is very low resolution and subjects aren't moving too much, then the sheer size of the pixels will completely obscure whatever shutter angle you have! Win!! In post: Edit in your desired output resolution, not the one you shot in.. dodgy 4K image? Output in 8K today! Think about converting to black and white. This gives you 4 times the effective resolution!! Camera only shoots 30p? Excellent - conform to 24p in post and get slow motion for free!! Most NLEs can slow audio slightly too, so if it works for the vibe of your project then go with it. Digital compression is awful and a give-away you're not shooting RAW or film, so is over-sharpening that you can't turn off. Therefore, blur the image in post. You might want to consider blurring only the edges of things, and you should experiment with blur size and blur strength too. I typically find a sharp diagonal line and blur until it looks like a straight line instead of a jaggy digital mess. Use noise reduction, both spatial and temporal. It will make the image blurry, but that's also what you want because of above, so go nuts. The image might look smooth, but we'll add grain later, so don't worry about it. My footage had a bunch of compression artefacts that flickered on and off on each alternate frame and was very distracting (and awful). De-flicker plugins can work wonders. Just play with the types and presets until it's gone. Colour will probably be awful, so either make it black and white (which also gets around the awful coloured fringing) or desaturate heavily. You can also do heavy chroma NR to get rid of colour flickering. Also feel free to use advanced colour controls such as Hue vs Hue to get rid of nasty colours, or use masks to selectively desaturate colours you don't like. Get rid of digital looking clipped highlights by controlling and artificial highlight rolloff via curves. Someone complimented me on the highlight rolloff, which was totally created in post. Use music, pick your shots well, and try and distract from IQ by using content, composition, lighting, and other 'tricks' ??? Can't afford a nice vintage lens or camera has a fixed lens? Add halation by masking only the brightest parts of the image, adding a big blur, then put over the top of the image at a low opacity. Add grain to finish it off. Film has grain and film is awesome, so therefore.... plus, YT kills grain and will put heavy bands on smooth areas so you really should add some. I recommend doing a grain test video with different strengths so you can see what YT does it various amounts of it. It takes more than you think to show up in YT, a LOT more. Here is the curve that gives that highlight rolloff and deep shadows.... Here's another before/after image. and here's my reveal post with the final and SOOC videos: Hopefully that's useful to someone! Feel free to ask questions and I still think I can make a P4K look like a BMMCC or BMPCCv1 so if you have both and can shoot something with both then let me know.....