Tim Sewell

Rigjob's Hillbilly Grip Truck is entertaining and informative - he doesn't post very often as he only does stuff when he has time, but what he does put up there never fails to give one a giggle and some good on-the-job info: https://www.youtube.com/user/Hillbillygriptruck/videos

Check this guy out: http://www.edlondonphotography.co.uk/

@Ed_David - this is a very long thread, but there are lots of people experimenting with Portra 400 and 800 throughout the posts, together with quite an intense investigation of the best ways to rate those films for different purposes/effects: https://www.fujix-forum.com/threads/what-films-are-you-shooting-please-post-examples.48424/

Quote

How can we justify spending the money for the larger formats?

By looking at pictures and deciding if we like them.

Some nice-looking X-Pro2 HD footage: 

2 hours ago, jonpais said:

So would you agree, Tim, that there are commonly accepted measures of image quality - dynamic range, moire, aliasing, bokeh, sharpening, color saturation, color accuracy, noise, contrast, barrel and pincushion distortion, chromatic aberration, artifacts, skin tones, etc. - and that everything is not entirely relative? If so, many, if not most, aspects of image quality are indeed quantifiable, and specs do mean jack. 50 lpmm, 800 nits, 28 Mbps, HLG, 540p, 8 bit 4:2:0, log, 60 CRI, 42% vignetting and on and on - all of these specifications have meaning for me.

Sure - these are all technical aspects of image quality and they are technically meaningful - I take notice of them myself. In my original comment I was referring to @jcs's (who I admire greatly in most things) notion of setting up semi-scientific tests to determine compression and DOF differences between two sensor/film formats - essentially trying to quantify an aesthetic quality or preference. The essence is that no scientific test will ever determine why a medium format photograph appeals more to an individual than the same scene shot on full frame or micro four thirds, or vice versa. It seems a pointless exercise, which was the crux of my comment.

I spend and have spent an inordinate amount of money on cameras and I like to have instruments that are as close to the best as I can't afford but can justify to myself (if not to my wife). That's not because I think they will make me a better photographer or film maker - if they do it will only be tangentially because they make the process easier. The best camera in the world can't make up for a lack of artistic sensibility or vision, while the worst camera in the world won't fully obscure the same qualities. I buy expensive cameras for the same reason that I rarely take photographs or videos on my phone - because I enjoy the sensual aspect of making images with a well-made tool designed for that purpose. Scientific tests have their place in determining the measures you mention, but I just can't see their value in determining immeasurable phenomena.

Quote

How many here offering their opinions have actual experience shooting and processing MF digital - by the sounds of it not many......

Not me, I'm afraid. I've only shot MF on film.

Quote

Image quality is not completely subjective. 

But the quality of art is, which is why I specified 'aesthetic'.

Quote

That makes just as much sense as asking a computer to calculate what ice cream flavour that is the "best". 

Exactly! Or getting that same computer to decide whether Rembrandt or Monet is the better artist. I think we get way too hung up on numbers as a way of measuring entirely subjective aesthetic qualities.

Quote

Another factor could be simply that the ultra-high end cameras get more TLC and tweaking to make thing looks better (CFA, sensor design, software, etc.).

Another factor could just be that the majority of people willing to make the many thousands of dollars/pounds/euros investments for medium format cameras and lenses simply tend to be accomplished photographers.

Looking forward to watching hipsters jumping off cliffs into azure seas with their $1000 iPhones on selfie sticks, later telling the insurance company that renowned DoP @Ed_David 'said it was a GoPro killer'.

Inspiring images are inspiring images, no matter what the medium. What we deal in as photographers, cinematographers or whatever we call ourselves is essentially the same - we seek to distill human experience into visual form in such a way that the viewer can connect with the subject matter - emotionally, intellectually and aesthetically. So take a look at this, a website devoted to the two Fujifilm 35mm lenses, the 1.4 and the 2.0. I honestly haven't come across a website crammed with so many inspiring images in a long time. It just makes you itch to get out there with a camera straight away!: http://www.fiftythreemm.com/

Quick edit to mention that the 'X-PERT 53 INTERVIEWS' is particularly wonderful.

When I was a local photographer's assistant/darkroom monkey/gopher he used to let me borrow his RB67 and a couple of lenses when it wasn't in use. There was definitely something special about working in the larger format - not least that the size of the thing and the relative high cost of the film dictated a very measured approach. The local camera shop had a Mamiya 645 and a Hasselblad 6x6 (can't remember the model number) that they used to let me rent at a cut rate as we bought so much film etc from them all the time. Great cameras to use - I shot my first ever nudes on the 645.

