Andrew Reid

  Which explains why Canon wiped $2.5 billion off their 2013 profit forecast.

It includes a share offer and was only 1 year (2011) but Forbes are a good source. Who knows, may be wrong. I have no idea about such matters and nor should it matter. The point is, their management are not into change. They want to keep the status quo ticking along and they don't really understand the gravity of the situation, with regards the internet age and technology and Canon's lack of progress in those areas.

No it was in dollars not yen, look - http://www.forbes.com/profile/fujio-mitarai/   More from Canon...   Interview, mainly about mirrorless - http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fdc.watch.impress.co.jp%2Fdocs%2Fnews%2Finterview%2F20131209_626786.html   Sparkling career but please retire guys and let some young blood revitalise the company.

  I still have my LA7200 and yes it is soft at the edges. I'll do a comparison vs the SLR Magic as I know a lot of LA7200 users are thinking of making the switch. If you move quick enough you might actually save money as the eBay price for the LA7200 has been hyper inflated for a while now. Can't see it staying up there above $1000 for much longer.

Out this coming weekend.

  I'll know more soon about this, when the SLR Magic diopters arrive at EOSHD HQ. Andrew has had my Tokina as a reference and guinea pig!

  I haven't tried this lens but it may well work. Ideally though you should be keeping it mated to a lens with a smaller rear element than 50mm, to match the 50mm rear of the anamorphic. Such large glass as F1.2 - i.e the Canon 50 and 85 L lenses, are HUGE! It certainly won't be sharp at F1.2. At F2.8 you should get outstanding performance but like I say I haven't tested the 50mm.   I have tried it on the Olympus OM 55mm F1.2 and it does play well stopped down to 2.8, whereas the Iscorama vignettes a bit.

  The Sigma at 18mm itself on the MFT SB doesn't vignette on the GH3, I have tried. But you can't expect an SLR Magic or Iscorama anamorphic to cover the wide end. You can use it fine at the 35mm end without vignetting.

If you have the near / far focus out of whack with the prime lens focus distance your oval bokeh will turn on its side. So maybe a mistake on my part of it appears so in the video. I'll check it out.   Here's a better example of the stretched bokeh of this lens...     I shot shot it now.

  It is exactly the long term strategy for making money I have an issue with regards Canon. They have been very successful at short termism actually. They have not kept up with technological changes and market shifts especially towards mirrorless technology. Maybe they think they can just turn on the tap late and get away with it? I don't know.   And more worryingly even Sigma are making better lenses now, just look at the performance of the Sigma 35mm F1.4 vs the Canon L equivalent.

  There's tons lacking on the photography side too actually. They don't have a mirrorless system with EVF. They have something like a grand mirrorless lens range of what… 2 lenses!?   So no really portable full frame camera for stills like Sony has with the A7R, A7 and RX1.   There's no high megapixel body for stills. Canon 22MP to Nikon / Sony 36MP is a big gap. Their CMOS manufacturing needs to move off the current outdated process to achieve this high megapixel count and it seems they are late doing this.   Their contrast detect AF is still slower than Micro Four Thirds and 95% of Canon lenses don't have internal silently focussing stepping motors for AF. Even on 70D the live-view AF is way slower than the Panasonic GX7 / Olympus OM-D E-M1.   They don't have the variety of bodies either… They are all almost identical to use, similar size, similar ergonomics, similar black trad. SLR design, etc.   The lens range is incredibly strong but very pricey, look at the new Canon 35mm F2.0 IS. That began at 700 euros and they had to drop the price 200 euros before it started selling. Compared to Sigma 35mm F1.4 you have to really need IS to consider the Canon. It's a nice lens, I use it, and light… but at 700 it was a non-starter for me.   Photographers are also complaining about the EOS M2. They were awaiting a proper update but instead had the range cancelled altogether in the US and Europe where the last one sold poorly due to being rather rubbish.   Trust me, it's pretty much only momentum and inertia which is keeping Canon in the game at the moment.

  It doesn't vignette on the Pocket with original Speed Booster. Good all the way.   On 1.86x crop GH2 which turns into something slightly larger than the APS-C sensor the Sigma was intended for you do get some slightly dark corners at 18mm.

  Not tried it but feel free to start a separate topic for this!

  Good idea :)

  Maybe because you've been following in the wrong place :)   The multiple flares are because there's multiple light sources in one LED panel. If you flare it with a single light source you get nicer flare.   Similar thing happens with an Iscorama and nobody complains!   I do agree there's a difference between the dramatic 2x stretch lenses and this, but SLR Magic wanted to keep the aspect ratio to 2.39:1 from 16:9 which is a Cinemascope standard. 3.55:1 isn't.   Again 1.3x is pretty close to 1.5x but nobody complains about an Iscorama's image.   Personally I like it. If you look at the check list of features and get factual about it...   My footage looks nicer than the Letus stuff I've seen so far. It has the uncanny anamorphic out of focus areas both foreground and background. It has the stretched ovals bokeh and it has flare very similar to a cinema Panavision (which also always flares blue). It is bloody sharp edge to edge and has the ease of focus as the Iscorama, which is rare on an anamorphic for this price. It has soundly beaten the LA7200 and that was capable of some pretty nice results to begin with. It's exceptionally small and light. The price… it compares VERY favourably to the other practical single focus options out there. The minimum focus distance is half of an Iscorama and more like a LOMO cine lens.   Facts are facts. I just feel SLR Magic have some years to go before people can get over the brand not being Leica and the lenses not being made in West Germany.

