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As someone less than politely pointed out on the other thread, I appear to have been a bit of a lazy arse in the almost 12 months since I tripped over and found the Cinelike d thing. You may recall it happened because I was researching making a hardware controller and after several iterations, here it finally is. And yes, it does look rather like a calculator doesn't it? The different iterations (including an Android app at one point!) have been in pursuit of making something small, standalone, self powered, fast connecting, push buttons and with an integrated screen at a lowish cost and, well, here we are. Here is the finished spec and features : Compatible with all Panasonic Lumix cameras that can be controlled by wifi Integrated USB rechargeable battery Full colour screen 20 keys with 3 bank switch keys giving 60 direct switch operations of functions Control of Aperture, ISO, Shutter Speed, White Balance, Colour Profile, Contrast, Saturation, Sharpness and Noise Reduction. Automatic unlocking of Cinelike D and Cinelike V on GX80/85, LX10/15 and TZ10 Control of manual focus in fine and coarse steps Control of One Shot AF Control of Record Stop/Start Store and Recall 8 focus points 4 selectable transition speeds between focus points Store and Recall 8 setup presets (each consisting of Aperture, ISO, Shutter Speed, White Balance, Colour Profile, Contrast, Saturation, Sharpness and Noise Reduction) Presets are stored in non-volatile memory so are available in any session. Boot time to camera connection and control under 2 seconds. Wifi control range tested to 20m. Optional accessories : Interface module to support Nintendo Nunchuck controller for manual focus control (native lenses and adapted lenses with smart adapters) and zoom (integrated lens cameras and power zoom lenses only) Wireless interface module to sync remote record and stop on supported Tascam, Zoom and SoundDevices audio recorders. The controller fits a regular cheap cellphone to threaded adapter holder so as well as being used handheld it can be mounted to anything you have a need for with the right attachment so could be on a cage or a gimbal or whatever. I'm going to be doing some more testing of it in anger in the next couple of weeks and I'll put up a video of it in action then. So, I have been a bit less lazy than first imagined By the by, the controller has both wifi and bluetooth so it begs the question would anyone be interested in a version of it for the Pocket 4K ??

Make it 40... to me this camera doesn’t even exist. Eventually we’ll have footage from John Brawley or Frank Glencairn or Noam Kroll and the footage will look amazing. More people will love it but a few will find something wrong with it... Eventually card info will be released, and more people will complain. Eventually AF tests will show up comparing this camera to the PDAF of the a6500 and more people will complain. Eventually low light tests will show up comparing this camera with the GH5s or the a7sii and more people will complain. At the end, when it’s released, a bunch of people will complain because they hate that they have to use an IR Cut filter and they will complain that they only get 45-60 minutes of battery life and that they wish it had IBIS... And eventually the usual suspects will be the only people that have the camera and the footage will be absolutely gorgeous. The End.

Wrote up a little guide for people new to this and looking to buy their first recorder. And is the way I see the world of low budget recorders is they're ranked like this (starting from worst/cheapest to best/expensive): Tascam DR22WL / Zoom H1 (I'd suggest skipping right over this tier of recorders! But hey, my first ever short film I did years ago was with a chinese shotgun running straight into a Zoom H1!! :-o Shocking but true... everyone starts somewhere!) Tascam DR60D mk2 (the DR60D mk1, before the mk2 came out, is what I myself started out using for no budget shorts as a budding location sound recordist) Tascam DR70D (the *minimum* I'd recommend for a location sound recordist, even if you're just a student / no budget guy. Although in desperate cases, you could scrape by with getting the DR60Dmk2, but doing the opposite and stretching for an F4 is very worthwhile. Certainly, I could travel back in time I'd just have gone straight for the Zoom F4 from the starts! *Except* the F4 didn't come out until a few years later... you live in a very lucky time with so many wonderful options to choose from!) or Tascam DR680 (these can be found at bargain prices secondhand, which is what I did before I then later on purchased a Zoom F4 once that came out & I spotted an F4 at a good price) Zoom F4 / Zoom F8 / Sound Devices MixPre6 (I skip right over the MixPre3, as the MixPre6 is very similar yet does so so much more at only a relatively small extra cost. Also I regard the three of F4/F8/MixPre6 as all on broadly the same level to each other, just varying slightly from each other in one area or another that ones might have a small lead over the other one. This is the tier where I'd see you're now reaching the semi-pro level) Sound Devices 633 / Zaxcom Maxx / Sanosax SX-R4+ (finally you have now got up to the "industry standard" when it comes to recorders people use for small shoots, especially when mixing from the bag. If you're doing this full time as your job or hiring someone who is, then likely this is what is being used. Either that or similar gear, or even something better above this) And if you considering ones priced above those last three.... you're surely doing this full time as a sound recordist and getting a healthy income from that, so why are you asking us here on Frugal Filmmaker? ha! :-P But yes, tonnes and tonnes more options exist at the higher end as well! Finally, if you're considering something in the budget range within what I just covered, but isn't one of those that I mentioned, then it probably is *not* a good idea to buy if you're intending to be a location sound recordist. Something else only might *maybe* make sense if you've got in mind some other purpose for it, such as perhaps you want to record a band in a studio (which has very different needs / constraints), or you're the rare exception which proves the rule, or you are getting lucky finding some amazingly priced deal which can make an otherwise bad purchase decision then make sense if "the price is right". For instance I didn't include the Roland R88, as I feel it is extremely poor value for money in 2017! However.... there was a time at the end of 2016 when the Roland R88 got a huge price drop because it was being discontinued. Even with that massive price drop, the Roland R88 probably still wasn't a smart purchase vs the Zoom F8, but the big drop in price at least made the R88 a somewhat competitive option worth mentioning in a round up of all the various choices. However, that sale is now long since ended, and the prices I see on eBay for a Roland R88 is even higher than what you used to be able to buy it new from B&H Photo! Clearly those eBay sellers are dreaming. Anyway, that was just one example which might have been applicable but isn't now, so I don't rule out the possibilities of something like that perhaps popping up again in the future especially if you very keenly look around for secondhand deals. But for over 95% of people reading this, that won't be applicable, and just stick to going with one of the main ones I mentioned earlier. http://ironfilm.co.nz/which-sound-recorder-to-buy-a-guide-to-various-indie-priced-sound-recorders-in-2017/

