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Andrew Reid

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  1. Indeed, that's why politicians campaign in poetry and rule in prose. The reality of a Trump establishment will be very different to what his supporters voted for and he will have difficult decisions to make that will be unpopular no matter what choice he makes. There are good ideas on both sides of the political left and right, I just wish people would vote for good PRACTICAL ideas and not hyperbole. And no matter whether you are a conservative or liberal, good economic policy is good economic policy. Trump is an economic novice and his businesses have underperformed the market. True. But clearly a poverty of the mind is developing in the US and UK. Artist David Hockney - "One time, I was walking in Holland Park (I was sitting for Lucian Freud), and I stopped to watch some black rabbits playing. So I sat on a seat watching and then some magpies came down, black and white birds, and they looked rather good. I was sitting there having a cigarette and three girls come running by, jogging and see me and come: “Ow, ow… ” [wags finger]. And I sat there and thought: “They think they are very healthy, but they haven’t seen the rabbits.” And I thought: “Well, I’m healthier than they are." I think largely the Trump thing is a reaction to the sanctimonious liberalism and political correctness that I hate about Clinton and the left, even though I myself am centre-left in many of my political views. Trump is a big fat steak as opposed to a wet vegan salad. Exactly why it was important to have a decent voter turnout, there just wasn't enough passion for the wet vegan salad.
  2. Let's have it out!!! Following on from Ed's thread about Trump here are my thoughts: 1. How's this for cruel irony - Both Trump supporters on the far right and Bernie supporters on the socialist left believe the same thing. That Hilary Clinton and Tony Blair are war criminals responsible for massive civilian death tolls in the middle east and the rise of ISIS. Actually the war started because of dictatorships there and were escalated under two US presidents both with the name Bush, furthered by decades of repression and poverty in places like Afghanistan. If anything Obama and Clinton tried to deescalate it from the Bush eras. Much as I love him, Bernie depressed the turn out for Hilary Clinton more than anyone else. His wide support is the primary reason Trump is in power, ready to join forces with Putin and accelerate the bombing of civilians in Syria. Young liberals eat up paranoid conspiracy thoeires and fake news just as much as those on the far right because we're living in a highly partisan post-fact virtual world where the truth is too complicated for a Facebook headline. 2. There is nothing wrong with democracy and here's why. The majority of people are now politically ignorant. They cannot be bothered with it. Therefore it follows they should get a president of the United States who is equally as politically ignorant. Look at this from the New Yorker magazine - "A voter with more knowledge of politics will, on balance, be less eager to go to war, less punitive about crime, more tolerant on social issues, less accepting of government control of the economy, and more willing to accept taxes in order to reduce the federal deficit. Voters ignorant of economics will tend to be more pessimistic, more suspicious of market competition and rises in productivity, and more wary of foreign trade and immigration"... Which camp do you think Trump and his voters fall into? Trump is economically as ignorant as you can get. Despite employing immigrants he sees immigration as bad for the economy and despite making things in foreign countries and importing from them, he sees foreign trade as bad for the economy, and despite being married to one he sees immigrants as bad for the economy and despite being born to one he is in favour of mass deportation. The US economy is going to go to shit. Could it be that Norway has a more politically astute population? They have a good economy, stay out of wars, are more tolerant on social issues, less punitive about crime and accept higher taxes.... It all comes down to how much interest people take in politics, instead of snapchat. 3. All Trump supporters right now -
  3. OK, people voted for him because they just LOVE racism. Joking aside, I think our western society is verging on having a dangerous love affair with celebrity and consumerism. That's why, when a well known blogger insults your favourite camera brand, people flip out. People need to realise that it's ok to disagree. I was watching the US election closely and know exactly what happened. Trump won due to a depressed voter turn out for Clinton and a wave of popular support in the rust belt states from mainly working class white voters who felt left behind and distrustful of the mainstream media to give them objective information. So they sourced their information from a Facebook echo chamber instead and from fake news articles, all the while believing Clinton was corrupt and Trump as a 'successful' businessman = the answer to the US's economic problems. If anything it is they who are painfully oversimplifying the world and politics, not me. And it is the same with cameras. I can give you my opinions, and the facts, but people already have their own conspiracies of information from the pro-Sony or pro-Canon echo-chambers online, and it is becoming increasingly hard to put good information out there in the face of such indifference. Click-bate and heavily biased camera review sites would not exist if the audience wanted for better, or knew any differently, and it is the same with Trump.
