Andrew Reid

What does it do with a card in the slot? No output at all?​ Olympus seem to be clueless. Motor companies don't put cars out with duff radios, I'm not sure why Olympus feels duff HDMI and broken timecode are suitable for a final retail shelf unit.

To test resolution shoot at infinity with a wide angle lens, something like a landscape from far away. Sorry but close-ups of towels tell us nothing.

Nothing else just floats there in mid-air like the Olympus stabilisation, it's a dolly track in the sky. Which makes it all the more disturbing that they can't see a market for it, or rather, that they continue to pay lip service to the market for it. The Timecode implementation is absolutely useless by the way. Almost like a marketing check box has been ticked rather than a feature! You can't change exposure during a shot, controls lock up. The Panasonic G6 showed that great 1080p can be done for very very low prices in this market. The E-M5 shows that no matter how many great engineers do magical things there will always be an equal and opposite imbecile force to waste that effort.

Re-watched John's footage again on the E-M5 II and he made it look a lot better than it is. I can scarcely believe it's the same camera. It's like the V1.0 retail firmware has taken it back a peg, to segment it from the E-M1.

​Yes I saw that comment from Olympus. They are right and they're wrong. Pana, Sony, Samsung do need to generate 4K content for their TVs. However my question to Olympus is do you see the potential in great 1080p? BECAUSE YOU HAVEN'T EVEN DONE THAT YET!

There's virtually no point in an APS-C DSLR any more. No unique selling point. Full frame is now affordable. The DX and EF-S lenses are nothing unique or worth holding onto. At least Micro Four Thirds has a unique value proposition in that it is small, mirrorless, sometimes 4K. What D7100 owner would be tempted by this upgrade? Doubtful.

Great stills camera though! Unless you have full frame, for same price. Oh, we do.

It's a joke alright. Unbelievable that they let it out of the door with so much moire, aliasing, softness. The crop is massive in video mode too, more than E-M1 or GH4. I'll have more to say in the full review, but right now I am disappointed in Olympus. Like I said they clearly listened, timecode of all things! It's a bit like being in a restaurant and your dish arrives with no sauce, so you send it back and they return it with the sauce but no chicken! They are counting on us upgrading to a 4K E-M1 Mark II obviously but I am giving them a very clearly message. NO MORE OLYMPUS FOR ME! I don't care how good the stabilisation is. They are done.

With the Olympus E-M5 Mark II we've been seduced. 40MP stills - oooh! High bitrate 24p - Ahh! The E-M5 II is a great camera. Let's see how they've ruined it. Read the blog post here

The rainbow is separation, the glued elements coming apart. Avoid that one

Painful to watch maybe, but going to keep the thread open. Back on topic please!

Shame for them to lose you Ed. You're a great contributor wherever you happen to be posting. I'm enjoying your blog too, it's thought provoking. As for DVXUser i've seen both sides of the coin now. I didn't see eye to eye with them when I was a user. Now I'm a forum admin myself here, I can see what a challenge it is. It's a bit like running a kitchen at a restaurant but instead of the odd one-time customer or tourist turning up and hurling abuse through the kitchen door, the regulars feel they can do it too, whilst continuing to come back for soup the next day. It's a tricky one. In the end, we must try to respect the censorship / editorial decision of the admins.

    ​I was a contributing writer on this review (along with my footage) and I think it is spot on about the a7S as a video tool. DP Review are mainly a photography site but this is the best review of a video orientated hybrid camera they've yet done. You can read my case for the camera at DPReview here! Read the blog post here

Nope it doesn't work on my iMac, grey screen every few seconds and lots of lag. Maybe VLC 2.2 needs special hardware.

The D7200 isn't worth waiting for or the extra money, looks like a very tiny incremental change. And 1080/60p only in 1.3x / lack of articulated screen makes it worse than D5300!