Nice piece. Oh and the cheque is in the post for this plug Mind you, I hope the notes he was taking were along the lines of "lets track this maverick down and license it" rather than "lets track this cheeky bastard down and sue him" !

Shot with the Blackmagic MIcro Cinema Camera with the Angeniuex 12-120mm 16mm lens, a cameflex mount modified to micro 4/3rds. For color, I brought into Da Vinci resolve and used Filmconvert with a Fuji Eterna film stock and softened it even more to Super16mm softness. Added a tiny bit of grain and that gave me a great starting point to harken back to a more organic look. I zoomed in digitally mostly around 20% - and it still was too sharp of an image. Why not shoot it anamorphic instead? Well, I am in love with documentaries of the 60s and 70s like Grey Gardens, etc. And they used this lens I think, and it has a certain feel to it that’s pretty beautiful. Let me know what you guys think of this.

I saw a film, swore to myself it was shot on 16mm nope it was shot on the red dragon. (Dayveon) Then I thought it was shot on zeiss ultraspeeds. Nope it was Canon K35s, which I think are similar to Canon FD glass. I saw another film, swore to myself it was shot on the alexa, nope it was shot on the c300 mark i (motherland) I was sitting 30 rows in the back, in the front, all over the place. I couldn't tell anything After all that, after everything we do, and say, at the end of the day, none of us can tell.

I've collected a few gems from Facebook:

Thanks for the support. If people don't agree with me on this, then I will at some point also cave in and do a run of big advertisements splashed on the site and regular sponsored articles. But if my readers say they're NOT fine with this, I won't. Simple as that. So speak up for the indies... not many advertising-free places left now on the internet. It wasn't supposed to be this way online.

Firmware 2.0 for the Panasonic GH5 has been officially announced, and will be available for download at the end of September 2017. I've been testing a pre-production version of this on my camera thanks to Panasonic, to bring you my first impressions of the new features which include: Professional 400Mbit ALL-I intraframe codec for 10bit 4K 4:2:2 "Open Gate" High Resolution Anamorphic Mode (4992 x 3744) Hybrid Log Gamma with view assist feature for HDR shooting New and improved autofocus engine for video Performance optimisations and bug fixes Read on to find out what it's like to shoot with...

Friday 7am London time sees the release of a firmware update for the Sony FS5 which optimises the performance of internal recording, fixing the issues spotted by early adopters of the camera including myself (Andrew Reid) and Paul Antico. Read the full article

Good news, bad news. Good news is that I have learned a lot about the srp( samsung reconfigureable processor) architecture. Bad news. It is very very very very complicated. Machine compiled c into binary. Unknown yet when it is loaded into the firmware and if the .cpp files that are listed are infact that, or just other hard ware controls So the srp is like an fpga in the way you can change what it does on the fly. It differs in the way that it uses VLIW instead of bits to do its magic. Reverse engineering the binary into something workable.. is possible, but time will tell if and how much can be changed. The plus side of a simple isp changing values in softwear can do something like what the gh2 hack did. The downside being you are stuck with the hardware. The plus side of the srp implementation.. Building a custom algorithm to..exchange the hevc codec with something else.. Could be possible. Unknown yet if the nr is a part of this or just a software implementation. Also if the rumors were true about the ml guys approaching samsung, this would be why it didnt happen. They dont release the srp compiler. One instance of them giving access to it at the SAIT school in Korea is all I could find. very very proprietary. But the dream for me of having a cheap 14bit 6.5k red competitor is what keeps me going. The confirmation of the UHS-II bus sweetens the deal. Going to investigate the possibility of a SD-SATA converter.. I wouldnt mind having a 1tb ssd attached to the back of the camera. TL:DR This camera is complex and things are not getting easier but still progression is being made.

Yeah. [email protected]

For long-time GH1 to GH5 shooters like myself, loyal from the beginning, at a time everyone else was shooting Canon, the S1 is a milestone. I have a bit of an emotional attachment to it already, being the first Panasonic full frame camera. It is not my first L-mount camera though. I’ve been shooting with the Leica SL for a few years now and it is still the most clean, ergonomic, minimalist full frame mirrorless body. It cannot, however, match the sheer size of the feature-set on the £2000 Panasonic S1. Read the full article

Of course Blackmagic are profitable but at the same time, compared to what the rest of the industry are doing, they are 'pretty much' giving away their products. Pocket4k with Resolve = US$1299 Adobe Premiere/After Effects/Audition subscription for 2 years = USD$1248 So after 2 years....yes, BMD have given you a free camera. ?

