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Can't speak for Ed but I'm fine thanks mate, just been a bit busy writing some code to contribute further.

Congrats to @PannySVHS and @Framed_By_Dan and to all other participants as well! Some very exotic camera choices and lenses already revealed. Now I'm particularly curious to see what camera @TrueIndigo has used. I liked the colours of that one the most. And of course which lens created that unusual bokeh in the contribution of @Wronzoff. My choice was very boring and unspectacular, as I used what I already owned: Canon 60D and 60mm Macro with some cheap 0.9 ND (EOS standard colour profile without any grading).

i got a bit fixated on the losing camera bit, completely missed the fine print about entering just for the judges category. But thats life. I'm a bit surprised with the amount of entries or lack thereof, as i bid on 3 or 4 cameras but was out bid on everything. I was sure you guys must have been buying everything up for the competition. The old video camera segment of ebay must be quite abit more active than one would have thought. Too cut a long story short i ended up using a logitech c920 webcam with a letus anamorphic adapter taped to the front. My reasoning for using the letus was to help differentiate my entry from the others. i figure if speedboosters were allowed if you already had them an anamorphic should be ok as well. Not sure if anyone else shot anamorphicaly. Considering i went to the trouble of using the letus i did forget to get any footage of the lens flaring which was kinda dumb. Since my entry has proved surprisingly unlikely to win the point is moot i guess. I'm glad i entered i learned a whole bunch of things that i can apply to the next challenge. i am fairly confident i can increase my vote rate by at least a 100% next time round 😎 So dan the man pm me your address if you need a webcam for the odd late night online dalliance. Mind you, you can keep those tips,tricks and footage for your own personal gratuitousness ok 😉

Congrats to the winners - well deserved! I figured I would lose the competition so would have some fun with it, so went very very budget. I also wanted to see how far I could 'improve' the footage in Resolve. Camera #1: Fujifilm J20 Point and shoot - 2009 - 640x480 30p (final video was cropped to 16:9) Price is about $15-30 on ebay (mine was purchased by my wife when new, so has been sitting in a drawer for about a decade) Final video: Unprocessed footage: Camera #2: Fake action camera It claims 1080p, but is FAKE and shoots the worst 640x480 30p I have ever seen (final video was cropped to 16:9) Price was AU$17 brand new on ebay (which included free shipping across Australia - about 5000kms) Final video: Unprocessed footage: Camera #3 was going to be a D-Mount lens on my old GoPro, but sadly didn't survive the modifications..

What are some of the lesser known YouTube channels that you find to be informative / helpful /whatever for Filmmaking? Most of these channels have under 10,000 subs when I think they deserve more. Felicia Smith https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0VID5nSIk6QDC65bHym7TQ I stumbled upon her channel and there are videos that I wished I'd seen when I first started, especially the "What's in a camera assistants bag?" video that goes over tons of things I had to learn "the hard way." I also think it's cool that she adds another female voice to filmmaking. Not enough of those. DIYCameraGuy https://www.youtube.com/user/DIYCameraGuy I think he has some cool little tricks up his sleeve. I wish he was more active, but when he does make a video I almost always get something out of it. Gaffer & Gear https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOgN351K45vTrozaadFPXlA What I like about this channel is how in depth he gets. Again this is stuff I'd wished I'd seen when starting out, and is helping me shore up some of my weaknesses when it comes to production and filmmaking. Lucas Pfaff https://www.youtube.com/user/erish2k5 I like Lucas's channel because he reviews a lot of budget gear, and has also started getting into stuff like anamorphic shooting, something I'm starting to dip my toe into. TL;DR Filmmaker https://www.youtube.com/user/TheAsianFilmmaker7 I've been dipping my toe into narrative work, and I've found his videos to be pretty helpful. He also does quite a few reviews on budget gear. I do worry though that he's becoming another YouTuber that gets free gear in return for reviews. Video Gizmology https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv23Zj2x11HHN-NG3fU_64g He owns a lot of equipment! I'm not quite sure why, ha ha, but he does. And he usually does a pretty in depth overview for quite a bit of it, and will do comparisons. ----- I feel like the filmmaking/production community on YouTube has changed a lot over the last couple years, and not for the better. While you still can get a lot out of them, education and teaching has taken a backseat to everyone wanting to become an "influencer." Get those free trips, free stuff to review, get that ad revenue, etc. So I just thought maybe I'd turn some people into some channels that really are helpful and have yet to fall into that cycle. Hopefully they help someone! Please share some of your own!

Shoot in 30p, but then conform it into 24p. The subtle slow-mo of the image will make it look more cinematic. Canon is just trying to help you become better filmmakers.

