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Showing content with the highest reputation since 03/29/2026 in all areas

  1. Recently came into possession of this nice and functional 35mm 2C-BV ARRIFLEX. Before I eventually sell it I'm considering shooting a 200' roll to notch that experience; just to say "I done done that" 2 whole minutes of footage! What the hell. Ain't cheap, kind of financially stupid to do this sort of undertaking, but maybe ultimately worth the effort, I think? Anyone out there willing and able to offer advice regarding the lens situation with these old things?
    4 points
  2. (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.
    2 points
  3. Nikon has a new boss An optics engineer... not an accountant. Wishing him well for the future...
    2 points
  4. 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.
    2 points
  5. mercer

    New cinema camera...?

    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.
    2 points
  6. 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.
    2 points
  7. mercer

    Lenses

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

    Happy Easter to all!

    To those like me, this is the most important day of the year, so my best wishes to everyone!
    1 point
  9. 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?
    1 point
  10. There is also Chinese camera manufacturers like DJI,Insta360 and Z-cam capturing specialised market share
    1 point
  11. They could learn with Blackmagic. They could learn with Red.
    1 point
  12. 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).
    1 point
  13. I've been told it's a decent camera for indy films.
    1 point
  14. 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.
    1 point
  15. Here you have straight from Mr. Vogel, Mike Vogel, Milady: Love this one BTW... Addressed to all naysayers : X
    1 point
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  18. 1 point
  19. 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.
    1 point
  20. 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?
    1 point
  21. 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.
    1 point
  22. As this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and you'll likely be overwhelmed with the logistics of using a camera you've never used before + a format you've never used before + a cost per second you've never experienced, my suggestion is to keep it simple and keep it meaningful. My suggestion for lenses.... Go to a rental house and tell them what you're doing and get their recommendations. I'd suggest lenses that are neutral in look, easy to use, reliable, and probably not too heavy / expensive. Perhaps something classic like a set of Zeiss Super Speeds (which were popular for a reason!) etc. My suggestion for shooting..... As this is a never to be repeated thing, I'd suggest shooting people and places and subjects you love. Not only will this be a lower-stress approach, but you'll end up with lots of images that will be relevant for the rest of your life, and perhaps longer for friends and family. Completely secondarily to this, shooting a range of different things will be fun, and it will also be great if you want to nerd out and pixel pee etc, as you'll have a range of different subjects and scenes.
    1 point
  23. This has been widely discussed before. It's not clear why the h.265 results are so different. Perhaps Nikon has some difficulty keeping the temperature down during long recordings with higher-quality noise-reduction algorithms in the thin body of the ZR? The large screen could also produce more heat. It's obviously something they need to address. Nikon's blotchy high ISO NR algorithms have been a problem since around the D5 generation (in stills) where it is clear that in-camera high ISO NR needs to be turned off (if shooting JPG, and if you use Nikon raw converter, also in that software) to avoid this blotchiness. The files themselves (without high ISO NR) look much better. To my eye the kind of noise reduction the ZR shows in N-Log h.265 look a bit similar to that Nikon used for very high ISO NR in stills. N-Log just brings it out likely mainly due to the user giving less exposure to those videos by following the nominal ISO (800 base ISO in N-Log), so the shadow NR becomes more apparent. Anyway, it's a bit strange Nikon has been silent about this so far.
    1 point
  24. "How Another Man REALLY Shaped Wong Kar-Wai's Aesthetic // Christopher Doyle" is a far better title... ; ) (>_<) WTF Lies?? Well, I (try to) follow the point but perhaps when the verb is irregular instead? : X oh gosh Wong Kar-Wai’s directing is just something from another world (FULL stop!) ...for those who truly understand its meaning. Cinematography is part of the filmmaking process, no doubt about that, but I tend to see the other, more distorted side of the debate: those who overlook who truly shapes the work, when the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. - EAG :- )
    1 point
  25. Love your posts as contribution here BTW ; ) keep going :- )
    1 point
  26. Christopher Doyle what a legend and his movie making skills were virtually self learned/experience.He is able to film with fluid and movement with such heavy lumps of cameras ,goodness knows what this one weighs on his shoulders ! Our modern camera rigs are a dream -I try and keep mine under 2 kgs total.
    1 point
  27. I watched a great video talking about Christopher Doyles contributions in working with Wong Kar-Wai (I'll post below) and there's a great line in there where Doyle basically says (when comparing his films to Hollywood blockbusters) "I think we have absolutely opposite attitudes to what's film-making. We make the film we can, they buy the film they think they want" (around 5:00 mark) When talking about small budgets and tight timeframes these films are often a lot more like my own travel videos than a Hollywood blockbuster. In my videos I shoot on-location with available lighting and no control over the scene whatsoever. In some ways I am capturing something that is more authentic, because I'm not constructing sets or rigging lighting that might deviate from the actual location, but this also means I have less flexibility to work around the camera etc (where sometimes cheating things makes them look more normal rather than less), and it requires me to capture things in a way that more authentically depicts the location rather than including/excluding things in a way that's not balanced or authentic. Obviously these lower budget films are still working with lighting, (probably) closed sets and production design, but they're not constructing everything from scratch on a soundstage in a warehouse in Burbank. In the video he talks about how because they filmed in real locations the actors were responding to their surroundings in an authentic way, rather than having to pretend they're somewhere that they're actually not: "The environments that the two worked in dictated the movement, emotion, rhythm, and transformation of those locations into an active force within each film. The physical surroundings were always used to shape psychological states. Hong Kong becomes the central site of this transformation." This idea of filming on location and letting the day-to-day (and perhaps moment-to-moment) shooting experience influence the acting and filming reminds me of what Noam Kroll preaches, which (to me) is really the fundamental advantage of the low-budget film. Wong Kar-Wai sometimes wrote the next days scripts the night before, which means they could adapt to how shooting was going and the weather etc. With the technological advances (film getting faster and not needing lighting / 16mm cameras that were light enough to use without a tripod / on-location sound then sync sound / digital) that enabled Italian Neorealism / French New Wave / British New Wave / Dogme 95 it's all about it getting smaller/lighter/cheaper, so taking these advantages and then still doing a full pre-production cycle then rigidly shooting to that in prod is really just throwing away much of the new potential that technological advancement has delivered.
    1 point
  28. Even more amazing they were low budget B-movies with shoot schedules under five weeks !
    1 point
  29. Not even in 4K! It's like they've never watched a single YT tutorial on how to make their footage cinematic.
    1 point
  30. Based on the collaboration between director Anthony Mann and cinematographer John Alton, here are the films they worked on together: T-Men (1947) Raw Deal (1948) He Walked by Night (1948) - Mann directed most of the film but was uncredited Reign of Terror (also known as The Black Book) (1949) Border Incident (1949) Devil's Doorway (1950) The full movie of "He Walked by Night" is on youtube
    1 point
  31. Part of the reason they could make these film was the introduction of Kodak Eastmann Super XX film after WW2.It was rated at around 160-200 ASA which was over 2 stops faster than film of the 1930s.It also was known for its ability to be pushed (underexposing and overdeveloping)It was regularly pushed one stop to 320AS and sometimes two stops to 640ASA like on Citizen Kane.
    1 point
  32. kye

    New cinema camera...?

    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.
    1 point
  33. 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?
    1 point
  34. 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.
    1 point
  35. 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 ?
    1 point
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