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On 9/29/2018 at 6:13 PM, BTM_Pix said:

I was discussing with @Andrew Reid at the show the other day about someone making an s35 camcorder and how I thought Fuji would be ideal basing it around the X-T3.

But I've been subsequently been thinking about having an attempt at cinevising something like the A6500.

And when I say something like the A6500, I actually mean my A6500

I think it's a capable and compact enough building block to make something pretty interesting with.

God knows I'll have to do something with it because I can't stand it as it is !

What are you thinking of?

IIRC it's a nice camera but had some significant flaws, RS comes to mind.

1 hour ago, IronFilm said:

Price it sub $3K and it will be competing hard against the C100 mk3 / FS5 mk3 of the future and will blow them out. 

Go higher and then it is a tough job against FS7 / EVA1 /  UMP etc

A C100iii would be a fascinating thing to see. Of course the interesting part would be how crippled it was.

Even if it was the same ILC / S35 form factor but matched the digital specs of the XC10 / XC15 that would be great. Including 4K60 and IBIS would make people pee themselves with excitement at the announcement event.

The more that I think about it, the more I realise that a tiny cinema camera fits my needs better than a hybrid, but of course the lack of IBIS in "cinema" cameras is an ongoing issue.

Maybe I should do another review of the ILC camcorder options again.

21 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

If I was rich, I kind of used to be, even a Arri Alexa LF wouldn't cost me shit for money compared to what I make.

Cameras are a funny thing - it's one of the only things I know of where having more money wouldn't help me that much.  If you want an ILC cinema camera with good 4K smaller than a C100 there are simply no options.  That is, unless you're a billionaire, in which case you can probably ask one of the manufacturers to design you one!

Edit: with great IS for handheld work.  Otherwise the Pocket 2 is fine

6 hours ago, jagnje said:

Valid points you guys made. I forgot whats it like to shoot wedings and not being able to light the scene. Heres another one...the only light modifier was a white bounce, same gear, completely diferent feel.

Many people forget that other people are shooting in different conditions to them.

I shoot home and travel videos for myself, but the conditions are generally the same:

• The event comes first, photography shouldn't get in the way, camera placement is often restricted
• No re-takes, either you shoot it when it happens or you missed it
• You may have some control over lighting, you may not, but anything you do can't get in the way of the events that are happening
• There are parts in low light = high ISO performance
• There are scenes with high contrast = good DR
• There are action scenes = ok RS, and slow motion
• You have to be mobile and move very quickly = monopod / gimbal / hand-held = good IS
• etc etc etc.

I started my photography / videography journey with a <$100 Nikon point-and-shoot and every upgrade since then has been based upon the quality of the end result from me actually shooting what I shoot.  I haven't gotten a setup that I really gel with but my current setup is close, however I have shot enough to know what my style is and so I am not trying to buy equipment to hit a moving target - I know how I work, where I work, and what I am trying to achieve.

If someone has different feature desires it might be because they're shooting different films.

10 minutes ago, PannySVHS said:

though they did some nice editing with these dinosaurs. nowadays we see the worst hobbiest editing and post work of all time, with all the misused possibilities at hand.

And we see absolute magic coming from people that wouldn't have been able to operate or afford to make anything on that old equipment.

The old days aren't better, or worse, they are just different. Get over it.

Anyone who has the privilege to be able to do something and is complaining that too many people also have that privilege is just showing fear of being inadequate.  Master artists aren't campaigning for schools to stop giving students access to art supplies!

On 9/25/2018 at 11:51 PM, IronFilm said:

People will often call a $50K or whatever feature film a "zero budget" or "no budget" film, as it is all just a rounding error that rounds down to zero. 

Excellent! Can you please share the technique for me to round $50k on my next family holiday down to zero?

(Yes, I know....)

11 minutes ago, JurijTurnsek said:

Android based camera could mean very hackable - you could probably get any app working on it. Too bad it will be priced right out of "hackers'" hands.

