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Wow - that's one hell of a sun star! You could use that to gain both power and respect on the entry-level stills photography sites.. they'd fall on their knees before you!! After going through the exercise of seeing what EF glass was out there I didn't see a lot of options that tempted me, so I suspect that I'll just end up leaving it attached to the Zeiss 50/1.4 and that will be that. If the image from the Zeiss is half as good as the lens' physical construction then it would be worth buying the Viltrox just to use with the Zeiss lens alone! Someone else pointed out that the Viltrox is probably only capable of F1.2 at maximum, so that would mean the Mikaton 50mm F0.95 lens is out of the running, and it was the only other thing I was really tempted by.

I'd use a little known plugin called Tilt Shift Blur (TSB), which comes with Resolve but is very special in a critical aspect. Normally if you have a node and give it a key then the node calculates things as normal and then uses the key as a transparency effect, so if you used a large Gaussian Blur and gave it a key then you'd get a huge blur mixed with the sharp image at the level of transparency the key dictated. However, with the TSB, the key defines the size of the blur, so you can vary the size of the blur that way. For this purpose I'd give it a luma key of the image and adjust the contrast and amount to control the relative amount of blur between the lighter and darker parts of the image. The TSB is what I use to soften the edges of the frame in my lens emulation nodes, which allows there to be no blur in the centre and it gradually transition to having a larger and larger blurring towards the edges. The fact that the key input acts as a transparency control really doesn't make much sense when applying most OFX plugins and I'm surprised they haven't made more of them smart like the TSB one where it uses the key as an input to control one or more of the OFX parameters.

Probably anything you do from now on is just for fun. What ways would you implement this? If it was me it would be a two or three layers, each with a lumakey for a brightness range, then different grain size on each one.

A quick headsup with the Viltrox adapter. Years ago, I hacked a Canon 10-18mm to make it fit, which it did. However, one day, I took it out my bag and was getting some really crazy lens flares. Turned out, the back lens element was touching the glass in the adapter when at around 12mm. In my bag, it cracked the glass in the Viltrox, and I learned there's a pretty good reason the combo didn't work without being hacked. So if you get any EFs lenses, be careful - or you'll end up with a one of a kind, megaflare adapter (I've used it a few times since because of the 'creative flaring', so it's not all bad) This photo is from the moment I noticed something was wrong. Luckily, it was on my GX85 at the time, which I was using for behind the scenes stills. So nothing was lost or ruined in a 'professional' sense.

Defintely check out and test the rotating thumbdial on the back. It's not specific to the FP, but I've bought second hand cameras where those things became glitchy and register as spinning one way when you spin it the other. Or flip flop between left and right if you rotate it too fast. It's probably not going to be an issue, but is the only thing I'd double check on top of what you said already. Maybe also look for damage on the pin connectors used for the EVF by the ports.

Thanks! The colour part of the emulation (which has the rolloff in it) is just a preset in the Resolve Film Look Creator (IIRC the Fujifilm one, but if not that one then it'll be the Kodak one). Other parts of the emulation I've had to go DIY and disable those parts of the FLC, but no-one has said anything bad about the colour profile so that seems to be good. Thanks! I was just thinking about where it's at and next steps and I realised that there are a few things I hadn't done yet, but feedback suggests that it's fine how it is, so that's amusing. One of the things I had noted was that apparently the size of the grains is different in the shadows vs highlights, so I was thinking about different ways to implement that, but maybe I just won't bother!

Got it! It was just quite stiff, and the technique is to take a microfibre cloth and to grip the element from both sides pressing in on the glass elements themselves to turn it. Foolishly I wasn't using the full surface of the glass! I swear I could feel the surface of the glass bend slightly to get enough traction to get the lens to move, but it seems to have worked, and I now have slightly past infinity focus. I can adjust it to dial it in but I'm curious to see if that's enough clearance for the Takumar and M42-EF adapter, so will try that tomorrow and see how I go. Damn the Zeiss is a highly engineered object though!

I watched the same video, but he rotates his with his fingers and I put little dents in the ends of my fingers trying and failing to get it to move. Also of note is he seems to have the EF-M2 and I have the EF-M2II (the second version of the EF-M2).

A very quick search found this

After mixing up 2 wheel barrow loads of cement, my back doesn't think very much of me.. thought i'd do some math instead. My digital calipers have decided to throw in the towel, bit like my back... tried different batteries no change. Was getting different readings, but consistent readings, so i took some measurements with the idea of helping kye out. Measuring from the back of the m42 lens to the furthest the lenses can protrude backwards on focusing gives me these measurements, er we have to minus 23.60 as thats what the calipers have decided is zero 🙄 17mm smc fisheye 30.80 - 23.60 - 7.2 35mm 3.5 super tak 31.80 23.60 - 8.2 35mm 2 super tak 31.70 23.60 - 8.1 50mm 1.4 super tak 32.00 23.60 - 8.4 85mm 1.9 super tak 0.3 so close to being flush 100mm smc macro flush to flange no change in length So it seems like the 50mm can protrude the furthest from what i have measured. With an ef adapter on the 50mm tukumar i get a distance of 7.4 Which makes sense as the thickness of the adapter looks to be 1mm. Which also has the effect of moving the lens away from the glass of the speed booster i would think. I am wondering at this point about your M42-EF adapter ? everything else works fine on it ? I have had 2 bad experiences with cheap adapters curious if yours is cheap ? I'd be tempted to reexamine your adapter. 50mm at full extension. Thats 8.4 mm from lens protrusion to the back of the lens. Anything on youtube as to altering the viltrox ? maybe a lens clamp seen them used on pulling lenses apart.