Trust me, I have my hands on some ProRes and DNG materials from the camera (acquired from NAB), it's clean af up to about 6400. Noise pattern is very pleasant fine grain, due to lack of compression obviously. The sensor is confirmed to be IMX294CJK, it's the STARVIS line from Sony Semicon with BSI design, originally intended for low light surveillance. ProRes screenshot:

Yes Marco, it's a speed booster prototype selfmade. It's possible. In the nex time I post my full work on it, and begginning the test on NX1 camera.

Ricardo is always posting such gorgeous framegrabs in this thread, so I wanted to give his settings a try for myself on my latest project... I'm really liking the way these are looking. (Graded with DeLuts and filmconvert)

(1) and (2): Some explanations. Scripts are stored on the SD card. SD cards are optimized for sustained writes and generally slower than internal emmc flash, especially for mixed read/writes. When you start to mix script reads and video writes you are confusing the sdcard (internal) flash memory controller and since the card is optimized for large writes it will behave badly for short reads like those of scripts. Especially when these are comparatively rare in between long sustained writes. The ARM core running Tizen and the user interface is single threaded and not very fast (the fast ones are running the non-Tizen T-Kernel operating the camera hardware). You WILL see slowness because the UI has to wait for the keyscan to finish which in turn waits for the scripts to finish which in turn get read from a (comparatively) slow card the SD before it (the UI) can continue with whatever it was doing. the scripts heavily use the Linux shell, launching it every single time a script is launched (and remember for us scripts are launching other scripts - nested scripts). Bottom line, there are several things someone will need to do before you will get better performance: RUN, don't walk, from storing any script/mod/hack on SD card. This is the single greatest reason for slowness, and to make things worse, it is highly dependent on card model (and more expensive cards will not necessarily make things better because it may happen that high end cards will work less well for small reads than cheaper "non-optimized for writes" cards. Otto is doing something about this but AFAIK it is still experimental although not rocket science. But you will also have to overcome your fear of storing mods internally. After all, once you did the BT mod, you basically did 95% of what is required anyway and successfully passed the "dangerous" phase of changing camera rootfs. I do think that we need to improve that mod to enable mod bypass during boot just in case something goes wrong with any of the internal mods, and that we need to have a "mod witness" permanently on the screen to show that mods are enabled, but this is minor. Eliminate multiple scripts from "production" mods. Scripts are fantastic for getting functionality in your hands and to allow fast test turnaround and mod interface evolution but ultimately there needs to be a consolidated mod that sits in ONE binary. This is, by the way, I think, one of the reasons for the fat di-camera-app that runs the entire camera UI. Script support needs to stay (both card and internal) but over time, all mods should aspire to be part of a main mod binary. Ideally, a mod should go through multiple stages: SD card based while it is evaluated and goes through fast changes and updates and while we are NOT CERTAIN that it will not damage the camera internal when determined as safe for camera and changes are not so frequent once stable and generally accepted, optimize and integrate as binary (non-shell script) in a main executable mod for fastest speed. There you go. Also, from what I can see in the firmware, it seems that the data flow in the camera goes: Sensor => DRIME (that is operated by T-Kernel) => Tizen kernel => write on card. The reason Tizen and not T-Kernel writes on card is that you cannot have multiple operating systems write on the card at the same time. This means that if we bloat memory use on Tizen, its capacity to maintain sustained writes is lowered compared to what it might achieve with more free RAM. In turn, this means: avoid shell scripts or heavy programs (like my gdb bitrate mod version). This, IMO, is also the reason the "poker" method allows faster performance than the "gdb" method. It is also the reason I am working towards an even better method than "poker" which will consolidate the "memory change" mods in one binary without the need to stop the di-camera-app multiple times (which is very time consuming for the CPU). Finally: Would anyone mind starting something like a gofundme campaign for a NX500. Mine needs a replacement power button (I kind of abused mine I guess) and I am reluctant to keep working on it after I get it repaired. It is too bad because with time, based on what I see in the camera, and if there was a developer community built around it, the hardware could achieve wonders. And to be clear, Otto, Kino Seed, Chant, and me do not "community" make IMO, like for example Magic Lantern. If you guys want anything close to ML you will need to do a lot more about spreading the word and competing for developers time/recruiting new ones. Regards Vasile

Well that took a bloody long time! But I've just this minute completed my new reel and site. It's not "announced" until Monday.... social media campaigns etc blah blah. But it's live! Check them here: View my new showreel and website! Some info Each and every image - I shot, lit, edited, graded. A little directing. Very involved in creative ideas. Core crew was mostly 4-5 regular people in these productions (Director, DOP, Production Manager, Spark, Make Up Artist). For the geeks - cameras used are Sony F55, FS7, FS700, RED Epic, GH3, BM Pocket. All images are music videos, but going for commercial/corporate work aggressively into the next year. (and still many music videos). The aim is to have 100% new material for Showreel 2016. Max creativity required. Anyway, if you like it or don't like it, whatever. Just thought I'd share.

Modified Sigma's smaller grip to allow it to hold a T5; haven't printed it yet so not so sure how comfortable it is.

If you want a bit of an insight into how relatively rare this camera still is in the wild, I doubled the amount of Pocket 4K cameras that were being used at the BVE Expo in London today when I got mine out of my bag. I plonked it down on a table that Zeiss had left brochures on but abandoned to setup my app and immediately drew a crowd who thought I was an exhibitor. Of course I did not disabuse any of them of this belief and promptly started demoing the living daylights out of my app.