I didn't have the time to read the 16 page thread on something I didn't yet even own. Although I did mention I'd be using it with my Kowa 8Z in just about every email to you, with not a single correction from you until after it arrived. And as late as the 30th Jan was ready to "dust it off" on your advice... Not very nice to blame me for being unprofessional and for not having the right anamorphic to fit it. You were supposed to send the FM with the Cinelux, which is what I was expecting to review... pretty impossible otherwise. That's what you said would happen! The blog certainly isn't a market, although sometimes it feels like one. ​Mindaugas at the Anamorphic Shop is first to admit the project has benefited from this forum and my members... Yet you still cannot find within yourselves the gratitude to properly inform me, to not mislead me, or even to send me the proper kit so that the review is not impossible.

​My firm advice is to wait for better solutions. We're all hungry and curious for better lenses, especially 2x. I've always thought from the moment I got my Kowa 4 years ago, "if only". If only it would be a single focus anamorphic. The image is just so wonderful. I know for a fact better anamorphic solutions are on the way.... wait and see. Cosmio, the reason the thread stays is that I am not here to act as a marketing platform. You can't just suddenly delete everyone's contribution to the thread, because some people don't praise the product. Yes I personally found it "not good enough" quite simply and nor the service or communication. That's up to you to improve, not us. We are not paying for your R&D or market research. We are filmmakers who just want to get the look of anamorphic. I was interested like many in the FM, willing to take the time to explore it. That you on your part and at the Anamorphic Shop in Latvia didn't bother to provide the full kit, speaks poorly of the service aspect. If you can't even service EOSHD, what hope does a 'normal' customer have?

Does it actually work?

Also a sense of humour is very important in today's world.

The irony is that you have more potential to make money as an amateur freed of 'industry dogma' today than as a work-a-day pro like Tim Naylor. All it takes is talent, imagination and the internet. I agree with Oliver when it comes to clients, they are there for the vision and their understanding is based on ideas rather than on some obscure camera technicality. That's our job - to put the two together to = reality. The FS7 has hit the rental shops in a big way in Berlin. Many professional filmmakers using them straight away. The day rate is approaching 300 euros because demand is outstripping demand until they can stock up. That's nearly 3x more than a C300, yet it retails for half the price of one. My advice to any budding filmmakers is to avoid the established commercial industry altogether and go online. Base your services online as that is the future. You can go and invest £5k in a FS7, rent it out and establish a production studio purely from your living room without ever leaving the house, because the internet really is that powerful, a new 'universe' which we live in whether we like it or not, or even understand it or not (the dinosaurs don't!)

The thread stays.

Despite the lens being a loan, if I were a paying customer I'd be asking for my money back because Cosimo at no point before the lens shipped did you tell me the Kowa wouldn't work. I have all the emails and PMs. You kept this quiet until after the demo unit arrived on the 7th. Again it's a good job I didn't pay for it, because I would have had a bad surprise there. I was willing to help, like I am with all new anamorphic solutions, I want to try them and if they are any good help get the word out. Already this thread has had 20,000 views. Problem is the FM is not very good and I feel deceived. Also you said it would ship with the Schneider originally. If nobody at Anamorphic Shop in Latvia can be bothered to send a fully functional demo unit, then I can't review it. Simple logic really. What do you expect me to do, risk the £500 Kowa or buy a £500 Schneider myself which would be even more useless to me after I send the loan FM back!?!? Logic doesn't stack up does it!? Like I say I was willing to do the review but you shipped an incomplete kit with just the FM and no anamorphic, didn't ship any instructions and wasn't clear about which lenses I needed to use until after it plonked down on my desk in Berlin. Based on this mess I think you'd be the first to admit Cosimo that a bit more effort and a bit less hyperbole was needed to make this task of a review a bit less impossible.

It's just been a big heap of frustration from the get go I'm afraid. How can you ship it with no instructions? I have the Proskar so tried that. I had to stop down to F8 just to get a usable image. I'll return the lens. It's not worth the trouble.

​Currently it's due April / May.

Just did some research and the Iscorama's single focus mechanism patent is expired. Hopefully this will lead to some creativity on the part of new anamorphic designs.