Leaderboard

To those like me, this is the most important day of the year, so my best wishes to everyone!

Been using the GH6 with the cheap 7artisans 24mm 1.4. I really like the lens, are there any other 7artisans hidden gems?

The only setup that's truly "wrong" is one that you don't enjoy using and that doesn't get you the photos that you want. The primary camera of a friend of mine is a pinhole that she made herself from... I think it's a coffee can or a cocoa powder jar. The photos are low-resolution, dreamy, and perfect. My setup would be totally wrong for her, or you, but I quite like it! I was at Photostock a few years ago when David Burnett was the speaker - he is famously still shooting sporting events and major political events using either a speed graphic or converted Graflex SLR with an Aero Ektar. At that event, however, he was carrying the camera he uses most of the time - an A7c with a small Sony lens. Not a setup that I'd choose, but if it's good enough for one of the most famous living photographers, it's probably not "wrong." 😅 A number of the big name classic cinematographers/filmmakers favored lenses between 40-60mm or so FF equivalent. A lot of classic street photographers like 35-50mm because it's seen as immersive. But if you want an outsider perspective, your choice of a 70mm seems appropriate!

https://fotodioxpro.com/products/fltr-spy?srsltid=AfmBOorgYN_vx9pKJxxTg1DIdSUlKXOxH46m5QoEa0-ggy5WdjZGQmhq

After digesting my trip to China, I'm now planning the next trip to Japan, where we're mostly in a remote location but we have a few days in Tokyo in the middle so I'll try and spend as much time shooting there as I can (which really means leisurely meandering around shooting and having breaks with delicious food / drinks etc). My equipment lessons from the China trip included: The GH7 is a workhorse and I don't think about using it at all, just on what I'm shooting The 14-140mm is a great all-round day lens for home video stuff The Takumar 50mm F1.4 on speed booster is good, but a little soft on the sides of the frame and the rectangular insert is probably a bit much I also learned a bunch of stuff about how to shoot in crowded situations without drawing too much attention to myself. I suspect that this is an infinitely-deep rabbit-hole that the best shooters probably do unconsciously, but like all things practice makes improvement. One thing I did that I think also worked well was to just shoot as fast and as much as possible. Not only did it lead to more shots and variety for the edit, but I think it also potentially helped me be less in my head and shoot more instinctually, which I suspect will yield more creative and expressive results. I've been thinking a lot (and talking to friends) about what I'm learning and what equipment is appropriate: The 70mm FOV seems potentially universal because in crowded situations you want to focus in on something so the frame isn't just full of chaos (photography is the art of subtraction), but in situations where there are less people you get spotted at a much greater distance and so having the longer lens means you can still get closer shots of people without actually getting close to them If my goal is to make edits that feel more immersive, then it makes sense to shoot with a lens that's roughly "normal" so it has a perspective similar to the human eye, which is about 50mm on FF. Having 70mm is a bit longer and would introduce a slight element of distance between myself and the subject, which is emotionally appropriate as I am an outsider in the places / cultures I visit, so this is coherent and adds to all the other decisions I'll make in what I shoot / how I shoot / how I edit / etc. I mentioned wanting a lens that was a bit sharper on the sides of the frame to someone and they countered by saying that having such a limitation will make my work more consistent (not only from the images themselves but also because it means I tend to compose with the subject nearer the centre of the frame) so this is a reasonable counter-point Despite all this, I suspect that I'll want a wider lens for when I get into the emptier narrow streets where it's more about the location rather than the people in it, and I suspect this is closer to 35mm or so As such, I'm mostly settled on the following lens contingent: 9mm F1.7 - for getting that wide-angle distortion that makes buildings etc really pop 14-140mm F3.5-5.6 - for day-time home video shooting 50mm F1.4 with SB - for that 70mm "night cinema" goodness 12-35mm F2.8 - for the wider "night cinema" duties, and being a zoom it means that I can use whatever focal length works for this task (35mm equivalent is just a guess) but also combined with the AF I can shoot a variety of angles / compositions really quickly I'm also likely taking the following, partly as just-in-case and partly to experiment with: TTartisans 17mm F1.4 - if I find that the 35mm FOV is desirable then this is a fast prime I can swap to TTartisans 50mm F1.2 - obviously I'm a fan of the 70mm FOV and I wonder if this 100mm FOV would be useful / workable, especially as it's super fast with shallow DOF Risespray 35mm F1.6 c-mount - this is about a stop slower than the Takumar+SB combo but seems cleaner wide-open so is a way to challenge my assumption about needing the speed of the Tak I'm also contemplating shooting 24p rather than 23.976p, and also 1080p instead of C4K. Both decisions have pros and cons to them though.