Turn this: Into this! I entered two terrible quality cameras in the $200 camera challenge and somehow didn't come last, so here's what I learned. In case it's useful to someone Shooting: Low quality cameras have poor codecs and low bitrates, which typically have trouble with a lot of movement. Therefore I used a tripod for every shot instead of hand-holding. This also gives you more options for temporal NR in post too. Go for the 180 shutter by either using an ND or by simply filming in low light. How can you tell if it's 180 shutter? Wave your hand in front of it and see how streaky it is. or alternatively, if your camera is very low resolution and subjects aren't moving too much, then the sheer size of the pixels will completely obscure whatever shutter angle you have! Win!! In post: Edit in your desired output resolution, not the one you shot in.. dodgy 4K image? Output in 8K today! Think about converting to black and white. This gives you 4 times the effective resolution!! Camera only shoots 30p? Excellent - conform to 24p in post and get slow motion for free!! Most NLEs can slow audio slightly too, so if it works for the vibe of your project then go with it. Digital compression is awful and a give-away you're not shooting RAW or film, so is over-sharpening that you can't turn off. Therefore, blur the image in post. You might want to consider blurring only the edges of things, and you should experiment with blur size and blur strength too. I typically find a sharp diagonal line and blur until it looks like a straight line instead of a jaggy digital mess. Use noise reduction, both spatial and temporal. It will make the image blurry, but that's also what you want because of above, so go nuts. The image might look smooth, but we'll add grain later, so don't worry about it. My footage had a bunch of compression artefacts that flickered on and off on each alternate frame and was very distracting (and awful). De-flicker plugins can work wonders. Just play with the types and presets until it's gone. Colour will probably be awful, so either make it black and white (which also gets around the awful coloured fringing) or desaturate heavily. You can also do heavy chroma NR to get rid of colour flickering. Also feel free to use advanced colour controls such as Hue vs Hue to get rid of nasty colours, or use masks to selectively desaturate colours you don't like. Get rid of digital looking clipped highlights by controlling and artificial highlight rolloff via curves. Someone complimented me on the highlight rolloff, which was totally created in post. Use music, pick your shots well, and try and distract from IQ by using content, composition, lighting, and other 'tricks' 😆😆😆 Can't afford a nice vintage lens or camera has a fixed lens? Add halation by masking only the brightest parts of the image, adding a big blur, then put over the top of the image at a low opacity. Add grain to finish it off. Film has grain and film is awesome, so therefore.... plus, YT kills grain and will put heavy bands on smooth areas so you really should add some. I recommend doing a grain test video with different strengths so you can see what YT does it various amounts of it. It takes more than you think to show up in YT, a LOT more. Here is the curve that gives that highlight rolloff and deep shadows.... Here's another before/after image. and here's my reveal post with the final and SOOC videos: Hopefully that's useful to someone! Feel free to ask questions and I still think I can make a P4K look like a BMMCC or BMPCCv1 so if you have both and can shoot something with both then let me know.....

They can try and sue us about the glue. It'll never stick.

EDIT>>> I had a longer reply but really I think "Fuck off" will suffice. I'm joining the long list of people that have you on ignore you complete and utter tit.

The camera used was a compact stills camera, the Fuji FinePix E900. I bought it new for £140 in May 2007 and haven't used it for seven years (the first thing I had to do was reset the clock!). The 4:3 video it shoots (auto exposure only) is 640 x 480 x 30p. I enlarged this with a video utility to make it 1440 x 1080 x 30p before editing on a 1920 x 1080 timeline, so the "Academy" shape was retained. But absolutely no exposure or colour changes were made, so the colours you see are straight from the camera. Interestingly, it's the auto exposure (and it's sudden changes within a shot) that makes it look amateur, more so perhaps than the ultra low resolution. A sad sign of the times regarding increasing obsolescence: I took out the xD card to put in my computer multi-memory card reader, only to find that xD was not one of them! Luckily, the camera features a USB socket, so I could connect the camera directly to access the files. Michi: "I'm particularly curious to see what camera @TrueIndigo has used. I liked the colours of that one the most." -- This camera features a 9MP 5th generation Super CCD HR sensor. From the days when Fuji photsites were octagonal in shape and some were of a different size -- wild times!

At EOSHD we like to ask the important hard-hitting questions on glamorous Italian TV shows. Read the full article

Hi, congrats to all the participants. The reveal is really entertaining. My story: Based on recent improvement with Magic Lantern I purchased an EOS M to do some experiment a month ago, then the EOSHD challenge appeared (but with the Magic Lantern restriction 🙃). The EOS M was $150, still $50 left for the lens. The easy choice was a Canon FD, Minolta Rokkor, or the mighty soviet Helios or any vintage lens under $50. But I wanted to try something "different" to stay on the challenge track. A round trip to my treasure chest (my wife has a different name for that box) and I found something quite interesting, an enlarger lens : Beseler-HD 50mm 2.8 - I remember paying something around $30 max. but after checking the invoice and I actually payed $9 + $8 shipping - Then ordered an adapter in Russia - M42x1 to Canon EOS-M for $25. After 2 weeks, I received a snail mail with some nice Russian stamps and the adapter inside the letter. Added a 17-31 helicoid for focusing infinity and voila an unusual bokeh. Cheers.

