Damphousse

13 hours ago, Savannah Miller said:

Brian from Metabones said he is NOT making another speedbooster.

The normal ones work fine for this camera unless Blackmagic did something unusual. Everything looks to be standard with this camera.

Well the "standard" practice with ALL Blackmagic cameras in this price range is to have a much thinner filter stack on their sensors than the average M43 manufacturer.  Do you have any references and links for your statement?  I wasn't aware that Blackmagic broke with tradition and increased the thickness of the filter stack just for this camera.  Where are you reading this?

On 5/29/2018 at 9:55 AM, Don Kotlos said:

Moza Air seems to work:

Thanks.  It is nice to see what actually works vs people speculating about what won't.

22 hours ago, Anaconda_ said:

From my understanding, they've been recommending the 0.71x adapter as this will get the best out of the sensor before you start vignetting on aps-c lenses.  While it might be best to wait and see what Metabones come up with, a BM rep has said this: 

Metabones will definitely come up with something.

People also need to keep in mind that there are filter stack differences between cameras.  The filter stack on the BMPCC is different than the filter stack on the GH4.  This is what metabones had to say about it...

Quote

Like all Metabones Speed Boosters, the Speed Booster ULTRA m43 is optimized to correctly account for the camera’s filter stack located near the sensor surface3.  This is especially critical at the extremely large apertures made possible by Speed Booster technology.  As a result of this careful optimization, an enormous range of full-frame optics, ranging from vintage film lenses to the latest digital designs, will function flawlessly when adapted to Micro Four Thirds camera bodies.

http://www.metabones.com/article/of/Speed_Booster_ULTRA_0.71x

More intellectual work from the political incorrect geniuses...

Amazing!  So intellectual!  So deep!  Did you see how he just said what he wanted to say?  It made him look so smart!  It made him look like an adult!

On 5/23/2018 at 1:10 PM, Bioskop.Inc said:

I don't actually like his films, but the ones I have seen tend to be more thought provoking than I had imagined. But here's a thing, here's a 3 page thread about one of LvT artsy films - just haven't noticed a thread about Marvel films here, have you?

3 Pages on the internet?!  You realize you are posting that statement on a forum where a camera without a single frame of official released footage has a 100+ page thread.  And that camera will be obsolete in 5 years.  I could take a dump in my front yard, stick my hand in it, and do some finger painting.  If I made a video of my "art" and posted it here it would get way more than 3 pages worth of commentary.  Well it would probably get censored by the guy that claims he is against censorship.  And I wouldn't blame him.

No I haven't noticed any threads on here about Marvel films.  But as I've pointed out on numerous occasions a lot of posters on this forum are clueless about the real world so I am not surprised.  I prefer to live in the real world not some delusional side dimension.  For example the delusion that the NX1 was going to be some massive financial success.  Go back and see how many times I interjected a bit of reality onto this forum on that subject and the delusional refused to believe me.  So no, ignoring real life is the norm on this forum.  Why would that surprise me?

On 5/24/2018 at 2:27 AM, Kieran said:

I wonder if this will turn out to be Lars Von Trier's last full length feature film. He had such a terrible time making it that he turned back to alcohol after many years of sobriety.  His next announced project is a series of short black and white films which he hopes will make him feel good again.

Mental illness and substance abuse?  Why am I not surprised?

On 5/24/2018 at 4:47 PM, Liam said:

A travelling filmmaker passed through here a little while ago with his merch and made a decent haul and has a good following from it.

Thanks for the info.  That's interesting.  I would have never thought that would work.

I wish there were more details like how much exactly he is making and where he is peddling his wares.

DVD players are dirt cheap.  I know several people who own them.  A lot of immigrants own region free versions and watch material from their home country.  Well I say "a lot" but that is purely anecdotal.

Xbox and Playstations play DVDs as well.  Half of US households own game consoles.  So between old people, immigrants, and game console owning households I would imagine most people have a device that plays DVDs connected to a TV.  It is weird that people on a video making forum aren't aware of this.  I guess it shows you what kind of an elitist microcosm the independent film maker world is.

4 hours ago, Castorp said:

See my previous reply.

Okay.  This is what you said...

23 hours ago, Castorp said:

I don't see any 135 format 50mm 1.8 compare at all with for example the Olympus 25mm f1.2 Pro in terms of quality.