Ive never heard a good DP complain that the Red Epic, Red Helium, Arri Alexa, Sony F55 are not full frame. I've put the Metabones XL speedbooster on my pocket4K and super happy with the look. Andrew, it seems that the whole BMD Manchester incident still has a bitter taste in your mouth. You are looking for any excuse to hate this camera in the same way that most heavy forum users look for excuses to hate on any camera and use a cameras lack of features as excuses as to why they are on forums rather than out shooting nice images. Sorry, I know that view is going to make me unpopular on a forum but I think it's kinda on the mark. Is the Pocket4K for everyone? No. The camera isn't a white unicorn....it isn't the perfect camera for everyone. No camera is. If you just want to shoot bare bones, in the hand video with no light, get an A7III. If you want to VLOG, get a camera with a flippy screen (although interestingly, I know a few vloggers that use Red Helium as a vlogging camera!). It really depends on what your priorities are. The Pocket4k is a solid little camera. Sure I wish the battery lasted longer than an hour and I wish the screen was easier to see in bright sun but having used Sony A7 series, Panasonic GH series and the Fuji X-T2 all as B cams, would I chose to shoot with one of those over the Pocket4K? No chance! I still need to add external monitors to those small hybrid cameras anyway and their battery life is barely any better ( apart from GH series) ........but the Pocket4k image creams them!

I use Natural (contrast -5 and saturation -5) and I store it as CUSTOM profile 1 .....leave the NR and Sharpening at 0 yes you dial the colour back in in post ,Im shooting alot of night interior scenes in this movie on sets and I want to record a much shaddow detail as possible , I dont want crushed blacks in camera . so contrast and saturation are -5 , it works great this way . I shot a whole moive that way last year and we got superb results with it. this was shot Natural (contrast -5 and saturation -5) with the colour dialed back in in post /grade. all that detail in the actors uniform would not be there with crushed blacks in camera .

Hey Andrew clearly this bothers you the he thing is you are making statements based not upon facts not assumptions. We don't know the full story here but I can tell you this if the presenter of a show I was working on (allegedly) punched a producer the show would be most likely suspended until this was sorted out. Love him or loathe him he is the show. He is what you see, a loutish, arrogant loudmouth. That's why he is so polarising. I personally grew tired of him a couple of decades ago but my post here is not about my personal feelings towards Mr. Clarkson. He does what he does very well indeed. There clearly is more to this than we have been told but hypothetically if Clarkson punched this producer unprovoked just because there was no catering that is beyond acceptable behaviour. He should be fired. If it was the other way round and producer punched Clarkson would the show be suspended like this? Would the producer still have a job a half million petition to bring him back? If there was a fight between them behind closed doors then maybe, just maybe they could sort it out between them. But in the public? It becomes something more...this is public behaviour. If Clarkson did punch him then it's assault pure and simple. Do we just ignore it and give out the message this is ok to do? No we do not. Last time I checked punching someone was still illegal. Yes, it's a massively successful show and brings in huge amounts of money. I think what the BBC have done is show balls! The cynical amongst us would have expected the Beeb to not want to lose their cash cow and sweep it under the carpet, pay off producer and carry on like nothing happened for danger of losing said cash cow. The BBC have to be beyond reproach. It's part of their remit. They are not a broadcaster like all the others. If they want to do away with the licence fee and make it a commercial station like all the rest then they could get away with the aforementioned cynical behaviour. They are the BBC. They cannot. They have a really bad stigma these days about very serious past incidents that they ignored. We all know what those are. They HAVE to be seen to not protect their stars and brush stuff under the carpet. No company should but especially the BBC given what's happened the past two years or so. so there are my thoughts. if you miss the show watch the movie version. It's more believable. "fast and the furious"

Hello everybody! So, I've attended the Blackmagic Raw seminar held at CVP here in London yesterday and I thought I'd share some impressions: Let's start with the bad news first: unfortunately there is no official release date for BRAW on the PCC4K yet.. They confirmed it is coming to the camera 100% but they want to make absolutely sure that the update is safe and won't brick the camera (which sounds like a sensible plan indeed!) ? That been said I can't wait to have the option to use BRAW, it's such a clever and well implemented solution and i reckon it will be the best choice on the PCC4K for 90% of the occasions. What really impressed me is how good the performance is in Resolve compared to CNDG, it is entirely possile to edit BRAW on a laptop without creating optimised media and/or dropping the resolution. To drive the point home even more they worked on a grading project that was hosted on a USB 3.0 spinning drive and it worked flawlessly, i was quite shocked when I saw a clip with a speed ramp set in optical flow playing at 24fps at full quality on an entry level MBP! Another super clever feature of BRAW is the ability to shoot with any dynamic range preset and being able to revert back to film mode afterwards, that is pretty awesome for dailies or things like that. I also very appreciated the fact that they were totally sincere in showing us the difference in visual quality between BRAW and CDNG and, although there is a slight difference in quality with CDNG being a bit sharper, said difference is only visible in extreme magnification (pixel peeping basically) so in real life BRAW is perfectly adequate especially considering the many advantages it offers in terms of workflow. The Blackmagic guys reckoned that CDNG would be the best choice only in very specific situations where having the best quality possible is paramount (like VFX for istance). Overall it's been a very interesting demonstration and i think BRAW will make the PCC4K even better value for money, exciting times ahead!

Looks like Blackmagic Raw isn't to far away! Someone from the Blackmagic forum went to a Blackmagic camera masterclass and noticed the P4K was running firmware with Blackmagic Raw installed.

Maybe they've deliberately chosen the 14th to announce it as its Valentines Day and they want to show some love to their customers. Or is it going to be a case of Roses are red, Violets are blue, Canon is Canon, No 4K for you.

