BMPCC4K MFT vs EF for Videography and Street Photography

[francis]

I've been shooting product videos in a tabletop setup with a tripod for a few years now. I am using a Fujifilm XT-3 and Fujinon 23mm f1.4 lens. Since I need 10 bit ProRes I use a Ninja V.

Lately, I also took the XT-3 outside for some street photography because the Ricoh GRIII was kidnapped by my son. To me, the XT-3 is too big and expensive for the road. Additionally, I have a small collection of different lenses (with old cameras) that I don’t use like Sigma 28mm f2.8, Minolta 50mm f1.4, Auto Revuenon 1:1.2 55mm.

Now I am thinking about selling everything and commit myself to one system. For videography, I have a BMPCC4K in mind (no external recorder needed, easier handling, "better" picture) and for street photography a small, cheapish MFT camera like the Panasonic GX8.

Here are my questions: 

1. My videos are very close to the subject (products, about 30-50cm) and a sharp image is most important. To avoid extra glass I am thinking about MFT lenses like Olympus 12-40mm f2.8, Voigtländer 17.5mm f0.95, and Leica 12mm f1.4. Can you recommend a specific lens and does my no-speedbooster-thought make sense?

2. Which small and inexpensive street photography MFT camera would you recommend? Or should I rather get into the EF system with a speedbooster after all?

Thanks for your help!

[BTM_Pix]

On 9/11/2021 at 11:18 AM, francis said:

2. Which small and inexpensive street photography MFT camera would you recommend? Or should I rather get into the EF system with a speedbooster after all?

I think the LX100 is worth a look if you are looking to do street photography.

It has a standard 24-70 FOV zoom range lens that is f1.7 at the wide end and f2.8 at the long end and, as has been discussed on here multiple times, its a great lens that happens to have a free body attached.

Control wise it has dedicated aperture ring, shutter speed and exposure compensation dials so its really quick to use and, as they are more substantial than those of the GR, I prefer it operationally over the GR.

You'll lose the thinner form factor of the GR by virtue of the size of the lens but the actual camera body is more or less the same and the LX100 is still on the plausible side of pocketable. It is certainly far more compact than even a small MFT body like the GX85 with an equivalent 12-35mm f2.8 lens on it.

What you will gain over the GR is a serviceable EVF and 4K 24p video recording when you feel the need.

The clincher really is the price in that, although they've gone up in price like most used products in the past year, you can still pick up a good condition LX100 mark 1 for about £250 or less. For context, that is way less than half the price of a used version of the 12-35mm f2.8 lens let alone the cost of an MFT body to mount it on.

A word of caution regarding using the P4K with native MFT electronic lenses such as the Panasonic and Olympus etc is the amount of lens corrections that those MFT cameras do, particularly on wide angles.

The P4K does not have any of those corrections so if you do go for a P4K check any prospective lens on the camera to make sure you are comfortable with the uncorrected performance of it.

 

 

[Emanuel]

Good advices, mate : ) Incrediblly funny how old LX100 is, isn't it? ; )

Seven years in the digital camera industry is a whole eternity...

and my 4x G7s, one year younger as for instance, are still unbeatable in price, weight and form factor vs the IQ they STILL and will always offer!

 

EAG :- )

[francis]

9 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

I think the LX100 is worth a look if you are looking to do street photography.

It has a standard 24-70 FOV zoom range lens that is f1.7 at the wide end and f2.8 at the long end and, as has been discussed on here multiple times, its a great lens that happens to have a free body attached.

Control wise it has dedicated aperture ring, shutter speed and exposure compensation dials so its really quick to use and, as they are more substantial than those of the GR, I prefer it operationally over the GR.

You'll lose the thinner form factor of the GR by virtue of the size of the lens but the actual camera body is more or less the same and the LX100 is still on the plausible side of pocketable. It is certainly far more compact than even a small MFT body like the GX85 with an equivalent 12-35mm f2.8 lens on it.

What you will gain over the GR is a serviceable EVF and 4K 24p video recording when you feel the need.