All the Nikon and Canon 50mm 1.8 lenses I'm familiar with are around $100 or less!  I just don't understand this apples to oranges comparison.  You bring me a 50mm 1.2 Canon lens and yes it will be $1,100 but now it is capable of bokeh that the Olympus can't do.  So either way you are wrong.

5 hours ago, Don Kotlos said:

But the differences that are visible in that test are mostly due to perspective and not distortion, which is really a problem when shooting architecture (both stills & video). 

In any case, I believe the m4/3 still has its place.

I think dismissing the inherent barrel distortion, etc with wide angle lenses particularly when you don't know the exact specific characteristics of each lens in the test is a bit disingenuous.  Everything you are seeing in those pictures is not 100% due to distance.  The exact ratio of what is affecting what we can debate but just glossing over a fact that doesn't support your argument isn't the way to help someone learn.

I also stated that M43 has its place.  I own a BMPCC and it is super 16.  There are pros and cons to the camera.  If someone asks me I tell them the truth.  All these things are just tools.  They all have their place.

4 hours ago, Castorp said:

To get this kind of no compromise lens is typically cheaper the smaller the format. As it should be.

No.  You are wrong, at least about OEM M43 lenses.

It might be easier to make a smaller lens but that is not the only factor in the equation.  Four things...

1)  It is easier to make a smaller lens.  POSITIVE

2)  To get the same field of view you have to use substantial wider angle lens.  NEGATIVE

3)  To get the same level of bokeh you have to use a larger aperture.   NEGATIVE

4)  ALL nonCanikon lenses are produced at lower volume (excludes smartphones) and do not have the same mass production cost benefits.  NEGATIVE

So one positive and three negatives.

Also there is something you are being very disingenuous about.  M43 OEM lens manufactures use software interpolation to correct defects in their lenses.  In many cases they make optically inferior lenses and use in camera software to do the last bit of heavy lifting.  One can argue about how much difference there is between the software corrected and uncorrected images but full frame lens manufactures going the extra mile to correct as much as possible with glass needs to be acknowledged.  People need to tell the whole truth and do apples to apples comparisons.

Cutting corners to hit a particular price target and then relying on a software crutch is fine but don't turn around and say a fully optically corrected full frame lens is some kind of rip off.

When you see lists of the sharpest lenses there are two things you don't see M43 lenses and a bunch of lenses wider than 35mm.   Ever ask yourself why?

14 minutes ago, Don Kotlos said:

In the test that you posted, the differences that you see in perspective are because of the different distances of the camera to the face.

Perspective is not the only thing dramatically affecting the image.  You are leaving out the dollar for dollar increased inherent distortion in wide angle lenses.

I'll say it again.  You are fighting physics.

3 hours ago, Timotheus said:

The pictures you share illustrate the behaviour of different focal lengths on a given sensor size.

I think you guys are both missing a couple of things.  Maybe Pedro isn't taking into account the camera to subject distance on different size sensors and you aren't taking into account that extreme wide angle lenses have more inherent distortion and aren't as sharp as longer lenses.

CAN you get a similar look on a M43 camera as a full frame?  Sure but after all the hoops you have to jump through and the amount of money spent why bother unless you really need a particular camera and it happens to only come in M43 flavor?

If someone gave me a choice of a fixed lens budget and said would you rather have your portrait taken with a tele lens on 35mm or a wide angle on M43 it would be a no brainer.

And really I prefer medium format film to tiny 35mm cameras.  You start off with an 80mm normal lens and go up from there for portraits.

8 hours ago, kye said:

Could you mount the external monitor on the handle of the gimbal and run a (very flexible) cable to the camera?  I've seen people running cables from fixed microphones or power banks to the camera on a gimbal before and they seem to work.

If you have any examples of this handy can you link to them?  I'm thinking of doing something like that with a battery.

3 hours ago, Castorp said:

I don't see any 135 format 50mm 1.8 compare at all with for example the Olympus 25mm f1.2 Pro in terms of quality.

The Olympus 25mm f1.2 is an $1,100 lens!

3 hours ago, Castorp said:

Another good argument for a smaller sensor is that I think you get more for your money with lenses.

No.

On 5/19/2018 at 2:06 AM, ectobuilder said:

The issue with using faster glass on a smaller sensor to match a FF is that lenses have more imperfections the wider the aperture (F1.4 and lower usually) like color shifting, chromatic aberation, less sharp, vignetting...etc.

