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What I am incredulous about is not so much how we got to this point, but how this point even exists. Beyond stating that, I have no words.

Well, he just announced that at midnight, the tariff on Chinese goods will raise to 104%. I just can't stand all this winning.

Think you mentioned the C500 II... on B&H Deal Zone today for $4999. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1633519-REG/canon_3794c002_eos_c500_mark_ii.html

They're not. Source: How dependent is France on Niger's uranium? It's 2025. Nearly everything is using globalized supply chains. Even local agriculture that produces food will use machinery, fertilizer, pesticides or something else from abroad. The ship for economic isolation has sailed, it's not the 19th century anymore. While I'm sure there are things that need to be fixed about the world economy (e.g., labor practices in developing countries, adherence to environmental standards, etc.), this current disaster is not how anything good will result. We truly live in the dumbest timeline.

If an (unintended) consequence of all this nonsense is “buy local and buy less” then that will, I think, be a good thing. Not protectionism. Not jingoism. Not anti-globalisation. But nevertheless possibly better for the planet and for our own health & wellbeing.

Very good point about services. So when Dump talks about terrible trade deficits with certain countries, did he forget about Amazon Web Services, Apple App Store, Netflix, VISA, Master Card and Cloudflare? More to the point.. does he even know what they are? 🙂 Best way to fight fire with fire is for the rest of the world to kick out VISA and to sell all their reserve currency (USD) Then the Americans would come grovelling to us instead of the other way round.

While I agree that buying fewer things that you don't really need (only may want) is good for the environment, it's not the main result that will come out of this if the trade wars and tariffs continue. The main effect is that people who have low incomes will not be able to afford what they need to continue living, and the rich are comparately less affected (which is why a government led by billionaires is doing it). It's a move from progressive income taxes to a flat tax that mainly affects the poor and middle class. The billionaires know when to buy and when to sell because they have inside information of Trump's moves. So the billionaires sold stock before the tariffs came into effect and the common people sell in panic after the tariffs have crashed the stock market. After the crash the billionaires on the inside buy stock on the cheap after which the tariffs will be cancelled and the rich will have made a lot of money and the common people have lost their retirement savings. That's what this is all about. The richest people can never have enough. Industry will never return to the US because the American people are not willing to do that kind of work for as little money as the people who live in the 3rd world are willing to do it for. Not even close. Tariffs would need to be something 500-1000% for the manufacturing to actually return to the US. And that would make a lot of the American people poor in terms of what purchasing power they have. Instead, US sells services such as software and financial services to other regions, balancing the trade. This is of course not going to help them fight a world war because for that they would indeed need a manufacturing industry, which led to this dilemma.

I saw that! I appreciate you coming back to this thread to let me know!

To add to the buy local theme, with food it’s quite easy in some countries but very difficult in others. Here in Spain we can grow stuff all year round, it’s a big empty space and food is relatively cheap and easy to source locally, even in a big city like Madrid. Try that in Scotland, Malta, Egypt, Pakistan or many other countries that rely on global trade to feed their population or provide variety in produce. And that’s just food, which is usually just grown in one place and shipped to another. It’s not like technology which has different parts that come from all over the world to be assembled somewhere and then shipped somewhere else. I have no idea how they are going to calculate how much something is “worth” with so much instability.

I just went out into my back garden and turned the lawn into a field of soy beans instead. Someone has to feed those estimated 440 million piggies in China and I reckon I’m gonna get me a slice of that piggy pie.

Not sure how this is going to affect Spain. What is true is that more expensive goods have increasingly held their value in the second hand market as more and more people can’t afford to replace them with new since Covid. I have a 17 year old Toyota Corolla that I bought for about 3500€ 3 years ago (great car by the way!). It’s got another 40,000km on it and it’s probably worth more now! The camera market is a bit different. 2nd hand cameras have been getting cheaper (apart from some “must have” internet phenomenon cameras) and I’d expect a flood of people selling off gear if the economy starts tanking and prices will initially go down then shoot up when people realise they can only afford second hand gear. Unless Asia dumps all their cameras here at a discount! Spain’s main exports to USA seem to be olive oil, wine and some other products. We could probably do with changing the vast areas dedicated to monocultures as sooner or later they will all be deserts but like everything, changing tack from one day to the next is going to be problematic. The real problem is that no one believes that Trump won’t change his mind again or once he has some beautiful deals, that he won’t turn the screw again.

