bmp4k adventures

[leslie]

The road trip starts in about 30 hours. I have tinkered and played with  my gear as much as i can. I think i'm mostly prepared, however time will tell. 

After 18 months of no work, had two or three days work each week for the last three weeks. Which has been a blessing as its allowed me to finally acquire a tripod. You have heard of peak oil ?. Well i give you peak cinema. 

Manfrotto tripod and manfrotto 503 fluid head, p4k, cage and rigging by smallrig and a t5 for storage, last is a cheap sunshade / matt box off ebay. I'm pretty happy how everything's come together over the last few weeks.  Ready to give Steven Spielberg, a run for his money. 🤣

First impressions of the manfrotto is its quite sturdy / robust. Its tight, no play in it and surprisingly light. May end hanging a bag of something of the bottom of it to give it some weight. It seems to move smoothly, i have yet to try to video anything with it. Regardless its a vast improvement on the hand me down tripod from my brother.

After learning how to balance cameras on the crane m2 gimbal, i have applied the same logic to balancing the p4k on the manfrotto. There may be some improvements to be made by watching some youtubes on cinema cameras / tripods. At the moment the camera doesn't immediately fall foward or backwards so i'm calling it a win.  

[leslie]

Here's a couple of time lapses from the trip, both sunsets, one of Uluru and the other from ellery creek, big hole. Ellery creek is a permanent waterhole in the the northern territory and quite pretty, and in the middle of a heatwave one of the best places to be. Over 8000 k's in two weeks. The trip should have been longer, however we didn't allow for a heat wave, so early in spring or the prices of fuel in outback australia.

I did shoot some footage of the devils marbles on the p4k, but have yet to look at it. The em-10 got a work out as well. I have yet to at the photos from it as well. The time lapses are from the gopro 9 , and there's a clip of us passing a road train. Probably not best cinematography ever, but it could make for a change,  if your stuck in  lock downs some where around the world.

 

[kye]

1 hour ago, leslie said:

Here's a couple of time lapses from the trip, both sunsets, one of Uluru and the other from ellery creek, big hole. Ellery creek is a permanent waterhole in the the northern territory and quite pretty, and in the middle of a heatwave one of the best places to be. Over 8000 k's in two weeks. The trip should have been longer, however we didn't allow for a heat wave, so early in spring or the prices of fuel in outback australia.

I did shoot some footage of the devils marbles on the p4k, but have yet to look at it. The em-10 got a work out as well. I have yet to at the photos from it as well. The time lapses are from the gopro 9 , and there's a clip of us passing a road train. Probably not best cinematography ever, but it could make for a change,  if your stuck in  lock downs some where around the world.

 

Cool footage.

Have you dialled in the right squeeze factor?  It looked a little stretched horizontally to me?  A good way to do this is to take a shot of a billiard/pool ball, then make it perfectly round in post.

On 10/7/2021 at 9:00 PM, leslie said:

The road trip starts in about 30 hours. I have tinkered and played with  my gear as much as i can. I think i'm mostly prepared, however time will tell. 

After 18 months of no work, had two or three days work each week for the last three weeks. Which has been a blessing as its allowed me to finally acquire a tripod. You have heard of peak oil ?. Well i give you peak cinema. 

Manfrotto tripod and manfrotto 503 fluid head, p4k, cage and rigging by smallrig and a t5 for storage, last is a cheap sunshade / matt box off ebay. I'm pretty happy how everything's come together over the last few weeks.  Ready to give Steven Spielberg, a run for his money. 🤣

First impressions of the manfrotto is its quite sturdy / robust. Its tight, no play in it and surprisingly light. May end hanging a bag of something of the bottom of it to give it some weight. It seems to move smoothly, i have yet to try to video anything with it. Regardless its a vast improvement on the hand me down tripod from my brother.

After learning how to balance cameras on the crane m2 gimbal, i have applied the same logic to balancing the p4k on the manfrotto. There may be some improvements to be made by watching some youtubes on cinema cameras / tripods. At the moment the camera doesn't immediately fall foward or backwards so i'm calling it a win.  

That's not peak camera!!

If you're on FB there's a group called "terrible blackmagic rigs"...  there you will find examples of peak camera!

[leslie]

6 hours ago, kye said:

Cool footage.

Have you dialled in the right squeeze factor?  It looked a little stretched horizontally to me?  A good way to do this is to take a shot of a billiard/pool ball, then make it perfectly round in post.