I am a GH5 owner and I love it, however I do believe using a larger sensor to achieve the shallow look is better than relying on faster glass.

I've used the Voigtlander 25 F0.95 extensively (version 1) and there is color shifting and fringing at F0.95.

I personally wouldn't buy a M43 or smaller camera unless I had a specific use case.  If you need the video features of a GH5 a Canon Rebel just isn't going to cut it.

Making large aperture, super wide angle lenses for more obscure mounts (ie not Canikon) just costs more.  Financially M43 doesn't make any sense for me.  Maybe you will save some dough on a body but you get hosed on the lenses.  And if you want to "upgrade" to full frame later you are screwed.

I am not into all this adapter stuff.  I use it, but view it as a necessary evil.  If I have some free or cheap vintage glass I will use it but failing that I prefer to just go out and get good OEM glass and keep it for life.  If you buy a metal L lens you will be able to hand it down to your kids.

Going with a smaller sensor, larger aperture, and wider glass just feels like fighting physics.  Go with the flow and save some dough.

15 hours ago, Aussie Ash said:

A very good article by Frank Glencairn on the new camera

https://frankglencairn.wordpress.com/2018/04/19/why-the-new-pocket-cinema-camera-2-0-isnt-actually-a-successor-of-the-original-pocket-and-why-it-doesnt-mater/

Lol.

I don't agree with everything that was said but I did love this...

Quote

So yeah Frank, we know the price, we know the specs, what’s the point?

Good question, glad that you asked.

The Point is folks complaining all over the net, about not having a IBIS and a flip screen, in a DSLR sized raw/ProRes, internal LUT,  phantom powered XLR audio, Bluetooth controlled, dual gain, 4k, 25600 ISO night sight device, (including a high end grading, editing, audio, compositing DCP program on top of it), that comes for 1,295 bucks.

Are you guys out of your fucking mind?

What’s next? That it doesn’t come in blue?

I'm glad someone is posting this.  Honestly I don't care what people think.  I will buy or pass on a camera based on MY needs.  But for the sake of the engineers at Blackmagic it is nice for someone to point out how absurd the complaints have been after these guys and gals have done so much hard work and brought all of this to us at such a nice price point.

Of course we have to see what the actual image quality is like.  We can't comment on that one way or the other at this time.  But to complain about this HDMI, and that USB C, and this nonrotating screen, and that extra button you can easily ignore, etc. is just bizarre.

9 hours ago, kye said:

Seems like a pretty fair overview of the camera, and interesting that it's more sized like the BMCC rather than original BMPCC.

Yeah.  That graphic really illustrates the dimensions of the camera.  We had the measurements but seeing it laid out like that makes it hit close to home.

On 5/17/2018 at 11:25 AM, Bioskop.Inc said:

But, the one thing you can say about his films is that they get people talking about what they've just witnessed & surely that is preferred to the multitude of films that just wash over you & are forgotten a few hours later - like all the Marvel films, for instance.

That's interesting.  Besides this blog no one in my life at home or at work or in any of the media that I consume ever talk about this guy or his films.  I never even heard of him.  In contrast people talk about Marvel films all the time.

Utilizing comic book material Marvel has managed to make multiple historic movies that will be discussed 50 years from now.  Most of the Marvel movies are ho hum.  But what really astounds me are the ones that are either really good and/or historic.  And it is amazing the quality of the movies that they have made with obscure characters.  In contrast DC releases turkey after turkey utilizing some of the biggest comic book names in history.

I think in the little artsy fartsy corner of the movie world people just get so full of themselves that they just gush about oddball weird stuff like this Lars' characters work.  And simultaneously people reject quality work because it is too popular or because it is put out by a big faceless multibillion dollar company.  I've gotten old enough and mature enough that I know what I like.  I don't have to watch pretentious artsy movies just to seem sophisticated.

Let's be honest.  A lot of movies suck and these artsy movies are not immune.

On 5/19/2018 at 12:14 AM, Richard Bugg said:

This NYT article on the current controversy provides some interesting insights. Based on the final chilling paragraphs LvT may well be sociopathic. I certainly wouldn't want him as my banner boy for freedom of expression, but then again if you argue against censorship in any form then you are arguing not only for LvT's work, but also for far worse. Good luck with that.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/movies/lars-von-trier-the-house-that-jack-built-cannes-film-festival.html

 

Thanks for the link to the article.  That article seems a bit more realistic.  Honestly living in America I don't know of any movies in recent memory that have been "banned" or "censored".  We are the porn capitol of the world.  People are free to make their movies and PRIVATE theaters and film festivals are free to screen the movies they want.  That's kind of the thing about property rights.  I can control who comes onto my PRIVATE property and screens movies.  It is kind of a neat feature of Western democracies.  I kind of like it.

