eatstoomuchjam

For continuous AF, it absolutely does. Panasonic spent a lot of years on CDAF/DFD and AF on the GH6/S5/S1/S1H/etc was still not even nearly as reliable as Canon/Sony. There's a reason that they finally took whatever steps were needed to enable PDAF on their modern bodies (and from everything I've heard, AF on the S5 II and the GH7 is fantastic). Some people say that with a bunch of tweaking, they could get the CDAF to be acceptable. That's all fine and good, but Canon and Sony users take the camera out of the box, enable continuous AF and human eye detection, and watch the camera instantly lock on to a subject and stay locked on (some caveats around terrible lighting and multiple subjects in the frame apply). (And yes, of course PDAF = PDAF+CDAF, but it should be understood that use of the phrase PDAF is usually intended to be inclusive of the two technologies) (And yes, Canon isn't PDAF, but DPAF, but DPAF is for practical purposes very similar to PDAF, as both are based on parallax) One's experience with this, though, is likely to vary based at least somewhat on the working aperture. If you're consistently shooting deeper DOF (like an 50mm at f/8 FF equivalent), the pulsing and occasional refocusing will be less noticeable than if you're shooting with shallower (like a 50mm at f/2). Simply implementing PDAF doesn't guarantee parity (see: Red and Fuji), but it certainly puts companies on the right path to it. And as BTM's photos demonstrate, a lot of the subject detection automatic modes on modern cameras need work, even for those vendors whose PDAF is solid.

A softer* look. Sheesh.

If I want a software look with lower contrast, I prefer to use a vintage lens. Want really low contrast? Go single-coated or uncoated.

Sorry, I wasn't suggesting that the BBC was doing run & gun that would use a GH2. I was only responding to the implication that the GH2 would be a poor choice for a documentary. 😄

If you're doing a run and gun documentary, the GH2 has a number of advantages over a v-raptor vv, including that it's smaller/lighter, requires less rigging to be functional, and because of those things will draw less attention.

One of my all-time favorite lenses is a single coated collapsible Summicron 50/2. The only bummer is that short of rehousing it (which I won't do), it's impossible to use it with a follow focus. I also have a collapsible 90/4 which I've wanted to try for a shoot, but never get around to bringing with me.

Yeah, that's what I do - I'm just saying that I glued the LTM lenses into the LTM to M "ring adapter," making it effectively permanent (so the lenses won't loosen). Then I have M mount adapters with and without the helicoid.

Unless you have a camera body that uses LTM, I would suggest using a little bit of loctite and permanently mounting the LTM lenses in M mount adapters. That's what I've done. On some of mine, the focus is a little bit stiff which meant that the lens would start to unscrew slightly and wobble when I turned the focus (maybe yours are a little better). Either way, there are lots of LTM to MFT adapters. Just find one that promises to let you focus slightly past infinity and you'll be fine. There's no need to buy anything even a little bit expensive.

The maker got some more StarlightEye boards in stock and I ordered one. It showed up today and I've been... sort of successful, at best, at actually getting it working. I just asked on the Discord for some pointers on what I might have done wrong. I was at least able to get a picture from my C and D mount lenses that was cut off on the edge of the screen, but that was still kind of exciting. Assuming the people on Discord can tell me what terrible mistake I made, the next step will be to design some sort of minimal body around a V-mount plate with a USB-PD output (conveniently a small V mount plate is close to the same size as the Pi 5). Using a little 50Wh mini-v-mount, I could have a tiny little camera with teensy lenses that will last all day! Could be a lot of fun!

Judging by "show results," everybody has chosen not to vote so far. 🙂 You'll get no objection from me that there's a happy medium between "coke bottle" and "counting the atoms in bricks 100 meters away." With this poll, the problem is at least partly that the example photos are a weird angle and of an uninteresting subject. Whatever lens was used, I don't care much for them.

This poll needs an option (c): "Nope."

I've considered getting some of the module8 tuners before, but I think that they're very much in the category of rent before considering buying. It's pretty hard to judge them from whatever footage people put online. There are just too many combinations of lens + tuner settings. Most of the stuff I've seen online looked a little bit like hot garbage to me, but maybe I just don't like their combinations of lens + settings. They're only so interesting anyway.

