sudopera

Thanks Ebrahim.  As always, your contributions here are extremely helpful.  What you are reporting is what I suspected, but its really nice to get confirmation like this since I don't have the camera myself.
FWIW, I am doing research for a product, but its for a system of anamorphic lenses and not a fullframe Speed Booster, which may not be what you were hoping for but which I promise will be very cool.  

When I was checking out the G40 there were almost no reviews, and all the gear sites didn't even mention it when it was released at CES.  I think the issue with camcorders, and to a degree the XC10 when it came out, is that they aren't sexy 'cinema' cameras as it seems a lot of people want to be a 'cinematographer' and so end up having to shoot everything rigged up like they are shooting a narrative, when they are often doing work that is better described as 'videography' and would be better served with a small, handheld option which lets you forget the camera and just focus just capturing the moment.

On the situiation between Ed adn ES: hopefully it will be resolved in that thread and not dominate the forum forever more!
A lesson remains: never use western union to send money for private purchases. The risk is too high.
I wasn't involved in banning Zach, and had plenty of decent chats with him, though he does come across as unstable. That meant that every single thread he waded into was derailed onto the T2i even when it was completely irrelevant. It started to negatively affect the forum as lots of threads went way off-topic and turned into arguments. I think there were enough fair warnings there TBH across a lot of topics and messages. He's actually not deleted but he is post-blocked for getting two warnings, so you can read messages. These blocks can be revoked too.
As for the community here, I think it's excellent. I've known Andrew a long, time, though we don't see a huge amount of one another I do know he's kept his passion for being an advert-free independant voice.
In fact I've been here since i had a T2i (first serious camera i had) and have learned a lot and taught some others.
Compared to many communities, I feel we have a good balance and fair moderation standards. There's no atrocious ban-hammer, but there's a sensible limit set on bad behaviour.
Here's to many more years of learning and lolz

I think Ehbrahim Saadawi and Ed David are the same person, like in fight club. 

Just wanted to say I'm proud of everyone coming together to help out three members here get on their way to get their money back.
It was an intense few days or so.  But this really, in a dorky way, felt like a real community.  A weird meta one, since none of us know each other in the real world, except for me and Mr. Coffee after a great skype interview session.
Now I am crying.
I am crying and crying and crying and sobbing and need to get a hankey.
Okay got it.
Anyway goodbye guys!
Till the next hot-buttoned issue!

MODERATOR INTERVENTION:
Moderator Jonpais and myself as fellow Moderator have been talking and we are going to keep this thread open for now BUT
THESE ARE THE CONDITIONS :
the thread stays open for the four people involved in this crime to communicate, it stays open to keep Ebrahim Sadaawi honest and full fill his promise to refund everyone involved ......eveyone one else back off and let them resolve this issue .
NO MORE POSTS on this thread from now on or we will delete them if you are not involued in this situation.
Ebrahim Sadaawi you keep in contact with Tim , Thomas and James who you have stolen money from , you stick to the plan to refund them , you keep in regular contact with them and let them know exactly what is happening no excuses and no stalling .
Tim, Thomas and James you keep in regular contact with Ebrahim Sadaawi and you can use this thread to keep us all informed how it is progressing .
If Ebrahim Sadaawi goes back on his word and starts stalling post on here and keep us informed what is going on .
 
Everyone else does not post anymore on this thread,   yes that means you  !!    no more lynch mob and wolfpack tactics . lets get our fellow EOSHD members refunded - that is the priority now.
let Ebrahim Sadaawi repay Tim, Thomas and James .
If Ebrahim Sadaawi does not keep his promise to refund all three people he scammed , Andrew Reid will be taking this futher with the authorities - this is his forum.
EOSHD MODERATORS

Guys... calm down. I am sorting some stuff out with E.S. Yes, I am unsure if I will actually get my money. We can AT LEAST give him a day to send the RF to Tim and Thomas. As for myself, I can wait a couple days to receive a payment. If I don't, I already have my legal documents together with all of his information/scanned ID, written confession, and handwritten confirmation. I will take it to the authorities if he tries to keep my money. 

Just read all todays madness
Time out Please!
ES needs to refund the 3 people involved in this matter , it's between him and them .
Andrew is away filming and I don't think he will want an internet intervention lynching branded by EOSHD members when he has said if this is not resolved he will get the authorities involved.
 
ES contact the three people involved , keep in regular contact with them and get on with the plan for refunding them in full with a realistic time frame they are happy with and stick to it.
or you will be dealing with Andrew Reid direct.
 
 
 

Not to put a downer on all this, but shouldn't you guys move off/away from this forum?
This is Andrew's forum/blog, after all & he might not take too kindly to all of this.
Remember that you might be dragging his name down with yours & this scammer.
Have any of you checked to see what he thinks or what steps he is taking? Might be worth doing, before you rush headlong down this route.
Just saying, because in the past he was quite quick to ban people for a lot less that what this kid has done & what you are doing.

