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I am hugely excited for this camera, but having owned both the Pocket V1 and the Micro, I’m a touch wary about what else I have to buy to make the camera acutally work through the day. Whether it’s a ton of batteries AND enough chargers to be able to charge them all without me having to wake up at 3am to do a battery swap, or an OLPF for the Micro, there’s always *something else* that needs to be purchased. I’d love Blackmagic to sell an LP-E6 fast charger that can be powered off USB-C PD, especially if it can be run off an USB-C PD compatible power bank (like ones that can charge USB-C laptops), so I can put a spent battery into the charger and keep it in my bag through the day. Being able to rotate 3-4 batteries for all day location shooting rather than having to manage 8 batteries makes a HUGE difference for multiday shoots.

On 04/04/2018 at 8:28 PM, Mokara said:

It is not like Apple mobile chips are better than anyone else's.

Err.. what?

https://www.androidauthority.com/why-are-apples-chips-faster-than-qualcomms-gary-explains-802738/

TL;DR --

"There is no denying that Apple has a world class CPU design team that has consistently produced the best SoCs in the world over the last few years." 

Anyway, it's hardly surprising that Apple would try to bring their chip designs in house, like they have for pretty much every bit of their business (besides manufacturing.) In any case Apple sells a whole range of Macs, they're not all going to go internal all at once. At a guess the Macbook will be the first -- it's basically an iPad with a bad keyboard -- but certainly there may be Apple designed chips for the 13in Macbook Pro. We think Pro means heavy duty computing applications, but it's pretty obvious Apple sees "Pro" as meaning anyone who uses it for work. They've  prioritised things like size and battery life over raw power, when to be honest I think I'd rather an option for raw power at the expense of size or battery life. 

As a fun aside, I have a fully specced first gen 15in MBP with the Touch Bar, and my iPad runs Fortnite better than my very very expensive laptop. So don't discount what's possible with mobile hardware when you have the opportunity to really optimise for it. 

Also, err, Prores RAW. Developing a new codec that will be invaluable to only a very core niche of video professionals is hardly the action of a company who are abandoning the Pro market. 

I love shooting black and white, but I don’t get to do much motion in black and white. I did shoot a short a few years ago in black and white: 

I've used the same technique to remove banding as well as moire in the past. In Premiere Pro, make an adjustment layer over the affected clip, and set the colour blend mode to "color". Then drag a Gaussian Blur effect onto the adjustment layer, and use the mask tools to mask out the unaffected part of the frame. If you look closely it doesn't remove the pattern completely, but it does remove the colour banding which I find is good enough for most applications. Also, if you get a lot of banding in your footage check to see if it's the LUT that is causing it -- I've noticed in the past that some of the LUTs I was using would occasionally cause horrible banding. 

Oh man, what have I started! I thought it was a quick throwaway comment on a pet peeve of mine -- didn't think it would last this long!

Sorry Andrew, totally derailed your topic.

Look, I have no inside info or any actual knowledge in image sensors (beyond using them) so anything I add is just whatever Google tells me. But I did find this presser from 2010 from TowerJazz announcing a partnership with another company to provide BSI components:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100201007494/en/TowerJazz-Soitec-Sign-Agreement-Offer-Backside-Illumination

I have no idea if TowerJazz actually shipped any BSI chips, but it seems to at least point to a capacity to ship BSI chips from around 2010. 

In any case this is the last I will add to this specific topic... I think I've done enough damage. 

 

8 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Nikon do not manufacture sensors. (You agree with that). They may design them, but to what extent they are custom designs is open to question.

Maybe I'm not asking Google the right questions, but I think you might be the only one writing articles on the internet that is so fixated in "how custom is custom" for Nikon sensors. Since no one outside of Nikon knows, it could be one way or the other... making you either a brilliant analyst or conspiracy theorist. But one would've thought that the design part of the equation is a pretty important part of the overall process.

While we're on this point, there's an assumption that because Nikon has been known to use off-the-shelf Sony parts, it means they are somehow inferior to Sony. But the results speak differently. Even here the general wisdom is that Nikon has better colour than Sony, and that mojo happens in the processing. So if 50% of your mojo is in the code that you have full control over, and you can just buy the other 50% from an excellent manufacturer -- why reinvent the wheel for your volume products? Especially since lenses play an equally important part to the image capture workflow, and Nikon has a lock on that.
 