It is amazing that the little blog rant failed to mention the director blurting out "I am a Nazi" the last time he was at Cannes.

Quote

The surprise is that Mr. von Trier is at Cannes at all, having been banned by the festival in 2011. That year, at the news conference for “Melancholia” — his brilliant, deeply felt movie about the end of the world or at least one woman — Mr. von Trier blurted out that he was a Nazi. Seated next to a soon-squirming Kirsten Dunst, he took a question about his German roots, the gothic and the Nazi aesthetic. Mr. von Trier started to talk and then he began to babble, finally ending this excruciating spectacle with a little laugh and the disastrous words: “O.K., I’m a Nazi.”

Oh my god!!!  I'm clutching my pearls!  A German went to a PRIVATE event and babbled incoherently before announcing "I'm a Nazi" and then he wasn't invited back?  How strange and devastating!  What are we going to do?!

I honestly wonder what some of the people on this website do for a living.  I've had various jobs where I had to deal with life and death situations, billion dollar deals, etc.  I had to be able to control my mouth for 10 sometimes 15 minutes at a time.  I know.  Pretty unbelievable.  Right?

I think a lot of what has been posted here stands as a testament to the Western white male man baby, the most infantile and sensitive of creatures on the face of the earth.

14 hours ago, nickname said:

where is the connection between the sexist joke in the elevator, black panther and Lars van Trier? there is none.

I liked your post because of this sentence.  You succinctly summed up one of my strongest feelings about this blog post.  I couldn't for the life of me understand what any of these things had to do with each other.  And of course ALL of the examples were thoroughly misrepresented.  What was asked of the white male scientist was merely an apology.  An apology would have been the end of it.  Instead he went nuclear.  I've apologized for things at work that I haven't even done.  You have to pick which hill you wish to die on.  And the Lars thing could have been avoided if he had the common sense and breeding not to declare "I am a Nazi" when he is a guest at private events.

I go through life and I have NONE of the problems these man babies seem to have.

On 5/16/2018 at 10:58 AM, Andrew Reid said:

A life’s work ruined in a blink of an eye, a career smashed in the time it takes to make a wise crack in a lift.

Please.  How do you get that from this...

Quote

“The remedy,” the ISA declared, is “to require that you formally apologize to Prof. Sharoni” in writing.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/05/is-this-old-lingerie-joke-harmless-or-harassment/559760/

I don't take particular offense to the joke.  I don't take any offense to the woman being offended by it.  I don't take any offense to the governing body asking the man to apologize particularly when he followed up the joke by telling the woman in writing her behavior was "frivolous".

Even at this late date if the guy just apologized I really wouldn't think much of this whole affair one way or the other.  I suppose at some point in time something like this would be a bigger deal but when you have an admitted serial sexual assaulter sitting in the White House a lot of this other stuff sort of pales in comparison.

If this guy wants to set his reputation on fire by waging some epic battle that is his choice.  That has nothing to do with this woman and it certainly makes no commentary about the broader society except that there are a lot of Western white male crybabies out there.  I apologize at work all the time.  If you genuflect, bow your head, and say I'm sorry people usually can't keep kicking you in the gut.  Heck I do it in my boss' office on a Friday afternoon when I just want to get out of there and make it to happy hour.  I'm not going to waste 45 minutes of cheap drinking explaining my position when I can just say, "yeah that other guy is right and I'm sorry" and get out of there.

11 hours ago, IronFilm said:

4GB is fairly teeny for 2018, even for a small build why not start with 8GB?

 

Or even 16GB.... or 32GB like some others have said. 

No one in this thread suggested building a desktop with 4 GB of RAM in 2018.  You are quoting me replying to someone who was complaining about his old computer that was obsolete because it only had 4GB of RAM.  The point of the post was quad channel configuration is not necessarily better and most people can get along perfectly fine with dual channel.  I simply used the guys own numbers for the sake of simplicity.