ML.. the app!!

I totally understand your point and mostly agree with you......

but if you're going to give an example of why we should stop nitpicking the video features of mirrorless cameras then don't use an example from a cinema camera that has many of the features we're talking about and costs double or triple or more!!!

42 minutes ago, mercer said:

Yeah I get that, everybody has different needs and wants but separation isn’t impossible with 1” sensors, it just requires a different strategy. Now I understand you shoot a lot of travel and family videos so you don’t always have the luxury to go run back and frame your shots accordingly, so in your instance, a bridge camera may not work for you. For others, it definitely can.

Absolutely, my complaints about the XC10 are few and relatively trivial, and my situation is not the norm by any measure.

If you're shooting with a bit of room then you can just get further from the background to get some defocusing and adjust lighting for more contrast.

In a sense I am looking to create the polished and slightly dreamy impression that we have of memories. I make the footage a bit on the warm side, I use the nicest moments and angles I can, I add cheery music. It's just a slightly different aesthetic.

There is lots of criticism of people wanting to buy more equipment or have more features, and sometimes that criticism is warranted, but when the desire for features comes from starting with the creative process and working backwards then it's mostly not warranted.

I think it's like writing an essay in school, you can say anything you like as long as you can back it up.

If you want new features and can back it up with real-life creative needs then go for it. No-one criticises Hollywood productions for shooting in 4k or RAW or on huge rigs, or people shooting hair commercials for wanting great slow motion because we understand that the equipment choices are relevant for the task at hand.

That should be the only criteria.

3 hours ago, androidlad said:

Latest leak from Weibo:

S1/S1R use Sony global shutter sensors. S1R has 150MP pixel shift mode for photos.

4K60p supersampled from 8192x4320 sensor area.

What exactly does "super sampled" mean?

4K60 down sampled from 8K??

That would be absolutely stunning to see!

3 hours ago, zerocool22 said:

Isnt travel video dead? I know I am no longer interested in seeying or making any travel video's anymore (unless its a job). Travel photography I can still enjoy, but I have not seen any good travel film in a long time, or at least the magic has been lost for me. Its all gymbal movement here, flashy transition there, every video looks exactly the same and every location has been shot 1000 times. 

It's not dead if you're shooting for yourself.

I'd say that you'd be pleased to know that my videos have no gimbal movement, no flashy transitions, and don't look anywhere as nice as the professional ones (which I'm working on) but it won't matter at all because they're not publicly available, like much of the work that I think people buy fancy cameras for

I suspect that there's a huge market segment out there just shooting for themselves and we have no idea what they're doing or what they're making it with. When I work in a new office for my day job it only takes a few weeks for me to meet someone who has a 5D just to take pictures of their kids at the zoo.

@mercer yeah, the XC10 is a hard act to follow but when I watch the footage I just get disappointed with how flat it looks.

It's totally possible to shoot a good film with a 1" sensor and get good 3D images if you control the locations and lighting, but that's just not how I shoot.

I shot a few videos with the 700D and 18-35 1.8 and the separation was what I was wanting.

The A7iii and 24-105mm F4 goes longer with APSC mode, and longer again with a bit of digital zoom. It's not the ideal form factor and I'd love a tiny cinema camera, but I'll see what there is once the dust has settled from the current frenzy of announcements.

I'm in no rush, but a look with a bit more depth is calling.

If you're in the stills game then Canon are great and are pushing the price/performance in the upper echelons of pro-level cameras. Unfortunately for us we are playing video and the upper echelons are $100k+

2 hours ago, nigelbb said:

The Sony RX10II has a 1" sensor like the XC10 but has a really great 24-200mm constant F/2.8 aperture lens with built in ND filters & motor zoom. It's a shame that Sony haven't put that lens into a newer more video oriented camera.

By the time you account for crop factor, the f2.8 on a 1" sensor is more like f8.