I'm going to be very biased here, and recommend this small unknown channel.... Sound Speed! https://www.youtube.com/SoundSpeeding 😉

Should have got this one. Samsung really are determined to get 8K into people's homes one way or another. And yes, that is a real product

That's genius!! You can, on this occasion keep a hold of your webcam I do love the fact you have fitted it to a rail mount, I say you build a shoulder rig for this! Extra points for rigging it up haha! Now I loved the image quality on this, for me it looked very filmic, granted its not terribly sharp but much sharper and better looking than I remember from EOS M footage. I guess that is down to a decently sharp lens which works wonders on the Canons. I was half thinking this was shot on a Sony of some kind but the skin tones and colours were just too good Had you said this was an EOS M from the start I wouldn't have believed you, there appears to be no aliasing and moire from what I can see, perhaps YouTube's compression is hiding some of that. Great job! Now for my reveal and I am really surprised to have won the vote for image quality! When I saw some of the entries I was sure I wasn't going to get anywhere near the top. Not that I was aiming to win, this after all was just a bit of fun! Now I will be honest, I nearly didn't enter. I saw the post on the blog and immediately took interest. I thought over it for a few days and done some research on what could be had for the £200 budget. Andrew- as a side note I did manage to find a large sensor, interchangeable lens 4K camera and nearly went down that route! At the time of Andrew announcing the competition it was peak wedding season for me (my full time job as a wedding and events filmmaker) and that had to take priority. When I checked back a few weeks later on the closing date for entries it was literally a week away! I took the plunge and bought something cheap in order to take part, paid for express shipping and bought a lens adapter via Amazon Prime. And here she is in all her glory! £69 body only from MPB photographic in the UK, and probably the ropiest one they had! It was pretty manky, didn't come with a body cap (omg that exposed sensor!! 😮) and the SD card door doesn't close properly but I was determined to make this work. The lenses I used were two m42 vintage lenses I had lying around, first up a Pentacon 50mm f1.8 which I actually use in my professional work from time to time - its surprisingly good! For some longer shots I used a Carl Zeiss Jena 135mm f3.5 with the aperture blades stuck wide open - again surprisingly good considering the aperture doesn't function and it has been sitting in a bag without any caps on for years. The eagle eyed amongst you will notice in the above photo there is a Speedbooster attached. This is where I hold my hands up to a little bit of cheating! I bought a Gobe dumb adapter from Amazon as mentioned but knew that for some shots I had in mind the 100mm equivalent FOV I would have would be bit too tight. So for a handful of shots I did run with this - this potentially aided in producing slightly sharper results in some shots. I also used an SLR Magic Variable ND, again not the cheapest of filters! So feel free to disqualify me for this technical infringement! Before shooting my sequence I done a few test shots in the garden the reviewed the footage on the computer. I knew the AVCHD codec would be a potential struggle but didnt realise how bad it was until looking back on these test shots - the footage was already falling apart before my eyes! 17 Mbps is a long way off the solid looking 100+ Mbps i'm used to off my GH5! Not to mention how much moire I saw in the footage! Despite this, I found the 720p mode better with it's Motion JPEG codec so considered using this in my film. I shot with the "Nostalgic" setting with Contrast and Sharpness all the way down. For me this looked to have slightly better dynamic range and better roll off between tones than the "Smooth" setting, although the over all colour wasn't as nice. So, on one of the hottest days of the year I went into my home town and done some people watching. The little GH1 was a fair challenge to use as one might expect with how lucky we are with modern cameras these days. No focus peaking, no zebras, low resolution screen and viewfinder. Despite this, I relied heavily on the histogram to check my highlights, made sure not to film anything with too much motion which would exploit the weaknesses in the codec. I also threw in some 720p shots and upscaled them in the final edit. My biggest mistake was not taking my proper video monopod out to film, instead relying on handheld or a basic photography monopod. It wasn't until I went out for some golden hour footage I took along a proper tripod. Good old Warp Stabiliser came in handy! The edit was a quick couple of hours piecing together the best shots, no real story part from the obvious changing of time and I graded using one of James Miller's DeLUTs as a starting point, tweaking to my own taste. For me this was a refreshing challenge. Normally I opt to do some photography or go a bike ride to escape from my normal work but this was a cheeky day out filming to keep my creativity going at the height of working season. Filmmaking should always be about the fun and not about the expensive gear and with that I think I will arm myself with the little GH1 and see what we can come up with in the future. I will be writing a more in depth blog post on my own website so when that is done I will link that back to here. Finally I just want to say well done to PannySVHS for winning the best cinematography, I love the home video feel about this! Thank you to Andrew for coming up with this challenge and getting this little community together to create. Looking forward to more like this soon! Dan

Looks like I can keep my camera! 😄 Congrats to the winner! And to others as well. You guys are all amazing. My setup is a Canon EOS M and a 7Artisans 25mm F1.8. I got the EOS M in a local store in Hong Kong. It costs me HKD $680, so bascially USD $86. Of course it is a used camera but I don't think the original owner used it much. As for the lens, I brought it from my friend. It is HKD $400, so about USD $ 50. It is really amazing that one can buy such a capable setup in under $150 US dollars! The moment I picked this camera up I fell in love with it. Even though it doesn't have the best ergonomics, I just want to shoot something with it immediately. And the colors is great. The auto white balance is actually really accurate. I would say even better than the other Canon cameras I have used! While the 1080P is quite soft, in my opinion, it looks more vintage than cheap. That are plenty of details. I don't personally like overly sharp image anyway. The lens is a manual prime lens but that isn't a problem. The focus ring is quite smooth. The build quality is nice enough. The vignette is very pronounced but I think it looks good so that doesn't bother me at all. At first I was planning to do a simple and low budget "music video". But due to some horrific things happening in Hong Kong, I didn't have the time and opportunity to do it. So I have to use the footage I shoot during a trip to Disneyland with my girlfriend and her friend. That was my very first time using the camera. My biggest challenge is that the EOS M does not have focus peaking. My eyes are quite bad. I need to rely on focus peaking to manual focus. That's why I missed my focus quite a lot in the video 😄. Other than that I find this setup really easy to use. I shoot the whole video handheld. 1080P 24P. I even use auto white balance exclusively and it just works. I did a little bit of color grading and some stabilization in post (only for those panning shots). Many people buy the EOS M to use it with Magic Lantern. But for me, even without the Magic Lantern, the camera still works very well, even in 2019. It just becomes my new favorite!

