All Activity

I think they have been tweaking the Sensor since they launched the Z6iii. The S1ii showed them that this sensor was better than what the Z6iii was capable of, even without the DR boost mode. Perhaps the sensor was a bit rushed for the launched of the Z6iii and since then, with Sony, they have been able to refine the settings

I only buy old glass LOL. I look at the price of new lenses and think, "wow that's like 10 - 20 interesting vintage lenses" So you haven't bought from any of the Japanese websites or you have and haven't had good results? Speaking for myself, it's been a game changer and I've ordered 12 items just this week. 10 - 15% OFF coupons and promotions all the time so there's your tariffs leveled up right there. I will say that it depends what you're after and there are some things that are better on eBay vs direct from Japan.. Once you find a groove though, it's great to bounce back and forth between the two cultures and see what's what? Some things are really popular in Japan and fetch premiums while other items that are rare in North America sell for very reasonable prices. But it's nice to have options. And yes I got 3 of those Yashica Scopes 1.5x in mint condition for $80 each. combined the shipping for $20 and it was 2 days door to door. As far as fungus and issues with quality... The Japanese culture generally is very honest and most sellers accurately describe their products, warts and all. Better photos than eBay too and a much more realistic idea of what you're getting. I personally don't mind taking chances on things if the price is right and I know I can fix any smaller issues. But that has really never been an issue for me and any issues are almost always me trying to really get a good deal and gambling on a bad/cheap lens. I will say that the experience has changed for the worse with Trump in office and this most recent tariff grift. Shipping is a bit higher and you don't have as many options but at least delivery is super fast and always well packaged/protected. I'm a fan. Hopefully things normalize soon but it's still a deal. Here's a post I screen captured a while back with more info about the Sirui 1.25x mods

NR is stronger on ZR, but its not just NR. There should be something else.

FWIW, the Canon EF 40mm f/2.8 pancake is popular among Fuji GFX users because it's the smallest (or one of the smallest) autofocus lenses that covers the GFX sensor. If there's a market for the Canon lens, there's almost certainly a market for a similar lens that's one stop faster. Not even sure why Sean would equate it to a shitty 26mm f/8 lens.

I agree, the Remus seemed to more consistently have vertical bokeh. 2x squeeze must just be incredible though. Thanks! I think things like this are a really practical way to get more flexibility with your equipment because you work out what you can emulate in post and then can focus on buying things that have the rest of your requirements, rather than everything you want. Then you just do some tests on dialling in what you like and save it as a preset and you're good to go. You do have to consider the practicalities of these things. I went out with my GH7 >>> Voigt 42.5mm F0.95 >>> Sirui 1.25x setup last night and while it's hand-holdable, it's not something I'd want to be much heavier, and definitely a challenge to hold perfectly still, even with the GH7s anamorphic IBIS turned up to 11. One thing I noted last night was that you can pull focus on the Sirui with one finger, so with my right hand on the grip and my left palm-up under the middle of the rig taking the weight I can still pull focus with my thumb or index finger. I really might. Maybe that's why I shouldn't! I've got a cache of images from this trip, and I've got some vintage equipment I want to test when I get home (and I might have ordered "a few" new lenses in the last few days off eBay) so I'll be looking to do a bit of a deep dive into this stuff in the coming weeks/month. Here's a few more recent stills. This place is intoxicating. Most of the shots have so many layers that without the movement you can't tell what anything is, so these are some of the simplest compositions.

Possibly and from my perspective, yes! But that’s based on my own selfish desires. And then again, since acquiring first one and then a second S1Rii, I ask myself what is missing from those that I need and the answer is absolutely nothing! I loved the design of my S1H and its video capability. The S1Rii beats it. I loved the photo capability of the OG S1R but hated the body. I now have that capability on the S1H ‘lite’ body. I have literally zero complaints. The S9 has limitations however and despite my liking the little fucker, a season’s pro use with it has shown up it’s shortcomings…

Sorry, my mistake, it’s the 18-40 lens of course and not the Titty Artisan lens 🙈 But still a really good looking little kit etc even though it doesn’t have any more capability than any other colour including good old black. There are some other EU only release colours I think. I have a red one. Thought about selling it since I got a pair of S1Rii’s but repurposing it instead as a static extra video unit for those occasions when I could do with such a thing. Rather than pocket £500, makes sense to me as business user.

