teddoman

Booking are kind of blowing up across the next few weeks so I took a shot at the NX1. Got the little power zoom for an extra $200 - $1299 seems like a good price, though it may plummet after the holidays. Waiting for a lens adapter, I have a sack of nice old Nikkors.
(This camera is filed under "I own it, lower budget no-rentals gig gear". As an aside, all the research I've done on video for the web and for ad landing pages suggests if you have a business, you're an idiot not to have a video. Leads and conversions jump from 80 - 300%. Really pushing one-man, corporate stuff for 2016 - I wouldn't mind filling my calendar with some small gigs, and I usually end up re-writing their copy, designing ad campaigns and landing pages, even redoing their site. I'm an agency with in-house video, man!)
First impressions - 
Menu system and custom controls were easy to setup and after an evening of playing around, it's feeling pretty second nature. I have yet to shoot a single still though… but have a nice custom setup, love having the mic volume on the wheel. (Could never remember where it was on my Nikon). (I use an external recorder, but wit several Nikon bodies, line-out from recorder to camera for a scratch track? Stage the gain properly and I often used the camera audio.Hhaven't tried that with the NX, we'll see).
Wonkiness: couldn't find a few things I've read about - realized it doesn't have the latest firmware. Guess these have been sitting in Amazon's warehouse...
Wonkiness 2: Sometimes the EVF (or the display) doesn't come on at powerup, it's one or the other, and the button doesn't work. Toggle the power and it's fine.
Wonkiness 3: No matter how I set things, the fast/slow settings only show "fast" -1080p, etc. I have 120 fps in the menu but I like that the camera will conform the footage. May be a firmware thing?
The AF - fack me, I can use the hell out of this. Not for narrative/editorial work but for events and steadicam - man, I can see using this fairly often. I'll want to test it a lot and see it on a big monitor, but… impressed. I expect to have non-native glass on this most of the time, but nice to have it. Probably get the 2-2.8 at some point.
The autofocus default when you leave video mode - already trained myself to hit delete key (set for AF) and toggle the AF off. Kind of a hassle but now second nature.
The lens stabilization - thumb's up. Again, events and steadicam, godsend. No DIS in this firmware, doubt I'd use it anyway.
LOVE the WB controls - I've got WB set to the down arrow, right by my hand. Easy to grab a custom, and I love the color matrix controls for every preset - unless I'm going pretty artsy, I really prefer most of my look in camera other than keeping the blacks detailed and open.
Really love the EVF. I tried my loupe on the panel, but (A) the evf detector gets confused by the hinge on the loupe and (B) this body is kind of small - my loupe won't slide down far enough without some drilling. I may just skip the loupe for shoulder mount work - it's a great EVF.
Ran some footage through editready, reasonably fast - not much different than converting H264 to Prores in Streamclip, unless I downscale which seems to double the time.
The native 1080 looks very good to me, I guess one of those firmware fixes really came through. I saw a bit of jaggy aliasing that was a bit cleaner with UHD downscaled.
Overall - pretty pleased, but with a touch of genuine sadness - if Samsung is really abandoning this part of the market, it's a shame. The NX1 is simply a remarkable first shot. I know plenty of folks here dismiss it, but man - you're talking about a $1k body. It's got bang for the buck like nobody's business.
 
 
 

Imagine going into a huge multiplex and seeing all their monitors in the lobby with the "enhanced" frame rate turned on. 
So, big budget cinema in a big cinematic complex on big cinematic screen...looking non-cinematic. 
Good job AMC.  Even the purveyors of cinema are unable to escape their ignorance and will ruin cinematic IQ    
The slow frame rate is NOT a liability. The altered rate of motion pictures that don't match our vision's reality is what heightens the suspension of disbelief.  That's kind of important when your watching a narrative like, I dunno, James Bond, for example.  
Its not because it "looks better" than 60p, it's because it takes the edge off our perception of realism.
Movies are an escape from reality, it's a manufactured narrative. The illusion is diminished by too much visual accuracy.
All that said, the Japanese love high frame rates, and would rationalize FOR it.  
I just can't.  I like the magic of slow.
 
that's a pretty big misunderstanding of how it works. 

Some temple scenes shot in 4K on a Samsung NX1. Handheld using the Samsung 16-50/2-28. Gamma DR, Contrast -5, Master Black Level +10. Film Convert (Red / Epic X / Redgamma 3 - Fuji Astia 100). FCPX. Music is "Shanghai Dream" by Christopher Ashmore.
Some of it turned out OK, but some spots I think I missed focus and other parts came out over exposed. 
4K version .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTV2EnP0YM0 

I took my nx1 and a slider around a few places just outside Toronto. All filmed and edited in uhd 4k, shot flat with Gamma DR with tweaked settings and added Lut's and color grading added in post.

That will be hard to decide...
LX100 advantages:
-15 min rec limit over 5 min in 4K
- Cheaper
- Can attach filters (43mm) without magfilter adapter
- Battery life is much better on LX
RX100 advantages:
- Great 1080p with high fps (LX100: 50fps, line skipped with moire and aliasing)
- SLOG2, and great high iso performance in video mode
- very small, pocketable
- build in flash which is very effective (and smaller than the LX100's attached flash)
- flipable LCD
Go for a used LX100 + a gimbal for the price of the RX100
Anyway i recorded this video with the LX100 and a Benro Monopod:

Dear EOSHD community,
I am an independent french graphic designer and I regularly work in photo and video.
Over the years, I created a collection of 3D LUT files to ease the color grading of my projects.
Recently I created a pack with my 38 original LUTs.
They are profiled on high-resolution color matrix and were built to preserve skin tones as best as possible.
I had the chance to work with many different cameras and I spent a lot of time creating these looks and testing on raw footages, from 5DMKII and 7D with Magic Lantern, GH4, A7S, BMPC 4K, and stills from RED EPIC.
About HDSLR, these LUTs are calibrated on CineStyle/Cinelike profiles.
Also in my pack is included a LUT to properly « flat » a footage and get a good working basis before grading.
Website for more infos : http://luts.iwltbap.com
Instagram with short video samples : https://instagram.com/luts
At the end of this post you will find some sample images before-after.
My LUTs pack is for sale $20, but I created a discount code of -25% for EOSHD community.
So you can get it for $15 instead of $20 via : https://sellfy.com/p/Ainy/-EOSHD
My pack is regularly updated with new LUTs and all updates are free.
On my website you can download a free LUT with the famous teal-orange look.
Also, I offer for free a 4K film grain based on 35mm film scans (10sec video encoded in Apple ProRes 422 at 25fps).
Hope you will like my LUTs.
Best,
Benjamin

Every shot in this video except the rooftop was shot with V-Log L 10 bit on the GH4/Assassin.
Thanks to Sandro and Nicolas Maillet for helping me with a couple of Twixtor shots.

Hello everybody,
I just build an online web app to test all the LUTs from my pack on JPG/PNG images.
You can test the beta version here : http://luts.iwltbap.com/previewer
The use is pretty simple, you have just to drop/load a JPG/PNG frame on the main container and click a LUT reference in the left sidebar.
In top bar you have a ON/OFF button to enable or disable the LUT effect instantly, and a slider to change the LUT intensity.
Also, you can export the current frame as a PNG by clicking SAVE button.
The LUTs will be applied at low resolution to increase speed (the size of this web app is around 10MB, when my pack of LUTs is around 1.20GB).
So, pixelation and banding will appear in the previewer.
More details in the infos box on the previewer home page.
It's still in beta so all feedback and bug reports are welcome 
Benjamin

This is a false generalization most likely based on weaknesses inherent to teleconverters, which magnify aberrations.  A well-designed focal reducer, on the other hand, will *shrink* the aberrations as mentioned above by Araucaria.  And with a little know-how you can even do better than that to actually design a focal reducer that compensates some of the aberrations in the master lens.  Here's a recent whitepaper that I wrote proving that a Metabones Speed Booster significantly increases the MTF of various lenses, including the extremely challenging case of a Zeiss Otus:  http://www.metabones.com/assets/a/stories/The Perfect Focal Reducer (Metabones Speed Booster ULTRA for M43) - Whitepaper.pdf
Disclaimer:  I develop the optics used in Metabones Speed Boosters

That functionality would definitely help me to convince my wife that we need to buy it.
I liked the Lilliput, It seems very nice. Thanks!
If someone release a Smartphone or tablet with HDMI input, will be the end of field monitors. Imagine the ton of possibilities with apps and wifi transmissions.
 
I'll take a look. Thanks!

Plot twist, this is all a marketing scheme to get people knowing about the NX1 ! Check this forum for example, 10 out of 20 threads are related to the NX1/Samsung !

Haha, this is gonna drag on for a while!
They really should be saying who this "official" source is though and the context of the email back and forth. An "official source" could be a sales rep who has no idea and has just answered no to the question "Are media reports true that Nikon is allegedly buying Samsung's NX technology"?
A healthy dose of scepticism is required.

I've loved my NX1 since I got in March. The only complaint was the transcoding and additional space needed. Playback is now smooth at full resolution on my older 12-core Mac Tower and GTX980 card. The Premiere Pro Beta finally optimized h265 playback/export about 4 months ago and I finally got to dump all my ProRes files...about 1TB.
Last week I shot a night time test in a car to test the Cinemorph Anamorphic filter with a Nikon 50mm f1.2 and a 4K Grainzilla real film grain quicktime.
i wanted to try something different so I went full faux anamorphic bokeh and kept the NX1 at ISO 800 as the Cinemorph eats about 1.5 stops of light.
You can watch the Vimeo HD or Youtube 4K versions of DRUNK DRIVE here: http://vashivisuals.com/samsung-nx1-drunk-drive/

That's the way I thought 30 years ago.  After years and years or watching movies and TV and reading books I've flipped the other way.  Just as there is a technical side to depth of field, or resolution say, there is a technical side to story-telling, how much is focused on one character, what is shown with dialogue.  For example, a filmmaker could be sold on the low dynamic range of a RAW camera.  But if he used it on a comedy it would probably fall flat.  Comedy is always sharp and bright.  Or it could be the other way around, a filmmaker looking to tell the story of a Syrian refugee for example, and shoot with bright camera that can't get a thoughtful mood.  
I know many people will read what I'm saying and think 'what about this exception, or that exception'.   It's not about rules.  It's about what works, and has been working for centuries, though the technology and cultural styles may change.  Creativity, to me, isn't this "personal" thing that is unique to an individual, it is personal to that person in his/her PLACE IN TIME.  An artist serves their generation.  They seldom come up with anything new.  Of course, when you're young you feel omnipotent, powerful, creative, immortal. I can only say from my experience that young artists who try too many things that haven't worked in the past end up with the same result.
So it is important that one understand the basic technical aspects of story telling before they choose camera A or B.   There's a big difference between shooting people in a comedy, a drama, a documentary, or random scenes of buildings and fountains.  The technology of the camera should fit the technique of the story.

Fascinating organizational insight in that Steve Jobs interview, I'd never heard that before but makes sense intuitively.
But with photography companies, you'd have to understand the specific organizational process of each company. Because it seems to me that marketing would likely play a role in specifying cameras specs. After that, engineers are tasked with producing a product which meets that spec. Somehow I doubt that engineers at camera companies are these garage geniuses that come up with great products all on their own. Product development is too complicated for that. They have so many considerations to account for before the design is even made, like manufacturing capabilities, supply partners, etc. If anything, product design is probably a very iterative team process from across the company, which makes Jobs' explanation seem a bit simplistic.

Fascinating organizational insight in that Steve Jobs interview, I'd never heard that before but makes sense intuitively.
But with photography companies, you'd have to understand the specific organizational process of each company. Because it seems to me that marketing would likely play a role in specifying cameras specs. After that, engineers are tasked with producing a product which meets that spec. Somehow I doubt that engineers at camera companies are these garage geniuses that come up with great products all on their own. Product development is too complicated for that. They have so many considerations to account for before the design is even made, like manufacturing capabilities, supply partners, etc. If anything, product design is probably a very iterative team process from across the company, which makes Jobs' explanation seem a bit simplistic.

As said elsewhere, they should partner with samsung, rebrand the nx1 as nikon, and they would sell millions (and be praised as the best apsc in the world). While nx1 sells poorly because it's a samsung.

It's basically like this
 

I believe that it is a recognition of your unique voice. My unbanned virtual self screams conformity.

It's funny everyone hates small sensors with a huge crop factor, like 3x or something
But everyone loves high megapixels so they can get that beautiful 3x crop small sensor look from their full frame cameras in Photoshop

What separates the colour science of photography companies like Canon, Nikon and Fuji from the approach taken by electronic engineering firms Sony, Samsung and Panasonic?
EOSHD has a theory.
Read the full post

You guys just don't get it... This film is a disturbing social commentary on the American family and the human condition...
The mom "entering the fridge" is really symbolic for her addiction to crystal meth (ice). Notice how the family has to function more and more without her as her addiction gets worse? I didn't watch the ending (who could make it that far), but I like to think something really shocking (like GoT shocking) happened at the end, like maybe her pimp and drug dealer ends up executing her family one by one.  

Interesting link showing some common grading / timing looks, or pitfalls depending on how you look at it. http://www.flicks.co.nz/blog/film-is-a-harsh-mistress/making-the-digital-grade/
 

An NX500 with the same video specs as the NX1 at half the price was a bit too good to be true. This sounds like a reasonable way to differentiate the models. Now there is really nice vs really really nice.