Really fun to see the variety in cameras used, and I'm really happy to see I got some votes! Camera wise, I guess went the boring route. You can just about see in the picture, It was 138€ for the kit if you exclude shipping. This is my first M43 camera, and unfortunately the chinese adapters I ordered didn't arrive in time. I have a nice Zeiss 50mm 2.8 I could have used for some more creative results. I shot on the Smooth "film mode" with -2 contrast and sharpness, and used a preset "LUT" from Filmora, can't quite remember wich one. I was very happy with the picture quality.

Hi! My camera is an Olympus OM-D E-M5 (2012) with an old Canon FD 50/1.4 lens, used with a basic, cheap adapter. With a bit of luck and searching you can find an E-M5 for €200 (or a bit less) on eBay. I bought the lens also on eBay for a low price (I don’t remember exactly how much). No other equipment or colour grading was used.

Please don’t advertise you’re an American, it makes the rest of us look bad. Hahaha... just kidding. I’m almost convinced Skip77 (and possibly ZachGoodwin2) are alter egos of somebody on this site having a laugh.

Frame grabs from a shoot yesterday, 1080p 120 fps upscale to 4K in Resolve.

Oh my gosh! I just got notified by another subscriber about this little thread. Thank you for including me, newfoundmass. What a wonderful list you've made there!

Newer cameras have 24p included... Canon really sorta is the only exception. If there was such a weird thing as 24p codec licensing, which is an utter B$ of an assumption, then why-o-why is Panasonic including it? Why does Sony still fit 24p in all their cameras? Why does stills heritage Fujifilm care about 24p video? Nikon? Heck, even bloody Pentax... and nobody is even using those to shoot video. Yet... it's a Canon strategy that we've seen time and time again. Seemingly purposely crippling cameras, withholding certain features. Playing the infamous segmentation game. You want X? Buy Z! Heavy crops, 24p, limited recording times, DPAF C-AF during 4K, inclusion of a mic-input/headphone port, display type (front-facing), etc... all to differentiate cameras, pushing you to buy certain cameras if you want certain features. It's sorta the same we see Pansonic do diversifying their flagship line-up not to just be the one GH-camera. Now there's the G9 if you want the best in stills, with that top LCD, huge EVF, 6.5-stops of stabiization, USB-C charging and schtuff. The GH5S if you want the absolute best in image quality... dual native ISO benefit. GH5 if you think the GH5S sounds exciting, but rather have IBIS going on and pay less. I mean... it's working, I have 2 out of the 3. Pricing of the GH5S pushed me into getting the BMPCC4K instead. But yeah, definitely manufacturers are giving certain cameras certain features to set it apart, which I find disturbing. At least Panasonic/Sony still give you quite a bit more than the average consumer would ever need, but enthusiasts and pros would love to have. Canon? Not so much. They're trying to figure out what they can leave out of next camera releases instead of looking what to include. They don't have much going on for them anymore, they're just playing catch up. Others all are doing sensor stabilization cameras, have come a long way in color science, so that's not really a factor anymore, Sony's C-AF is in Canon's DualPixel AF league (rest perhaps not so much yet), ease of use? Well, maybe not Sony, but others are a delight and offer so much control and customization. Lenses? Give me a break. Nobody actually likes red ring lenses that much anymore, definitely not the pinnacle of the industry now. Like honestly, why even bother getting a Canon interchangeable lens camera these days? I know I wouldn't... then again I never saw the appeal throughout the years. The value proposition just isn't there. Seems to be a brand for sheeple chasing to be the next Casey Nicetatt, Matti Hapoopoo or Peter McCanon.

Hi All, and well done to everyone who entered - a lot of fun was had from my part. Reading through the other comments, in comparison, my choice of camera was quite unadventurous as I used my Canon EOS M that I bought for £135 at the start of the year. It came with a 35mm F1.6 APS-C Television TV Lens/CCTV Lens For 16mm C Mount Camera and C Mount adaptor and 3 batteries. I felt like I cheated because I also used two other lenses for a few shots - whereas everyone else seemed to use one lens. As you can see in the picture below, I also used a Helios 44-2 58 mm f/2 Lens M42 Mount and also a Canon EOS EF-M f2 Pancake Lens (both borrowed from work - I work in a Photography department at a Univeristy). I also used a Zeadio mini tripod and cheap variable ND filter. I shot the footage using the Prolost Flat picture profile. I think that's most of the info. Oh yeah, I did a bit of primary and secondary grading in Premiere but nothing that major. So there you go. I guess I get to keep my camera - he he! Thanks to the peeps who voted for me!