I intend on doing this, but Sean's response rubbed me the wrong way. It's too bad Panasonic doesn't have the same spirit as it had with the GM1 (the camera referenced in the release of the S9). I wanted a 28mm and 40mm pancake. The TTArtisan isn't quite pancake status, but it's the best we've got. It seems like a decent price.

Or just go buy the TT Artisan one at £159 and that's Lumix's loss in terms of lens sales at least. IMO, unless you want to shoot cropped video, in which case the Sigma 17-50mm f2.8 is a great choice, for stills, the 40mm f2 is a perfect match. I didn't realise it was a limited edition and even if they gave away 1/2 of them, apparently still at least one available as it's listed as in stock on Panny's UK website at £1199 inc. matching Titty lens. Might just pick one up to sell on to the Leica Sunday polishers...

That’s definitely a shift in their marketing strategy—not one that really appeals to me. Owning the S9 (though not the painted gold version), I can’t help but feel Panasonic has done the camera-world equivalent of polishing a turd. That said, I actually like the S9 for what it is—though not at the original price. At the discounted sub-1000 euro mark, it makes sense. My main issue is that it didn’t deserve the attention of a redesign because it’s a fiddly little camera that lacks proper lenses. I’m still waiting for a Panasonic-branded, real pancake lens with autofocus—the kind that should have been released alongside the S9. I even mentioned this to Sean on his weekly livestream. I asked why Panasonic wouldn’t create a lens like the 40mm f/2 that TTArtisan just released, even if it cost twice as much. His response was that they wouldn’t, because everyone would hate on it—much like the 26mm joke of a lens. I disagree. I believe they’d sell plenty of copies of a 40mm f/2 with AF (even if plastic) at around 350 euros. Sometimes, Panasonic just can’t see the obvious, IMO.

Playing devil’s advocate, I’d see it as a fairly cheap way for them to stimulate new interest in the S9 in general. ”Maybe you can’t get this particular S9 but hey if you haven’t seen this camera before, you have now seen how good it is and you’ll be amazed at how cheap and available the non bling version is” The rest of them they’ll flog to Leica users who have been denied something compact since the CL/TL days and can hold their nose and buy a Panasonic because it’s a limited edition one in a box that they can take out and polish every Sunday.

I cannot fathom why Panasonic is spending its resources on 200 copies of a camera and giving half of the copies away to YouTube scrubs. Rather, shouldn't they be looking more concerned with releasing a SH1ii- THE camera that 99% of us want to see be released? Perhaps, the pulled another S9 smokescreen on us as it was planned, but regrettably still not ready- only 3 years behind schedule! Then again, maybe it was never planned from the get-go.

Thanks for sharing. I felt like this actually made a strong case for the Remus lenses! I found that look to be way more interesting. I'd still miss that 2x stretch though. You did a really nice job here. It's very closely matched! But I think it's the bokeh and the pincushion distortion that sells the effect for me. I think you've made a solid case to me for going with a more vanilla modern anamorphic lens (maybe a 1.8x) and dirtying it up in post. But at that price point, I think I'll rent on a project by project basis. The old school adapters are still inexpensive enough to own. I've discovered in my EOS-M that ML has a 1.175:1 aspect ratio available. With a 2x stretch, that's 2.35! It's very clean. Unfortunately the quality of the HDMI stream from this camera is pretty terrible and difficult to focus with, so I'll see if I can get the same thing from my 5Diii. Also, I spent way too much money ordering all of the parts for Lucas Pfaff's PFocus B anamorphic focuser with the hope that I could successfully assemble it and have a nice universal focuser for any cheap anamorphic adapter. However, I accidentally ordered it to be printed with 100% infill, so I fear that it's going to be a brick. But we'll see, maybe it will surprise me. If I did it again, I would only go this route if I had a 3D printer at home, or a friend who had one. From a cost standpoint, it doesn't make sense to order it from a site like Shapeways. @kyeHave you ever thought about purchasing a cheap 2x adapter? Given what I know of your aesthetic, I think you'd get pulled in!