The clincher really is the price in that, although they've gone up in price like most used products in the past year, you can still pick up a good condition LX100 mark 1 for about £250 or less. For context, that is way less than half the price of a used version of the 12-35mm f2.8 lens let alone the cost of an MFT body to mount it on.

A word of caution regarding using the P4K with native MFT electronic lenses such as the Panasonic and Olympus etc is the amount of lens corrections that those MFT cameras do, particularly on wide angles.

The P4K does not have any of those corrections so if you do go for a P4K check any prospective lens on the camera to make sure you are comfortable with the uncorrected performance of it.

 

 

Thanks for your advice. I stumbled upon the GX9 and really like the specs. I will have to see how it compares to the LX100.

Sorry but I don’t understand what you mean by lens correction. Do I have to worry about that with the Voigtländer 17.5mm f0.95 or Leica 12mm f1.4?

[Emanuel]

34 minutes ago, francis said:

Sorry but I don’t understand what you mean by lens correction. Do I have to worry about that with the Voigtländer 17.5mm f0.95 or Leica 12mm f1.4?

Modern digital photography usually provides the option of lens correction by software, not available going with a typical cinema camera such as Pocket series is :- )

https://www.canon-europe.com/pro/infobank/in-camera-lens-corrections/

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/lens-corrections.htm

- EAG

[BTM_Pix]

18 hours ago, francis said:

Sorry but I don’t understand what you mean by lens correction. Do I have to worry about that with the Voigtländer 17.5mm f0.95 or Leica 12mm f1.4?

Here is an example from my Sigma FP shooting simultaneous JPEG+RAW stills with the JPEG on the top and the RAW on the bottom.

The only differences are the expected ones regarding colour, contrast, WB etc baked into the JPEG by whatever profile I had active in the camera at the time.

This next one is from yesterday on my LX100 shooting RAW+JPEG, again straight out of camera with the JPEG on the top and the RAW on the bottom.

With this one we again have the expected differences from the JPEG profile but obviously from the RAW you can see the large amount of optical correction that the camera is performing to remove the distortion etc of the lens for the JPEG.

From the point of view of operating the camera, this is irrelevant as it has happened before it hits the EVF or LCD so your framing view will be of the corrected image. In terms of the JPEG or if you are shooting video then, again, its an irrelevance as the corrections are baked in.

For RAW files though, the corrections are not applied but they are only a click away in your editing software so, again, its no big deal.

The problem would come though if you somehow managed to remove that lens and put it on a camera that doesn't have the correction built in.

Which brings us to using MFT lenses on a Pocket 4K.

I've just gone outside to do this quick and dirty illustration of a typical example with the Panasonic/Leica 12-40mm f2.8-4 on my Panasonic GX80 shooting RAW+JPEG and Pocket 4K shooting CDNG.

On top we have the JPEG from the GX80, then the RAW from the GX80 in the middle and finally the CDNG from the Pocket 4K on the bottom. (* I was shooting 16:9 stills on the GX80 with regard to the JPEG but the RAW file is still 4:3)

Ignore the framing and colour differences as it was just a quick handheld test but as you can see the in camera corrections  have taken a large amount of the distortion visible in the RAW away when producing the JPEG.

However, this is not the case with the P4K frame and without the in built correction the distortion is there in all its glory as it was with the RAW file on the GX80.

Of course, you can perform the corrections yourself on the P4K footage when you are editing but its another step and will have to be done on every clip. There is also the penalty of the correction necessitating some degree of cropping in most cases so, unlike the cameras with built in correction, you will have to take this into account for your framing when shooting.

The degree to which correction is necessary will vary a lot from lens to lens and obviously wider angle lenses will need closer attention hence why I would recommend checking each particular lens on the P4K itself before buying to make sure you are comfortable with it.

I think the Voigtlander 17.5mm is quite popular on here with people using MFT cameras so if someone could do the same RAW+JPEG still on a GH5 etc then you'd have a fair idea of how it will behave uncorrected. I think a few people use it with the P4K too so that would obviously be even more indicative.

