mercer

Announced today for IBC and available "shortly after" the show.

It has two to seven stops of ND and integral clear filter.
Its not particularly cheap at $599 (compared to Meike's take on the EF to E with variable ND) but it has the advantage of not having to swap out to a clear filter like the Meike does.
I'm guessing that this should be able to stack with the Megadap E to Z adapter so its an option for Nikon shooters too.

In my eyes this and the skating video show the most convincing image quality of any DSLM. These and some Z8 and Z9 stuff. And that by far. Kinda looks like a 6K/4K version of the image coming from a BMMCC or og BMPCC. I'm impressed!

Well I for one would love to see them make one that looked like the ones they used to make.

Cinevate.
Only took me six hours to dredge that out of my memory.

For you vintage lens fans, here's an oldie but a goodie...
I was able to get out over the weekend with my FP and I finally tested the 10bit cDNG mode... hat tip to @BTM_Pix for recommending that mode... feels really solid while saving some storage space... and I brought out the Minolta MC 55mm 1.7. Wide open it's a little glowy, but not bad, but stopped down to 2.8 and I feel it shines...

Sadly not.
The cards themselves were way too expensive for my wallet !

I will likely be over there in a couple of weeks for more sorting so I’ll dig them out and have a go for you.
The last time I saw the HV20 it had a spinning 35mm adapter on it so that might be interesting to re-visit!
The big challenge might be batteries and/or charger though for it but we’ll see.

That’s really interesting to know as I was considering that lens with an Fp-L (yes, I’m considering doubling down!) as a kind of sort of nearly improvised Leica Q3.
Despite the typical pissing down on a Sunday summer afternoon weather yesterday it was still bright enough to have to use have the Vari-ND on max on those shots as I was using vLOG.
I used this one which I have to say does live up to the promise of no X pattern even when at max.

For you vintage lens fans, here's an oldie but a goodie...
I was able to get out over the weekend with my FP and I finally tested the 10bit cDNG mode... hat tip to @BTM_Pix for recommending that mode... feels really solid while saving some storage space... and I brought out the Minolta MC 55mm 1.7. Wide open it's a little glowy, but not bad, but stopped down to 2.8 and I feel it shines...

For you vintage lens fans, here's an oldie but a goodie...
I was able to get out over the weekend with my FP and I finally tested the 10bit cDNG mode... hat tip to @BTM_Pix for recommending that mode... feels really solid while saving some storage space... and I brought out the Minolta MC 55mm 1.7. Wide open it's a little glowy, but not bad, but stopped down to 2.8 and I feel it shines...

The FireWire protocol was incorporated into the Thunderbolt protocol. All you need is an adaptor. (Or adaptors.) What works for me is a good brand (Belkin in my case) 4-pin (tiny camera one) FW to FW800 cable. Then FW800 to Thunderbolt 2 adaptor. From that a TB2 to TB3 adapter into the 2018 MacMini. Works well. Final Cut and QuickTime Player can be used to capture with. (Probably other software too.)

If anyone is interested in Nikon Z6 III's video quality
 

For you vintage lens fans, here's an oldie but a goodie...
I was able to get out over the weekend with my FP and I finally tested the 10bit cDNG mode... hat tip to @BTM_Pix for recommending that mode... feels really solid while saving some storage space... and I brought out the Minolta MC 55mm 1.7. Wide open it's a little glowy, but not bad, but stopped down to 2.8 and I feel it shines...

For you vintage lens fans, here's an oldie but a goodie...
I was able to get out over the weekend with my FP and I finally tested the 10bit cDNG mode... hat tip to @BTM_Pix for recommending that mode... feels really solid while saving some storage space... and I brought out the Minolta MC 55mm 1.7. Wide open it's a little glowy, but not bad, but stopped down to 2.8 and I feel it shines...

I don't know... I think all of these YouTube personalities are full of shit, on some level. And that's fine. It's a niche market in and of itself and if they have found a way to feed their families, then it's no worse than many other professions. As long as you know where they're coming from, then I don't care one way or the other.
They all follow trends amongst themselves, chasing each other's angles. The new angle seems to be... why YouTube content creating is soul draining and why I am getting out.
A month or two ago, one of my favorite YT shillebrities posted a video with that topic and then he broke in the middle for a word from his sponsor...
HAHAHAHA!!!!