That's not peak camera!!

If you're on FB there's a group called "terrible blackmagic rigs"...  there you will find examples of peak camera!

When everyone and thing i can find, says to stretch it by 1.33, That's all i do.  You may have some sought of argument there. I have seen some other vids where they report the squeeze is more or less than advertised, perhaps its a bit remiss of me,  taking it all  too literally. Now I'll have to do an experiment to settle the debate.  

Don't have a billiard ball, i do have one of those 150mm glass balls that get used for  lensball photography and i been meaning to incorporate it into a video... maybe i can kill two birds with one stone.

Its all relative, considering my budgetary constraints, its peak cinema to me. Your setup and what you choose to emphasis is unique to you as well, and thats ok. Anyway you should however take anything i say / write. With a grain of salt , maybe two grains of salt. I'm not above or beneath, stirring the pot occasionally, if i think there's a laugh in it. 😉

[kye]

27 minutes ago, leslie said:

When everyone and thing i can find, says to stretch it by 1.33, That's all i do.  You may have some sought of argument there. I have seen some other vids where they report the squeeze is more or less than advertised, perhaps its a bit remiss of me,  taking it all  too literally. Now I'll have to do an experiment to settle the debate.  

Don't have a billiard ball, i do have one of those 150mm glass balls that get used for  lensball photography and i been meaning to incorporate it into a video... maybe i can kill two birds with one stone.

Its all relative, considering my budgetary constraints, its peak cinema to me. Your setup and what you choose to emphasis is unique to you as well, and thats ok. Anyway you should however take anything i say / write. With a grain of salt , maybe two grains of salt. I'm not above or beneath, stirring the pot occasionally, if i think there's a laugh in it. 😉

I've heard that anamorphics can vary the squeeze factor depending on where the object is in the frame, and perhaps also depending on focus distance (ie, focussing far or near).  There are several ways to design an anamorphic lens and IIRC the better designs are also far larger / heavier / more expensive, so it's definitely a thing.

Anything round should be a good reference - I'd suggest mucking around with your crystal ball and seeing how you go.  If you find that it's giving you the lottery numbers then PM me - happy to share the profits of the idea I helped inspire!!

Have you seen the excellent series on YT by Anamorphic On A Budget?  Great Stuff.

[leslie]

My interest in anamorphics, waxes and wanes 🙄 not exactly corresponding with the moon cycles , but you get the idea. Last few attempts have just been with gopro 9 and  its attached letus anamorphic. An easy as possible solution, as easy as i can make it anyway. No dual focus  or single focus setup required. Granted that may not appeal to the purists or die hards perhaps. but i sleep easy  every night. 😉

I haves seen a bunch of tito's videos and i usually like them. 

i do have all the necessary  equipment to do a single focus solution on the p4k. i'm just really struggling to find the enthusiasm to put it all together and use it. Which sounds lame and it probably is. but thats life at the moment.

Had so much rain lately, say last 3-4 weeks the ground is sodden, water is just running off now.  Roads where cut everywhere yesterday 3 out of 4 causeways on the way home were under water. one of those i diverted around and took the long way home. I stopped at the first and took some footage with the new iphone 13 on the crane m2 gimbal. pretty happy with it so far.

I chose the 512 gig edition, as much as i wanted to i couldn't justify the price of the 1tb model. With prores turned on i can get 79 minutes roughly before i fill it up. Which should be a useable amount of footage i think, but correct me if i'm wrong.

While i was stopped a lady did indeed drive through it. In her favour she was in a much bigger landcruiser 4wd. She did stop and ask me if i was alright, i smiled and pulled out the iphone attached to the crane gimbal and said i was about to film some footage.

 i did film in .mov format for this first effort. after this effort  i did watch a few utubes and figured out prores and some of the camera settings. To used to android i guess. 

The original file came in at 96 meg. resolve must do some hard work as delivering at the best bitrate, it blew out to 430 meg. which seems odd i dropped the bitrate to 10 000 and it came in at 55 meg. Youtube will most likely slaughter it,  however if you want to have a look.