  4. The Samsung NX1 and Sony A6300 have been warned. Fujifilm has arrived! No really. This time they mean it. The X-T2 shoots the best 4K I have yet seen for $1500, with a great lens range, pleasing colour science, less rolling shutter and a different approach to ergonomics to Sony. Read the full article
  5. To those critics in this thread - that you see my opinions as unworthy because I'm not inside the film industry doesn't surprise me, because most of the same people just voted for a US president based on how rich he was. It's a bit of a sad situation in 2016 where such a consumerist mindset exists that only pros shooting paid gigs are considered experts. Time and time again in Berlin I have turned down paid work to focus on my own creative projects and self-employment. It's my choice. EOSHD has been a success. I could have been slaving away, climbing the ladder professionally shooting one advert after another and being bossed around by clueless clients. Again, I have chosen a different path. I'd much rather be doing my own thing day in day out. It doesn't take much to click through to Vimeo and see my last 5 years of cinematography and personal work. And even if that isn't to your taste, your taste is not the universal blueprint by which everything film-related is judged. This article comes from the heart. Maybe I didn't get across the capabilities of the 1D X Mark II in one go, maybe I'm rusty. The footage isn't my best. It is 120fps with a heavily stylised grade shot handheld on holiday. It isn't meant to be Citizen Kane. It was just to show the 120fps. The way some people are going on about the image quality of that video as some way indicative of the overall quality from the 1D X Mark II is really stupid. The 4K looks very different. That is coming next in part 2. I also have shot with the X-T2 and G80. Great alternatives for less money. The 1D X Mark II was meant as a replacement for my 1D C and it succeeds in doing that. I paid £5k for the 1D C used back at the start of 2015 and even though it came out in 2012 the image is still better than the A7S II, Sony FS5, etc. No it is not a £500 camera. I never said it was good value for money in that respect. Pretty obvious really. The skintones - I think side by side with the Sony picture, the Canon one looks too extreme and you cannot really judge either image from the web or blog post page. In isolation at full 20MP resolution on a large print or a large 4K monitor, the Canon looks more natural and true to nature, whereas the Sony looks dead. Also the Canon flatters skin, whereas the Sony exaggerates any imperfections even on a very good looking subject. See the following 2.8K JPEGs instead, full screen -
  6. No problem. Some nice footage and shots on here by the way.
  7. You need to be in stills mode. Use the Stills/Movie switch to put it into stills mode and then try again.
  8. I did get an invite to the FS7 II event but couldn't go to Barcelona in the end due to getting ill. This is not about disliking one company or liking another. It is about liking one camera over another. You are free to have a different opinion about your cameras but it's a bit questionable attacking someone for being against your favourite brand. Is this the kind of hyper consumerist world we're living in now? Post-fact?
  9. Not necessarily. It may be a Nikon design and Sony's factory just built it. The one in the X-T2 might be a Sony design, Sony built. Sensor looks very similar to the one in the A6300 to me. Who knows... All I can say is that the X-T2's colour isn't as nice as I expected it to be, with rather waxy skintones compared to Canon and Panasonic. It seems the few people who are getting crazy high saturation and crushed blacks on the comparison shot really need to dial down their displays, calibrate them to S-RGB or just plain upgrade.
  10. Canon have made the biggest step forwards with their DSLR technology this year that we've seen since 2008 and the 5D Mark II. However it isn't the 5D Mark IV that has me excited so much the 1D X Mark II. This is a camera that will see out the next 6 years as the benchmark for others to follow. Read the full article
  11. Metabones EF XL working fine on my Panasonic G80.
  12. Hacked Samsung NX500 is shooting some very nice 2.5K. I wish Blackmagic would concentrate more on the consumer priced stuff again and give us a BMCC 2.0
  13. This is really exciting stuff. 10bit will be great for the SD card Canon bodies in upping resolution while keeping the date rate under the max of the SD card slot. 60D now 1080p for 12 seconds! Will be interesting to see if it works in crop mode on the 5D Mark III for longer record times in 3K
  14. It's a "big problem" for Nikon only if they are designing a camera by committee, with one half of the table saying one thing and the other half saying another, which I'm afraid it looks like they are doing, at least in terms of the product feedback from pros.