No, it is outrageous, but it's not an easy change for a lot of people to move from Adobe products to others. I've tried several times to use Capture One instead of Lightroom and I'm just too accustomed to Lightroom. Capture One feels clumsy and awkward. To make it worse, when working with scans from very large negatives, neither Lightroom nor Capture One can handle them so I'm stuck with Photoshop - and no other product I've found is able to handle such enormous files (and Photoshop does it badly/slowly). Anyway, this is already old news and Adobe backed off on it after so much user outrage. Whether you believe Adobe when they say they won't do it, that's another story. https://www.wired.com/story/adobe-says-it-wont-train-ai-using-artists-work-creatives-arent-convinced/#:~:text=Late on Tuesday%2C Adobe issued,opt out of content analytics.

That's also assuming that the color temperature settings in the camera are a match for your color meter - and that's definitely not guaranteed.

As far as I remember, Panasonic don't develop sensors. They integrate sensors from Sony. But to answer the question, no. Unless technology has improved, going to 8K on M43 is likely to make the image noisier and I couldn't care much less about 8K vs 6K.

Well, it's not efficient for photos and it won't be efficient for video either. 🙂 As already mentioned, there is an eyedropper tool in Resolve that you can use in one of the earlier nodes to click on a grey card. Otherwise, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, get a color checker and use the color checker tool in Resolve if you want a quick way to get nice/accurate colors as a starting point.

You can shoot two clips. The second can be of any length as long as the card is in the right place. I don't know what everybody else does! There are plenty of options like doing a custom white balance in camera using a grey card or using the eye dropper (or a color checker) in post. Your mileage may vary, best to experiment to figure out a workflow that works for you before trying it on a shoot that matters.

The second clip would need to be at least one frame long. For the most part, I just do them in the same clip. I taped a color chart to the back of my slate and I ask the person who is using the slate to flip it around before clapping.

I've been over "shallowest DOF" for a while now. For quite a while, I've been more interested in "proper DOF." The right DOF is the one that fits the story that you're trying to tell with the right amount of detail in background areas. Want to express the subject's extreme isolation? You might actually be wide open with a very fast lens. Want to draw attention to the subject? Probably better to stop down a little bit so that the background is identifiable, but still oof. Want to present the subject occupying a place, such as in a wide establishing shot? Stop down a bit more. Similarly, lens choice should be driven by desired look/impact. Shooting futuristic sci-fi? Maybe you want some really sharp glass. Shooting something a bit more romantic with lots of high-key lighting and close-ups? Probably better to choose something a little softer. Making a short film starring a can of beans? Maybe don't overthink it.

Yes, you can absolutely use a gray card as the starting point for a grade. If you want a shortcut for it, Resolve even has an eye dropper tool. If you want to go one better than that, get an X-Rite (or whatever they're called now) color checker passport and grab the color chart on it (which has a gray card on the opposite "page"). Then in Resolve, use the color checker tool which lets you draw a box around the checker with the squares aligned with the patches. Then choose your input and output color space/gamma.

As to the original topic, many of the people I know who insist on FF for video will say that they like it because they want "shallow DOF." For me, the most recent video-centric cameras that I've purchased were both S35. F2 or F2.8 on S35 is, for me, usually shallow enough. And unlike the other person, I don't think focal reducers are garbage so I am happy enough to use them in lower light or for a shallower DOF look.

I've already said that "magical" is my own summarization of how people seem to describe their imagined "medium format look" since requests for any sort of functional definition seem to result in things that are demonstrably false or claims that the look is ineffable. So this special term which defies all definition, but is to be considered useful in discussion must be pure magic.

What are you talking about? As long as you can hit infinity focus with the extra rear extension of the camera adapter + distance to camera sensor, you can use any lens that you want. I've taken a bunch of panoramas with the GFX 100 mounted on the back of a speed graphic with an Aero Ektar. After stitching, one gets an image which is around 44x120mm (around 400 megapixels in theory, but the AE is definitely not resolving that from edge to edge). I could use a number of my other lenses too - the AE is about 178mm and is nearly the shortest lens that one can use on a speed graphic with a GFX->Graflok adapter (and good luck with a lot of movements) - but a 250mm or so lens would be almost ideal. With a Crown Graphic or any other LF camera without a built-in focal plane shutter, I'd imagine you could get down to 135mm or so and still be able to focus a GFX to infinity.

I've found that with just about any raw format, if I change the white balance in the raw developer tab in Resolve, it works just fine, but I'm going at most from like 5600k to 3200k. If you're going more than that, YMMV.

FWIW, I've been arguing exactly the opposite of that. There is no special look intrinsic to larger sensors. 😃