The plot thickens.... My Zeiss ZE 50/1.4 arrived and (apart from being an incredible chunk of glass and metal) it won't focus to infinity on the Viltrox EF-M2II. The Zeiss is properly seated on the Viltrox, the Viltrox is properly seated on the camera, and it's talking to the camera fine. I'm blaming the Viltrox because both the Zeiss and M42 Takumar both have the same issue, plus, the Zeiss has a hard-stop for infinity so it will be well calibrated and I'd trust their engineering over Viltrox any day! The advice online is that the optical element inside the Viltrox can be rotated to fix the issue, which makes perfect sense, only mine doesn't rotate, and I gave it a good go (with just my fingers) but it wouldn't budge. Do I just need to (carefully) attack it with tools? Any advice?

In my opinion, you've made it there!

Breaking news. The product is so obvious no-brainer, DJI has decided to declare a legal war against their most serious threat: https://petapixel.com/2026/06/11/dji-is-suing-insta360-for-violating-multiple-osmo-pocket-patents/ The apocalyptic precedent is Kodak v. Polaroid, where Kodak was effectively pushed out of instant photography, but that was a much deeper, ecosystem-level disaster, not just another Tuesday in consumer electronics litigation. DJI has itself been through patent warfare with Autel over drones. And Insta360 recently faced GoPro in a camera-related dispute that did not exactly erase its current lineup from existence. Apple and Samsung spent years throwing patent grenades at each other before settling.

When not the Leica MP or the new Insta360 Luna Ultra, they use one of those Blazar anamorphic AF lenses on the camera operated by the person accompanying him and here's a good sample:

Impressive if nothing else ; ) And here’s another feature that is, undeniably, not only pure fun: ...but just useful enough to say the least : X

Hard to compete with the Chinese, humm? Looks like (real) life follows politics.

Yes, indeed, but a few third-party brands offer that simple, inexpensive accessory, and it can easily be added to your setup.

Hey all, I'm pretty close to squeezing the trigger on a Sigma FP - what are some things I should be looking for when inspecting a used Sigma FP for potential purchase? Like obvious things for me would be signs of irreparable damage to the ports, dead pixels, ensuring the SD slot is in working order, any scratches on the sensor. Anything else though? Particularly things that might be unique to the FP. Thanks in advance!

looks nice, hides the clipping well

Version 8. Changes are: Added CA Added film dirt and damage Added diffusion Less blur I've also added a bunch of fresh images into the reel, so there's a wider range of situations, including more real-world examples. The ones I grabbed from previous trips are exposed with SS so the motion might be off on some of them, so excuse that aspect of it (although having a slightly blurrier image does make this less visible). I also backed off the stabilisation on the shots from the previous reel as I think it hides the gate weave a little and is more how the rig actually shoots. Here are a few before/after images, to get a sense of what it's working with as input and how far it's taking the image. This is the setup used for (most) of the images in the reel.. It's tiny, actually pocketable, fits in the palm of the hand, and the ergonomics are just right.

To me the zoom is the most significant function here. This is meant to be a walk-around film-the-surroundings camera and my experience is that everyone who rigs a camera for this purpose uses a zoom with pretty significant zoom lens. The biggest con of this is the fact it's a gimbal, and therefore stabilises rotation but not position, leading to the dreaded bobbing movement and foreground parallax errors. These might be my candidate for the least cinematic image attribute of all time (linked to timestamp): This is why gimbals need the fourth axis for walking, and why people don't shoot gimbal shots with any foreground in them. By applying less stabilisation you end up with a more stable looking shot because the stabilisation doesn't call so much attention to itself.

I've never been tempted by one of these smaller pocket gimbals, but the image quality actually looks really nice. It doesn't look over-sharpened or GoPro-like at all. Of course, it's Brandon Li, who can make anything look good. The detachable remote is also really clever. I want my next short to be captured guerilla-style in the city. I was originally considering the hacked EOS-M, but this has me re-thinking my strategy. I just really wish it had a mic input so that I could capture timecode.

Well, for the price of a good but still affordable zoom lens, I still find it quite a deal! ; ) And AFAIK, it’s the first gimbal camera you can simply lock: No idea whether the Osmo Pocket 4P will bring that too, but the non-Pro version doesn’t seem to. EDIT -- I had heard that the Pocket 4 didn’t have it, but as far as I’ve been able to confirm now, they’ve introduced it across both new Pocket 4 models. Looks like the battle between the two brands has brought some benefits for their customers... ;- )

Starting at $770!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Guess they saw GoPro's pricing on the Mission 1 series and said "hold my beer."

Originally posted in another thread, but given what it is, I think it deserves a place of its own. There’s something very real happening here right now. This is not just a minor upgrade. : ) Insta360 sample for focal length range. source (from Leica HQ BTW) And that detachable screen is basically an on-set field monitor. WOW What a killer combo : X