 

[Emanuel]

Great post as usual, man, yeah I'd call P4K old school where more effort you have to put to overcome the lack of modern tools, a bit as much as happens with AF as for instance you've surpassed with your incredible tool all Pocket series owners must have (EAG :- )

[francis]

9 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

Here is an example from my Sigma FP shooting simultaneous JPEG+RAW stills with the JPEG on the top and the RAW on the bottom.

The only differences are the expected ones regarding colour, contrast, WB etc baked into the JPEG by whatever profile I had active in the camera at the time.

This next one is from yesterday on my LX100 shooting RAW+JPEG, again straight out of camera with the JPEG on the top and the RAW on the bottom.

With this one we again have the expected differences from the JPEG profile but obviously from the RAW you can see the large amount of optical correction that the camera is performing to remove the distortion etc of the lens for the JPEG.

From the point of view of operating the camera, this is irrelevant as it has happened before it hits the EVF or LCD so your framing view will be of the corrected image. In terms of the JPEG or if you are shooting video then, again, its an irrelevance as the corrections are baked in.

For RAW files though, the corrections are not applied but they are only a click away in your editing software so, again, its no big deal.

The problem would come though if you somehow managed to remove that lens and put it on a camera that doesn't have the correction built in.

Which brings us to using MFT lenses on a Pocket 4K.

I've just gone outside to do this quick and dirty illustration of a typical example with the Panasonic/Leica 12-40mm f2.8-4 on my Panasonic GX80 shooting RAW+JPEG and Pocket 4K shooting CDNG.

On top we have the JPEG from the GX80, then the RAW from the GX80 in the middle and finally the CDNG from the Pocket 4K on the bottom. (* I was shooting 16:9 stills on the GX80 with regard to the JPEG but the RAW file is still 4:3)

Ignore the framing and colour differences as it was just a quick handheld test but as you can see the in camera corrections  have taken a large amount of the distortion visible in the RAW away when producing the JPEG.

However, this is not the case with the P4K frame and without the in built correction the distortion is there in all its glory as it was with the RAW file on the GX80.

Of course, you can perform the corrections yourself on the P4K footage when you are editing but its another step and will have to be done on every clip. There is also the penalty of the correction necessitating some degree of cropping in most cases so, unlike the cameras with built in correction, you will have to take this into account for your framing when shooting.

The degree to which correction is necessary will vary a lot from lens to lens and obviously wider angle lenses will need closer attention hence why I would recommend checking each particular lens on the P4K itself before buying to make sure you are comfortable with it.

I think the Voigtlander 17.5mm is quite popular on here with people using MFT cameras so if someone could do the same RAW+JPEG still on a GH5 etc then you'd have a fair idea of how it will behave uncorrected. I think a few people use it with the P4K too so that would obviously be even more indicative.

 

Thank you so much for your effort. Your explanation could not have been more clear. Is this also a problem when using an EF speedbooster or with the BMPCC6K and EF lenses?

[Emanuel]

That can not even be called a problem at all... : ) It will just charge more time from you @ post going along the Pocket series route taking from you the caution enough by framing if your glass won't meet your distortion standards :- )

[Emanuel]

PS (5 minutes is too short to add anything to a post anyway : )

 

At EF end there are good glass samples so I believe you won't need to worry too much about (focus on the leftover instead ; ) it's just to know how to choose the best tools to fit your cup -- here's a good resource (Bryan Carnathan is your host) where you can compare a variety of options you have:

https://www.the-digital-picture.com/

[francis]

10 hours ago, Emanuel said:

That can not even be called a problem at all... : ) It will just charge more time from you @ post going along the Pocket series route taking from you the caution enough by framing if your glass won't meet your distortion standards :- )

I have to deliver in 4K so framing in post is not an option. I would have to hunt down a good enough lens 🙂

10 hours ago, Emanuel said:

PS (5 minutes is too short to add anything to a post anyway : )

 

At EF end there are good glass samples so I believe you won't need to worry too much about (focus on the leftover instead ; ) it's just to know how to choose the best tools to fit your cup -- here's a good resource (Bryan Carnathan is your host) where you can compare a variety of options you have:

https://www.the-digital-picture.com/

Thats a great resource. Thanks!

So you would choose EF over MTF?

One of the benefits of the BMPCC6K would be that I have room for framing.