To further elaborate on what I was saying about matching some elements in post, here's an attempt to bring the Sirui closer to the look of the B&H. It's not perfect but it's definitely closer. I've played with contrast / levels / colours / diffusion. The only tools used should be available in all NLEs: Lift Gamma Gain wheels Log wheels WB controls Contrast control Curves Added a Gaussian Blur at 36% opacity for the diffusion / halation / glow effect B&H Original: Sirui (graded to match): Sirui Original:

Shot on A74 an Helios 44 First spotify data shows that the song is somehow listened to in Japan - so if you know anyone in that area...

Happy Thursday Everyone, I've created some cool new metal texture images and uploaded them onto this page on my site: TXR - METAL - (Tile-able) https://soundimage.org/txr-metal-seamless/ As always, they're 100% free to use with attribution, just like my thousands of other images, music tracks and sounds. Speaking of which, I have... BIG NEWS -- FREE HIGHER-QUALITY OGG TRACKS ARE ON THEIR WAY! For those of you who use my music tracks, specifically my looping ones... Wordpress apparently now supports Ogg music files, so I'm in the process of replacing all my looping Mp3 tracks on my site with even higher-quality Ogg versions! Besides sounding more rich and full, the Ogg versions always loop seamlessly in game engines...(Mp3 files sometimes need to be edited...this is due to the Mp3 encoding process which sometimes discards a tiny bit of audio information at the looping point...very annoying.) Anyhow, I'm very excited to be able to make the higher-quality Ogg versions available to my fellow creatives! Standard tracks (and those that don't have to loop seamlessly) will remain in Mp3 format so video creators can use them... (Premiere doesn't seem to support the Ogg format.) For those of you who want to bulk-download all of my Ogg tracks at once, my Ogg Music packs will still be available. It's taking some time, but I'm making very good progress...hopefully I'll have all my looping game music tracks converted soon. Enjoy! 😄

I guess that people must have been complaining to Panasonic that the S9 was too affordable and they really needed the same thing, but more expensive. 😉

It does look really good and if it only had a mechanical shutter, it would be golden. Titanium golden to be precise.

Unboxing here - I should say that it looks amazing.

Art… Over the last couple of years I have become increasingly disillusioned by “video”. Far too much emphasis on gear. Buying the latest drone or gimbal or battery solution and upgrading this or that or, preferably, both. And to what end? To produce something that a handful of people will watch once on a phone screen? Last year I had the opportunity to produce a couple of short promotional films for a heritage steam railway. They got in the order of 10k views. Were they “art”? No, they were artistically dreadful. Was there any joy in making them? Not really - far too many hours sitting staring at a screen trying to remember how to use Resolve. (And, to be honest, the parts people liked most were the iPhone bits - the “artistic” sweeping views and thoughtful sequences were redundant…) All the time wondering whether a Canon might be better (whatever that means) than my Sony? A LUMIX better than my P6k? Or should I look good and get a RED badge? Or a Nikon? All, of course, irrelevant… the quality of today’s stuff is way more than what I’m capable of. So a change of scene. I’ve bought a M11M to produce art for the wall. Something which will last beyond a quick Vimeo view. It’s gorgeous to use. I got a mix of Leica and Voigtlander lenses (the latter’s 28/35/50 Apo are fabulous). The results are incredible. Ok, so I still need to sit at the computer with Capture One but protecting the highlights and pulling up the shadows reveals staggering levels of detail. And standing by the side of a Scottish loch debating whether to use a green, yellow, orange or red filter? Well, it ticks the pseudo-intellectual hipster box. Of course, the P6k will come out of the cupboard every-so-often but the focus - the passion - is now on monochrome art. Art. In both process and product.

high praise indeed, from the man who's usually the one dishing out impactful photos 😉 If i am honest, i'm quite chuffed with my shot as well lol. These cattle had been penned nearly for two weeks as the trucks couldn't get in to load and have been fed and watered every day and in that time have really settled down, being handled every day. The yards really quite long and there's about 103 cattle in there and widens out on the right hand side. Although you don't see that many in this shot.

Just watching this video here, which is about the Sirui Ironstar 35mm T1.9 1.5x lens and am amazed at how different the looks are: This has loads of vertical bokeh: and yet, this has triangular horizontal bokeh (I think it's called Coma?): I mean, seriously: Then he compares them to the Blazar Remus which seems to have vertical bokeh that even gets more prominent towards the edges rather than less-so: and then compare that to a swirly bokeh image cropped to a broadly similar aspect ratio and the bokeh on the very edges looks similar: It's definitely not the same, but if it wasn't sharpened to within an inch of its life it might be a broadly similar aesthetic when put into a more normal scene. Or this crazy combo of Helios 44-2 and Blazar 1.5x adapter, which seems to have horizontal streaking on the edges rather than vertical: I'm beginning to think the bokeh is a lie, or potentially randomly generated!

Great shot of the cows.. like Mercer said it's window into chaos, and great use of the fence. I'm finding myself leaning heavily into the more vintage aspects of late, vignetting / CA / heavy film look / etc. I'm not sure why and I'll probably go too far and then pull back later once I've explored the territory. Perhaps the thing I like about anamorphic most is the non-circular bokeh as it gives a surreal feeling - our eyes just don't do that so it reinforces that feeling that movies happen in a parallel reality near ours rather than in the same one we live in. I find that the level of anamorphic characteristics visible in these lenses varies greatly between shots. For example this one shows quite a bit of it. and then this one seems to show almost none, including the complete lack of horizontal flares. In fact, despite shooting in crowded streets for quite a few hours over a few outings, I don't think I saw a single horizontal streak in the camera or footage. I didn't stand in the middle of the road while oncoming traffic approached, but the conditions sure had their fair share of almost direct LED lights set against very dark surroundings. Even this image, where the almost-white billboard was just below clipping and the sky is very very low there's no streaks... (on the GH7 the DR is so good I can almost always protect the highlights and still pull things up in the grade) @QuickHitRecord for reference the above shot was with the Voigt stopped down as I'd forgotten my vND filter, so that's how sharp the Sirui 1.25x can be, and this is how soft it can look too (not softened in post): It's definitely a rabbit hole, but one I am very curious about in terms of the images. It's interesting to compare the aesthetic to the test I posted previously of a very degraded spherical setup which in some ways is very similar and in other ways is very different. Loving this thread and looking forward to doing more testing when I get home.

It's a pretty subdued look, but I like it. I can't make out as many fine details as usual and I love when she's just a little out of focus. Also, I'm kind of over the horizontal flares. Nice shots. Especially the cows. Anamorphic projector attachments are definitely a way to burn up a lot of money on a whole lot of nothing. I could have made a down payment on a house with the amount I spent on them (though I did recoup some when selling). This time, if I end up buying anything, it will have to be pretty inexpensive. I can't look away from poor financial decisions as easily as I did in my younger days. I had a random memory of this test that I posted here 11 years ago. I never did anything with this combination. I should probably give it another shot. It's unique and I still have all of the components. And maybe there are better wide angle converters that will yield different results.

@maxJ4380 love this shot. Nice color and sharpness. I like how you used the fence rails to add an even tighter window into the frame... especially with how busy the frame is... A window into chaos. It also looks like a frame right out of Yellowstone.