The point of my reply was not to tell anyone what total amount of RAM they were supposed to use.  With volatile RAM prices and different program requirements I would not presume to tell anyone that they MUST get this or that amount of RAM.  I would need to know all their computing needs and have an up to date knowledge of current RAM prices.  And even then on a finite budget the exact trade offs that are to be made are somewhat of a personal choice.

As I said before I think it is better for the OP to do some more research and then figure out what HIS particular needs are.  There is no one size fits all solution.  You can get a computer that will work for a lot of people but if you are talking about optimizing let alone future proofing for a specific person I just won't presume to start listing a bunch of concrete criteria.  I personally just don't have enough information.

On 5/18/2018 at 12:36 PM, Color Philospher said:

 Like the motherboard for instance, I'm not familiar with what PCIe slots are for (I think for gpu?). Should I get one with more PCIe slots? 

I'm not sure you have done enough research to build a computer.  I mean I think you could pull it off but if you want to future proof you have to understand what all the main components are and be able to do reasonable anticipation of what your future needs will be.  If you don't know what PCIe slots are for I think more research is in order.

4 hours ago, slonick81 said:

Check if this slots are sharing lanes with M2/NVMe SSD - sometimes it will prevent you from using high speed card and those SSDs at the same time. Why is it important? PCIEx1 slots will not give enough throughput for many cards - GPU, 4K video IO, 10/40Gbe NICs, 10Gb USB3, RAID/HBAs. So if we look at classic NLE WS setup - GPU for OS monitors and editing acceleration, IO card for video preview, RAID for storage and data protection - these 3 slots are a necessity.

What this guy said.  You need to understand the interplay between M.2 NVMe, Graphics card(s), SSDs, and PCIE lanes.

16 hours ago, kye said:

Is it still a thing to try and buy your memory capacity in less larger sticks than more smaller sticks?  

I haven't had a desktop PC in a long time, but I remember back in the day having to re-buy all my memory because I had 4 sticks of the same size (eg, 4 x 1Gb) and no free slots, therefore to upgrade you have to go to bigger sized sticks (eg 4 x 2Gb) and then you've got all this old RAM you paid for and can't use..

Depends on the board and what you are trying to accomplish.  If it is dual channel and has for slots then you should start off with a matched pair of 2 GB.  That gets you 4GB and leaves you with two slots empty.  Then if you want to upgrade you can get two 4GB sticks or two 8 GB sticks, etc.

I believe quad channel boards can be used as dual channel boards.  I don't know how much benefit quad channel is for our tasks.

On 5/16/2018 at 10:58 AM, Andrew Reid said:

This privileged puritan mindset implies that women and black people are so downtrodden, they need some lightweight popcorn hit to empower them into doing something with their lives.

Quote

Whatever your opinion of the 1986 movie hit Top Gun, it boosted recruitment for Navy pilots by some 500 percent. It’s probably time to play that card again.

https://spectator.org/the-air-force-needs-maverick/

What we can see from these two quotes is if you do something and it inspires the white male first world Christian power structure it is good.  If it is aimed at inspiring women and niggers that it is horrible.

I honestly don't believe in free speech.  I think a lot of things should be banned.  They don't have any redeeming value.  Having said that as reprehensible in every way as this blog post was I have to grudgingly admit that it is positive that it was posted on the internet.  As a decent person there are times that I forget that people have thoughts like this in their heads.  As objectionable as this post was to read it definitely gave me some insight into the author.

Let's be honest.  This blog discusses the least import aspects of film making.  We are a bunch of EQUIPMENT nerds.  We aren't even film nerds.  We are just EQUIPMENT nerds.  This forum is just a guilty pleasure for me.  The fact of the matter is anyone can easily go out and rent an ARRI camera.  Someone could go out and buy an Alexa Classic use it for a couple of months and sell it.  Total round trip cost?  Less than the cost of a M43 speedbooster.  Gear is not what is holding us losers back from creating a masterpiece.  Having said that it is breathtaking to watch the author of this blog denigrate a historic movie like Black Panther.  I consider myself somewhat open minded.  By the Nazi standards of some people who shall remain nameless I am probably a raging left wing liberal.  Even I wouldn't bankroll a basically all black expensive Hollywood film with the goal of making hundreds of millions of dollars.  Conventional Hollywood thinking is such a movie would not even recover costs.  One of the central tenets of Hollywood was challenged this year and disproven in grand fashion.  And what was the reaction of this so called "film making" blog?  Ridicule.

On the topic of creativity.  What is more creative...

Making an all black movie that grosses $700 million or...