As an American I'd like to quote the immortal words, the best words, the POTUS has shared on this holiest of days, "Praise be to Allah" Seriously though, it would be wonderful if there were more folks truly (not just pretending) trying to live by the actual authentic philosophies of the New Testament. If only we could be so lucky. Happy Easter.

(Cross-posted from reddit) I've been working on and off for a while now on a Leica M mount for the Ursa Cine 12K LF. I was having problems with minor flexing in the plastic - and the random Micro 4/3 to M mount adapter that I used as a donor turned out to be a bad choice for a few reasons. In the meantime, I found some ways to mitigate the plastic flexing and I disassembled a Fotodiox L mount to M mount adapter and found it a lot more suitable, plus with a larger diameter which also seems to help with stability. Because of shape of mount cavity on the camera, the lens also needs to be mounted upside-down with my mount. Unfortunately, there is some play in the adapter so any lens will need support if racking focus. This latest prototype still focuses just a little too much past infinity with the f/1 Noctilux so I have one or two more prototypes to dial it in just a little closer - and then I'll switch from the cheapest PLA in my house to PCCF and print what I hope will be the adapter that I actually use. Limitations? Every modern Leica M lens that I own (21, 24, 35mm) that is 35mm or wider cannot be used. They stick out past the rear of the mount and would impact the glass in front of the ND filters. Similarly, with my Simera-C set, However, my incredibly old 35mm/3.5 Elmar does not protrude and, as can be seen in the couple of snapshots I took from the last round of testing, works great (and is beautiful, as it is on any camera). That's the widest L mount lens that I own that can fit. HOWEVER While using my M mount glass is part of my goal in building this, the bigger bonus is that having a Leica M mount lets me adapt a bunch of other vintage SLR glass that is not otherwise usable (without mount conversion) on the UC12K LF. And since those lenses were designed for SLR's, the wide angles don't protrude. This will address one of the few things that I've found to be a bummer - I really love my FD mount and Minolta SR mount glass! With an FD to M mount adapter, they will all be 100% usable now. In this round of testing, I checked the 50/1 Noctilux and the 35/3.5 screw mount Elmar - both are gorgeous lenses on any camera that I've put them on and this is no exception. Did some 3:2 frame grabs from Resolve with no grading done beyond slapping on a BMD film to rec.709 lut. I also seem to have done the math wrong for a 3:2 ratio in Resolve, but I'm also not going to bother going back to fix the slight letterboxing.

Nikon has a new boss An optics engineer... not an accountant. Wishing him well for the future...

I've been told it's a decent camera for indy films.

Let's keep the debate goin' ...Can't wait for the next great prompt artist to really bring their vision to the screen. No one prompts as well as that Vogel dude. That guy prompts. Why try to create a golden hour scene when you can just ask for it? Nothing says artistic cinema like a computer deriving and stealing other's hard work. :-| Should we go to an art museum to look at some lesser talent's paint-by-numbers? The creation matters. Now let's do motion pictures. Cinema has always been craft as well as the art. Minimize the craft, minimize the art.

Here you have straight from Mr. Vogel, Mike Vogel, Milady: Love this one BTW... Addressed to all naysayers : X

Highly unlikely they'll produce two versions. More than likely you purchase the base kit which is basically a GoPro and then for X dollars more you can purchase the cinema kit which will be a new faceplate that has some type of mount. Probably a weird bayonet or c-mount. From there, they'll sell you adapters to PL, EF, etc... The screen will go away on the cine plate but they may leave an hdmi port for a monitor. Once you unsnap the faceplate, you can unplug the screen which you can reconnect to the hdmi port... or whatever. Either way, interesting camera.

I’m probably biased as both a Nikon Df user and someone who thinks these two are pricks but even so I wasn’t sure that my contempt towards these two could get any bigger but here we are. They even went after the Leica CL. Of course if any of the cameras on their list was released today they would be shilling the shit out of it. Because that’s what they are, paid promoters of newness. No new gear, no pay day. Not exactly overflowing with content about great used alternatives that channel is it ? And that tells you all you need to know about them as a serious resource.

