eatstoomuchjam

Why stop with spraypaint? Hose that sucker down with line-x and never worry again about scratches!

Thanks for the link! I stand corrected - so that's about $25k instead of $30k by my above estimates. That's a surprise about the 6K vs the 8K version! I suppose that'd also be a great counter-argument to people who complain about cameras with rolling shutter speeds > 20ms. The 6K is 22 or 24 or something like that. Gladly! Here are a few off the top of my head (some codecs/frame rates may vary with the 6K, mine are based on my 8K): - Recording modes are either a mediocre H.264 or a very nice ProRes HQ or ProRes RAW. There's nothing in-between. The 6K has 4444 XQ available if you don't buy the raw license. The 8K does not. - To record in the nicer modes, you need to buy DJI's overpriced SSD ($800-1000 for 1TB), it doesn't matter if you have super fast CF Express cards. - You can choose from 17:9 (full sensor width) or 16:9 recording modes and nothing else... unless you go to the high frame rate mode when it will go to 2.4:1 (or something around that) and nothing else - When the 4th axis is enabled, if you have it set to "lock" and you're standing still, sometimes it has some sort of freakout and the gimbal starts going up and down like crazy. Numerous people have reported it on various forums, setting it to "follow" seems to result in fewer freakouts. This seems to have been around since the start. It definitely happens with mine. - There are tripod mount holes on the bottom, but even a narrow Arca-Swiss plate partially blocks the 4th axis cameras/depth sensors, people have complained that this makes their 4th axis work weirdly. I have just avoided putting a plate on it since most of my uses for it don't involve putting it on sticks - The object tracking is really good... most of the time. If it loses the subject mid-take, it is difficult (and it might be impossible) to re-select it on the touch screen - The autofocus is really good... sometimes. Sometimes it seems to lose the subject (even when in tracking mode) and drift to infinity. Then it picks them up again and comes back. It's also laggy. This is less noticeable with wider angle lenses and when stopped down a bit, but it's clearly visible with a 75mm lens at f/4. If I set it on a box on a shelf in my living room and walk slowly toward it, the label on the box will become unreadable until I pause for a half second and then the AF catches up - that's even with the AF sensitivity set to high. I noticed this at first when experimenting with a tracking shot using a 90mm Summicron-M at f/2. I bought the DJI 75/1.8 since native lenses focus faster than mechanical lenses and turned off AMF so the only motor would be the lens' focus motor. Still visibly out of focus when approaching/retreating. The lag when stopping is less than the manual one, but it's still there. I stopped down to f/4 or f/5.6. Still visibly laggy. If I use their 17-28 and zoom to 28 and stop down to f/4, the label stays acceptably sharp - but so far, I don't see any way to use AF if you want the subject sharp while approaching/retreating. Trying to dial in focus in those instances using the thumb wheel is too fussy for me (it's like 3mm of turning from 1.5m to 4m away, the look is similar to the AF with the subject in focus at the start and end and maybe for part of the walk). This weekend, I'm going to experiment with a friend to see if it can do better with a person. If not, looks like that 75 is getting sent back next week. Professional productions probably address this with the 3 channel follow focus (add another $900). - The first-party Sony E mount is actually made by a third party and doesn't update firmware through the body like every other part, you need to do it separately. Many people think it doesn't work well for this reason. - The internal microphone is completely unusable and has lots of high-pitched motor noises. Many people say that the XLR ports on the port expander plate randomly stop working. I think the 3.5mm input is reliable, but for a run and gun shoot, this is very limiting for audio. For me, the internal mic has been at least been good enough to sync up audio to an external device. Then I mute that track so I won't get a headache. Timecode works when available, but you will need the expansion plate for that too. I'm sure that I could add more if I spent a little more time thinking or I wrote this up after the next time I have it out on set. If you read any discussion thread of people who have used it, you'll find that it's an extremely polarizing camera - a number of people who have used it hated it and described the whole thing as an ordeal - and the others generally loved it. I'm more in the latter camp.

FWIW, if you watch the BTS, they were most likely over $30,000 on the camera package alone. I'm not sure if it was specified whether they used the Ronin 4D 8K or 6K, but I'm assuming the more expensive one. $10,000 - camera $5,000 - lens $280 - focus motor $400 - DJI transmitter Then add in the set of master wheels that I saw in at least one BTS photo and at least 3 high bright remote monitors + handles that I saw in another. $10,000 - DJI master wheels $1,700 - monitor (x3) $730 - handles (x3) And then add in the car mount and a drone strong enough to carry a 15 pound camera, and it's not out of the question that that all would total about $50k. If your definition of "serious film project" is $1m+ budget, then that is indeed a small portion - but it definitely ain't cheap. I can also say that as an owner of a Ronin 4D and a person who loves it, it would not be my choice if I could pick only one camera. To say it has quirks would be the understatement of the century. As a second camera? It might be top of my list. And I'll be in that "wave of new pro and amateur projects" filmed with one - for the feature that I've been asked to shoot, it'll likely be UC12K as the A camera and Ronin 4D for most of the handheld, car-mounted stuff, faux-jib (Flex mounted on a monopod), etc.