Sadly none of the prints, or even negs survived my divorce and subsequent hard times. We grouse about backing up our files and (rightly) aver that film lasts a lot longer - but I wish I'd had Flickr and Dropbox then as I would still have the thousands of pictures I made in my twenties and thirties.

On a more serious note, I suspect that if writing speculatively as an 'unknown' there might be more chance of getting lucky if one aims one's ideas at long-form episodic TV.

Bizarrely, when I wrote the screenplay for the Liz Hurley-vehicle ultra-turkey, Mad Dogs & Englishman, I was offered representation by CAA (or some UK branch of same, I can't quite remember). Unfortunately, mainly on the advice of said turkey's producers, I instead opted to be represented by ex-B movie heartthrob Howard Pays, whose agency CCA was close in abbreviation but in influence, not so much. He was a lovely man, however and very supportive. I expect if the critical reaction to the finished film (as opposed to the final draft screenplay, which garnered a lot of praise) had not been quite so catastrophically bad and its box-office not been quite so execrable, he would have opened any number of doors in the UK industry for me and I wouldn't now be having to spend eight hours a day writing javascript. In fact I remember him, in all seriousness, diffidently suggesting that it might be better to change my name and start again.

Thanks - I didn't do as much with the Canon as I had hoped. I really like the image from the X-T2, but I am having a little difficulty so far in getting nice motion cadence. I've only managed to get nice-looking motion shooting at 30p/1/60th and I would far prefer to shoot at 24p or even 25p. I'm asking around to find out if anyone has any secret sauce. On the upside, the camera works really nicely with my Samyang 'cine' lenses and the EVF is so good that I'm finding I don't even need to use any of the focussing aids to get sharp focus. That said, I added the 18-55 Fuji lens for the OIS and I've got a 35mm f2 arriving tomorrow because I keep reading Fujifilm shooters' blogs and getting severely itchy in the wallet area.

Hopefully I'll get out the weekend after next for a full-on video shooting session with sticks etc and by then will have ironed out the motion issues (I know it must be possible as I've seen plenty of X-T2 video where the motion looks fine).

I think it's in the end credits at 03:44.

Nice bit of X-T2 video: 

If I do end up buying this camera I wouldn't be using it for video - at least not for anything that was paying. It would be to have as a backup for stills work that will match, sensor-wise, with my X-T2s.

Just when my wallet thought it was in for a nice long rest.

Quote

1. Support for backup/restore of camera settings via FUJIFILM X Acquire

Once connecting a camera to a computer via USB cable, the “FUJIFILM X Acquire” allows users to backup/restore camera settings to/from a file. Copying all camera settings from one camera to another is available.

For the X-T2 - funnily enough I was bemoaning (to myself) the lack of such an ability just yesterday as I laboriously copied all the settings from twin 1 to twin 2. Not as simple as doing it by SD card, as in other systems, but good enough!

Quote

the opted for a very cold grade

Horrible grade I thought - to the extent that I found it distracted from the story.

I tend to think that whether you're doing stills or video the very best option is to have a machine that is 100% optimised for that task - because it's really only then that the camera gets out of the way - where you're not fighting it in one way or the other. Of course - that ain't the way the world is going so...

I expect most of us have done work cheaply when trying to make a start in a creative industry that we love. Whatever you decide at the end of the day - make sure that after costs you are left with no less per day than you'd earn in a good day on your day job!

Quote

However, strings are pulled from unseen forces; how do we know what's real in Washington, and who is really in control?

I did a treatment for a screenplay based on this a while ago - on the afternoon of the inauguration the new Prez is driven to a nondescript house on a nondescript suburban housing estate to meet with some badly dressed old men who take a break from arguing about football to let him know that while he might think he's in charge, he really isn't - and outline exactly what will happen to him and his family if he mentions any of what he's been told.

Times now are such that I'd be rather reassured if I knew there were puppetmasters pulling the strings, because nuclear war, unlike the other flavours, is definitely very bad for business.

Quote

and outline exactly what will happen to him and his family if he mentions any of what he's been told

Of course Harrison Ford (for it is he) turns the tables on them, defeats them and takes his presidency on to great things for God, truth and the American way.

And explosions.