Hallo, congratulations to all filmmakers and to your great films! Thank you all who voted for my film. @Nordee, very beautiful film and images you created and edited. It was one of my favorite pieces, with visual grace, taste and soul. Please keep your camera! By any means! I filmed with a semi classic, one of my favorite personal cameras, the Lumix G6. I bought it four years ago with the classic 14-45mm lens for 240EU. Nowadays you can buy the body for 100eu on ebay! Once graded in Davinci Resolve, I like their 709 image better than from the much more recent G7 and even GH5 cameras. My lens was the beautiful Fuji 12.5mm f1.4 C-mount lens, which I bought some time ago for 40 EU. My approach was semidocumentary, with half a handful shots staged. The cat didnt bother the lighting, of course, because it was of the tungsten kind, WB all way up to 9000K I think. I used the 2x digital zoom a good deal to give me two focal lenghts in one. The aliasing was a fair tradeoff for convinience and immediacy of filming. I graded and edited in Davinci Resolve, with some stabilization and noise reduction. I feel a bit euphoric now and also a bit honoured! So, thanks everyone! Oh, thanks Andrew, for "making" me buy this camera.:) Shots of my setup to come of course, when I´m home. best, Marty

Congratulations to the winners! Well deserved! The spirit of the competition was really fun, actually go out there and create content. I hope there will be more challenges like this in the future. Now, onto the reveal: I shot on a Panasonic GF5, picked up for about 50-60$ in a used store in Hong Kong: Locked the SS to 40 or 50 like recommended in your old article Andrew. A fun little portable camera to shoot on, and the small size of the files make them superfast and easy to edit. Also put a LUT over the finished edit. I also used a 10$ tripod and a vintage 70-210 Tokina/Vivitar tele lens with OM mount, bought for maybe 10-15$. Now PannySVHS, if you want me to send the camera, PM your adress. Best regards!

Now, that's called dedication! Great work, kye. Here is a picture of my setup: NEX5 (the original one, not N /R /T), which I bought for ~40 $ (it was missing battery, charger and, supposedly, its battery doors wouldn't close [they do, though]) + Helios 44-4 (which I bought many years ago in a combination with working Zenit ET for 20 $) and a cheap (10$) ND filter. It's got one of the quirkest video modes. You can lock the exposure during recording only by holding down the shutter button, otherwise it's full auto and shows a tendency to quickly ramp your ISO quite high. That's why some people came up with and idea like this: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:8270 Waiting for next reveals. (( :

Seems he couldn't mount those PL lenses on that Pocket6K then

Based on comparing the actual sensor size of the Pocket 6K with the JVC LS300 then from my experience the typical VSM setting on most MFT lenses would just cover it. Though even a small windowed crop mode of 5-10% with that extra resolution would be a worthwhile trade off to be able to use those lenses. You think and have seen ? Which one is it ? Your argument or one that you have seen? Either way, can you talk me through how there can be a better argument for the EF mount camera when both cameras could take EF lenses and the MFT camera can additionally use native MFT, Leica M and PL mount lenses ? Based on the arguments you have thought of/seen would your Nikon Z6 have been better to be F mount or is it better to have the shallower Z mount that opens up a whole mass of different lens options and also be able to use F mount as well then? MFT P4K users ? As opposed to what? Users of the non-existent EF P4k? You are conflating two entirely different things. These are different cameras and hence why the reaction from people who actually own the Pocket 4K has been largely muted because either they aren't that bothered about the extra resolution or prefer the extra flexibility of the MFT mount or don't want to spend the extra money to trade up the camera and the increased IT costs of dealing with 6K or some combination of all of those. And some owners have gone "great, I'll buy the 6K one and use that as well". As much as you'd clearly likely there to be a massive outpouring of rage from Pocket 4K owners about this new camera, it just isn't there because this is not a Mark II version of the Pocket 4K thats come in at the same price with more resolution, it is clearly a different camera. For anyone with a bizarre fetish for revelling in and stoking other people's outrage, I can see that that would be a disappointment but it doesn't alter the facts. Now, if the Pocket 6K had come out with an MFT mount at or around the same price then you might well have needed a few extra boxes of Kleenex and some screen wipes but thats because that would have been a Mark II version of the Pocket 4K. But then of course, that would also be related to it using the same, more flexible, mount. You can't get any detail on the P6K if you can't get your lens on it. Are we just going to gloss over the fact that you can't mount the vast majority of PL lenses on it or does that not now matter for a cinema camera ? There are flaws in a lot of the side by side tests but if we let that slide then considering its twice the price then it should really shouldn't it? Which is why its whats known as a different camera.

Ive had both and compared them side by side. The Viltrox is sharper on all apertures accept for wide open, has an adjustable back focus (no tools required) and its like a third of the price. The only Metabones I would ever buy is the dedicated BMPCC version (which I currently own), used. Otherwise I would go Viltrox (I sold my Metabones XL).

Soon I'll put the link to the vote on the front page of the blog to drum up some more people to take part and vote. Then let's close the poll around Saturday-ish and do the big reveal of gear. Get some photos of the gear and post it. I'll do the same and reveal what I shot. I made two videos with two different cameras. Then the winner of the public vote gets the last place person's camera If he wants to give it him. We're not going to force it out of his hands This is supposed to be a bit of fun really. Then I'll choose a winner of the judge's prize, who will get one of my cameras.