Writing the billionth article explaining how first world Christian white males are the true victims on the planet.

One of those things is unique and challenges me to rethink some of my conclusions about what is possible and the other is getting really really fucking tired.

So someone ignored Blackmagic's request and clandestinely hastily recorded a clip using god knows what settings on a preproduction camera.  And now people are analyzing it and extrapolating.  And people wonder why camera companies are so tight lipped until the day they are almost ready to ship.  No good deed goes unpunished.

1 hour ago, Mark Romero 2 said:

I'm guessing this is going to be a big seller considering there are already 101 pages of discussion on EOSHD...

As long as it is 85% of what we think it will be.

I haven't preordered because... Blackmagic.  I am being disciplined and waiting for them to sort out manufacturing issues, QC, and firmware updates.  I probably won't pick up this camera until 2019.  It will be great if they have a bunch of cameras on hand that work as advertised on day one but this isn't Canon.

On 5/2/2018 at 12:43 PM, BTM_Pix said:

Look, I've found a right angle USB C adapter.

So I'm not going to waste that bit of research and I'm all for getting another couple of pages out of discussing it now 

 

I thought you would be interested...

3 hours ago, Mokara said:

The financial state of a company does not necessarily reflect the economics of the market they are in. GoPro may simply be spending too much and be too inefficient at manufacturing. That does not mean that some other company with more experience at making cameras and having other products with which to leverage R&D would not be able to be profitable selling these sorts of cameras.

If GoPro have a dominant position in the market, and can't make money, it is likely due to management more than anything else.

Really?  Or maybe they are a dominant company in a limited low margin sector.  Even in really crappy industries there are dominant players.  Being dominant doesn't mean automatic profit.

23 hours ago, Kisaha said:

I disagree completely with your social comment, obviously you are referring to habits and a social reality created by the decades that I already mentioned. The world stayed on a false state of abundance for many decades (and that started just after World War 2). After the last financial crisis, and for other reasons (like the obesity that you already mentioned, and other health issues, plus the collapse of the ecology of the planet because of overpopulation/over-materialism/over-polution) people started having different life styles and active lifestyles, ecology, and better quality of food, are gaining traction in western societies.

Financial crisis was a decade ago... people are setting new records for obesity in 2018.  I wish what you are saying was true but sadly every report out of the public health community says otherwise.

23 hours ago, Kisaha said:

Do you remember buying any organic food in the 80's, or 90's? How many of your friends were doing summer/winter extreme sports in the 90's?

"Organic" is the "low fat" of the 2018.  It is marketing that gives people the warm fuzzies while they sit on their butts eating and packing on the pounds.

23 hours ago, Kisaha said:

The market of such cameras is quite big, that is why Olympus, Sony, Xiaomi, Ricoh, Kodak, DJI, GoPro, Nikon, even Leica (X-U) has one, and a few myriad smaller camera makers and brands are making waterproof/action cameras.

Gopro is the number one selling camera maker... and they are losing money and are a penny stock.

8 hours ago, kye said:

As someone with a pretty average life (job, family, house, car, etc) who shoots with my GoPro a lot I actually disagree about them being good for family events.

@KisahaThey're wide angle, which means that you have to either zoom in, which is pretty difficult to hold them remotely still (unless you rig them up, in which case just use a larger camera with IS) or film everything close up, which is kind of strange and the lens distortions are EXTREMELY UNFLATTERING to average people (who don't have the figures of models or people used to seeing themselves on TV).

The PeauPro87 mod address all those concerns.

7 hours ago, Kisaha said:

I would rather get the Xiaomi 4K+ for a portion of the money, and save the rest for other equipment. Yes, the 6 is the best GoPro ever, but other can make 95% of that, or better in some areas, for a percentage of the total cost. DJI can make one tomorrow, and beat GoPro easily.

It is a personal choice.  The GoPro 6 has better colors right out of the camera, better stabilization, and better low light performance.  Yi 4k certainly is not "95%" of that.  It is a pretty substantial difference.  The Yi has more detail in good light and a better codec.  But with amateurs you are more likely to get a good shot right out of the camera with a GoPro handheld with no grading.  That is what finally convinced me.  I think Gopro is finally something I could see myself owning.