8 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

You are quoting a rumours site like it's fact!

Uhm, you're not quoting anything at all -- just pure conjecture on your part, unsubstantiated by even a "I can't talk about it because NDA".

Also --
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/nikon-d850/nikon-d850A.HTM#q-and-a

"The D850 uses a brand-new image sensor. The 45.7-megapixel full-frame sensor is Nikon's highest megapixel sensor yet and is also their first backside-illuminated (BSI) full-frame sensor. The sensor was designed entirely by Nikon, although they told us that the manufacturing was contracted out, which is not unusual. However, it remains notable that the sensor, unlike some found in other Nikon DSLRs, is not off-the-shelf but rather built specifically to Nikon's specifications. As expected, the new sensor also has a built-in ultrasonic cleaning mechanism and dust-off image reference capabilities."

But maybe they're wrong too? Or maybe Nikon lied to them? Or maybe you read "built specifically to Nikon's specifications" and see that as proof that Sony is the Wizard of Oz pulling the strings from behind the curtain? 

9 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Nikon have no history of using TowerJazz fabs. Only Sony and Toshiba logos have been found printed on the sensor boards in previous cameras.

Things change. I thought the jazz section of Tower Records in Japan was called Tower Jazz, but I haven't been in there for ages. I have no idea who TowerJazz is, but gee, let's have a think about why Nikon might've contracted a different manufacture this time. Maybe they've designed something new, and don't want Sony to have it since they're now competitors in the camera space? Maybe TowerJazz offered them a deal they couldn't refuse? Maybe it was a pragmatic business decision based on cost, ability, and timing? Maybe they worked with TowerJazz engineers to work out the kinks of the new design? 

Fun diversion -- Panasonic and TowerJazz formed a company dedicated to making Panasonic chips in Japan, including image sensors.

4 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

"Make" - to manufacture, build, assemble

"Design" - to spec, plan functionality of

Nikon do not manufacture sensors. They may design them, but to what extent they are custom designs is open to question. Sony is likely the manufacturer of the sensor, because it shares so much functionality, architecture, manufacturing processes and pixel architecture with the 42MP BSI CMOS in Sony's cameras.

That makes zero sense. Apple doesn't have a chip foundry, but they did design the A series of chips that power iOS devices. Does that mean Apple's design contribution to their own chips is less important than the 3 or 4 companies contracted to manufacture those chips? You know Nikon makes machines that make semiconductors so they have some experience in that field. In fact when Nikon had that big stumble a year ago it was mainly because their semiconductor business had a really bad year. I don't know why Nikon doesn't have its own foundry -- probably because they're really expensive to build and run and they don't have anywhere near the volume required to make that work financially.

Also, apparently TowerJazz is the manufacturer of the D850 sensor: https://nikonrumors.com/2017/11/14/first-indication-that-the-nikon-d850-sensor-could-be-made-by-towerjazz.aspx/

9 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

I wonder why Sony put all their latest tech into Nikon's 46MP sensor and stuck with the slightly less capable 42MP sensor themselves?

Oh I dunno, maybe because Sony didn't make that sensor? 
https://www.google.com.au/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=d850+sensor+manufacturer&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&gfe_rd=cr&dcr=0&ei=WZh3WvOQC6PM8gfdsZrwAQ

And according to this list (https://nikonrumors.com/2015/12/16/list-of-all-nikon-dslr-cameras-and-their-sensor-manufacturerdesigner.aspx/) some of the most important cameras Nikon has produced (The D3/s & D4/s which arguably pushed the industry towards low light ability rather than sheer megapixel count) were sensors designed in house. It goes against the grain of "Internet Wisdom", but Nikon has more of a hand in designing their sensors than anyone gives them credit for. In any case, shoot any two Nikons of the same generation and the files mix together just fine in the edit. So why does it count against them because they can get a Sony sensor package with Nikon specs and marry that to a Nikon processor and code that does the actual magic, and save themselves the time and cost of developing a sensor from scratch?  