I reckon the 30p lovers should all go and tell Hollywood and Netflix to switch. I don't care if the camera is aimed at me or not, only Canon's marketing people do. The founding principals of the cinema look include 24p and it's as important as dynamic range, RAW, etc., 25p looks similar but 24p is the standard and you can't mix the two on one timeline. Canon know this which is why it's another Protect the Cinema EOS margins cripple. Which is a shame because the new sensor technology looks good, and has finally caught up to the readout speed of others. If you are calling yourself a filmmaker but prefer to shoot 30p over 24p you should be a bit embarrassed. 25p is another matter, that has the same cinematic feel to 24p. I shoot 25p quite a lot because I live in a PAL region. I am glad it has 25p. But I'm not happy with the 24p bullshit spreading on this forum and screen Hz judder-stutter-bullshit. Stop doing it. Tiresome to read.

Pretty much nobody does for video, other than some cinema wannabes. They do make a big fuss when it isn't there though.

I'm just going to provide my write up here. My shoot went from "What the fuck!?!?!?" to "Fuck it! I'm done, I don't care anymore..." I was excited about the contest and thought, I hit gold when I got the winning bid on ebay (see pictures) - cause it was mft sensor, had 4K and it was under $200. The lenses, I borrowed from friends and family, same with adapter. While I was waiting for the camera to come through mail, I started scouting locations and pre-planning shots, and coming up with a mini-story in my head. When the camera arrived, I had a solid 1.5 weeks to film and edit - I said perfect.... Thats when work (my real job) started getting busy and I was forced to take work home to complete the overloaded workload. Even then, I said... no problem.... I will just film during lunch hour, but everyday that week it was raining, and my co-worker who was willing to be the main subject of my video - he got busy and started working from home. One production delay after another... Now, the actual camera... I didn't know its flaws until after I purchased it, I should have looked at the reviews before even looking at this camera as a contender.... Its only 4K @ 30p no 24p, and there is zero aperture control while in video mode - so had to shoot wide open on the canon lens (and use variable ND adapter). There is no log, just 5 picture profiles, but I'm sure most here were facing that problem (if it is even a problem) - I just used standard profile. It had this flickering (modulating ISO, even when it wasn't AUTO) issue , but I figured out a work around (select Auto and then select HDR mode and call it a day). So, camera flaws plus production delays - then I see this shit: So, I got Used Yi camera without lens for $175, just to find out I could have waited to get a brand-new one with lens for $150. A day before the competition was supposed to end, I said "Fuck it" came across a parked old school taxi - filmed it for about 30 to 45 min. and editted it for another 45 min. Oh, by the way, did I tell you guys about how my macbook pro's audio jack was fucking up too... it was interfering with the audio speakers as well. So, I went over to my older editing computer which is still running FCP7 and some old version of Premiere. The only thing creative I did was add "Taxi" theme song to the track... lol... I didn't even color correct it, thats SOOC.

It's fantastic and great fun to see what people used for this challenge. I bought this used Sony WX500 fixed zoom (30X) lens compact about 22 months ago on ebay for £133 plus postage. It has a 1/2.3 type Exmor R CMOS sensor and seems to be a cheaper version of the Sony HX90V minus the EVF, and I believe is missing some of that model's more sophisticated manual settings. It does have a flip-up LCD screen (not touch), which is useful for waist-level video and selfies. I shot the video using the XAVC S HD format at 25p which tops out at around 50mbps. You can also choose the same codec at 50p. AVCHD and MP4 are other options, but no 4K. Leaving it on automatic is ok but you can get blown highlights, and the ISO is pumped up to get a useable picture inevitably resulting in some noise in lower light conditions. However, there are some manual tweaks available. You can adjust and fix the ISO setting and, in the case of the Bexhill video shot in bright sunlight, I chose 200 ISO. I selected Multi Metering Mode, Focus Area Wide, Daylight white balance, Steadyshot Active, face detection ON and Low Soft Skin Effect. I didn't grade the footage, it's straight out of camera. Being a small sensor camera, optimal image quality is achieved by shooting in well-lit situations, which was the case here. I was impressed by the fine detail captured by the WX500, and the dynamic range in the scenes isn't bad at all. It's fair to say it's a surprisingly capable and inexpensive pocket video-cam with effective stabilisation.

*** THE RESULTS ARE IN! *** Congratulations to @PannySVHS for winning the Best Cinematography EOSHD Forum Oscar Congratulations to @Framed_By_Dan for winning the Best Image Quality category! Now comes the sticky bit... I see that @Nordee and @leslie came joint last with no votes in either category. Very unfair!! Therefore dear Nordee has an opportunity to mail off their camera to @PannySVHS and then Panny send it back with some tips and post what he shot on it Sir Leslie can give his camera to @Framed_By_Dan if he wants - none of this is obligatory, and Framed By Dan will give it back after - right? I'll announce my EOSHD Judge's prize later in the week when my entry is posted on the front blog. Feel free to now REVEAL what you bought for under $200 and shot the entires with. I for one am looking forward to finding out...

