Stefan Antonescu

Andrew, any news on the Pocket 4K review ? I've been checking EOSHD twice a day for the past month. I can't wait to read your take on this little monster.

I just picked one of these up to serve as a b-cam/gimbal cam alongside my Ursa Mini and ran the first tests with it.
First impressions; it's a beast. The ergonomics are spot on and as a former 5D2 user I feel right at home with it. The UI is essentially the same as in the Ursa Mini which is nice.
And coming from the Ursa, and BMCC2,5K before that, the low light capabilities... they're just like, damn. I just want to go all run 'n gun and shoot my next short with all natural light. I ran a test on how far I could push it  while still getting a clean image - ended up fitting it with a speedbooster and a Pentax SMC 50/1.2. I was able to ETTR at 50fps in city areas, and shoot comfortably in even extremely dim locations. In fact, I had to stop down/up the shutter speed on several occasions.  The image wasn't 100% clean though - I'm assuming it's like in the previous BMD products, in that noise reduction is only applied in prores. I shot RAW so I had to do some cleaning up in Resolve (a process I've accustomed to with previous BMD products mind you - but in ISO 800 in their case), but the image did clean up very nicely and retained all the detail.
It's probably the first time I'm seeing an actual cinema grade camera do low light this well. I felt that I could use a reflector to bounce the available light and the camera would actually pick it up.
Attached two snaps from my short walk with the camera. Not very cinematic - but rather tests on how much data I could get from available nightime light. Quite a bit, even in indirect light, as evidenced by the second picture.

Looks really good, love the vintage feel.
Out of curiosity, why did you choose to shoot with the Pocket 4K and Gemini instead of just one camera ? More coverage?

It’s actually a music video for the Plain White T’s. I used the Pocket 4k and RED Gemini. Lenses were Canon FD primes, and Sigma 18-35.

I cannot tell you how much I'm looking forward to seeing this. I absolutely love a 80s film look. What lenses did you use ?

Make it 40... to me this camera doesn’t even exist. 
Eventually we’ll have footage from John Brawley or Frank Glencairn or Noam Kroll and the footage will look amazing. More people will love it but a few will find something wrong with it...
Eventually card info will be released, and more people will complain.
Eventually AF tests will show up comparing this camera to the PDAF of the a6500 and more people will complain.
Eventually low light tests will show up comparing this camera with the GH5s or the a7sii and more people will complain.
At the end, when it’s released, a bunch of people will complain because they hate that they have to use an IR Cut filter and they will complain that they only get 45-60 minutes of battery life and that they wish it had IBIS...
And eventually the usual suspects will be the only people that have the camera and the footage will be absolutely gorgeous.
The End.

This is it. I remember when it came out there was talk about the unusual composition used, like all the headroom, etc. 
 
 

A rant. I mostly shoot on DSLRs for my work. Got a big yesterday with a Sony FS7, big ass tripod, monitor, the works. Ohhhh fancy stuff by my standards!
But here's the thing. It drove me nuts. Moving, positioning, getting shots was so damned cumbersome. Shot some Broll of a guy on a sailboat.
I garauntee I could've gotten way more and frankly, way better and more interesting content with my trusty GH4 and gimbal. Blah blah specs, I don't care. Footage would've been nicer and more interesting to 100%  of audiences.
I know there'll be some "back in my day, cameras weighed 1000lbs" folks who will scoff, but you know what? Fuck large camera systems. Fuck them. 

I'm personally waiting for the next Crane with this new 45 angle magic. 
 

"The Cooke Book and A Cooke Look Back" free 74 page pdf for bed time reading  http://www.musitelli.com/site/files/Cooke_Histoy_Book_by_FDTimes.pdf

Some new Kinefinity Terra footage shot in RAW. Call me a believer.
 

New Pilotfly H2-45 Gimbal. Up to 4.9 lb (2.2 kg). Probably $999 like the H2.
https://pilotfly.de/epages/777c6180-f31f-4700-a505-78d08d790bfc.mobile/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/777c6180-f31f-4700-a505-78d08d790bfc/Products/000012&Locale=en_GB
Unboxing :
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubl0hYcuPo4
IMO, this is huge if you don't use an external monitor ! Should be available next month.

For what its worth.
 
Some cut and paste from a Larry Jordon Blog on NAB:
"While Apple released a minor bug-fix update two weeks before NAB, the more interesting news came from an announcement and two employment “leaks.” The announcement, occurring during NAB, was that Apple Final Cut Pro X now has more than 2 million users. This equals the number of Final Cut users during they heyday of Final Cut Pro 6/7. This is a significant number and not to be minimized.
But, to me, the really exciting news from Apple wasn’t an announcement, it was a “leak.” As NAB started it was discovered that the Final Cut team had added Wes Plate and Tim Dashwood to their ranks............
....................It is impossible to overstate the impact these two people could have on FCP X. Wes Plate ran Automatic Duck for years, specializing in moving projects between applications. A few years ago, he was hired by Adobe for the Premiere team, where he helped redesign how Premiere imports media; basically integrating most of the features of Prelude into Premiere. Now that he is working with Final Cut, my expectation is that the application will start to improve how it moves media and projects between applications. FCP X has always been weak on this score, relying on a host of third-party plugins.
Tim Dashwood also ran his own development company – Dashwood Cinema Solutions – for a long while. I first became aware of him with his utilities to allow Final Cut Pro X to sync and edit Stereoscopic 3D video. Since then, he’s been working with virtual reality and related media.
While Stereo 3D is still relevant, my guess is that Tim will be looking at how to improve Final Cut’s ability to handle 360-VR, ambisonic audio and extend that into AR (Augmented Reality). Especially since, when it comes to VR, Final Cut is running a distant third behind Adobe and Avid.   It is now a four horse race: Adobe, Apple, Avid and Blackmagic Design."
 