7 hours ago, Kisaha said:

Some people believe that a mobile phone is good enough for most photo/video catching, some say they are good to shot a film (some in this forum!), I disagree of course, but if people consider a phone is comparable with a normal camera with a huge sensor, you get the point where the action cams stand right now. Just get a Smooth Q stabilizer for your phone, and pass it around people in lock mode, a lot cheaper, and arguably, similar quality.

I'm not jumping into the ocean with my phone on a stabilizer.  Neither am I going to zip down a backwoods trail on my bike with my phone on a stabilizer.  I am not going to do ski jumps with my phone on a stabilizer.  I am not going to pass my phone on a stabilizer around to a bunch of kids or drunk adults.

7 hours ago, Kisaha said:

People doing action activities are at its top ever, and world wide, a lot more than the 80's, 90's and the 00's were the hip thing to do was to do drugs and be wasted! I am joking, but action lifestyle and a healthy way of life became a thing the last decade, and right now, even McDonald's in UK offering "less that 400 calories" options in their menu, and organic foods are a thing (a very expensive one), while there are new extreme activities been invented, almost every month.

Which is why there is record setting obesity all over the planet.  The majority of the people in America are overweight or obese because they love "action activities" so much?

I started this thread to interject a bit of data driven reality.  I get people are excited about this camera or that camera but let's be realistic.  The market for any of this stuff is only so big.

On 5/4/2018 at 12:59 AM, Robert Collins said:

I wouldnt be very optimistic about the long term income prospects for stock video

Take this site...

https://www.shutterstock.com/

Look at the stock video rates - typically US$79 for a 1080p clip and US$199 for 4k - sounds like a good business right?

Then take a look at the stock photo rates on the same site. A US$29 monthly fee gets you 10 images or US$2.9 an image. And if you want a lot of images a month, you can get them for as little as 27cents an image.

That is only one model for selling photographs.  I've never sold a royalty free photograph for pennies.  I agree those schemes erode prices but there is no need for anyone to participate.  You can sell photographs "rights managed" for hundreds or thousands of dollars.  In fact higher quality businesses do NOT use those penny royalty free images and they never will.  If you value your brand and spend millions on an ad campaign the last thing you want is any other joker to be able to grab the images you popularize for pennies and erode your brand value.

Photo prices have definitely collapsed but pennies an image is not what even hobbyist like myself sell our best work for.

On 5/4/2018 at 4:56 PM, DevonChris said:

These are the details for the UK drone permissions. The problem is that you have have to prove competence with an approved training company that costs well over £1000 for a three day course, so obtaining these permissions can be expensive.

Of course, this is also an opportunity as it presents a barrier to entry for commercial drone work and footage.

Do you have to get a license if you are just starting out?  Does anyone police this?

Anyone can go out and shoot drone footage as an amateur.  They can't prove you are a pro.  If a year later you sell your work through an agency are the police going to demand the identity and citizenship of everyone selling clips and check to see if they have a license?

Honestly I don't even do the paperwork to declare my stock visual sales on my taxes.  I don't write off the cost of the equipment so I don't bother to alert the Feds to a few thousand dollars here and there.  If it became a bigger thing of course I would formalize everything.

On 5/3/2018 at 3:56 AM, JurijTurnsek said:

CIPA sales numbers only show a slow rise in mirrorless sales, but they do not show the huge Canon/Nikon base of users not buying anything new and that would buy a mirrorless body only from their preferred brand no matter the features. Migration to Sony will slow down to a crawl, I'm afraid. Sony would more a more affordable lens line, but even then the retail presence of Canikon will be hard to beat.

I mean, what good is innovation when an average customer will believe the marketing more. And marketing can claim anything they want and a strong brand reputation will seal the deal.

There you go.  I've said this for years.  I don't know where people live but EVERY store local to me carries plenty of Canon and Nikon options in the low and lower middle end.  There is some low end Sony here and there and no decent Panasonic or Olympus.

I can walk in to a whole sale warehouse store and literally see a shipping pallet full of Canon and zero Panasonic ICL cameras.

Gopro stock jumped over 9% Friday.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/gopro-stock-jumps-after-earnings-suggest-strong-start-for-cheaper-camera-2018-05-03

Sales seem to be good across the board.

Honestly the quality of the product has improved.  For the first time I am considering getting a Gopro.  Although the camera still has the problem of limited use for most people.  The number of people in America heavily involved with action activities is limited.  But with the increased quality of the cameras and more affordable high quality small gimbals available I think these cameras could me good for shooting family events.  They are simple, small, rugged, and splash proof.