Hey all, I've just finished up a new grading tutorial especially for any of you shooting CinemaDNGs. It actually works with any CinemaDNG, not just limited to Blackmagic cameras. In the tutorial I show you how get access to the full dynamic range, richer colours throughout the full range, and all in a curve thats a lot nicer to grade than BMD Film. Feel free to leave any feedback or questions and I'll do my best to help you out!

Here’s a quick screengrab from an outtake of my film. I don’t really love the shot but it shows what a fast wide angle can do on FF. It was shot on the Canon 28mm 1.8 ... pretty cool little lens.

I say that because BM has been making amazing professional level cameras for a few years now, at prices that most of us can afford. And now Aputure is doing the same for us with lighting, as well as some other products. I love Blackmagic, and I love Aputure. I already owned an Aputure Lightstorm LS-1S, and I love it, and I was able to get a hands on look at some of their other products. Lightstorm LS-1S - $700 - (I’ll start with this one as it’s the one I own and have experience with, and the others won’t be as thorough.) The ’S’ I believe is for spot, it’s very directional. It comes with diffusion paper that you can clip onto the fixture to soften the light and spread it out a bit, I use a shower curtain as well. 4 barn doors give you some control there too. The fixture is listed at 95 CRI. I believe it puts out 1K equivalent at 5500K. It’s dimmable from 25%-100%. In my tests I found 25%-50% was about a 2 stop increase, and then 50-75 and then 75-100 were a 1 stop increase each…. roughly. I love the controller box personally. It also comes with a remote that is probably very handy, but also easy to lose. I’ve basically given in to the fact that I will lose it. Everything feels very well built and solid… very much so. There’s a Sony v-mount one and AB one. I’ve not used this feature, but could come in handy in a pinch. The collar is solid an easily goes on a stand. All in all I couldn’t be happier with this light. You want a solid professional looking light that provides a bunch of high quality light, and this thing delivers, and would cost 3-4 times as much if anyone else were selling them. The low price is NOT indicative of the fixture’s quality. Honestly, their price is not low, everyone else’s is high, and I am happy to pay the legit price. I have done A LOT of research on building LED light fixtures and have made a half dozen of my own. I know what can be made for the $. Everyone else has been cheating us. Aputure got it right. Lightstorm LS-1C - $700 - I believe the ‘C’ is for color?… because you can vary the color temp from 3200-5500. Basically copy/paste everything else from above except that there is a 10%-20% hit to the output for the vari-temp feature. I was actually concerned about this and so I was sure to check this out at NAB. And after a super scientific test of shining both the 1S and 1C directly into my eyes, I can confidently say that they both burned my retinas about the same… I didn’t notice a difference. Also, I’ve heard there can be noticeable lighting patterns with bi-color lights. I forgot to pay attention to this but I’ve read that these lights don’t exhibit this. One thing that Aputure has not provided us with is a case. However, Jeremy Gay from Aputure showed me this cool solution, and also a nice soft box that was designed for a slightly larger fixture but still works for the 1S and 1C. Lightstorm 120t - $585 - I believe this one starts shipping in May. Right now it only comes in tungsten, but in a few months there should be a daylight version, and apparently a bi-color (though I don’t see how that is possible on this fixture). This one has a 97 CRI, I wonder if the daylight one will as well. It produces 1.5K. The cool thing about this fixture is they have created a couple accessories you can add to it. I’ve added some photos below. I am particularly interested in the soft box. The 120t is super light, but just a heads up the chasis is very thin. I don’t know that it’s a bad thing, but it doesn’t feel as solid as the LS-1S/C. It uses the same control box as the LS-1S/C. Again, a super powerful high quality low cost LED light. Personally, I’ll be more interested when the daylight ones start shipping. LS-C20 - $200 - This one should start shipping in September. It produces the equivalent of a 120 watt fixture, with a draw of 30. It has a color temp of I think like 7000 and is designed to use filters to change the temp or color. It is focusable from 12 to 47 degrees, has barn doors. It has some cool power options, and feels more solid than the 120t. I think this could be an essential light for my kit, especially for that price. D3 - $290 - This is a mic, and it is aimed at being a very affordable competitor to the Senn 416. They had this mic and the 416 set up right next to each other so that you could compare the two. And honestly, I’d say it’s a worthy competitor, VERY worthy. It’s got a super record level, nice sound, and great directionality. Ok. Let’s say the 416 nudges out the D3, maybe. But its like 90% of the quality for 10% (well maybe 30%) of the price. It’s an awesome mic, fo rizzle. If your looking to buy a new mic in the near future, don’t overlook the D3. I think this one starts shipping this Fall. As we already know, they make some great monitors, and had some cool lavs on display as well. I didn’t take the time I probably should have with these other products, but after my experience with the above, I would have no worries regarding quality with any current or future Aputure product (but of course always do your homework). Ok. I’m sleepy tired. Really got to go. Eyes are closing. Hopefully this was informative.

the extra $500 is the "you know you fuckin want it" tax.

Sorry for starting up another GH5 thread but figured this could focus on test footage/your first go with the camera. Here's mine - got it today, had 10mins of light left after work so took the kids to the park. A mix of 4K 50p and 180fps VFR, daylight WB, iso 200, Sigma 50mm on Speedbooster XL, Natural profile. Shot mainly wide open. No ND filter so controlled exposure with high shutter speed. PRO's so far: Options galore, amazing build, EVF/LCD= amazing. Picture looks GOOD! IBIS = incredible! CON's so far: Annoying sensor that flicks from EVF to LCD (can this be turned off?). Biggest con for me is not being able to flick to 180fps quickly. Had to dig into the menu every time. Really hope this can be assigned to a Function button but doesn't look like it so far. Grrr. I'm a GH4 and A7Sii user so looking forward to comparing. Be hard to beat a7sii but this beast might just do it!

