Pascal Garnier

Cosign on the Pentax 110 lenses.  One remark though : they won't focus to infinity wide open and there's no aperture ring, so it takes a DIY fake smaller aperture that you place inside the lens to get infinity focus (losing a few light stops by doing so).

So it's a pretty big compromise.

I wouldn't call the NEX5N horrible for video.  When I used it, I liked it's footage better than that of my T2i and T3i.
At high ISO's the colours suffer, but for filming in daylight or proper lighted spaces, it's still a great camera for people on a budget.

And for stills it kicks the G6's butt.

I would suggest you don't buy a G6.

For two simple reasons :

- the crop of the G6 won't allow you to film that close to objects, without buying both a wide and fast lens AND a speedbooster.  This means your budget will never do.

- photography with a G6 is not a pleasant experience, this camera is a much better videocamera than a stills camera.

You'll be much better off with a Sony A6000 or a second hand NEX5N.  Smaller crop factor and slightly better low light performance than a G6.

I have owned a NEX5N and own both a G6 and A6000, so I know what I'm talking about.

The great thing about the G6 and other M4/3 camera's is that you can adapt any lens mount you want.
I have a Mamiya Sekor lens set and a Canon FD lens set. 

If you want to keep it simple, just buy a $10 adapter on ebay for your lens mount to M4/3.

If you have a little more budget, invest in a focal reducer/speedbooster clone for approx. $100.  This will help with the crop factor on M4/3 and low light shooting.

Don't buy a 85 as a first lens on M4/3. This will give you a 170mm equivalent focal length.  Impossible to shoot decent footage with handheld or even with a good shoulder rig.
 

If I have to suggest one lens to start with, get a manual 35 f/2 or a 50  f/1.4 or f/1.8.  You can shoot most of the stuff with that, use the ETC/sensor crop function on the G6 for teleshots with the same lens.  Expand your lens set from there over time.  If you can, stay with the same lens mount and lens type, that way you'll be sure shots from different lenses match.

Remember that your lenses will last longer than your camera.  My Canon FD's are over 40 years old, still in mint condition and will very probably last me the rest of my life.  It took me about 2 years to assemble my set, taking my time to look for bargains.  My set consists of a 24 2.8, 35 2.0, 35-70 4.0, 50 1.4, 85 1.8 and 135 2.5 and cost me less than $800. 

Hi Johnnie,

Yes, still for sale.

PM me for more info.

If you want to take stills and shoot video, go for the Sony A6000.  If it's just video, get the G6.

I have both, I'd never take a picture with my G6, it simply doesn't look good.  For video, they're pretty close.

The A6000 is a great stills camera, that also shoots excellent video.

Just received this as a gift today, but I'm in the middle of switching to manual FD lenses so I barely have any use for this.

This cost 109 EUR, received it today, tested it for 10 minutes to make sure it works.
Controls aperture on all EF lenses (not just Canon, but Sigma as well) and adds autofocus to all Canon lenses (tested with 28 1.8 and 18-55).

Autofocus is fast and spot-on.

Perfect alternative for the Metabones EF to NEX adapter at a much lower price.

I'm selling this brand-new in the original box for 70 EUR (shipping from Belgium, Europe).

I'm selling my brand new Viltrox adapter, version 2.  Works perfect, but I received it as a gift while I'm switching to manual FD lenses ... I only have 2 Canon EF(S) lenses left that I hardly use.

Has only been tested today for 10 minutes to make sure it works.

Will sell for 70EUR (shipping from Belgium).

You can put EVERY lens ever made on a Sony A6000.

I use M42, Canon FD and Canon EF lenses.

But you can use Pentax, Nikon, Zeiss, Leica, ... on this camera with the right adapter.

the only moment I use higher shutter speeds is when shooting slowmotion.
a higher shutter speed helps in getting nice slowmotion footage.  and if you're using twixtor or any other kind of interpolation, shooting higher shutter speeds will help the calculations and deliver a cleaner end result

The Canon 6D is pretty bad for video (great for stills), so the Sony A6000 would be a much better bet (especially with the Metabones).  It's also smaller and will cost you less.

about the overheating : my guess is that the lens functions as a heat sink.  
A plastic Sony lens will be worse at absorbing heat than than a metal adapter + metal lens.  

Which might explain why using older manual lenses + an adapter (which creates more air between the sensor and glass) is a better option.

Thanks for the review.
However, you didn't mention that the A6000 is currently 1/3rd cheaper than the GX7.
A GX7 body only will set you back as much as an A6000 + a Speedbooster clone + 2 to 3 Canon FD lenses.

I make 3-4 wedding videos each year.  The couples I shoot choose their own music for very particular reasons, mostly some kind of emotional connection to a song.   It might be the first song they danced to, or a song that was popular when they first met, ...
What matters to them is that it's THAT song.  NOT a song that sounds a bit like it, or has a similar vibe, or a cover version ...

