Andrew - EOSHD

Tell me about it bro! I've got enough cameras to open a branch of B&H The Techart adapter has not quite landed yet.... It has however, actually shipped and is somewhere in Europe. Expected delivery date tomorrow Monday 1st July! Once the eagle has landed I'll report back on the EOSHD wire.

Bonus points for people shooting on tape!

Yeah, both things are fine by me. Afterwards, where you explain what you bought, for what price, and so on... It'll be up to the people on the forum and me as a judge, to check whether it is within the spirit of the competition not just the rules. For example, if you find a total bargain but it costs £1000, and you sell the lens for £800, ending up with a fancy camera for £200... I'll score that very highly in the Treasure Hunt category, but maybe there will be a balancing category where people who only spent £100 on a camera body and used a £20 Russian lens but made it look amazing, out numbers your score in the Treasure Hunt. So key is to do well in all categories and be within the spirit of the cheap camera competition, not just to find the best bargain. Also, unless the lens is actually sold, until that happens you'd be outside the rules, always a temptation to hang onto the lens isn't there!! Yeah, the deadly possibility of being morally obliged by all EOSHD forum users to post your camera to the winner is there to stop people getting too spendy!!

Samsung T5 works brilliantly. Very robust. Very fast. Also the older Samsung T3 is a good drive too and maybe cheaper used?

I am enjoying it. The firmware / V-LOG / codec is out in about 2 weeks and is already being tested. Definitely the most feature packed pro mirrorless cameras, more modern tech than the Sony bodies and one the best images you can get. Downsides? It's a big beast of a camera, definitely not 'mirrorless size' by the usual sense of it, definitely more like a DSLR with no mirror. Autofocus cannot be relied on for video and the Sigma MC-21 adapter has been very disappointing so far.

To help our Aussie friends, shipping cost is not included in the $200. So if just the camera is under that limit you're fine, and hopefully you might even have something that cheap lying around on your shelf to take part in with. @Mattias Burling doesn't seem to struggle with price at the other 'end of the earth', that remote Siberian wasteland of Sweden... In fact, he gets his stuff so cheap, I once considered moving the blog there. Mattias will be doing this challenge on a RED Weapon he traded in some bottle caps for.

Fixed!

Guide was written only with NX1 in mind but there are definitely similarities with the NX500. Maybe I should update it soon and do a NX500 section in it?

Watch this and see why small cameras and rigs are important even for Sky TV https://www.newsshooter.com/2019/06/26/the-real-chernobyl-from-commission-to-transmission-in-two-weeks/ You really don't need that blasted external recorder.

You don't need as part of this challenge to import from Japan or Asia, I am sure there are camera stores in Australia!

I'm still not sure you can infringe a patent just by making something which attaches to something else and passes on a signal. That would rule out a lot of stuff, wouldn't it? Anyway, hopefully my Techart E-Z adapter arrives in 2-3 days, before the Nikony lawsuit does!

Z-LOG remains in the camera memory, independent of the card. So if you format the card or use a different one, Z-LOG will still be available in the menus, until you reset the camera.

Shhhhhhh!

I've no idea but certainly interested to try the Sigma MC-11 on the E-mount to Z adapter

We can't all change the rules just to suit the Canadians

Scoring criteria: Price - Points for the price you bought the camera, the lower the price the more points Technical quality - Points for the image quality of your chosen camera... Points deducted for aliasing, moire, noise, smaller sensor, softness, lower than 1080p resolution, bad colour and dynamic range, etc. So if you do go super cheap, make sure you don't get something that's so terrible in this criteria as it would deduct the points you gained for the low price. Artistic quality - Points for how cinematic you make it look. Time to win the most points of all the categories and win back some of the points you lost for a few technical shortcomings like moire which almost all cheap cameras have. For example if went for a camera with a large sensor, and made the most of it with your choice of subject and lens, then that's going to overcome the points lost for that old large sensor perhaps not having the best dynamic range or resolution, etc. I may add a couple more categories, but that is basically it... the challenge in a nut shell.

Having experience of Quad Bayer on smartphones, I think it works superbly for low light performance and wouldn't be surprised to see A7S III make use of it as well.

Oh dear! It's turning into Formula One! Rulebooks volume 1 and 2 have got longer than War & Peace and although agreement on the budget cap is progressing well, Alonso wants to use his CineLike D profile whereas some other drivers would prefer Magic Lantern!! I reckon LX100 is a total bargain. However, it's a bit too good given the spirit of the rules aims to make us all shoot with much worse. So a compact still has to be £200 or under with lens! Or, we could have another competition later where we rise to £300 and the possibilities of what to use changes. For this contest, I think we really have to aim for total trash cams and somehow, with raw skill, make em look half-way decent. The scoring should work on two areas: 1. The treasure hunt part 2. The end results Say you have the luck and shopping skills to swoop on a 4K LX100 for under £200... That's going to net a good score in the Treasure Hunt. Then if you make something really cinematic with it, that makes it look more like a RED than a small-ish sensor compact, that's a high score in the End Results. So with just those two things to focus on, we can be free to use whatever camera and lens we like as long as the CAMERA is under £200 and the LENS is a relatively cheap favourite you already own. £500 modern lens not allowed, etc. I think that's WAAAY too long. The aim is not to go crazy on a multiple-day shoot, I think it takes a lot of cinematography skills to make the ordinary every-day and natural light look great, versus being a full on filmmaker putting all sorts of organisation into a project and a ton of effort over multiple days, that's not really in the spirit of a fun little competition. Then again I appreciate that a fun competition-experiment isn't exactly going to be a huge priority for people with jobs inflexible schedules, so we should definitely give everyone, even the most busy, enough time to join in. I'd say, if the main blog post marks the start of the competition this weekend, then 1 week to find a camera and 1 week to shoot something, even if only for 1 day, would be enough.