I am now doing groundwork for mods that will be a lot more advanced. This is why you are likely to not see any visible progress for a while. In essence I am trying to zombify the di-camera-app to enable bi-directional communications between it and my mod infrastructure, and to introduce the possibility to "drive" it from the mod runtime.. If successful this should allow many things, potentially including native UI integration, true BBAF, native integration of focus stack & focus pull, etc. etc. My plan is to make it an extensible and open framework upon which others might build on (e.g. Otto) to deliver things that work in coordinated manner with the native app, and that are aware of what the native app does. This will allow, for example, to have the UI permanently up to date regardless of what the mod does (as opposed to today where mods do not update the UI because they are independent of di-camera-app). NB. Nothing above is a promise or commitment and you do not see any timeline, do you? PS. I still covet that lens ;-)

Hey Andrew, I appreciate the response, and I'm glad you like the content Chris and I put out. We look forward your feedback on anything we produce, and I've gained a lot of useful information and insight from this blog and the message boards. However, I feel that essentially calling out the entire review community for being in Sony's pockets is excessive. If you were in North America and wanted to test a production A6300 before launch, the only way to do it was to fly to Miami for the press event. I wish that it was an option to have the camera shipped to us in Calgary for testing at that time, as I have other productions and a family to focus on outside of my TCSTV work. But the A6300 is such an important camera that we agreed to spend a few very busy, not at all relaxing days testing the camera out. You have to remember that this is a time when a huge number of enthusiasts pre-order their camera before launch, so these pre-release videos can serve a very useful purpose. Most of the other journalists and reviewers I spoke with felt similarly. I'm sure a few odd ones didn't use the time to properly test the camera and wrote puff pieces about the camera and G-Master lenses, but many of us spent 16-20 hour days trying to make sure we had accurate impressions. I'd hate to see all of these people lumped together as shills for Sony. It's a huge compliment that you see us as an honest, respectable source, and we appreciate you embedding our video on the blog post. Chris appreciates your beard-envy. We hope you keep watching!

Hey guys, I've written a really simple command line app for Mac that will resample GH4 footage from 4K 4:2:0 to 2K 4:4:4 using pixel summing. This will give you real 10 bit data in the luminance channel, so it's not just doing a brute-force bump from 8 bits to 10 bits. There actually is some interesting pixel finagling going on here: http://www.mediafire.com/download/f7h950spj5hrn9f/gh444.dmg There's no GUI, so you'll need to run it from the terminal. Do this by copying the app into the directory that contains the GH4 MOV files and using the following command in a terminal: ./gh444 INPUTFILE.MOV Make sure you cd to the current directory first if necessary. You can do this by typing "cd" into the terminal, add a space, and then drag the folder containing the MOV files into the terminal window. It will automatically add the path to the cd command. It'll look like this: cd /path/to/gh4/files The app will spit numbered DPX frames out in a folder named "dpx_out." I'd love for you guys to give it a try and see if you find it useful!

I'm not offended by your post, but I do find it a load of tub thumping nonsense. 1) If a lead star on a production punched a producer, there would be consequences, even if it were Tom Cruise. 2) You seem to conveniently paper over the fact that he was caught saying nigger on camera and also called an asian guy a "slant'. Two of numerous offences that went unpunished and led to his final warning. If you want to move into this sort of editorial you need to put down both sides of the story, especially when your followers are not all UK based. This isn't bending over to political correctness, it is very lightly punishing someone for a constant stream of problems. Most other presenters would have been kicked in to touch long ago. You cannot let someone go unpunished, time and again, just because he is a creative asset and pulls in big bucks. I don't mind Clarkson, he can be funny, entertaining, no nonsense and clearly knows his cars. But that isn't a green light to do absolutely anything.

The great thing is, Speed Booster GH5S outperforms the 6K EF Pocket in low light as well. Unless you can get one of Luca's rather nice Magic Boosters. Who's for a GH5/GH5S Shooter's Guide?

I think I really just miss my Canon 24-70mm f/4...

Well as an old turd that has done a lot more stuff than I have deserved, or ought to have, and when I look back at it 75% of it was a total F ing waste of time family wise, stress wise, money wise, on and on. A persons life goes fast as hell, and you never know when you are going to die, or one of your family dies, like my first wife at a young age of cancer did. Hey it happens, but to go thorough all the stress, the shit you put up with in doing it, for really no real gain is pretty disheartening when you look back on it I can tell you that. You might as well live on a sailboat out on a river or the ocean, in a cabin in the woods and just sit back and enjoy life with not a lot of commitments. All those accomplishments don't amount to shit when you get divorced, have a heart attack, or wake up one day and your kids are all grown, and it's like man did I waste half my life for What! I know some of you people make a living doing this stuff, and a hell of a lot as just a hobby. I can see a trend here now in the Video industry that there is NEVER going to be an end to a better toy next year. It is like Smartphones now, You have to have the latest and greatest, and man in the video industry that amounts to a Hell of a lot of money. Tons of money. Is it really worth it. It all goes back to my first sentence. Is it worth all the bullshit? I bet it's not. I am not going to buy anything! I will use what I got, good or bad. A new camera won't make me that much better.

Hang on, let me just check my collection of 35mms ....