  15. NX1 the best choice by far, you need to spend over $6000 to beat it for 120fps However if you don't mind the small sensor and fixed lens - RX100 IV has the best resolution and even 240fps, with less moire.
  16. It won't be more profitable in the long run when people are too afraid to buy a Sony camera for fear that in 2 months they will make it obsolete.
  17. It wouldn't be quite the rip off it is if Sony had done what they should have done. Announce the A6300 and A6500 TOGETHER at the same time and likewise back when the A7R II was announced, release it with the A7S II at the same time, allow us to make a choice and to buy just one, not stumble into the A7R II or A6300 then end up buying the A6500 or A7S II as well because they're better specced for video... I actually think as a sales tactic this is disastrous and we will tire of it very quickly. They have maintained this illusion of constant technological progress... if you think however that in the 6 months between the A6300 and A6500 suddenly Sony invented 5 axis image stabilisation and a touch screen you are mistaken.
  18. Not with any real reliability or precision to be honest. The 1D X Mark II walks all over it. Ok... it is $6k but with something this important it is the difference between a wreaked shot or a great one.
  19. Plus 20% VAT = 1507 euros, plus import duties = something higher + hell knows what else = 1700 Personally I miss the days of bargain GH2s and NEX cameras... the whole thing seems to be shifting higher and higher with every passing month as the consumer market dies and smartphones take over. At this rate there won't be an interesting camera under $3k. And also, the A6300 should never have existed. Majorly flawed, with a shelf life of approximately 30 seconds. There was absolutely nothing to stop Sony putting a touch screen in that and 5 axis stabilisation. The A6500 is a very interesting update but their game is clear, and I am angry at them, as I feel we have wasted our money...not once, not twice, but many times now with these quickly obsolete cameras.
  20. Out of those the 5D Mark III is of course the best but it is not exactly the cheapest. Oddly I find the 50MP 5DS shoots the best quality 1080p of all the Canon DSLRs right now. It's very detailed.
  21. 29ms, I don't believe that. Looks more like 15-20ms as it is noticeably better than the NX1 skew in my tests.
  22. it really depends on the creative work you're doing, if you're doing hour long takes, live events, continuous recording and interviews, news, that kind of thing then of course a shoulder mount would help and there are plenty of rigs, have been for 6 years, that can easily convert a DSLR form factor for that purpose... For music videos, short films, mood pieces, you are doing short takes, usually no longer than 1 minute each before you stop and re-take, direct, talk to actors, etc. and many times there's a tripod involved, so ENG is not the only design in town!
  23. I'm going to have to defend the DSLR and mirrorless cameras big time... ENG shoulder shooting is overrated. I personally don't want to lug around a big heavy camera with rails and a shoulder mount that can only be shot with in one position at one height. At least with a DSLR you have a choice whether you rig it up for ENG style shooting or something more minimal. When you have 5 axis stabilisation and a body that weighs less than 1kg, it really isn't that hard Indeed when you have an EVF (either built in or via loupe) you basically have the same shooting style as a Super 16mm camera and nobody is suggesting those aren't suitable for film work. Times change. The 18MP refers to 6000 x 3000 in 6K Photo Mode (the maths is 6000 * 3000 = 18 million pixels) If the final sensor is in that aspect ratio I will eat my hat There's no way it is going to be 18MP. It will be in region of 24-28MP if it supports 6K res
  24. Am I the only one who preferred the GH1 and GH2 to when the GH3 gave us that 'serious' body? Slimmer, smaller, more fun, more nimble controls, no daft rear wheel that you can't do full turns off because the rubber of the rear grip doesn't drop away next to it I also prefer the original A7S to the A7R II / A7S II. Again, slimmer, more nimble controls, less complexity, less soulless and more shiny!
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