Andrew Reid

Let's talk Chinese anamorphic stuff, vs vintage. I don't have much modern stuff although did get the full frame Great Joy 60mm T2.8 for L-mount a few months back. Recently picked up one of these though... https://siruishop.de/en/products/saturn?srsltid=AfmBOoqYgHSzTnkpJQ0HBLwj-2r6w0uskpYgytF1N-2y1XJX3hglGgMO It has come down from 1399 euro to 600. I got mine for 180 euros... Aperture blades were broke, so I removed them. Plan to put a DIY oval aperture in it. The look is good, in terms of sharpness and bokeh. Distortion is quite heavy - and pincushion, it's a very wide lens and I don't mind a bit of distortion but would prefer there to be barrel distortion like a Hollywood Panavision anamorphic, pincushion is a bit unexpected. Flare is weak, this is an area the good value for money lenses still can't seem to get right. I'll do some comparison shots with my Iscoramas. It is a 1.6x stretch so very similar to the Iscorama 36 (1.5x). Minimum focus distance is just a tad under 1 meter. It's a full frame lens so this isn't too bad, you can crop for closer-ups. Mainly I am impressed by the size and weight of the thing... It is absolutely tiny for an anamorphic cine lens.

As the saying goes it's same as a Leica SL2 inside, so $800 is a real bargain. The S1 / S1R ergonomics are alright, bit too heavy and big. I prefer Sony 4th gen (a7 IV onwards) in that respect, but the S1R really did feel and look like a high-end camera when it came out unlike the new stuff.

I had that as well. Cold solder joints, which a lot of electronics went through in the earlier days of the switch to lead free solder. Baking it in the oven for a re-flow at 200c fixed it only temporarily. I think there might have been a class action in the US against Apple about this once? What's up with the G9 II audio? The issue in the Sony case is that thousands of people have been wrongly charged for replacement hardware... Swapping out the mainboard, when actually the failure is software. Sony will probably try and do a cover up. What they deserve is a class action lawsuit.

$800 is a steal for that powerhouse. Enjoy

Happily USA have got as much chance of going past group stage as Scotland!

I wish I hadn't!

Ah yes, I've never liked them either 🙂

If you're in Berlin and would like to check out some nice gear give me a shout...https://www.kleinanzeigen.de/s-bestandsliste.html?userId=6113630 I have listed the Nikon Zf, Sony RX100 V, Fuji X-T30, Oly PEN F and more... The Cooke 50mm T2.8 is also up there, a legend 🙂 The shelves are full! It has to go!

Never heard of it, but I like it.

Haha. I am not one of those then... Lenses are more important than cameras, really. It's true a lot of people are happy with one modern 24-70mm F2.8 for silly prices like $2k that can only be used on ONE camera and maybe a fast 50mm... F1.2? for another $2k (fuck me... no wonder they don't own many), maybe a longer lens - 70-200mm perhaps for 2 grand or whatever, that is 6 grand totally down the drain. Just get a good 35mm prime and learn to use back-button AF. I don't understand why they think the heavy zooms are such a great option. The 24-70s are massive and don't have the character of a nice 35mm F1.4. 28mm or 35mm are a fantastic focal lengths... Not too wide for people shots, easy to crop to a 50mm FOV. The do-it-all lenses. Give me a small 28mm F2 like the Leica Q over a DSLR 24-70 any day... I have the images to prove it!

I see the guy responsible for Liquid Ass has taken his ass off to Meta, which in my opinion is one of the most unethical companies in the world. Quote of the week comes from Tim Cook: “The truth is we could make a ton of money if we monetized our customer, if our customer was our product" “We’ve elected not to do that.” “Privacy to us is a human right. It’s a civil liberty, and something that is unique to America. This is like freedom of speech and freedom of the press.” “Privacy is right up there with that for us.” ** Last time I looked, privacy was not unique to America. In fact, Tim has just spent the past 12 months cozying up to a fascist dictator. Maybe he got kicked in the head by a horse, I don't know. But something there isn't quite right there. Could it be that these companies are taking us for fools? Alan Dye is the guy responsible for the current mess at Apple by the way... Alan's a perfect fit for Meta as he appears in my opinion for all the world to be an absolutely world class bullshitter. If fake-it-till-you-make-it was an olympic sport he'd be the GOAT. How a design department under his leadership took years to come up with a worse phone UI, a cheap Android-like skin with folders that look like fucking icecubes, I'll never know. It must be one of the worst tech failures of all time. The quality control is nowhere. The aesthetics are awful. The AI side is an abject failure (Apple even admit it). What is it with these fuckers and failing upwards? He's gone from one of the most highly compensated positions in tech to possibly an even higher paid one, and his singular achievement has been to ruin our phones. I am actually an Apple fan, their design ethos under Jonny Ive was sensational and the engineering has always been spectacular, people criticise them for design over substance, it's total BS - Apple Silicon is a revolutionary architecture. The current Macbooks are the best laptops ever made. The iPhone, which gave rise to it (RISC Apple Silicon) have always featured the best operating system on a phone, by a mile, it's not even close. So what the hell is going on under Cook? This is a company which is able to attract the best product, marketing and engineering talent in the world, bar none. They should not be ending up in this situation, by promoting Alan fucking Dye into senior leadership positions. In my opinion they should roll back everything he's done. Give us back iOS 18 and apologise. The fact they have gone cap in hand begging to Google for ai features is the other big humiliation of 2025 for Apple. This is a rival which literally stole the very concept of a modern smartphone from Apple, and they are now rewarding them for it.

What does a lens to body ratio of 1.7 mean?

I don't know what people see in new cameras really. Used ones just so much more exciting. A GFX 100 for £1800. You don't need to buy a single medium format lens for it... Bang on a 10 quid adapter and Minolta 50mm F1.4 for 50 quid and it looks like a Leica M11 with Noctilux F0,95. A7 IV for £1300... What a bargain that is. Does everything. If you need the exotic frame rates and codecs... EOS R5, 4K/120p, 8K raw, £1700. Sony a1... You can go to Japan and the flight pays for itself. The list goes on. I will never buy a new camera or pre-order one again.

My thoughts on the blog. https://www.eoshd.com/news/are-canon-back-on-top-in-specs-race-sony-a7-v-and-canon-eos-r6-mark-iii-comparison/

They're acting like the problem is new 🙂 https://petapixel.com/2025/12/03/sony-a7-iv-firmware-6-00-still-suspended-after-widespread-malfunctions/