I'm not trying to blow any smoke up my butt, but I have shot on film (very little) and I use the alexa and red and my sony f65 on all my jobs and I work on fairly higher-end commercials, budgets of probably 250k to 500k.
And you are right - he gave a lot of bad information.
But all of these forums do - reduser is notoriously bad for this.  An incredible amount of nerds on there pretending they know a lot more than they do.
The only forums you should really trust for actual advice is CML (cinematographers mailing list) and cinematography.com and Roger Deakins - this has real DPs on there like David Mullen, Geoff Boyle, and plenty more members of the ASC, AFC, CSC, etc.
I'm on this forum because I like you guys and I like seeing where this small tech is going.  It's fun stuff and useful tools for newer applications.  But, if you are making buying choices based on this guy - it sucks, but it's really on you.
As I say, again and again, you need to do your own tests.  Camera tests, lighting tests, lens tests.  I know most of you say you don't have money for this - but filmmaking is expensive as hell and you can rent from lensrentals and borrowlenses, or get the production you are working on to do the test.
With that said, I bought a dvx100 in 2004 or whenever when I first started out based on the recommendation of a juggler extra in a CBS documentary.  So I was just buying on a whim. I didn't look at tests or charts.
But please, don't listen to someone who says, " it's super cinematic like Sonys but not filmic." - WHAT THE BEJESUS does that mean?  Cinematic but not filmic?
If someone talks, make sure they have tests and charts and test video - and then think about it, and make your own conclusions.
Scamming someone of money is similar to scamming someone of judgement - and this ES guy definitely is guilty of both.
But like ES said when he gloated - it's on you and you're an idiot if you play into it.
ES is trying to teach you guys a lesson - that he's a genius and you are idiots.  
I'm extremely excited for his excuse tomorrow of why his mother couldn't deliver the package, or that the package was mailed to the wrong place and now he has to track it down, or some other great genius lie he'll come up with.
And I'm sure ES is very excited that I'm going to get not myself, but the entire community on here to instagram his friends and family.  I will give a VIDEO tutorial of how to do it on your computer.
I feel like if 20 people contacted me about my friend about him owing $1000 to people in an international scam, I may actually start to believe the person telling me this.
 
I'm also going to ask my friends at anonymous to start helping.  They may laugh at me, or they may think it's pretty funny to f* with ES.
 
We will see ES what they will do.  
 
 

You can't ban Zack Goidwin for playing the lighthearted doofus and not ban ES for being an international criminal. That would just be ridiculous. 

EOSHD peeps: I have sorted out some payment issues with Ebrahim Saawadi, and the other guys came to an agreement. This was one hell of a thread folks. Lots of mystery and confusion, and a lot of creative stories. I hope I get my money back as soon as possible.
I have a hand written letter confirming that he will, in fact, pay me what he owns me. 
We can drop it. Everyone will get their payments, and E.S. owned up to the dilemma. That's it. 
What a crazy thread. 

If he didn't do it he could just tell his friends that it was a hack. I'm pretty sure he knew the hammer was coming down when Andrew got involved and was going to see the evidence that we don't have access to.

Good for you Ebrahim on confessing. I just want to say that since you're part of this community ,if you were in a tough spot and needed some help we would've done whatever possible to help you out. I know that we could've gathered a group to donate. Same goes to anyone in the future. If you can prove the situation to be real.

Incredible. 
I always had the impression Ebrahim Snr was the main user of the account, due to the impressive knowledge, warm and fairness of his comments. It really didn't match this 19 year old beginner/noob thing. 
Did Ebrahim really go to all this effort of posting very helpful information for 3 years - just to gain the trust of an online community and scam them for just a bit of money? Baffling. Absolutely baffling. 
I'd do this: 
1. Submit a video message of yourself and your Grandfather together. 
2. Submit some of your portfolio work and any proof of directing credits. 
3. Submit any websites/imagery of your media company - behind the scenes? Projects? Anything? 
If I was convicted of being a scammer, I could do all the above in 20 minutes. It would go a long way to actually show us you're a genuine person who is in fact says who he is. 
Myself, like most other people, don't want to mix with anybody involved in criminal activity. 
All other forum topics are dying because of this thread being stuck at the top. I feel sorry for Andrew. It's not fair. 
Let's clean this up, nice and fairly, shall we?

Hello everyone, there has been a gesture from Ebrahim through a personal message. We'll see if the deeds follow the words. Perhaps we should give this a few days. Thank you all.