Even better than that, I have the camera on a wrist strap and shoot with it at chest height like you describe, which means that when I'm walking / standing around the camera is barely visible, unlike a shoulder-strap where the strap and camera are front-and-centre all the time. Lots of other things come to mind.. If there are people standing around in clumps, stand right next to one of them. This way you'll sort-of become part of the group, so people walking by will just identify there's a group of people there and 'see' all of you as one thing and walk around you, and people looking around won't be drawn to you as much as if you're on your own against a clean backdrop - this is sort of like camo clothing where you are trying to obscure your silhouette. Pause a few seconds before showing the camera. If you walk up near someone and stop, they'll probably glance at you to see who you are, what you want, etc. If all they see is someone doing nothing (ie, not a threat or opportunity) they'll go back to what they're doing. Shoot people who are distracted and doing things. Most people who are distracted are just on their phones, but contrary to internet hype people do still do other things, and unless you're working on your doco series "People on their phones - Episode 27" its good to seek out these moments. Shoot through people / things. Be careful how you move and approach shots. I try and be very focused on things that are just becoming visible. As soon as you can see them, they can see you, so it's best to not get closer than you need to. The further you are away the more likely there is to be layers to shoot through too, so that's a bonus. People also have a sixth sense that someone is looking at them, even if you're looking "at them" on your camera screen, so although you can approach someone from the side or even from behind and they'll just turn and look right at you. I'm not sure how to navigate this, but I'm sure there's some way to influence it that I haven't worked out yet. This lady was facing directly away from me when I started filming and then turned suddenly a few seconds into the shot: The guy nearest me suddenly turned around to look at me, despite none of his friends noticing me beforehand: I know people do look around sometimes, but the timing is uncanny, so it's definitely a thing. The old trick of finding the backdrop and waiting for someone to come into shot is a good one too, which is what this shot was. It has the benefit that you're not coming into their environment, they're moving through yours. Any situation where you're shooting through layers has the potential for someone to come into shot too. I was shooting compositions using the bikes mirrors and then a lady came and parked her bike right in front of me. I'm pretty sure she knew I was there, but as I was already standing there when she arrived I wouldn't have triggered that 'a new person just arrived' reaction, and also as she arrived at the situation from somewhere else she was probably quite distracted as the whole situation was new and she was trying to park her bike too, so it's possible she was completely oblivious to my presence. Anyway, that's some further thoughts. There's a lot online about how to stealthily take street photos (e.g. Garry Winogrand pretending to fumble with his camera, etc), but much less about street videography where you have to essentially remain motionless for many seconds while rolling, plus you can't 'drive by' people and freeze them with a short shutter speed either. For one reason or other most of the street photography tricks don't really work. I'd imagine that @BTM_Pix would be deep down this rabbit hole..

The zebras work in 8bit on the display, any value above a certain brightness i.e. 250-255 get the zebra treatment. When the picture profile is changed to Z-LOG for the wider dynamic range, and the values aren't clipping, the highlights won't get zebras. Without hacking Nikon's firmware, it's not possible to add them for Z-LOG.

A steam train visited Sydney for Easter so it was fun to capture some video of it.The day was overcast so didn't use any ND filters.The lens is an clunky old AF-S 24-85 non VR that needs persuasion to get past a notch at 50mm

Happy easter everyone, good spring weather to get the camera bag out

Last year I experimented with a Digital Bolex and an iOS app that recorded the gyroscopic data from the phone. I took the footage and the phone's sensor data in Gyroflow software and was able to stabilize the footage. It worked well and I was impressed by it but cumbersome in the field to shoot with as you have to start the app and then start rolling the camera, it was more trouble than it was worth for me at that time so I didn't continue with it. Now I hear about this new product called Niyien Senseflow A1. A tiny little thing that you can put in your cold shoe and only have to start it once per day. Seems pretty neat. I'm pondering getting one and trying it out. I'll let you know how it goes. Does anyone on here have one and can give their experience with it?

There is also Chinese camera manufacturers like DJI,Insta360 and Z-cam capturing specialised market share

They could learn with Blackmagic. They could learn with Red.

Speed boosting a 45mm f/2.8 lens onto a smaller sensor with a 0.71x converter gives you a 32mm f/2 lens. That's it. If you like the character of the medium format lens, that's great and it's a worthwhile endeavor. But aside from the character unique to that model of lens, it won't look appreciably different from a 32mm f/2 lens that was made to cover the format you're adapting to. That said, I've been thinking about building graflok DOF adapters that I could stick on some of my medium and large format cameras - not because there is an intrinsic medium or large format look, but because I have some really interesting older lenses and when I adapt them to smaller formats, I'm just using the pretty good/well-corrected centers of the image circle and not the cool outer edges where things get interesting/cool/weird. I think a medium format one might be my next project after I finish the M mount for the UC12K (which is looking like it will be tomorrow sometime?). I have a kind of beat up, but otherwise unmarked 6x9cm ground glass handy. It'll at least be good enough for a proof of concept. Most of my 4x5 stuff has either a fresnel (visible lines!) or grids on the GG, but I also have at least one spare 4x5 GG lying around that I could use for a proof of concept. Oh, and now that I think of it, I have an old Seroco 4x5 which has clean GG and I think it's from the 1920's or so - maybe I have a project for tomorrow while I wait for another iteration of my UC12K mount to finish printing (now that I'm near the end and printing the entire part, the prints are taking about 3 1/2 hours each).

I watched that video and instantly didn't regret unsubscribing from the PetaPixel YouTube channel. I think I lost 3 IQ points watching the dumb infotainment of two adult humans whining about cameras that someone let them use for free, especially about some of the petty shit they cite as an example. That one Olympus was too big? Who cares? They also make/made smaller cameras if that's what you want. Plus they didn't even get creative when picking "worst designed" cameras - would have been more interesting to go with potentially revolutionary cameras that couldn't live up to the hype - throw out stuff like the Lytro and the Light L16. It'd still be a dumb video, but at least there's some interest in it.

The Duke and Dorkess of Dividends

Stipended Shills Of Shininess

Haha, "paid promoters of newness."

This guy has made a great tool to make Resolve super easy to use. In his examples he makes pretty great looking grades within seconds, and it's all done inside the EDIT page, using the viewer as a slider canvas. Drag up for more, drag down for less.

Gotta find a retired old dude that's now an aspiring guitarist -- that used to work in production in the 90's and happens to be sitting on a closet full of short ends. Shouldn't be too hard, right?

35mm is daunting, but it's not my first time shooting film. It's been decades, but I've rolled 16mm before. I just think it's funny that I'm so frugal about modern digital gear, yet here I am seriously thinking about spending 200x more money to accomplish ... well, let's be totally honest, nothing of substantial IQ advantage! I mean, I bought a EM10III for $300 a few years ago, and that camera will shoot impressive 4K. I can't even get 1 minute of 35mm film shot and scanned for less than that. I'm very amused at how ridiculous this all is.

100% - I'd assume that this was the best image that an expert with all the other associated equipment was able to get with a decent travel budget and after a decent period of having it. I've always maintained that there are three useful references for a piece of equipment: The best images that anyone is able to create This shows the upper limit of its potential The images that competent reviewers get This shows the type of images that people of moderate skill are able to get in non-ideal conditions The worst images You never get to see these until you get one yourself, but in theory this would show how fragile/flexible the camera is (for example you can expose an Alexa pretty horribly wrong and still get a half-decent image from it, but try that with a camcorder and it's a complete disaster) The promo is only the first category, and the fact there are only a few shots in there is a statement in itself. I think the 15mm is a lot better than people make out, but of course most discourse online is from people who think that a Zeiss Otus is the ideal lens and that Michael Bay doesn't use large enough apertures. To be honest, when reading / listening to most opinions now I am just hearing that the person hasn't been to the cinema for years, hasn't watched any/much classic cinema, and isn't even familiar with the saying "F8 and be there" let alone thinks that it is the cornerstone of almost all the important photography in the history of the field. I was always interested in the 9mm but as I bought the SLR Magic 8mm F4 as one of the first lenses I bought, then upgraded to the Laowa 7.5mm F2 lens later on, the selection of slow wider pancake lenses was never really justified for me. Right, I guess that makes the moon shot even easier then. If you have enough light then almost any camera will look pretty good. Looking at the mount again, there doesn't appear to be any visible mechanism to attach the lens.. I'm wondering if this might be a magnetic mount of some kind, like MagSafe perhaps. If that's true then it might just be a matter of pulling the lens off and snapping another one on. That would certainly fit with the GoPro ethos of it being a fast no-nonsense experience.