I want shallower DoF than I can currently get with my XC10 fixed 24-240mm zoom but don't want to give up the flexibility of the large zoom range and IS.

A 24-105mm F4 zoom on a camera that shoots 4K in full sensor and crop mode would do for me, and FF is the only system with a fast zoom. I'd happily use any sensor size, in fact the smaller the better, it's the lack of fast zooms in any other mount that is pushing me to FF.

4 hours ago, Dan Sherman said:

I would't say its bad, its just not what a lot of people want. I mean some of the tests people do are retarded, jumping completely in and out of frame, or moving towards or away from the  camera quickly. Then in real world use, they just sit in front of it vlog style yet still complain because their extreme tests didn't work.

I agree that some tests are far fetched and not useful.

What is useful is seeing how many out of focus shots there are in real videos that aren't about the camera's AF.

Kai Wong had regular occurrences of out of focus shots from his GH5 where he's obviously shot the video and only discovered the focus problem in editing when it's too late to re-shoot.

I've seen him sitting in the middle of the frame talking to camera and it just focuses from him to the background and just stays there for 5 seconds or more completely happy with itself. I think it got better after the update but still wasn't perfect, and this is potentially the easiest composition in the world to focus on.

It might be the technology of the future, but it's not the technology of the present unfortunately.

5 hours ago, BrooklynDan said:

It must be said that video amplifies the difference between formats far more than in stills.

Thanks, that makes sense. The video I linked differentiated MF from FF more than still images seemed to and that explains why.

5 hours ago, anonim said:

Yes, that combination  

But from experience I'd say - for subtle but crucial impact that touch quality of imposing "emotional" reaction, lens characteristics (power of discerning details, space plans and way of their rendering) are much more important than anything else (in approximately equal well lit circumstances). For unexpected result in famous Zacuto Shootout 2012 responsibility (besides skillful operator) lays in usage of Fujinon 18-85 Premium lens on GH2.

From some technical reasons that are far above my knowledge (quality of glasses etc), lens construction  (in case of superior quality lenses) overrides and tamed cameras differences, especially in today's so closely extremely capable cameras. Contrary, modestly constructed or too software dependent lenses simply exaggerate sensors/digital processing nature, codec and "color science" receipts. 

That makes perfect sense considering that the lens essentially converts 3D to 2D and the sensor only captures the result. Combine that with flares and other effects that vary depending on the location of things in the frame, which is how our eyes work, and it's a really critical component of getting depth to an image.

I haven't seen the Zacuto shoot-out, do you have a link?

2 hours ago, wolf33d said:

Once MF are at this standard of sensor size and mpx for $3000 which means in 5 years, I will happily switch. Right now the best of all words is FF for me. Real DR / mpx advantage over APSC and reasonable size (Sony A7,...). 

I agree. If you skip FF mirrorless for MF video then you'll be waiting a decent time period.

Although, having said that, is it easier to make an 8K sensor FF or larger? If there are advantages to a larger sensor then maybe MF might be how some manufacturers do it? Although releasing yet another set of lens mounts for 8K would be beyond ridiculous, so chances are that they've factored in 8K into their FF mirrorless lens mounts already.

Gear up people... Choose your 8K video manufacturer now when you buy FF mirrorless!!

I'd also like to know if Canon are working on a small ILC cine camera. Maybe a C100iii or an ILC XC model or something in between.

I'm not optimistic though as AFAIK Canon have had their announcements and the C100 (2012) and C100ii (2014) schedule seems to have stopped completely.

Sony A7Siii anything, that seems to be the last missing component in the next batch of cameras.

I'd also like to know if Sony are updating their 4K action camera, as I'm in the market.. 

Thanks Andrew!

I think we should discuss lenses and MF cameras separately.

In the same way that a MFT 25mm f2.8 lens gives the same viewing angle and DoF as a 50mm f5.6 lens, there are equivalent lenses on MF also.