A bit serendipitous after me discovering my long stored DVX100 last week and getting all "you know what, this thing is so much more appealing to go and shoot with" before wishing there was something similar with a modern spec comes Sony launching two new camcorders.
They are basically exactly the same thing but with the Z200 having 12G SDI and being able to use the MXF container at a later firmware update (albeit one that is bizarrely listed as being June 2025) and tick every modern spec box including
Fully variable electronic ND AI Autofocus S-Cinetone and S-Log3  20x optical zoom 10 bit 4:2:2  4K60 Active Mode IS 4 channel audio Dual card slots  
At $4K and $3.2K respectively, they aren't exactly great value propositions versus rolling your own solution with a larger sensor mirrorless body and lenses (although good luck finding a par focal 20x servo zoom lens for your mirrorless) and yet...
There is a huge upside in the operational value of having everything integrated when it comes to actually picking it up and going to shoot with it, particularly that variable ND and the 24-480mm zoom (which becomes a lossless 24-720mm with the clear image zoom).
Yes, yes, of course you have to look past the sensor size "only" being 1" but its versatility and ease of use for past paced situations means this is an enormously powerful all round camera for making money with.
 

Shot with the BMMCC in Myeongdong for 2.5 hours in the (light) rain today.  It's a trooper.  Images barely graded as usual.










and a POV pic of the setup.

I might have gone a touch dark on the grade, but these were just taken from checking dailies to catch any tech or usage issues.  
I think I'm getting the hang of this.

Swiss Rig launched an app today called sr RAW which unlocks 14-bit cDNG raw video recording on the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. Has anyone tried this? I went out earlier today and shot a video (featuring my music :) as soon as I heard about it, here it is below. I had switched from Android to Apple a while back and was kind of missing the Motioncam app on Android which also allows raw video recording, so seeing this app today was great news! Even if it's more convenient than motioncam as it records cDNG directly (no transcoding required), this app is still very much in its infancy. It's really limited at the moment. It can only record up to 1080p and can only do that if you pay a subscription 😞 . Also this being cDNG raw means that it records footage cropped 2x, so everything is zoomed in - kind of reminds me of the earlier days with Magic Lantern on the Canon EOS M where you could only get reasonable results using the crop modes. 
For now you can't control the shutter angle and autofocus doesn't seem to work whilst recording so that's not great. FPS is limited to 24 or 25 only. Can't select ISO although don't know if that's necessary anyway as it's raw video. 
So whilst I think I've gotten some fairly nice results with it so far (though it does look a bit mushy and my grading probably isn't great), I'd say it doesn't make much sense using this for now, given how good the Blackmagic camera app is, but will be interesting to see where this goes especially if they can unlock 4k recording. 
Here's the website for the app: https://swissrig.com/sr-raw
 

Went to tea cafe / tea museum.  Very formal in a handmade sort of traditional way.
Barely graded stills:







 

A few frames from yesterday..  Almost no grading done.

Funnily enough, I’ve been at my storage unit today going through stuff in the dustier boxes buried at the back to do exactly the same.
During the quest, I found this and concluded that Panasonic really do hate us now.

Was there ever a camera more inclined to make you pick it up and go out and film with it.

Arrived in Seoul and recovering from flights etc.  A storm rolled in and I grabbed some shots with the BMMCC.  I'm just getting used to the low-light limits so these are test shots as much as anything.  I've done almost no grading to these at all, but they look like movie frames, I'm really impressed.


 

For me when you get to post and you start messing with the files you realize why larger productions opt for an Alexa/RED. 

We have options now like the Raptor that only weigh 4 pounds and can be powered off a small v mount battery. I would say the Raptor dynamic range is very similar to the S35 Alexas. What it delivers over them is that it holds the dynamic range in the shadows. At 800 iso the Raptor is much cleaner than an Alexa mini, but with much less highlight retention. You can boost it to 2000 iso maybe even 3200 iso and still get a nice image. The Raptor pictured below could be rigged even smaller (smaller monitor, smaller lens, no top handle). There isn't much you can do to get an Alexa smaller though. Even the mini is 8 pounds with just the body and viewfinder and is also a powerhog. The Alexa 35 is even larger.



I did a feature a couple weeks ago on the Raptor. As convenient as it is to use I think we would have been better off with an FX3. The crew was so small that any convenience is a big deal. This was our rig, I traded size for battery life. 




All this to say I really do notice a difference shooting with Alexa/RED 

But after putting the files to a REC709 colorspace and adding a lot of contrast which is what I usually end up doing, the results between that and a mirrorless can definately be hard to tell if it was shot resonably well. The truth is you can sometimes shoot things better with a mirrorless. It saves you time, which then gives you more time to fine tune the things that actually matter (lighting, composition, etc...)

 

GH7 always looks noticeably different in these tests. I'd imagine the white balance isn't the same as an Alexa's. Maybe it's also IR filtration. 

A cajun band here in town (Montréal) asked me to shoot some video of them at an unplugged street concert last Sunday. The weather was dodgy, with thunderstorms in the forecast, and they just made it through their first set when the first drops of rain began to fall. But I managed to get some footage; they asked me to do a 1-minute compilation and a 3-minute video (which I'm still working on). Here's the 1-minute version, shot on BMMCC with Angénieux 17.5-70mm zoom.