 

 

[leslie]

Dammit @kye, i hate to admit it, but you were right. it appears that the letus  gopro anamorphic squeeze is not as  the advertised 1.33 but closer to 1.15. I have watched  some of tito's vids, consulted google, done the math and no matter how i work it out, the best result i can get is a stretch of 1.15 to get a nice round ball.  Maths was never one of my strong points so there is some chance i'm messing it up somehow 🙄 No idea if anyone one else want to do the maths, but i have included a couple of photos to illustrate how i got to this conclusion.  A stretch of 1.15 seems to give me the best result.

Its also brought up another point of contention, my  crystal ball is not perfectly round. I hadn't really noticed this until i performed this experiment.  Once i drop a circle over it in photoshop it shows a little lopsidedness. This could be part of the reason why i was unable to drag any lotto numbers out of it. So on this grounds it seems to be underperforming 😎 i may have to send it back. To sum up it seems like no matter what anyone tells you it pays to do your own tests. Er... thanks for the earlier input by the way 

[kye]

On 12/1/2021 at 3:23 PM, leslie said:

My interest in anamorphics, waxes and wanes 🙄 not exactly corresponding with the moon cycles , but you get the idea. Last few attempts have just been with gopro 9 and  its attached letus anamorphic. An easy as possible solution, as easy as i can make it anyway. No dual focus  or single focus setup required. Granted that may not appeal to the purists or die hards perhaps. but i sleep easy  every night. 😉

Zero focus anamorphic is the easiest number of focuses (can that word be a noun?) but sadly the GoPro is definitely letting the side down in that combo!

On 12/1/2021 at 3:23 PM, leslie said:

I chose the 512 gig edition, as much as i wanted to i couldn't justify the price of the 1tb model. With prores turned on i can get 79 minutes roughly before i fill it up. Which should be a useable amount of footage i think, but correct me if i'm wrong.

It really depends on how you're using it.  If you're shooting a thing and then offloading that footage immediately before needing to shoot again then it's fine.  That's how most people use cameras, but not how most people use their phones, which seem to gradually just store more and more footage and photos as they take them over time.

1 hour ago, leslie said:

Dammit @kye, i hate to admit it, but you were right. it appears that the letus  gopro anamorphic squeeze is not as  the advertised 1.33 but closer to 1.15. I have watched  some of tito's vids, consulted google, done the math and no matter how i work it out, the best result i can get is a stretch of 1.15 to get a nice round ball.  Maths was never one of my strong points so there is some chance i'm messing it up somehow 🙄 No idea if anyone one else want to do the maths, but i have included a couple of photos to illustrate how i got to this conclusion.  A stretch of 1.15 seems to give me the best result.

People like anamorphic for different reasons, but just like anything, you should focus on what you value and let others do the same.  So in that sense, if you like the look, then 1.15 might be fine.  

I don't really care for anamorphic flares myself, but am attracted by the stretched bokeh as I find it gives a slightly surreal feeling having the background blurred more vertically than horizontally.  It's another factor in getting more depth and background separation.  For that reason I'd prefer a 2X anamorphic setup that didn't have the horizontal flares, but to each their own, as they say.

1 hour ago, leslie said:

Its also brought up another point of contention, my  crystal ball is not perfectly round. I hadn't really noticed this until i performed this experiment.  Once i drop a circle over it in photoshop it shows a little lopsidedness. This could be part of the reason why i was unable to drag any lotto numbers out of it. So on this grounds it seems to be underperforming 😎 i may have to send it back.

I have been monitoring my bank accounts and noticed that you weren't depositing large sums of money into them.  Come to think of it, it seems that NO ONE is doing that.  Can you return bank accounts as well as crystal balls? 🙂 

[leslie]

I already got a price reduction on the crystal ball as it had manufacturing marks in it. So I have to a bit careful how I set it up. Not much chance of getting a full refund. Sigh. 
I dunno If you took the as advertised 1.33  ratio and found out later that it was 1.15 and applied it to say petrol, there would be rioting in the streets. I guess one can be more liberal on some specs as opposed to quantities.

[kye]

3 hours ago, leslie said:

I already got a price reduction on the crystal ball as it had manufacturing marks in it. So I have to a bit careful how I set it up. Not much chance of getting a full refund. Sigh. 
I dunno If you took the as advertised 1.33  ratio and found out later that it was 1.15 and applied it to say petrol, there would be rioting in the streets. I guess one can be more liberal on some specs as opposed to quantities.

People who buy petrol definitely include a subset that would riot in the streets.  I'm not sure if the same can be said for anamorphic lens owners!