I've spent a day converting the existing GX80 Cinelike-D hack html file into an Android APK. There's an added color temperature function. This app should yield some usability advantages as it allows on the fly changes to the various picture profile settings and contains all settings on a single page. It also saves your last selected settings. Notes on installation: -Allow installation of apps from unknown sources Instructions for use: 1. Connect to your camera's wifi network 2. Start the app 3. Click handshake (ignore any update warnings) 4. Click recmode 5. Change settings before or while filming Other notes: 1. The app may erase existing settings saved in your various picture profiles 2. Camera IP selection is not yet implemented, apologies to those who do not connect to their cameras directly 3. Tested on a G7 Download link: https://github.com/lippyt/lumixlib/raw/master/lumix.apk

The DSLR filmmaker community is funny. It's like "Gimme 8bit proxy, 10bit, RAW, Canon colour science, Log, 4K, IBIS, DPAF and HFR in one package, in A7S form factor, max 2500 bux. I need a silver bullet that covers all cinematography and videography scenarios but make it cheap because I'm not a pro and want to shoot flowers/cat in my garden with it. Also has to shoot on SD cards because Cfast is too expensive". There's no silver bullet for everything in cinematography. Every camera body and ecosystem has its compromises. You can hold out for the perfect dreamworld unicorn camera, or you can pick up one that fits your shooting style and then actually shoot something. Also, the C200 looks awesome and exciting - and daaaymn, official 4K RAW on an affordable Canon frame, without the unreliability of hacking stuff. Had I not sprung for an UM4,6K recently I'd be throwing my money at the Canon.

Just toying around with initial tests and compared the recorded frame on the GH5 to an Epic W in 8K...not too far off. It all comes down to how you process your footage but generally, it seems like it's acceptable to look at the vertical resolution and use that to determine what a good finishing window would be. For instance, in the Epic W you record 4320 pixels tall in Anamorphic mode and no one has a problem referring to this as 8K Anamorphic. If you end up scaling down the vertical resolution at all to fit the window, it's generally acceptable to have the horizontal frame scaled up a bit.

That's the thing though. Guys like Bannon ARE engineering an invasion. The current administration wants a Christian vs Muslim war and they see it as divine destiny to win it. It's going to be your armed forces, men and women, who die in this, in far greater numbers than those who have been killed by "terrorist" wannabes, which are actually incidents of crime and murder, rather than acts of war and terrorism as the media and government portray it as. For example what happened in Berlin recently, was extremely tragic but the act of ONE SINGLE petty criminal murderer. Just because they have certain beliefs doesn't make them an army. No it doesn't make you white supremacists. It does make you a fearful paranoid bunch, unable to take responsibility for why people hate you. When these terrorist nutcases speak about defeating Christians, they're not talking about Canada and Sweden. Trump is making you a target. I can understand the US culture of gun ownership, it comes from protecting isolated farms and houses from a hostile lawless wild-west society. Those days are over if only you'd let go Tom! Fox News constantly spins this propaganda about Europe. There are not a million refugees on my street in Berlin or piling into bars in Manchester. It just didn't happen that way. 99% of the people who came over just politely blend in and just want to get on with their lives and bring up their children, then return to their homes once the fighting stops and the country of origin is ready to rebuild. Some will settle but that again is nothing new to Europe or the UK. The UK in particular has been a melting pot of nationalities for centuries. It gave us our best food, our best music, our best doctors and scientists. If only we could replace our lazy fat British chavs with refugees who actually have a work ethic, the economy would be even better. Merkel made a mistake by not controlling or keeping track of who came in but that's the price you pay for true freedom. Under Trump you're not actually free, you're not actually safe, sadly it's just an illusion. Trump and Bannon talk-up their Christian values all the time. Merkel did it as a good Christian deed and she did save millions of lives... I don't see Fox News praising her Christian values, or the fact she's an ex-quantum physicist whereas Trump has issues spelling the word 'tap' correctly. Yes, a few of the refugees who came in abused the situation and took advantage. A few more happened to do that and at the same time harbour mental illness. A few crimes occurred, as they do every day with people born here and raised here. Every single crime has been blown up in the media and put under the spotlight, because it's a foreign perpetrator. The media is heavily biased and has an agenda to get more clicks and sell more newspapers. That's how propaganda works. Look it up. It's fine to reject the globalist agenda You'll be left behind though Because it's a global world now, with the internet, out sourcing, mass production, consumerism and hugely beneficial trade links... You may not like it but you can't buck the trend of world history just by stomping your feet like a child and voting for Trump. It's not going to be rolled back long term over the next 200 years and next will come A.I., robots, and a whole other world order you can't do anything about... Leave a good legacy for yourself and your family and work hard. Alternatively, be remembered as that sad guy who got caught up in the short-lived wave of hysteria and supported a joke-president who is an even smaller footnote in the history books. Oh the irony. You have a 20th century European-style tyrant as your president and I assume you voted for him. So if anyone hasn't learnt from that it's you. LOL. This is Info-wars level batshit crazy. The global economy has pulled millions of people our of poverty and put food on their tables. Sony have camera factories in Thailand. Those factory jobs are NOT coming back to the rustbelt in the US. Manchester in the UK did not get the factory jobs back either. We adapted and went with a services based economy which is why there's now the BBC's second HQ there and a ton of film production studios. Who wants the miserable factory jobs back any way? We do have one thing in common - we both dislike political correctness. I'd like you even more if you were sane.

Gh5, a7s2, i know that i m totaly crazy but...last week...i've buyed another nx1 body with...16-50 2-2.8...all of the other cameras have somenthing better than my sam...but..i really love the image that i can obtain with this "old" piece of electronic...