In pictures of the bottom of the FX30, it doesn't look like it has a cable hole for a dummy battery. AFAIK the FX30 can be powered over USB-C from a PD-capable charger or power bank (the manual states 9V at 2A is the minimum spec). Otherwise just buy some more batteries. As MrSMW suggested, if you choose carefully (in my experience) decent 3rd-party batteries can be almost as good as the OEM ones and are normally much cheaper (but avoid the really cheap ones - they are cheap for a reason...).

I dunno, I just popped down to the local magasin and right there on the shelf next to (the school kids buying) absinthe and Gauloise, were some bottles of the stuff labelled 'extra long shelf life 235'. Being serious, they DO pay much more for groceries here if it has a 'Made in France' sticker on it. We're not talking especially 'artisan sourced local product', but just every day things that are exactly the same. They fill up on the stuff out of national pride and fair play if it supports the supermarket profits. Personally, being a Brit, I'll go to LIDL or ALDI.

I'd also say that statements like this are often fairly privileged. The people I know who would self-describe as "localvores" or similar end up spending more on things like produce because it also comes with buying organic/sustainable and with well-paid labor. These are all things that I support and like - and I try to be mindful of them in my consumption as well, but I also have a good income, no kids, and I've paid off my house and car. For the people living in the house next door to me which is government-subsidized housing for struggling families, I doubt that "pay twice as much for your produce to support local farmers" is as compelling as "have enough food that school lunch is the only decent meal your kids eat today." It turns out that transportation costs in the modern world aren't huge and are dwarfed by a number of other factors. And as the stock market is already showing. The whole "buy and use less" thing sounds great - but instantly shifting to it from more of a consumerist mindset means massive short-term economic chaos, some of which may be unrecoverable. "I'm sure that in 1985, plutonium is available in every corner drugstore, but in 1955, it's a little hard to come by!"

If the dummy battery cord is long enough (or if you use an extension), you can keep the dummy in a pocket while recording. I did that once while trying to film a documentary about a friend's sled dog race in Alaska in Winter. For the unattended camera on sticks, I put the battery in an insulated bag that I hooked to the ballast hook on the bottom of the tripod. For the camera that was either handheld or on sticks with me, I kept the dummy battery in my jacket's internal pocket. The documentary fell apart for any number of reasons, but at least the cameras were working throughout the limited shoot.

I understand that there are those who are suffering much worse than we are, but it doesn't make the damage being done any less significant for those who are being hurt most. Besides, our kids might not being bombed but my nephew last month had a school drill on what to do if there's an active shooter. Shits pretty fucked up.

Also don't forget that many of those countries have looser environmental rules than the US. Of course, part of shithead's dismantling of regulatory agencies is to also relax our environmental regulations - won't we all be happy when there are toxic chemicals poured with impunity into the ground and water. Make America Bhopal again? If there's one thing that the US has done very well through most of its history, it's dislike foreigners! Nearly every wave of immigrants has been despised until a couple of generations after they arrived. Exactly this. A bunch of other countries have already started negotiations or entered trade agreements with new suppliers as retaliation against the US tariffs. Apparently soy exports to China have already cratered. Know anybody who wants about 18 billion dollars worth of soybeans? We have a few spares. Brazil, on the other hand, has suddenly found an excellent new market for theirs. Time for some farmers to illegally cut down some more of the Amazon to feed the demand!

Yeah, it's all quite obvious to us but apparently not to Trump voters, who only know the goal is to promote American manufacturing but don't understand the reality. The reality is that American manufacturing even when it's on US soil requires suppliers across borders, and all over the world. Raw materials that cannot be sourced in the US. Trading partners with cheaper labour - Mexico, Vietnam, China... And supply chains in Canada just across the border for automotive manufacturing and more... So even when you have dismantled all of this, aside from the fact US manufacturing will collapse if you do, there's the clear-as-day problem of wage levels... It just isn't economical to make large volume electronics (or much else consumer-wise) in the US due to the average wage level vs places like China and Vietnam. Foxconn employ a city's worth of millions. It's the big elephant in the room every time Trump bangs on about protecting American jobs and bringing manufacturing back home. What is the cost to the consumer? If he succeeds then consumers won't be buying much as it will be 1000% more expensive. Yeah, can you imagine TSMC bringing their fabs over to the US... The world's most expensive relocation for what... zero political stability, massively higher wage bill, there isn't even the talent pool for stuff like semiconductor engineering - it's mainly in Asia. They will not convince their best people to leave Taiwan and go and live in a hostile environment for foreigners (sad to say that about the US, isn't it?) And the other problem is that the US government, in particular Trump himself are making themselves look TOTALLY economically illiterate and completely untrustworthy in terms of managing the US economy, which scares off the investment even more. He wants maximum leverage for the upcoming talks with 50-odd countries. The danger here is that the damage has already been done. US untrustworthy. Global supply chains and shipping disrupted in similar manner as COVID. Inflation and supply problems beginning to mount up big style in only a short few days. Trillions wiped off stocks. And more shit... All for a supposably 'better bargaining position' in trade-talks. Then there's still the chance that they will just end up fighting with China rather than striking a deal and the trade-war rumbles on for years, leading to a military confrontation and devastating unemployment and poverty all over the world, but especially in the US and China. All because of one idiot and the idiots who thought voting for a convicted economically illiterate crook was a good idea.

The uncertainty really defeats many of the stated purposes. If the goal is to promote American manufacturing, manufacturers need to know that the tariff will be in place for their entire company's history. Even simple items like clothes take time to build large-scale manufacturing for--why would anyone invest in a factory if the tariff could be gone next year? Let alone complex items like cars or chips, the ones that we would actually want to build and export. I mean I don't necessarily look at low-tech industries and think, gee, I wish our country was built around competing with child labor sweatshops. Of course that's disregarding that the tariffs are also claimed to be leverage to get better deals (ie designed to be removed when a deal is struck) while simultaneously a source of federal revenue (ie designed to be permanent).

Sanity Prevailing Update : Trump has just said he will add an ADDITIONAL 50% if China don’t withdraw their retaliatiory tariff by tomorrow.

Yes, they appear to have exported a Manchurian Candidate to the US completely tariff free. Well it did cost them the price of some new bedsheets sheets, a mop and a couple of MiniDV tapes but still a sweetheart deal. I wonder if there was a 50% tariff on wives whether Trump would have paused for thought as they are the only things he seems to have any practical experience of importing.

This AI stuff is great, it saves so much time, creating subs, remixing music, mixing the audio, soon it prolly will match log footage from different camera's perfectly. And then you can creatively focus on the overall grade.

In that case, why don't these companies just do that? A 2.5k or 3k raw image from a 6K sensor would look amazing, need less storage, have better rolling shutter? Higher frame rates, and be closer to the OG Alexa resolution. Why do they have to force crappy versions just to keep the resolution higher?

It's an aggressive entry level camera with strong video specs, I love that Nikon is coming out guns blazing! Weird though that they aren't getting a lot of the same guff Panasonic gets for using "old" sensors and for "terrible" rolling shutter. 🤔

"The S1RII feels like it was created for people taking mostly photography of still subjects." I guess I don't understand how anyone thought it would be otherwise. I mean, that's what the R stands for. I continue to be amazed at how the online crowd managed to psyche themselves into thinking camera was going to be something it was never intended to be. It's a photo-centric camera with a massive video bonus. It's not an S1HII. It's not a Sony A1II. Especially considering only 6 weeks ago we all thought it was going to be just a cheaper Leica SL3 (cue the moaners saying 'I wish it was' as if there wouldn't be a horde of complaints). I just got mine and it's exactly what I wanted. Now I can get off the terminally negative online train and get snapping.

Just watched the first episode. Very good stuff. The single take is extraordinary but almost seamlessly unnoticed at same time.