https://larryjordan.com/blog/thoughts-and-highlights-from-the-2017-nab-show/

I might pick up a GH5, but definitely waiting for NAB to see what camera bodies are announced. A new A7s or something killer from Fuji would be intriguing. And I'd love to see more compact designs from Blackmagic. A Pocket-Micro revision or an Ursa Micro with a 2.3K slice of the 4.6K sensor would be kinda dope. I'd scoop that up in a heartbeat.

That is coming soon as well!
I am now using V-LOG, it's pretty good.
When I find time will write more about it.

It's very easy to use: I'm lucky enough to live 1,5 hours from the SturdyShot's builder (he's in Rome), so I went personally to try it and I bought it. 

He balanced it mechanically for my GH4 and Olympus 12-40 f/2.8, then for the same camera and Panasonic Leica 25 f/1.4.

After that he used the software to give the 3 motors the exact power for my rig and he suggest to not change lenses, unless doing the mechanical balance again (by myself, because I can't go every time to Rome). 
The batteries lasts for 60-70 minutes, he gave me 2. So I had plenty of time shooting with one and only at the end of the day I had to use the second. 

The software parameters are quite easy to change, so you can improve your setting after some days of use.
Of course I used the camera's LCD

It's not so cheap, but I bought it because the builder is very serious and if I broke he can repair it quickly, in one day

Thank you very much for your kind words, Cinegain
I also picked the Olympus over the Panasonic, because the final quality is slightly better to my eyes.
Normally I love my little FD prime collections, but on the gimbal a good zoom is more practical and the second setting (for the Panasonic-Leica 25) come in handy for a lot of shots.

Jacopo - the MiniSturdyCam builder - has a GH4 with 12-35 OIS on one of his gimbal and in that way you are 100% free from every imaginable micro-jitter, even at 35mm.

For me the stabilization of gimbal itself is more then enough with any non-stabilized lens, but he's so honest that when you contact him to talk about his products, he starts from the little "cons": of course he talks about "perfection", he's a truly passionate maniac about "flying" movements, but the gimbal is super stable, no problem at all.

He's a very nice guy and I really appreciated his way to conduct business: I asked his opinion between the bigger SturdyFlight and the cheaper and smaller MiniSturdyFlight, and he recommended me to buy the latter, because he said that with my camera and lenses the MiniSturdyFlight would be perfect. He's very disposable also by Wathsapp and Skype. 

I hope this gimbal will lasts for some years, because after I tried I cannot stay without anymore, because it speeds up everything: besides the normal steadicam's work you can use it as a crane, as a dolly, as a monopod... 

Isn't that the one Dave Dugdale tried and found a little too clunky as well? I remember him ultimately going with the Pilotfly H1.
Unfortunately the folks at FilmPower don't really know how to market their Nebula 4200 PRO. It looked rather interesting... but I have serious question marks with how they run things. The 4000 seemed far from ideal as well, although admittedly was the one to really get this snowball rolling.
Have you guys seen the Feiyu MX? Now that might be pretty sweet. Though... with that one, the load factor really seems an issue. Guess you can't have everything.
Guess if I had to go for something now it would probably be the http://www.sturdyshots.com/sturdy2014/sturdyflight-2/ . I like the way it's set up and JazzBox seems to really like it.

Here's a test I just did with the sony f35 and colored with the color chart tool in resolve:
 
No lut - just that color chart tool and some basic color corection - I feel this gives a completely natural amount of skin tones that I think I like more that Filmconvert or Impulz Luts all that stuff.  I am beginning to wonder if using those luts are kind of like using a beginner guide to understanding color and maybe that's why most colorists don't like them.
Anywho, now I know the importance of having a color chart - how useful and quickly it can be used to neutralize an image and skintones, and go from there.
From this day forward, I will bring a color chart to all my shoots.
Here's the LUT from this test - everyone can download and use on pretty much all their footage - it's made for s-log but with adjustment probably works on everything - http://kittyguerrilla.com/ed_luts/

It's an embarrassment of riches. And it's great. 
Even now I contend that even average consumer IQ is so advanced that it'll allow a filmmaker to create great looking cinema. 
5-10 years from now?  Whoa.  Its fun to watch it get better and cheaper  
If you can't manage to effectively create with this stuff, then you're not doing it right and/or paying attention to the wrong details. 

This is awesome ! Way to go Panasonic !
The GH4 just became a 5.7K camera over night, as you can get a 5760 x 2400 image with 2.40 aspect ratio !

this is so much fun. driving my wife crazy. she's trying to watch the untouchables on hbo go while I frame her up in various CUs.

Matt Frazer :
www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?335758-First-look-at-24p-anamorphic-amp-V-Log-on-GH4&p=1986536936&viewfull=1#post1986536936

Show me some technicolor that looks like that... I can't imagine it looks the same. The look sure shows the power of raw, but I really don't like the hdr/over saturated candy colored style. Doesn't have anything to do with a proper monitor or not. 

I feel your pain - I'm in the same boat - but I'm sure those will come soon.