My question is that given the two sensor sizes and two equivalent lenses (equivalent in both focal length and aperture) then are there any other differences?

The video I included looks absolutely gorgeous to me, but is that simply a combination of the lens resolution and characteristics, the colour science, the codec (IIRC that video was raw?), the source resolution, and the nice lighting and subject?

If so, then the engineering part of my brain understands that, and would also explain why lovely images can be also be taken with MFT, 1" cameras, or even smartphones and their borderline microscopic sensors.

I want to have a camera that is as small as possible, but if there's something magical about MF (which the images certainly hint that there might be) then I want to understand what it is and start working out how to get it!

3 minutes ago, ajay said:

Who cares if it's CDAF or PDAF as long as it works?

No-one. The problem is that sometimes it doesn't.

40 minutes ago, Mokara said:

It is just a computational problem. Once cameras have sufficient power and lenses are fast and reactive enough, CDAF will be better. Ultimately it is more accurate and does not require calibration.

CDAF can determine which way to go to find focus as well, is the processor is powerful enough to process the data. Going forward as processors become faster and more powerful they will be able to handle larger data sets and performance will improve, especially when you have lenses that are designed with this in mind. Panasonic are already leading the field in this regard.

Cameras of the future will not be using the technology of the past. Behavior you saw in old cameras is not where technology is heading. You need to look where things are going, not where they have been. Who cares what old cameras were capable of, what matters is what new cameras are capable of.

If what you're saying is true then that's a good thing, and I hope you're right.

My experience has been awful with older budget cameras, and the issues I've seen with the GH5 (or those that made the cut anyway) are admittedly less than 2005 point-and-shoot cameras, but unfortunately we're still too far off for it to be acceptable performance for me.

I've now filed it under the same category as 8K video - it will be good but it's not available yet and when it is available it will be costly and take time to trickle down into the camera body with the right feature set for my preferences.

What are the competitors likely to release and when?

I was hoping Sony would update their flagship action camera this year

When is the next Xiaomi Yi announcement likely to be?

8 hours ago, Robert Collins said:

This lens rather neatly shows why Panasonic is heading into FF. It is a big heavy, expensive fast zoom designed to appeal to those users that see the need to make up for the lack of light and DOF inherent in a smaller sensor. At some point you inevitably conclude that a larger sensor makes more sense.

I agree and have commented previously in other threads about this.

I'm not sure why but when you go smaller than APSC there are no fast zooms available, and APSC only has the one option.

4 hours ago, Mokara said:

Depends on the processing power and the responsiveness of lenses. There is no inherent reason why PDAF is better than CDAF, actually if you have enough processing power the reverse would be true since you are dealing with what actually appears on the image rather than a parallax difference. Consequently it is more accurate, provided you are gathering enough data.

CDAF works better with a narrow depth of field, so putting it in a FF camera is not a disadvantage. PDAF works better with deeper depth of field, since it is essentially a crude rangefinder independent of what is in the image. This is why you will find both types in most MILCs, PDAF is used to get a rough range so the lens focus point is in about the right place, and then CDAF is used to get it set accurately. If your lens is responsive and fast enough however, you don't really need PDAF as much.

You might be right about CDAF being best for fine-tuning the focus, but PDAF not only knows something is out of focus but which way the focus is to be found.

After watching dozens or hundreds of beautiful moments pass while the focus mechanism has charged off in the wrong direction and the moment concludes and the shot is lost while the camera is still wondering why the entire frame is a complete blur, I will always be deeply deeply skeptical of CDAF-only cameras.

Thanks everyone!

This is kind of a microcosm of my previous impressions about MF, most talk about it being scaled up but the same, a few talk about desirable aesthetic differences and then get refuted.

It's kind of why I asked the question. My brain says that the differences should be all engineering, but then I see images like the video in the first post and something within me stirs and says "I want that!!".

I guess we'll have to wait for the camera to come out and judge the footage for ourselves.