I find all this 8 bit vs 10 bit talk a bit silly. 10 bit gives you only an incremental increase in grad-ability -- if your workflow requires heavy grading then RAW is where you need to be. And if you're not shooting RAW and you think you need 10 bit over 8 bit, I think you need to ask yourself why. 10 bit isn't going to help if you shoot in crappy light. 10 bit isn't going to help you rescue a shot 4 stops over. 10 bit isn't going to give you the malleability to create an interesting look from a badly lit scene. I know all this because I shoot mostly uncontrolled/run-and-gun and I've owned both a GH4 with VLog and a Shogun, and a BMMCC, and I can tell you that if the scene looks crap to your eyes there's no rescuing that even if you'd shot on an Alexa. And if you're good enough to grade beautiful cinematic scenes then you've got the know-how to fake it with a decently shot 8 bit file. 

None of this is to say that you should or shouldn't get a C200, because you need to take into account the way you shoot. I chose a C100mk2 because the package has everything I need to work solo, but I wouldn't chose that camera if I had the budget for crew. I chose to buy the cheapest camera that has everything built in so when I shoot I can concentrate on telling the story.  I'd like to get a C200 when the prices come down because it would fit on a gimbal better, and the autofocus is better. I love Canon's DPAF system, it increases my hit rate and helps me shoot more efficiently. Canon Log is super easy to grade and work with as long as you protect your highlights -- half stop over and the highlights are cooked, but I've brought back shots that were 2+ stops under (because I forgot to change my ND setting, duh!) with barely an issue. 

 

2 hours ago, Inazuma said:

My main gripe with mirrorless manufacturers these days is they keep releasing DSLR sized lenses. What is the point of mirrorless of the lenses are still going to be bigger. That's part of the reason why I hope Nikon choose the aps-c sized sensor for their first cam. But the mount diameter suggests full frame. 

Exactly. I just put my D750 next to my X-T2 and they're really not that different in size. The D750 is about 2cm taller and has a beefier grip, but they're about the same width and the D750 is maybe 3-6mm thicker depending on the part. Considering the D750 has to house a pentaprism and a mirrorbox, it really isn't a very big camera at all. 

But I don't think APS-C is going to instantly make lenses smaller. Fuji makes a bunch of small f2 primes that are great, but their 2.8 zooms are huge. The more I think about it I think my dream Nikon mirrorless is basically a D850 that uses a bigger battery like the D5 that will get through an entire day's shooting with a single battery. I don't even care if it's as big as a D850, if I don't need to pack 9 batteries that'll be a win!

2 minutes ago, Inazuma said:

Does anyone else feel it would be a shame if the body was to be as big as the GH5 (which is as big as the d750)? I know that a lot of you are using these mirrorless cameras in professional circumstances but I really think camera companies are missing a trick here by abandoning small bodies and lenses. I guess my demographic must be pretty niche these days 

For me it depends on the lenses you mount. I love how small my X-Pro2 is... with the tiny Fuji F2 primes. Not a fan of how it balances with the massive 90mm F2. With a full frame camera there's a limit to how small you can make the lenses*, so generally I'd rather a bigger body that balances well in the hand with a lens mounted. 

( * Obviously Leica has managed to make small lenses for full frame cameras, and if Nikon follows suit then by all means make the body smaller!)

I just want them to hurry up and release the thing, but beyond that I absolutely do not want it to be as small as the A7/A9 -- it's uncomfortably small and doesn't balance well in the hand, especially with the G Master zooms. A thinner D750 size would be ideal for me.

7 hours ago, jonpais said:

Do you own the XPro 2? Have you updated it? Because in Thomas Fitzgerald's video that was shared above, he says,

Unfortunately, you still can’t use the picture control options to adjust the picture profile, and so things like sharpness have no effect. Highlight and shadow tone options have no effect on video either.

I do, and I have, and it looks like you're right -- it does seem to ignore those settings. Wonder if it works on the X-T2?

2 hours ago, jonpais said:

Twigs and leaves hold no interest for me - but the inability to adjust highlight/shadows or to reduce in-camera sharpening would be enough to dissuade me from using the X-Pro 2 for shooting 4K, even with no extra crop in 4K.

But... you can adjust highlight and shadows. In the IQ menu you can change your highlights, shadows, saturation, and a bunch of other things that you can save as a preset. In fact I think Fuji has the most extensive set of controls over the final look of their JPGs and videos than any DSLR/Mirrorless camera I've used, and I've used/owned pretty much everything from cheaper than a 1DxMk2.