I'm once again reminded of the saying "what the market can bear"..  it's not what the market would like, it's what the market can bear.  ie, it's the absolute edge of whatever you can get away with!

[leslie]

 

I have seen dune at the movies this afternoon and i have to say i was impressed. i read the books when ahem.. i was younger. So it was nice to see it brought to life. Mind you it has been a while since i read them, so watching the movie was almost like,  a new experience. I have seen the earlier dune movie and i will only add this is a much better rendition than the previous effort.

Although there were no plot surprises, for me it was still very enjoyable. I can't always immerse myself in a movie and sometimes i find myself analyzing some movies far too much as i watch them. However i thoroughly enjoyed  dune. 

The soundtrack matched the movie very well i thought, there were a couple of scenes where the music kind of (morphed for want of a better word) into the scene, i noticed two occasions and thought hey, thats very nicely done.    

I am certainly no pixel peeper or cinematographer for the matter, but personally  i reckon its extremely well crafted visually and aurally ,  its up there with blade runner and blade runner 2049 , its vast, its epic, its cinema and thoroughly enjoyable. But maybe i'm easily entertained.

Do yourselves a favour. See it on the big screen with pop corn and a frozen coke and be entertained and taken too a place far away for a couple of hours  or what felt like a couple of hours.

 

[leslie]

After using the iphone 13 pro max for a bit, i notice there a fair bit of artificial  intelligence going on in that little box. Ok its not the smallest or lightest smart phone out there, but you know what i mean. I opened the photo viewer today and it seems to of organized itself into categories, thats not something i asked it to do.

At the moment i have 27 videos 140 ish photos all sorted into various categories everything from flowers to waterfalls to baby photos and there doesn't appear to be any mix ups which is pretty impressive if you ask me. Its also figured out the difference between a dam and a waterfall and separated them as well. I have not renamed any of these files on the phone that might indicate what they are either.  I'm impressed. Maybe iphones have always done this i don't know. This is my first iphone.

I guess for the money i have spent it should do alot although getting it to make breakfast might be a bit ambitious. I suspect it may be going out onto the www to help sort things out. i'd be less impressed if its jumping online to sort itself out as my data isn't unlimited.

colours are great, maybe too great, almost too vibrant. I do have hdr turned on so i should probably turn it off to do a comparison. So far pretty happy with the video, i do have one instance of videoing a wheat harvester  while everything from front to middle is ok, the crop in the background is doing some weird stuff. Ill chop it into a smaller segment for you guys to have a look at. 

i did get a lightning to hdmi cable, it has provision for usb power, need to give that a try and see how it goes as well.

 One minute twenty-five seconds of prores 4k footage comes in at 7.84 gigs. Just so that you know.

[leslie]

One last project before the year comes to a close. The original extendable painters pole i bought and modified to fit a crane gimbal is actually too long to fit easily in my vehicle.

It would need roof racks to make it more useable or chop it down perhaps. I'm loathe to  cut it down. kinda defeats the purpose.  However the expense of a nice set of roof racks has that idea on hold for now. 

About a week ago i bought another shorter pole for $42, with an adjustable head For $24. Still thats easily 2/3 or more, less than a set of roof racks. 

Today i found some time to have at it, with drills and other sundry equipment. 

The only thing i'll add is a bike mount phone holder and two  1/4 thumbscrews to make it quicker to assemble / dissemble.

The intention is to have it  live in the back of my car and if i see something interesting i can pull it out and be ready to go in a couple of minutes.  I like the colour, it should prove difficult to lose.  I think it extends from about 1.2 to 2.4. Not the longest perhaps, but it should extend my reach and give me another option besides just holding the gimbal at arms reach. I should be able to film some properly cringeworthy footage tomorrow. ok thats about it for now.

Happy new year everyone

[leslie]

Ok so i was out and about this morning when i came across a 5 foot goanna. I have seen him/ her a few times before in the last few weeks. I have a live and let live psychology. If it don't bother me then i don't bother it. The thing about goannas is they can have a very nasty bite. their mouths are kinda like a portable sewer system.

Anyway been wanting to get some footage of this guy for awhile. i did pull out the ever handy iphone and filmed some hand held stuff, then i thought it would be a good opportunity to use the new pole and gimbal system and put some space between us, as i felt we'd both be be more comfortable with some room. by the time i got back, only a few minutes later he'd decided disappear.