These days, my travel setup looks a bit different, but with a similar goal of traveling light. I just bring the GFX 100 II and for lenses, the EF 35/1.4L II and the Fujinon 110/2. I used to bring the Fujinon 32-64/4 instead, but then I needed to bring something for lower light/night shooting. Plus a 2x zoom makes less sense when I can just crop anyway. I was looking at the GFX 100RF, but it's really not all that small and when I realized I was willing to accept a fixed 35 with that, I decided to just do the same thing, but, y'know, fast. For video, the GFX also makes it more like I have 4 lenses instead of 2. I can record in 4K or 5.8K at full sensor width - so effectively a 28mm or 80mm lens in FF terms - but if I switch to 8K, the crop is close to FF so I also have a 35 and 110mm lenses - with plenty of resolution to crop in if I want to. The fact that it's 8K is less interesting than it being a bit cropped. 😅 I don't really need to get all that wide so the 35 is usually enough, even if I crop in a little when IBIS darkens the corners a little. For photos, there's enough room to crop in that I can get reasonable results going anywhere from around 27-28mm on full frame to... something like 200-300mm after cropping. For ND filters, I just bring a set of Kase clip-in filters - ND8, ND64, and ND1000. The entire set fits in a tiny little box and weighs almost nothing. For a tripod, I... don't. The IBIS in the GFX is decent enough that I can get sharp photos handheld as long there's at least some light (if it's too dim for around 1/15second at f/1.4 at ISO 6400, that's rough - but it's just not a scenario I'm optimizing for these days). Limitations? Longer exposures for waterfalls are hit and miss. I usually just turn on the 2s timer at about a 1 second exposure and shoot it like 5 times and if I don't get something that's sharp with smooth water, I decide that wasn't meant to be. I have a lot of pictures of waterfalls already (I really like waterfalls). The camera and lenses are obtrusive - the GFX 100 II is smaller than my GFX 100 was and that's nice, but it's still not small. Rolling shutter in some modes is enough to be noticeable even with relatively small movement. The fact that it's obtrusive can be a really big problem - in a lot of cities, it's not a camera to casually hang around the neck and stroll around. I'm in Sao Paulo right now - there are only a few parts of the city where I'd even bring it out. BUT the good news is that my phone (iPhone 16 Pro) works absolutely fine in all of the places where I wouldn't take out my big obtrusive camera. The iPhone is good enough that I take out the big camera less and less, even when it would be totally safe to take it out.

I've seen this before, but usually it's with channels (especially old ones) that have been hit with copyright strikes and such. Mattias's channel take down seems to be voluntary and perhaps political. I simply don't have the hard disk space to save all the videos I really enjoy, but it makes me really sad to say goodbye. It feels like it's the digital equivalent of burning books and erasing history. Personally, I don't think I could do that. Then again, we don't know the exact circumstances. @Mattias Burling, care to respond?

It started with the YT AI slop science channels. It has progressed to AI generated "Let's Play" slop content for children. They WILL start using it to make commercials... ...then move on to making kids shows for your kids iPads so you can go to work and forget about parenting... ...then endless Netflix AI slop TV shows for the parents... ...parents that went in to debt to go to college but didn't learn anything because they used chatGPT to write their papers and get their grades... ...who then go into critical jobs without knowing jack shit... ...which they will then lean heavily on chatGPT to do their jobs (because that's what they learned in college). The lucky ones will die in the next drone war powered by Anduril.

I don’t really agree with “if you can’t beat them, join them” attitude to stuff like this. Being a right wing imbecile is very much on the rise but it doesn’t mean we should just fall into line with it. AI should be used for taking away mundanity like doing the dishes and laundry from our lives to free us up to do the fun and creative stuff not steal that from us. I’ve got admiration for whoever’s work was used to “train” this but only contempt for those who are facilitating and grifting on the blatant theft of original work. Do you not see that these tools that you are espousing will only make that situation immeasurably worse ? This will literally give these people the ability to say “yeah just make that last one again with a slight variation and set in a different location” and churn this shit out even faster and with waaayyyy more profitability than they do now ?