In terms of the sharpening, it is definitely over-sharpened, and very noticeable when shooting at infinity. But I was playing a little this afternoon and 3 pixel wide gaussian blur was enough to remove the oversharpening without making everything look out of focus. Plus a lot of those issues aren't a thing if you're shooting shallow dof, or shooting longer lenses for background separation etc etc. I vastly prefer the softer look of my C100mk2, but I'm feeling good about the X-Pro2 in certain circumstances, and I'm pretty sure I can match the two cameras in an edit.

12 hours ago, j-oc said:

Focus peaking would be the main one. Im assuming that you still can't punch in focus whilst recording? Thanks for doing this!

Nope, you can't punch in, and peaking turns itself off during recording. All the overlays you can turn on in the display settings menu stays on, but it seems everything else turns off. You can turn on the focus distance meter and kind of use that to mark your focus points, but it's not that accurate. The worse part is that it won't output a signal to an external recorder unless it's in playback mode, so really there's no getting around it. 

10 hours ago, Geoff CB said:

How is the rolling shutter?

Rolling shutter is not great in 4k compared to 1080p, though I didn't notice it when I was playing with it on my gimbal until you asked the question and I tested specifically for it.  You won't want to do any whip pans in 4k on this camera. 

10 hours ago, j-oc said:

Ive just installed the update but I’m travelling for the next day or two and won’t be able to bust it out. Is there now a way to stop all the overlays disappearing when you hit record?

Which overlays do you need? All the overlays I have on stay on (except for the photo specific ones). Let me know the ones you like and I can have a look.

2 hours ago, Inazuma said:

Does the X-pro2 have the following functions that were previously added to the X-T2 via firmware?

• Switching between EVF and rear LCD whilst recording
• Changing the iso while recording
• Changing the ISO using the scroll dial

You can't switch between the EVF/LCD during recording, and you still can't change ISO using the front dial. You can't change ISO at all as far as I can tell during recording. You can change the exposure compensation in Auto ISO mode with the front dial if you set the physical Exposure Compensation dial to C.

1 hour ago, DaveAltizer said:

Does XPro2 have PDAF? 

Yes, and it seems to be using the phase detect sensors during AF-C whilst recording video. It's not super smooth, but it doesn't hunt -- you're not going to get super smooth auto focus pulls a la C200, but I suspect it'll be good enough to use on a gimbal.

I've still not had heaps of time to test the video aspects, but from what I can see the 4K looks much better than what 1080p gave me previously, but I think there's been some improvements to the 1080p modes as well. Where previously everything looks over-sharpened and the skin looks like plastic, skin now looks more organic and real. It's still very sharp -- too sharp for my tastes -- but the colours are beautiful and the Auto ISO ramps up and down almost as smoothly as my Nikons, so I can definitely see me using it for gimbal work or personal stuff. I'm really looking forward to playing with the Acros simulation in video, I love it in stills and I think it could be really nice to shoot black and white with it.

Stills wise the new AF-C algorithms are brilliant, it locks and tracks faster than before. This and 4k alone would've sold me on an X-Pro3, I'm staggered they offered it as a free firmware upgrade! Plus the new tethering options mean one less reason to hang on to so many of my Nikon bodies.

Just installed the X-Pro 2 upgrade, the 4k looks WAY nicer than standard 1080p! I'd bought my Fujis for stills only, but I think there's a chance I'll be cracking them out for video as well!

Hahaha this whole thread reminded me of this:

Wonder what that did to the resale value?!

On 16/12/2017 at 1:57 PM, buggz said:

So, would this be good for a GH5 with Metabones 06.4XL Speedbooster and a Sigma Art 18-35?

How about a GH5 with Metabones 06.4XL Speedbooster and a Canon 24-105?

Newshooter reviewed the Crane 2 with a GH5 + PL Adaptor + Zeiss CP.2 cinema lens, and if it can do that I think it'll handle your GH5 + Sigma combo. The centre of gravity is as big an issue to consider as pure weight -- I've stripped my C100 mk2 down to bare minimum with a 24 pancake and that's pretty much at the very edge of what it can handle even though it's well within it's weight limit, because the camera is so tall and the centre of gravity so much higher than regular dslr/mirrorless cameras. I think it would be the same for long camera/lens combos, but I don't think you'd have a problem with your camera and lens.