What I have been doing until now, is use that music in the wedding videos (including the online streaming versions), AND include proper credits and a direct iTunes link to the song(s). 
This is the best I can do right now, since publishers simply don't care about clearing songs for this kind of use.  Believe me, I have tried, and have never ever received a reply, let alone a quote.

I would be very happy with an easy, accessible online system where you can pay for sync for popular songs.

For all my other work, I find plenty of material at themusicbed or even the Vimeo music store. 

 

Very useful videos for people just starting out with a GH4.
Best tutorials I've seen so far for shooting flat.

After going through various threads online and extensive testing, I always transcode with BT.709 and full range.
Shooting profile is Natural -5 -5 0 -5.

Another method to shoot 4K for 2K is to have the camera downcovert the signal over HDMI. It seems the HDMI scaling algorithm is way better than the line skipping algorithm they use on sensor. As such you get a sharper 1080p 10-bit 4:2:2 straight out of camera if you use 4K downcovert over HDMI. Downsides are the 2.3x crop and the 30fps limit, plus you lose the ability to possibly punch-in in post. Upsides are the noticeably increased sharpness and less noticeable noise pattern. And this way you skip having to downconvert it in post, which can help a lot with storage (4K 10-bit 4:2:2 files gobble up a lot of space, especially if you intend to output to 1080 anyways).

Thanks for the hint, have a Ninja2 so will try that route too.

Try this app -

 

http://www.eoshd.com/content/12594/exclusive-first-app-resample-panasonic-gh4-4k-8bit-10bit-444

I'm hoping Rarevision develop something as user-friendly as 5DtoRGB, which I use everyday.  I'm sure if they can develop a nice user interface, they have a winner in terms of sales.

Do you still have the benefits of shooting 4K if you transcode to 2K before editing ?
I'm referring to lack of moire and aliasing, detail/resolution, ...

I'm asking because I'm considering the following workflow :

shoot in 4K > convert to 2K > edit and grade > export to 2K

I'm actually selling my Pentax 110 lenses (switching to Canon FD), I have a 20-40 2.8 and 18 2.8 for sale.

Both include adapters for Pentax110 to M4/3, one with adjustable aperture (which cost me $50).

Asking $150 + shipping.

@ Christina : shallow DOF is a creative choice, just as deep focus is one.  There is no better or worse.  Both are legitimate options and part of the job of a DOP is to make the right choice for every shot.

Following your logic, you might as well argue that shooting everything with deep focus is testament to a lazy DOP who can't make up his mind where he wants the scene to go.  So he lets everything open to the viewer's interpretation.   That would be ludicrous of course.  

Shallow or deep focus should always be an artistic choice depending on the scene and what you want to say.  Exactly the same way we use lighting, reflectors, focal length, choose between handheld/steadicam/crane/dolly/tripod, ...  It is one of our tools AND skills as DOP's.  

 

andy, I bought the RJ FD to m4/3 adapter almost 2 months ago ... remember ? ;-)

@Christina : considering the reviews of preproduction models, I wouldn't worry about the quality of these cameras. 
Also, Panasonic has a very good track record of fixing stuff with firmware updates.

I just called the shop where I preordered mine, and apparently plenty of people preordered.  I'm not even sure if they'll be able to help all of us within the first week of release. 
So anyone ordering today or next week, will probably have to wait quite some time before getting their camera.

Hi Ebrahim,

Shipping overseas is no problem, as long as the buyer pays for shipping ;-)

The point is not whether it's possible technologically or not, it's about what we want to spend our money on.

Fusion technology costs huge amounts of money, that could also be spent on renewable energy, or education, or vaccination campaigns, or on demilitarizing militias in Africa and South America, ... 

My biggest problem with fusion is that's yet another centralized means of power generation.

If you want big corporations to control energy supplies and set the price, fusion sounds great.  

I much more believe in decentralized ways of generating power, based on a big grid/networked system.  Distributive and collaborative are the keywords.  Jeremy Rifkin explains it much better than I can.

Off topic for a lens thread. But I suggest you do some reading, since:

 

1) There's currently a reactor running in Norway that runs on Thorium. If power goes out in such a power plant, you don't need any coolant - the fission will halt when it isn't fed energy to keep the process going. The one in Norway is the first Thorium plant to be run in production, but there's a few other Thorium reactors being built & developed around the world as well. Conclusion: nuclear industry can be perfectly safe.

 

2) There's processes for processing high-radioactive nuclear waste into low-radioactive waste already existing today. There just hasn't been much of an interest (and capital) in further development of construction of such plants, mostly it has just been done for research purposes. And yes, you could extract energy from nuclear waste processing as well, so it doesn't need to be that much of a loss. With investment in nuclear waste processing tech, there doesn't need to be that much of a legacy for coming generations.

 

Unfortunately most of our energy production will produce waste in one way or the other for coming generations, until we can produce solar & fusion energy well enough. If you're interested in energy production, I highly recommend watching this interesting TED talk on fusion power: