Tim Sewell

Film has always been political because film has always, unavoidably, reflected the politics, power structures, culture and mores of the societies in which it has been made. What a lot of people are finding difficult right now is that sections of western societies who had previously been ignored or stereotyped in cinema now demand the levels of representation, opportunity and respect that white heterosexuals have received since the medium was invented.

How was it a lie? That was certainly what happened here in the UK. Without lockdown measures the curve would have been steeper and the peak a hell of a lot higher (a nice way of saying a lot more people would have suffocated to death).

Kudos to you for taking the time to respond to someone who is providing, as a citation, a post from someone called wank_666 - I really couldn't summon the energy.

No. It's like saying free people in a country built on genocide and slavery, who daily benefit from that history, shouldn't call themselves enslaved when they're asked to temporarily change their lifestyles in order to save the lives of their neighbours. No. Slavery is a situation where a person or a group of people are forced to labour for no recompense. Some people have concluded that they're in that situation right now because they're too spoilt and entitled to countenance a temporary disruption to their lives in order to save the lives of their neighbours.

When I was growing up, in the 1970s, on a wet Sunday or during a winter half-term, if you wanted to watch something on TV there was a very limited choice (in the UK, we only had 3 channels) so at some point one always found oneself watching old black and white movies, old technicolour movies... just old movies. I swear I learnt more about history, humans, social interaction and - importantly in the context of this discussion - storytelling - from those movies. Now and for a good number of years up to now, kids in that same state of wet-weekend ennui can watch terabytes of 'content' tailored precisely to their sensibilities. They have no need to sit on the sofa and gradually get drawn in to a piece of narrative storytelling made decades before their births. One of the results of this that I've noticed in my own children is that movies I consider to be great pieces of art and entertainment, they find unbearably slow-paced. Modern mass-market films - built on beats - have a 'wow' moment roughly every minute or so. It's a relentless succession of - as @Ed David mentions above - dopamine hits. So obviously the industry, competing against social media, 30 second 'fail' videos and needing to attract and retain the attention of an audience that will switch off anything that features slow burns and subtle inferences, has responded by catering to that need for mindless, incessant thrills (Not saying Hollywodd hasn't always done that, to an extent, but its output now is probably less varied and nuanced than ever before). Maybe people get a bit more discerning and open to these things as they get older. I hope so. I sometimes feel like large swathes of us have been the subjects of a giant unintentional experiment, the results of which help no-one and are, one-by-one, destroying so many parts of our shared culture that - had we been asked - we would have preferred to keep intact.

Medically justified, temporary, standard public health measures aimed at containing a deadly pandemic are not slavery - the view of the world betrayed by such a characterisation is either simplistic or solipsistic. I'm very sorry for your father's suffering - but really, what is the alternative? Do hospitals allow normal visiting by relatives and friends who may unknowingly be spreading a virus that could kill not only the patient concerned but also many others in the hospital who are highly vulnerable? Or do they devote hours of scarce nursing time helping said visitors to don PPE to a clinical standard? All of the measures enacted around the world have their basis in the fact that we are faced with a virus that many can spread without even realising they're infected, but which for many others is a death sentence. In other words - they call upon those who in the main can withstand the infection to temporarily undergo some personal detriment - be it economic, social, emotional or to their own mental health in order to protect their fellow citizens who might not be so lucky. You say it's your right to take the personal risk of getting sick or dying. But what of the health worker treating you who you infect and goes on to die, or to have their life blighted by long Covid? What of the rights of the key worker infected because they have no choice but to continue to work and mix who is denied a hospital bed because you - who was exercising his rights - have taken it up due to entirely avoidable infection? Why do your 'rights' (really just a conviction that you shouldn't be inconvenienced or disappointed along with everybody else) trump theirs?

I wonder it what possible universe being asked to reduce social contact and to take simple precautions like wearing a mask in enclosed spaces, during a pandemic that has so far killed half a million Americans (and many more the world over) can be characterised as 'slavery'. I mean, it's not like there's any shortage of examples of *actual* slavery available to see in the historical record of the good ol' USA.

I bought a s/h Nikon Coolscan for around £350 from the bay, came with the manual and auto film holders (unfortunately the auto one doesn't work with my favoured scanning software, Silverfast - it needs a firmware update for which I'd need a 32bit WinXP or something awful). I have to say that the quality of the scans is excellent and definitely up to my needs, which top out at 16x20 prints.

Given the FX denomination - Sony's cinema line - I'd be surprised if it has a stills mode at all, likewise IBIS. I think people looking for something comparable to, or an alternative to the A7Siii are probably barking up the wrong tree here. I'd look upon this (subject to further info) as Sony's riposte to Canon's C70. I'm not in the market for a new camera (and if I was I'd prefer the form factor of the FX6) but this - especially at the rumoured price - looks like it could be an extremely tasty option!