On 21/11/2017 at 10:26 AM, Ty Harper said:

I've used the Glidecam HD400 with an arm brace for most of my time shooting stuff. How do these ones compare weight-wise? And are there arm braces or accessories to help with the weight?

I have one, and while the weight is similar to a glidecam + camera you don't need to have the arm brace because you can hold it in both hands, or swap hands, or just shift the weight around so it doesn't hurt your arms. That said, you still need to be disciplined and manage operator fatigue -- I tend to brace the bottom of the gimbal on my hip between shots to take the weight off my arms and I put it down at every possible opportunity.

Man, bus shelter digital displays are vertical, shopping mall digital displays are vertical -- it's not just phones dude, I've worked with plenty of rigs designed to pitch the camera 90 degrees to shoot for those kinds of displays. If I do any more I might even get a GH5 and shoot 6k so I can shoot for both horizontal and vertical formats at the same time. 

On 15/11/2017 at 9:42 AM, Riadnasla said:

Thanks for the recommendations! Looking through them, they're more geared towards editing the photos, whereas I'm more interested in cataloging and sorting, then doing mild-to-moderate editing, as most of my work is done in camera already. Any ideas for that?

If you only need the cataloging side Phase One also make Media Pro, which is an archival/cataloging program designed to work with Capture One. I don’t think it would carry over the non-destructive edits you’ve made in Lightroom (that’s the flip side of anything that happens in metadata, you tend to get locked into one company’s interpretation) but it’s supposed to be pretty good. 

And for what it’s worth Capture One has excellent colour rendition and is well worth considering. Though I stick with Lightroom because LR has more flexible selective editing tools, and I think is geared more towards batch editing of files whereas Capture One is still more about editing one photo at a time (even though it also has extensive copy/paste non destructive edits)

I'm gonna join the D750 fan brigade here, I've been shooting that camera now for the last 3 years and there is something really special about that camera. If Nikon put the internals into a stronger weather sealed body, even with absolutely no other upgrades I'd buy it all over again. If you need to save a bit I'd suggest getting the Sigma 70-200 2.8. I got mine for like AU$1100 and it's at least 85% as good as the Nikon version which is more than twice the price.

1 hour ago, IronFilm said:

You forget about the unseen. What many discoveries are we missing due to the lack of private spending? Because it was sucked out of the economy by the government. 

You understand that the US Government didn't do the actual scientific work? They just paid for it. And they didn't pay for it by imposing a big new tax (which is how governments remove money from the economy), they spent money -- thereby injecting money into the economy. And even if you argue the bulk of that money went to government agencies like NASA, NASA had to hire a ton of new engineers and scientists and admin/support staff, who then spent their money on food and living and other stuff, thereby spreading all that extra money the government was spending into the wider economy. I mean I suppose if you looked hard enough you would find some area of study that fell by the wayside because funding was diverted to the space effort, but when people have jobs they tend to spend money, and when there's a lot of money moving around freely that's when companies make more money and can spend more money on R&D. 

I have no idea how you can quantify unseen un-discoveries in the 60s directly due to the space race, but I think the giant leap in technological advances in medicine, computing, aeronautics, materials science, telecommunications, geology, not to mention the huge cultural impact and the inspiration it gave to a whole generation of kids to work in science and engineering... I think it was worth it.

2 hours ago, IronFilm said:

There are private couriers too.

But they were expensive. The USPS made it cheap enough for people to try it out to understand how convenient it can be.

1 hour ago, IronFilm said:

Was putting a man on the moon the best use of billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars?

Yes.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/dec/16/apollo-legacy-moon-space-riley

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/hidden-figures/technology-from-the-space-race/

http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/10-tech-breakthroughs-to-thank-the-space-race-for-617847

And so much more. The space race drove an a huge wave of technology and miniaturisation that made it possible to have cell phones, laptops, GPS, and digital cameras. Whatever the US Government paid in grants and funding and investing in innovation it is still being paid back for in taxes paid by companies, employees of those companies, and the sales taxes for each product sold. In fact the space race is government spending at its best -- private enterprise can't take the risks that governments can in exploration, and without discovery we won't open new markets.
 

1 hour ago, IronFilm said:

The US Postal Service is operating at a massive loss.

And without the USPS you wouldn't have eBay or Amazon. Without cheap, (relatively) reliable delivery internet shopping might not have caught on the way it did as quickly as it did.