Without detracting from Graeme's work, it should be made clear that none of the algorithmic REDCODE specifics described in the text are non-trivial for "skilled artisans". I don't think any of this will hold in court as a significant innovation. A few notes: Re: "pre-emphasis curve" used to discard excessive whites and preserve blacks. Everyone here knows it very well, because every log curve does this. Panalog, s-log, Log-C, you name it, do that. In fact, non-linear curves are (and were) so widely used as a pre-compression step, that some camera companies manage to shoot themselves in the leg by applying them non-discriminatively even before entropy coding (where a pure log/power curve can be non-optimal). JPEG has been used since the early 90's to compress images. Practically all images compressed with JPEG were gamma encoded. Gamma encoding is a "simple power law curve". Anyone who has ever compressed a linear image knows what happens (not a pretty picture) to linear signal after a DCT or wavelet transfrom, followed by quantization. And there is nothing special, technically speaking, about raw -- it is linear signal in native camera space. But you don't need to look far for encoding alternatives: film has been around since the 19th century, it does a non-linear transform (more precisely, log with toe and shoulder) on the captured light. In an even more relevant connection, Cineform RAW was developed in 2005 and presented at NAB 2006. It uses a "pre-emphasis" non-linear curve (more precisely, a tunable log curve) to discard excessive whites and preserve blacks. You may also want to consult this blog post from [email protected] from 2007 about REDCODE and Cineform: http://cineform.blogspot.com/2007/09/10-bit-log-vs-12-bit-linear.html Re: "green average subtraction": Using nearby pixels for prediction/entropy reduction goes at least as far back as JPEG, which specifies 7 such predictors. In a Bayer mosaic, red and blue pixels will always neighbor a green pixel, hence using the brightness correlating green channel for prediction of red and blue channels is a tiny step. Re: using a Bayer sensor, as a an "unconventional avenue": The Dalsa Origin, presented at NAB 2003, and available for renting since 2006, was producing Bayer raw (uncompressed). The Arri Arriflex D-20, introduced in November 2005, was doing Bayer raw (uncompressed). Can't recall the SI-2K release year, but it was doing Bayer compressed raw (Cineform RAW, externally) in 2006.

Anyone interested? This Lut fixes the brown tint, gamut clipping, roll-off issues, skin etc. and is made to look similar to RED IPP2 Soft Rec709 conversion - a conversion Lut to RedWideGamut/RedLog3G10 for a native IPP2 workflow is also provided. Can't wait to hold the Pocket 6K in my own hands - seems like it's more color accurate.

So I keep meaning to do something more elaborate for the BMMCC but never have the time but I had an hour free this afternoon to knock this together for anyone who wants something cheap and easy to base a DIY controller on. Basically, its a 6 channel servo tester that costs £15 from Amazon ( https://www.amazon.co.uk/LewanSoul-Channel-Digital-Over-Current-Protection/dp/B073XZH264/r ) and a £5 solder less VGA breakout from Amazon ( https://www.amazon.co.uk/sourcing-map-Breakout-Connector-Solderless/dp/B07MQX1BBP ) (Yes, I've soldered the ground but thats only because mine must have been made on a Friday afternoon and they put in one side of the connector wrong ) With this, you can use the rotary pots to control four parameters on the camera so you could use it to have physical control of focus, aperture, ISO and WB etc. I've shown the solder less breakout as it makes things really easy for anyone to connect up (it has a shell to enclose it obviously) but you can just solder to a connector if you want to. Obviously you will want to use longer cables than these test ones ! The connections from the breakout to the servo board are BMCC PIN 1 > SERVO BOARD - BMCC PIN 14 > SERVO BOARD + BMCC PIN 3 > SERVO BOARD SERVO 0 S BMCC PIN 8 > SERVO BOARD SERVO 1 S BMCC PIN 12 > SERVO BOARD SERVO 2 S BMCC PIN 13> SERVO BOARD SERVO 3 S You then assign the functions that will be controlled by the pots on the servo board in the remote menu of the camera by setting the functions to be controlled by PWM1-4 respectively. (servo pot 0 is PWM1, pot 1 is PWM2 etc). So if you want to build your own DIY physical controller thats all you need to know to get it going and then its up to you how you case it etc. Because the BMMCC only has 4 ports you can control through then you have got two spare controllers which if you wanted to get fancy you could connect actual servos to for controlling manual focus lenses, zoom control etc.

As someone who has shot with a range of budget cameras (including GoPro/iPhone/point-and-shoots/etc) and put many many hours and money into learning to colour grade, I fundamentally disagree with this. The really expensive cameras with great colour give an image that you can just apply some contrast to and they look fantastic, but the worse the colour from the camera the harder it is to get a good grade out of them. Of course, it's not impossible to do so, but you have to be highly skilled, lucky, or both to get that great result. The fantastic grade on that short from the Micro has much to do with the camera, even if it was just that the camera wasn't creating an almost impossible task for the film-maker.

Just imagining the hacker harassing a typical DPReview forum user. "You should pay me 3 bitcoins or I will delete all these...ahn...brick wall pictures".