I suspect the lad is under an enormous amount of pressure at the moment. I'd personally rather lose a few hundred dollars than be in such a position. I don't know the real story, but I can imagine that a young man wanting to be respected and liked, and with an underdeveloped sense of judgement and perspective, might make a series of bad choices. I was young once and I sometimes cringe at the things I have done. I suppose it is normal. But I am not the same person now that I was. A crisis can sometimes be a useful catalyst for change. In many stories the hero sets out on a quest of some sort. But he has a weakness of character, exposed by some circumstance, which causes him to stumble and fail, possibly becoming ostracised, or at least diminished in the eyes of others, in the process. Seeing how the hero responds to the difficult road ahead despite their weaknesses and failings is what keeps us on the edge of our seats. Good luck to all.

You can swich German Amazon to English

man this thread is disgusting, getting enjoyment from someone being scammed and a long time respected member either behind it or worse being publicly shamed and accused while they themselves might be victims as well. So all of you can enjoy this, savor the misfortune of others and continue to concoct your wild theories. If someone hacks my account is this what is in store for me too? How about all of you? I would remind you that this isn't a movie, there are real lives involved and non of us know what really happened.

Don't know about you. But if I'd be going through this, having a mob of people going wild with speculations... doing a skype call with such a mob wouldn't really be in my interest.
Notice how calm the thread starter (and victim of a scam) has been throughout this thread?
I think it would be great if Ebrahim Sr and Timotheus would have a calm one-on-one call by themselves to try to figure and possibly sort things out. No need to make this into a reality show. If everything said by Timotheus and Ebrahim Sr is true, they're probably both going through some shitty times.

Probably the best skintones I've seen on a compressed 8-bit camera.

Hi all, OP here. Thanks for the support. Healthy scepticism also always welcome, I know that would be my approach as well.
This thread is not intended to just burn the seller down, I am not a hateful person and believe revenge is a dish best left unserved. Justice and taking responsibility are a different matter though. I am truly, truly baffled by what happened. Can't get my head around the fact anyone would do this for this amount of money. Whether it's junior (ab)using his shared account or if they're both in the know; both bizarre.
Exactly because (Senior) Ebrahim's contributions have been so valuable for the forum I was hesitant to put this out, but this couldn't stand. Hopefully this gets sorted out.

Mattias, no hard feelings but this time I think you are wrong. I shot 60p with 1/100 shutter speed (in Europe) to be conformed to 25p so i could squezze a little bit more than 50% slowmo and didn't have any flicker. I actualy planed to shoot 50p but then did some research and found this online flicker free guide/calculator on RED webpage
http://www.red.com/tools/flicker-free-video

Hopefully they have enough success with this 4K camera to convince them to include 4K on the rumored medium format mirrorless camera too. I'd rock a 4K MF camera with Fuji color science till the cows come home!

I'm so thankful to this forum. Its a place where I can get honest amazing feedback and a place that is open to thinking outside the box.
I am DP for a pretty high profile web doc in Mexico and we are going to some exotic locations next week. I asked your opinion on what to get and I went with my gut. I got a used 1D C and I am so stoked to finally own a camera again instead of renting stuff. My B Cam operator will be rocking the C100 and we will have an a7S II that is there specifically for slow motion and thats it. A-Cam 1D C. We have a sound guy who will be recording and booming everything separate so the crappy internal audio isn't a problem with the A Cam. Just more syncing in post for the editor
Im bringing my CONTAX Zeiss primes and will be prioritizing those over the typical Canon zooms. I get so bored with docs I see on Netflix and on VICE and I realized its cause everyone uses the same boring Canon Zooms. There is nothing sexy about the 24-105. Of course its practical and if we are in a run n gun situation, I will pop it on. But lens character is just as important as the Camera! I am so excited to pair my vintage CONTAX Zeiss lenses with the 1D C sensor. I have a feeling its going to be gold. 
I shot a doc in Nicaragua two months ago with the GH4 and it was nice and I was surprised by the IQ of it...but the 1D C has some sort of mojo about it that I can't explain. I shot with one in Haiti about 3 years ago when it was way out of my price range and loved it. Im stoked to be able to use it and to own one.
As soon as I get home I will be directing a medium sized budget music video that has VFX and very fun lighting. I will use the 1D C for that too. So in the next month, I will have two very different experiences with it. Im pumped. 
Sure it will take up a ton of storage on this trip...but I can buy 2 5TB drives on amazon for like $300.
Like Andrew said on this forum a while back when he got his 1D C:

"Yes I may still regret it but you only live once.
I believe at it's current used price it's a bargain, bonafide Hollywood cam."
Honestly...seeing that these two hollywood films were shot on it...sold me on the camera. Im looking forward to getting it and doing some tests soon! I have it overnighted so I should receive it Friday. Cheers!