IMHO, your Killary wasn't better. At least now her bloody hands are out of Libia, Irak, Siria, etc. Mine is another useless post, nothing to do with the camera world (sorry)

Interesting tool in firmware (at least on NX500): https://github.com/ottokiksmaler/nx500_nx1_modding/blob/master/Prefman_tool.md

Hey, I've been lurking for a while now, and now it's time to post something. I have a GX80 for a few months now. Last week I found the following video about a DIY windbreaker for the built in MIC. Now I thought that I could design something similar that could be 3D printed. So I did tonight. I still need to find some fabric to test it, but if it works I'll share the files.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWPyRSURYFQ Ok, check some scenes on the cinematography of the 1982 film What do you see? Well people have actual skin tones. When I saw the first scenes of the new one I was shocked, mainly because I love Deakins. How can he make something look so bad? It reminds me the starwars second trilogy fail. And how can you praise this 'film" not even shot on film. Too much CGI! Too much orange/ blue grading. This is not Deakins work, this is the graders film. Not a natural skin tone in sight, not a natural light or color in sight. Every scene looks like a commercial, fake, very proppy, very artificial and lacking in that futuristic reality, everything too clean and new and staged. Poorly designed surroundings no grit no dirt no reality. The first film was so fantastic because it looked so real! Coming to the acting, dear me, I can forgive the Gosling who is like a replicant in real life anyway. But JARED LETO? that babyfaced ass*&le? Too young too Jokery Too typecasted.. my humble opinion..

Thanks for the kind words guys. This was a fun and sort of insane shoot. I've written up a few words on lens selection, lighting, and post workflow with some BTS stills here: http://phfx.com/articles/forgedIn8K/ To answer a few questions. @Dan Wake - Editing native REDCODE RAW is something I've been doing for a while. This shoot was done this way using Adobe Premiere Pro CC which has GPU acceleration and adaptive resolution settings while editing. I even ran some of these files through my laptop and was able to "work" effectively. While this is not the only way of working, especially on longer projections with more content and assets, it's certainly something that doable not on a NASA supercomputer @araucaria - 8K is interesting. For display purposes I would prefer 8K to hit theatrical and exhibition use before it hits home. At the moment and for a long time, like a decade plus, UHD 4K is going to be the focused format for home use. Especially since every major studio has now come to an agreement on a UHD Premium Standard via the UHD Alliance. The resolution itself can be down sampled of course and that provides certain advantages as you mentioned to the debayering process. However, 8K will indeed land on screens and screens smaller than you think. I wrote up a paper titled "The Window Effect" that explains much about resolution and optimum viewing distances not too long ago. Here's a link to it: http://www.phfx.com/articles/theWindowEffect/ @Jimmy - Thank you Jimmy. IMAX theatrical presentation is one area I'd like to see this camera used the most. @DPStewart - Thanks Stewart. Resolution is all about "what type" of resolution it is. I have a great deal of experience in the world of motion picture film scanning and film's resolving power purely comes down to what format you are shooting, what stock you are using, and the glass you are shooting with. Super 35mm for instance resolves about 4K-5K worth of detail. Typically we scan it in at 6K and over sample to down sample to yield better quality results. At 6K resolution Super 35mm film's grain is globular and larger than a pixel. It isn't exactly sharp, but it's rather smooth. Most higher end digital cinema cameras that are using Bayer Pattern sensor tech are somewhat emulating that effect to a degree. When we get to larger film formats like VistaVision 8-perf, 65mm 5-perf, and 70mm IMAX 15-perf the resolution increases based on the negative size. If you've seen a full optical release of a properly shot IMAX film, it's still a tremendous visual treat. @Mattias Burling - Much of what I'm after with my images is due to my film background. I'd say not until fairly recently, like around 2013 did we actually get into the true potential of digital film alternatives when it comes to motion picture production. Film still has that magical quality to it that's something hard to truly define, but at this point there's certainly quality alternatives for those who choose the crazy world of digital capture. And it's a very controlled yet flexible format at that. Much of my earlier work before RED hit the scene and even before the PV Genesis was making digital cameras look more like film. Adding grain was one aspect of that, but I'll tell you 10+ years ago it was much harder to do than with today's cameras. Especially if you are using high resolution scans of actual film grain. @Goose - Thank you. Seems like 20000 people like it and about 3 don't so far But boy do those negative comments sting. @AaronChicago - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 has already begun filming on the first batch of 8K Weapons and it's going to be interesting to see how that translates to VFX and post workflow for sure. I think they are aiming for a 4K finish if I'm not mistaken. The standard in 2020 will still be mostly 4K, but 8K broadcast trials start this year and in 2020 NHK is hoping to broadcast the Olympics in 8K "somewhere". As for the next 10-15 years, yep, a lot of UHD 4K with a growing trend of 8K for productions that are looking to explore that world. HDR is going to be the next big thing that comes home it seems. @richg101 - You hit the nail on the head when it comes to glass Richard. That's the main reason I went with the Otus primes. However! I did also use a few several decades old Olympus OM lenses in there as well as a Leica-R and Canon 200mm (so I didn't set myself on fire). I have a feeling the Otus trio will be something I'll be shooting a lot of content with on the 8K. And much of this was f/2, with a few f/1.4-f/2.8 shots in there. There's something truly seductive about this format size and focusing on nuanced detail in my opinion. @Dan Wake - That flicker doesn't show in my ProRes masters here. It appears it's a YouTube encoding artifact. Had to watch both a few times to make sure I wasn't crazy. Seems to be minimized when watching full screen on a 4K display, but it's certainly weird.