Come on Mattias, are we reading different posts or what because reading this thread I didn't get the impression that the lack of 24p is the end of the world. I did get the impression that it's silly that it's not there, that there's zero technical reasons why it's not there, that it's just Canon being " WE wANt TO PrOtect the CinemA linE " I, just like you, shoot in 25/50 because that's the EU standard, I don't think I've ever shot in 24 on my GH5. However if it didn't have that option, I'd be the first one to write "wtf panasonic why can you do 25fps but not literally one frame less?" Not because I actually need it, but because I feel like it's such a standard feature that it should be implemented.

you're mistaking hate with making fun of which is justified The lack of 24p is funny because it's literally one frame less than 25p which you can shoot. So what about 24p makes it impossible to write? Nothing. It's entirely doable. They've done it in the past. They can do it now. Why isn't it there then? Because they're stupid. And this is why we're making fun of Canon.

I guess it's time to restart the hyperbolic pretend it's a pro video camera only to rip on it machine again. But honestly, it's getting old. BTW, I just installed a new washing machine yesterday. It didn't even have 4K via HDMI.. it's like 1998 all over again.

WOW! I never thought it would be a Lumix G6. The color is really amazing. And of course the cinematography is really on point. Your video is one of my favorite! I actually thought your camera is a GH2. But now I see even the GH1 and a kit lens can produce very good image. I think I even voted your video as the best image quality 😄. And congrats to everyone else. I was having tons of fun reading the reveals. @leslie Who would've have thought of using a webcam? Let alone with an anamorphic adapter 😄? Maybe I should use my girlfriend's 4K webcam next time. @kyeThe before and after is simply amazing. Your videos really show the importance of editing. Basically turn a AU $17 action camera footage into something very stylish. @anax276Your work makes me want to get an Olympus E-M5 just to test it out. Great image quality. The color is very good. I thought you must have done some grading.

Thanks a lot to all the competitors. This is a great idea for a contest and I love it. For the story, I went ahead and tried to participate. I picked a setup from what I had lying around, went to shoot and was pretty please with my day. However, when I saw the footage on resolve, it was so shaky that I couldn't use it. This was my last hope for this camera, and I had no time to re-shoot :s Just for laughs I went to shoot with this stuff. (Don't try this at home, this is the crappiest camera ever made for video) I can't wait for the next round ! Congrats to all participants you all did great jobs !

How much more technical? hahahaha.. just wait! I liked your video - it looked vintage in both the colours as well as lens. Interestingly I didn't spot the Helios despite having done lots of lens comparisons and owning two of them myself! Great stuff! You absolutely win my vote for Most Off The Wall Choice!! I am going to claim that I had the thought of a webcam running to a laptop, but not with an anamorphic adapter! and of course, I only thought about it, you did it, so big credit to you! If only you'd pummelled the image to death in Resolve like I did!! You did well on the IQ - fourth place well earned! Plus you were the only person to include a Dalek, so special bonus points for that!! I voted for you in the IQ category - excellent choice. This has great IQ, nice colours and contrast, and getting that SOOC is impressive! Nice!! These old cameras are still pretty good! I like it! Of course, I don't own a GH2 and wouldn't buy one so would keep my current strategy of using the cheapest camera on ebay and grading it within an inch of its life! I am hatching plans for how we can do this again in some way. I have an action camera I don't want, so maybe the rule will be "everyone must enter this competition because if you don't I'll mail you this action camera" 😎😎😎

I don't agree. No more speculation. This thread is going to be closed now. I think we need to get back to talking about cameras and codecs rather than legal battles. This isn't what I got into filmmaking for.

Having been present at NAB when RED was first introduced, it seemed at the time to be “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” vapor ware. I worked in cinema advertising at the time, specifically post production. The Quantel eQ and iQ Pablo 4K I used to create content captured up to 4K left eye/right eye uncompressed in real-time with real-time (no render) color grades and parallax adjustments. The Pablo cost $440k. It wasn’t portable. It’s drive arrays were 10 gig Ethernet SANs. In 2008, when dealing with .r3d files, import into Quantel workstations allowed for one-light color grading on import with white balance and ISO control among other typical RAW parameters. There was nothing like RED in terms of a capture device in 2008. NOTHING. Whatever the legalities, Sony, Panasonic, Canon and anyone else made nothing like it. RED was an upstart. It killed Digital Intermediates (scanning film to DNG for dust busting, color grading and editing, then outputting the sequence of final DNGs back to film for theatrical exhibition on film projectors.) Now, cinema projectors play back encrypted Digital Cinema Packages, containing JPEG frame sequences, made from graded and edited RAW files. Digital end to end. The entire motion picture industry production, post production and exhibition industries all transformed because of RED. While I kinda want RED to lose the patent fight with Apple much the same way as I want generic medications to replace brand name due to the expiration of patents and the resulting cost savings—RED deserves credit. Just not enough credit to be aggressively litigious, and be the sole beneficiaries of the compressed raw concept forever. Let Nikon and Panasonic users benefit from internal compressed raw without owing RED prohibitive licensing fees. (But don’t let Canon or Sony because I don’t like them.) My 2¢.

As I’m sure everybody knows by now, at the end of the shooting days, for my film, I get my lead actor to hang out a little while so I can test out a lens. I’m trying to have a lens or two for every one of my favorite focal lengths. The other day, after we filmed a scene, I wanted to give the Samyang 50mm 1.4 another chance and I’m glad I did. As BTM said a dozen times, Samyang lenses really pull more than their weight...