LOL. Is that their priority? I could understand that on a 100MP camera perhaps, but I sense that the Exmor GS is aimed at sports market / A9 II. Priority benefits would be eliminating artefacts and LED banding in fast burst mode, and extending life of the camera for such work, which would wear down a mechanical shutter fast. Also, without a mechanical shutter Sony can boast about their technology being fully 100% digital and not mechanical. Good for marketing. I don't think they care much about shutter shake, which is practically non-existent on modern shutters anyway (see the damped springy quiet mechanical shutters in the X-H1 and Panasonic S1 for example), unless you are pixel peeping a 200 megapixel landscape shot?!

I doubt everyone who makes E-mount lenses have a royalties and licensing agreement with Sony!? Chinese companies in particular. 7Artisans? I doubt it. Reverse engineering some electronic contacts and then making a translator chip for your own adapter, I don't think is infringing on a patent. And Techart / Metabones don't ever seem to get trouble from the manufacturers they make adapters for. Techart already has a Canon EF to Fuji GFX mount Autofocus adapter for example, and they didn't get sued for lens mount license royalties. Infringing on a patent would be creating a camera with E-mount, and exact same protocols. An adapter is not the same thing, it's a mod, not a new camera. Patents and trademarks apply to specific articles.

I'd prefer if people use a lens they already have. Unless you don't have anything lens-related that's under $200, spending another $100 on a lens is getting away from the low cost spirit of the competition, as is adding rigs, speed boosters, etc. Rules are: Camera body under $200 US on eBay. If you are in a country that has different currency, just translate $200 to your local currency. That's your budget. If your camera is already in your possession, it has to be found for $200 or less, (or equiv. in your currency) using eBay and other online stores as a price guide. Put simply, it has to currently be in stock for that price. No finished auctions or faulty units can count. Has to be a live deal. Can be online or offline at local shop. In Europe and UK we'll have £200 / 200 euro as the budget, to keep it simple... 200 across the board in those 3 currencies, and the rest are converted from $. Gorilla pod or tripod only. No other rigs, cages, shoulder mounts are allowed. I'm gonna say Speed Boosters are indeed allowed. Although not strictly in the spirit of the task, I as a judge would be more impressed if you used literally the cheapest possible lens and adapter and make them look good anyway. Yeah, I'd say a cheap speed booster for $50 you might already own is just about in the spirit of things... But I think I will allow metabones as well, as like you say, end result is pretty similar... so metabones owners aren't put at a disadvantage from the owners of cheap stuff. As for filters, use whatever... Again the end result of an ND is cheap to create, but if you only have a top of the range $200 ND lying around on a shelf, may as well use it and pretend it cost $10

Yeah, good point about keeping your choice of camera secret until after. I'll add that to the final rules, on the blog post. Competition will have a start and end date. How much time should we take... 2 weeks?

Hmm I'm not sure... What do people think to focal reducers? Is that cheating with sensor size a bit? Or should it be allowed?

Rules tweak The limit is now $200 / £200 / €200 But the lower it is, the more the judges will be impressed. Sure, you can use your existing GH2 which is just about a $200 camera now in some places... But it won't win you many bonus points for creativity. The cinematography and how good you make the camera look remains the main thing, but if you do it with something far less capable than a GH2, I'll be mightily impressed. Having said that, I'll be just as impressed if you manage to shoot 4K for under $200. There is also the "public vote", where all the entries will go into a forum poll. The winner of the EOSHD judge award wins a prize from me. The winner of the public poll receives the camera of the last place man, just to spice it up Yes you can shoot with anything... a DSLR, mirrorless, compact. But no Magic Lantern as that would be a big old cheat vs someone with H.264 from 2009. Big bonus points for finding BARGAINS... This is partly a treasure hunt challenge, and about research into image quality. Feel free to use Google and DPReview video quality chart for example. If you manage to find a 4K beast for under $200, you get a big advantage, so well done. If you find something far less capable but manage to make it look amazing with your shooting skills, also a big well done. Two ways to approach it.

I think this is the final part of the rules, which I haven't yet decided on. What do people think? I don't think the GH2 is under $150 yet, is it? The spirit of the challenge is to try something new... Go on a shopping hunt, a voyage of discovery, researching a new camera you never used, or overlooked when it first came out. But then if you don't have a spare $150 and just want to use the oldest, cheapest camera on your shelf, perhaps that should be allowed as well... provided it is actually now a $150 camera in 2019 on ebay. Yep, that's allowed. LOL. You bought it for $150 or under so it's within the rules. The challenge will be how you get around the damage, without it hurting the image so much that you get voted out of the cinematography challenge