  Goes well with this lens.   I haven't shot with the 20mm enough yet though to feature it but I will.

  With a Nikon G adapter. The aperture is controlled via a mechanical lever on the back of the Nikon mount version. On the Canon version it's entirely electronic.

I think it's cool. I love the ergonomics and look of some Super 8 cameras. If you paired it with this it would make them far more useful. Mine are only used as ornaments and I use the lenses on the Pocket camera!

Maybe the 2x crop sensor is cutting the edges of the flare off so you don't see it bend?   I know what you mean though… I think on some lenses the flare does have a little bit of barrel distortion but you can reduce it with a longer focal length or a crop sensor. I was shooting at 35mm on Super 35. On the SLR Magic it's definitely no more bendy than the Iscorama's flare or LOMO, and I love that.

Check out third image down, Iscorama flare bends too according to the distortion. http://www.eoshd.com/content/9570/shooting-gorilla-style-in-berlin-with-iscorama-54-and-blackmagic-cinema-camera   I suspect with the Schneider you're not shooting at a very wide angle so the distortion isn't as noticeable, say at 85mm.   With the Anamorphot 50 you can go to a genuinely wide field of view.   If you check the shot from Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds too on that page you will see the barrel distortion produced by a $50k Hollywood anamorphic at wide angle :)

(The anamorphic footage starts around 10 seconds in) The new SLR Magic Anamorphot jointly developed with the help of EOSHD is still in my studio and I've shot the above video with it. This should give you an idea of how the flare moves around during a shot and the general anamorphic aesthetic you are able to get with the adapter. Also part of the fun of the adapter is that like the Iscorama it sings with certain lenses, which all have a different look. I've been trying it out with a bunch of them... Read the full article here

I will continue to enjoy Canon through their lenses at least even if not their DSLRs. The 85MM F1.2L is the work of a madman!!

One other point… Canon's CEO took home $272 million in 2011. He's 77 this year I believe.   Do you really think a guy in this position has the same hunger to explore new technology as someone like Grant Petty, who has it all ahead of him?

  Absolutely spot on.   Let's ponder why. They have a top level management whose job it is to deliver ever larger increases in profit, year on year. It's a pressurised business environment in Asia, Japan especially, it makes Europe look quaint. When you are a large company, massive profits are just not enough. Success is relative. If you're only making $2.5bn profit on $40bn sales you need to be making $5bn profit on $80bn sales or better still $40bn profit on $80bn sales!! Where does it end? Canon's management have figured out how to go after this profit and until now figured it out pretty well... in the short term.   In the long term they are a mess because they are ignoring the products, their selling points in a shifting marketplace, rapidly evolving technological progress and the demand of their customers.   Their compacts long ago could have morphed into an online photo sharing experience. Canon could have bought Flickr and YouTube in one stroke and included a one touch share button on all of their compacts. They could have done this if they'd had the future vision and foresight to do so, before Google snapped up YouTube. Canon just didn't see it. Their ageing management mostly didn't even use the internet in 2005. Canon's buck stops with a CEO who is nearly 80 years of age. I am sure with some careful consideration and thought, Canon's combined talent could have come up with something far far more compelling than I just thought of in 5 seconds on a forum post with the benefit of hindsight, but for whatever reason they were content to churn out the same product again and again in tiny incremental steps until the market had shifted completely away from them and onto smartphones.   Sounds familiar?   DSLR video was a golden opportunity. You can't say it was a flash in the pan or inconsequential, a niche. What it did was launch a multi-million dollar business division at Canon which didn't even exist before the 5D Mark II. What's even more incredible is that where Blackmagic purposefully targeted and nurtured a new market, Canon accidentally stepped into it. If it wasn't for live-view on the 5D Mark II, they would not now be in the cinema business. End of story. They would be churning out small chip camcorders or XL1 successors with fixed zoom optics. They'd have been no opportunity to add mark up on their EF lenses by creating Cine versions. No opportunity for a halo effect to spread to their consumer business from Hollywood DPs actively shooting and endorsing their Cinema EOS cameras and DSLRs.   Canon had no video capable CMOS in development planned for cinema cameras. They had live view capable CMOS sensors in stills cameras that just happened to be the same thing.   It's about time Canon actually THANKED the enthusiast DSLR video community for the manner in which we embraced Canon and allowed them to grasp the opportunity to launch Cinema EOS.

Take a look at this...   http://nikonrumors.com/2013/12/08/the-last-d3100-d3200-d5100-d5200-and-p7700-firmware-update-killed-third-party-battery-compatibility.aspx/   - Third party batteries banned for use in D5200 and others - Absolutely no mention in the change log for firmware update   I think that's an absolute disgrace not to mention it in the change log for the firmware update.   Imagine if you had an important shoot coming and then suddenly none of your batteries worked any more.   Again this will upset more customers and turn away more customers from Nikon than it will gain them in profit from genuine battery sales.   And I am sure they will say they did it for safety related reasons, so I must somehow be missing all those horror stories of third party batteries damaging cameras or setting fire to kittens. Bad bad third party batteries.