Processing too. Even a half degree temperature difference or a 30 second timing difference will result in colour and exposure shifts.

Fair enough - I'm no expert. He framed it as a defect and that's what I was reporting back to the board.

As far as I recall he found that, in the lens he was testing, the amount of anamorphic compression varied according to the focus distance.

Interesting discussion along very similar lines going on now at Lift Gamma Gain: https://liftgammagain.com/forum/index.php?threads/what-is-the-best-example-of-film-emulation.15452/

The benefits of digital are, of course, undeniable - in fact this forum wouldn't exist were it not for the advent of large-sensor video and many of its enthusiast members, myself included, would never have been able to even get into a position where these discussions are possible without it. We have 2 competing sets of desires when it comes to large sensor video. On the one hand we want more resolution, greater bit depth and higher frame rates (all of which improve the ROI for professional users); while on the other, we want sensors that will satisfy our aesthetic desires which for most of us align much more with the organic nature of celluloid than they do with pristine Rec709 video. Perhaps those two desire sets will never be compatible, but unfortunately there will never be sufficient sales to enthusiast users to justify pro-sumer/consumer level equipment that abandons the megapixel/frame rate race in favour of a lower resolution with film-like DR etc. I was having this discussion (sort of) with a couple of occasional photo shooters just on Friday. they were saying that there was now no discernible difference between film and digital. I disagreed. I can certainly easily differentiate the stills I shoot on film, to those I've shot on digital - even though I generally process the latter to look as much like the former as I can. The organic, random, chemical nature of silver halide photography gives a highlight roll-off - and just as important, a roll-off to underexposure - plus a transition from in to out-of focus that simply can't be achieved in a grid matrix of photosensitive receptors. That look is at once closer to and further away from what we see with our own eyes and that is where its magic lies.

Apart from Engrenages.

Well of course - but history is littered with dead industries whose players failed to foresee the full effects of technological change. But in terms of actual hardware, there was and is literally nothing that could save mass-market camera sales. You have to remember that the vast majority of the millions of point'n'shoots that used to be sold every year weren't in daily use - they sat in drawers, brought out for the annual holiday, birthdays and Christmas. People who worked in mass-market photo labs used to laugh about rolls of 24 frames that were bookended with snaps from 2 consecutive festive seasons. So when you arrive, accidentally (don't forget, cameras in phones started out as a minor value-add) at a scenario where everybody has a far higher (for them) quality camera in their pockets all the time that they don't even have to think about putting in there - well; tell me what camera makers could have done to their products to make them attractive enough for Joe Schmoe to put his hand in his pocket for a separate device that he has to remember to get out of the drawer. It's by no means a happy situation, but it is what it is and it's where we are. With the benefit of hindsight we can debate whether or not it was inevitable. We can posit ways in which CaNikon etc could have safeguarded their businesses - but the ways in which they could have done that, including the strategies Andrew suggests, might have saved their businesses, but wouldn't have done anything to preserve any kind of market for consumer cameras sufficient to continue supporting higher end gear for enthusiasts.

It's hard to say it's gone wrong. It's so-called creative destruction. There's simply no need for a mass consumer camera market any more. Every home used to have a camera, be it a compact, a SLR, a Polaroid or whatever. No-one needs those any more because everybody (even the children) has a phone that will take better snaps with fewer skills, in a format that allows instant sharing.

Pity the enthusiast! 'pro-sumer' models have always been supported by healthy sales of point'n'shoots. Take those away and, as @Marcio Kabke Pinheiro says, we'll be left with pro cameras at pro prices and Leica-level enthusiast models. people will be able to snap 500MP pictures of us weeping, on their wristwatch cams.

Well Potato jet found a bit of a bug with the Siruis:

I'm thinking that once the dust settles on my PayPal account I might get one native (or Sigma) prime. I'm leaning towards a 35mm, that being just about my favourite focal length on FF (for stills, that is).

I can see the potential, but I wouldn't want to risk it for the various money shots through the day.

Having said that, I spent last night clicking through 100s of AS7Rii images on Flickr and the detail on some of them was mind-blowing, compared to what I get from my EM-1 mkii. Looking forward to getting my hands on the camera, even though there's not exactly much to point it at right now.

Heh - I shot 20-odd weddings on a pair of 10MP 40Ds with a 350D as backup. People were happy to pay £1500-£2000 (and we didn't even give them prints - that was extra!) in the early noughties. Happy days.

Thanks for the advice guys. I found a nice condition A7R2 with 4 batteries for a good price on eBay this afternoon so I've bought it. It will be nice to look through some lenses with the FOV they used to give back in the day! Apparently the S35 4K is pretty good, so my go-to EF-S 17-55 will possibly get some use if I ever use it for video not on a gimbal or a jib.

Now *that* has piqued my interest!