Using it did bring up some unforeseen issues, which i was addressing this afternoon in the work shed. 

i did upload a 4k for to youtube which brings me to a question is it normal for 4k files to take 5 hours to process ? the file size is about 70 meg which seems a bit odd 

 

[webrunner5]

Yeah Goanna's are meaner than a junk yard dog. They are taking over in Florida. They have bounties on some of the ritzy islands on them. Not too bad to eat them though, taste like chicken lol.

Might just be cheaper and easier to just buy a Drone lol. Something must have gone wrong with your internet connection. I can upload a file that big in about 5 minutes to YouTube.

[leslie]

I live right on the very edge of civilization, if you define civilization as having good mobile reception. Apart from that its peaceful, picturesque in a bushy kinda way and the nearest neighbor is 1.5 k away. I was self isolating a long time before it became a fad 😀

just checked youtube the update says the upload was at 88 % while yesterday it was saying it was processing, so i cancelled it. Have to go into town later for fuel for the mower, a bag of sand and a black sheet, no not for bodies, more of a background i swear. So i'll reupload it then. 

are goannas native to the usa of they been pets that have escaped into the wild ? 

I see also in florida a tiger mauled some idiot cleaner and got itself shot. Personally i think they may have shot the wrong animal, but i digress.

 

[webrunner5]

1 hour ago, leslie said:

I live right on the very edge of civilization, if you define civilization as having good mobile reception. Apart from that its peaceful, picturesque in a bushy kinda way and the nearest neighbor is 1.5 k away. I was self isolating a long time before it became a fad 😀

just checked youtube the update says the upload was at 88 % while yesterday it was saying it was processing, so i cancelled it. Have to go into town later for fuel for the mower, a bag of sand and a black sheet, no not for bodies, more of a background i swear. So i'll reupload it then. 

are goannas native to the usa of they been pets that have escaped into the wild ? 

I see also in florida a tiger mauled some idiot cleaner and got itself shot. Personally i think they may have shot the wrong animal, but i digress.

 

Well they are called mostly Iguanas lizards. I think they are along the same family. No they are not native to Florida, they were long ago pets that got Way to big and mean lol. Just like the Phyton problem, now that is a total mess down there. There is a Lot of dumbass people that move to Florida. I guess I sort of fit that description at times. It seems if you can't make it in your home state well why not move to Florida mindset.  I moved down there when my first wife died of cancer when we were 54 years old. I was stationed for a while in Key West, Florida in the Navy and sort of fell in love with the place. And my Mother was a winter "Snowbird" down there at the time so why not move. Didn't love the job I had in Ohio much either at the time. Lived down there for 12 years. Can't afford to do it now. Too hot at my age anyway now.

Used to be fairly cheap to live there years ago. Not now half of New York and New Jersey live down there now. Just like Utah, Idaho is now getting overrun with people moving from California.

Well if you want to sort of live the  Crocodile Dundee lifestyle, sounds pretty awesome, well you have to pay the price of slow internet. 😄

[leslie]

If the crocodiles make it this far inland, i'll be doing some home leather tanning 😎  Only have one pair of work boots.  Another pair of something fashionable  might just do wonders for my charisma 😉

 i did a tree change 14 years ago then worked kinda hard paying it off. To be honest i don't miss the cities at all. Although the nearest camera store is 2 hours away. Got good neighbors, lots of picturesque countryside to film what more can a bloke want ?

Changing the conversation a little, here's something i don't see enough off. With a bit of effort, i hope to remedy that this year.  Experimenting with low light on the p4k. there was a bit of a breeze and some thistle swaying around. It was actually quite dark, overcast skies and right on dusk.  The iphone 13  and some photoshop auto levels has done an amazing  job of making it look like noon. How about that, lol. 

I have ordered a 77mm 3 stop nd filter for the tokina 28-70. 

[webrunner5]

A couple more generations of Phone advancements and I think for the average person a real camera is going to become damn iffy. I am amazed how good even WB is on them now.

[kye]

YouTube "processing" is a separate step than uploading, and yes, it can take some time.  When you upload it puts your video in a processing queue and you wait your turn.  I think it's the processing that compresses it into the various resolutions, scan for thumbnails, but also the all-important scanning for copyright violations etc too.

I normally only upload in 1080p, but it can take a while to process.  Their FAQ says something like uploading in HD can take several hours to process, but that's really just waiting in the queue, the processing of your specific video would only take seconds.