Apparently one of those people on the fence was me? So far, I like it. Views from the 8K mode might be enough to use as quick inserts on a 4K timeline without being overly jarring. The 71 megapixel photo mode is really pretty good too. I shot the thing below into the sunset. The tree branches near the setting sun don't look awful and there's some detail on my face. I just need to remember to hold the selfie stick more casually so the hand is less noticeably funky after their software subtracts it out. The image SOOC (as below) isn't too bad. It'd probably only be a few minor tweaks in curves to get the look as I'd like it. Pureview HDR seems to introduce artifacts on things that are moving more than a little bit. Like holding the selfie stick at a 45 degree angle in front of myself, my feet looked a little weird as I walked. I'm still not sure about using the camera for more than inserts for anything serious, but if I can get over my shame at holding a selfie stick with a little UFO on the end, it could be a pretty great tourist camera.

Officially announced. If I had an X4, I'm not sure that the new features would convince me to upgrade, but maybe they're enough to convince people who were on the fence to go for it. The leaked info that Emanual added seems right overall. https://www.insta360.com/product/insta360-x5

In my experience, at least in my area, a majority of editors are still using Premiere. I'm one of the few using Resolve.

Maybe he can give the clients your phone number and you can explain it to them? 😉

Will you be OK with only using lenses that mount to EF or PL mount? And would an integrated flip-out screen be a selling point?

Plus if there's an economic downturn which has few productions being made, more people may sell their gear for various reasons including paying the mortgage or buying food - in which case, a flood of items on the used market and minimal buyers means prices drop.

This is all one of the most boggling parts of the announced tariffs. If the goal is to onshore manufacturing, tariffs should be on completed products, not on subassemblies or raw stuff. I don't remember if I mentioned it here before, but this whole thing even had Mr. Beast (of all people!) making a salient point. The tariffs will lead to him offshoring more of his chocolate bar production. He said that right now, he has factories in the US and Peru making his bars. There's almost no part of the US capable of commercial cacao production (Hawaii only, and they don't make enough). Since the US factory makes bars for export, the tariffs on cacao import will drive up the price of the bars from his US factory, making them less competitive abroad. Moving them to Peru means that the raw goods prices will remain tariff-free. It's absolutely bonkers to think that saying "Pay 10% extra for a foreign-made product made with cheaper labor" and "Pay 10% extra + extra labor costs for a domestic-made product" somehow results in companies screaming "Let's on-shore that stuff!" I mean, maybe for the materials that can be domestically-sourced like iron, that could be a viable strategy... but for anything that we don't build here, the only possible end result can be higher prices and production remains where it is (or shifts to a lower-tariff country).

Were there reports of it overheating beyond some reviewers finding that in the most taxing mode (6k open gate IIRC), it would overheat after more than an hour of continuous recording?

The Pyxis and Pyxis 12K price changes were initially right in line with the Chinese tax hike. Then a day or two later, the Pyxis 12K price dropped to the Aussie rate. BMD said they shifted enough to Australia to make that a thing. They had also made a comment that they build some of their equipment in China and some in Australia. At a guess, I'd say they focus on the high end where there's ostensibly more profit margin in Australia. That or they just figured nobody would bother auditing them if they claimed it. I'm sure that a big part of it was that nobody was going to buy Pyxis at $4k and the Pyxis 12K at $6600 was about $1,100 less than UC12K and unlikely to be purchased by anybody since anybody looking to spend $7k on a BMD camera probably already did with UC12K. Like me. I went on a crazy buying spree in the last month since I knew the tariffs were coming. Now my credit card bills hate me (which is translating to my bank account hating me), but I do have some fancy gear now. Anyway. None of that detracts from your point about all of the prices being pure chaos. In the reddit small business forum that I linked above, a bunch of people were complaining that foreign suppliers (mostly Chinese) were refusing to even do business with them, at least partly on the basis of insane and unpredictable US tariffs.

Why's that? I thought BMD did enough manufacturing and assembly for it in Australia that it would be an Aussie tariff instead of Chinese. During the initial round of tariff increases, they only changed the price by 10%.

Cool! I hope you get a response somewhere! They don't come up for sale too often - it's really a niche product and the people who have them tend to love them and hold onto them. Last time RG released them? The only reason I remember is because I ordered a second DSO - the first one was with the oval fixed faux aperture, no tint, and a black exterior (which makes it around a T2 lens). For the one I ordered in December, this is what was on the receipt: Anti-Reflective Coating Removal: Remove Edge Tinting: Amber Aperture: Fixed Q1.5 (Ultra Low Contrast) External Finish: Rat (Rusty) Qty: 1 £275.00 / Item If you can get them from RGO when he decides to do a run, it'll be a lot better price. I paid about $2k for first one with the 38 and 88 converters. Kits tend to sell for about that much when they come available. Oh, and FWIW, I don't think any converters were being sold during the December run. But also keep in mind that the converters will severely limit the coverage when used with an anamorphic adapter. One other thing - if your goal in getting DSO is to get a wider anamorphic look when using a 1.3x anamorphic adapter, you might also consider looking at the new Blazar anamorphics that they announced at NAB. They're 1.3x with a variable oval aperture which should put them in a similar anamorphic/anamorfake category.

Well, the 90-day pause is good - should reduce a lot of suffering for a lot of people, but there really doesn't seem to be an endgame in the tariffs on China. We need their goods a lot more than they need ours - and they know it.