Fredrik Lyhne

I am certainly not bigger than a camera company, or more important than Blackmagic and I think people may have seen the hysterics as a bit silly.
I accept that yes, possibly I have shot myself in the foot.
Having said that, EOSHD is bigger than me as well and is a real community. I was standing up for the community and not just for myself.
This was a perfect storm for me. A combination of several factors which caused me to get upset enough to write that article...
First the Canon EOS R launch and the new levels of invasive of PR offensive we are seeing from the camera companies to quell dissent and turn even Caleb Pike into a "it's not perfect but WOW what a great camera" kind of guy. Rather than the person he should be, a "1.8x crop sucks" kind of reviewer.
Secondly the overwhelming feeling of shithead sycophants climbing above my site, in the VIP lane, completely undeservedly.
Thirdly the geographical positioning of the Blackmagic event, it being on my doorstep.
Next the fact Cinema5D were paid to fly in. I could have walked in.
Finally, the John Brawley factor on here and the lack of support from most of my own readers, honestly all this is enough to give someone a nervous breakdown.
It's hard to really get across how I feel, because it is a weird situation and I think the internet is a bit weird as well. In real life, people don't say the things I say or say the things to me that I have had to put up with. People need to calm down, myself included.
It's only a camera.
But I do feel the future of camera and tech journalism is at stake. In fact it may already be absolutely dead. And the most depressing thing of all is that the reader is fine, unawares, and on the most part notices no issue.
No, that wasn't my intention.
Yes I have dug myself into a very silly hole.
I'll be the first to admit that.
Yes Johnnie at Cinema5D is laughing his business head off as we speak.

Hey Everyone, 
Here’s a bunch of stuff I’ve shot, graded and edited for music videos between 2012-2018. 
The shots in the reel not done by me are the drone shots. 
 
For you camera nerds, I used......
Sony FS700, FS5, FS7, F55, A7SII, A6500.
Panasonic GH3, GH5. 
DJI X3, X5R. 
 

Here is Panasonic's UK HQ, and me second from right.


Panasonic do it right. A tech related feedback session and a friendly meet-up. No wining and dining PR stunts in gin bars.
On the table is a pre-production GH5S.
Dave at Red Shark was also at the event and I met Holden, the main distributor for Blackmagic in the UK.
All of them friendly people. Receptive to technical collaboration and supportive of the blog.
All I expected from Blackmagic in the 5 months since NAB was a "hello".
The Manchester event would have been nice to go to. I have not even seen the Pocket 4K in person yet, and Blackmagic's Patrick in PR knows this full well.
John's response on here was COLD and dismissive. To him I'm just another idiot blogger. Just another blog. And you guys are just nerds to him, who cannot grade.
I think it's disgraceful.

How's this for some nice PR John?
https://www.eoshd.com/2018/09/why-i-wont-be-buying-the-upcoming-blackmagic-pocket-cinema-camera-4k/

Well as an old turd that has done a lot more stuff than I have deserved, or ought to have,  and when I look back at it 75% of it was a total F ing waste of time family wise, stress wise, money wise, on and on.
A persons life goes fast as hell, and you never know when you are going to die, or one of your family dies, like my first wife at a young age of cancer did. Hey it happens, but to go thorough all the stress, the shit you put up with in doing it, for really no real gain is pretty disheartening when you look back on it I can tell you that.
You might as well live on a sailboat out on a river or the ocean, in a cabin in the woods and just sit back and enjoy life with not a lot of commitments. All those accomplishments don't amount to shit when you get divorced,  have a heart attack, or wake up one day and your kids are all grown, and it's like man did I waste half my life for What!
I know some of you people make a living doing this stuff, and a hell of a lot as just a hobby. I can see a trend here now in the Video industry that there is NEVER going to be an end to a better toy next year. It is like Smartphones now, You have to have the latest and greatest, and man in the video industry that amounts to a Hell of a lot of money. Tons of money. Is it really worth it. It all goes back to my first sentence. Is it worth all the bullshit? I bet it's not. I am not going to buy anything! I will use what I got, good or bad. A new camera won't make me that much better.

I might stop the forum.
In the end it's about you guys... I tried to set up a decent site for you to get information about cameras. Over the years I haven't wavered. Day in day out, I have spent thousands of pounds on equipment, kept shooting, kept blogging, even when I found it exhausting.
For what?
For some snide Napoleon remarks and shitty comments like that from Cinegain who has been a member and follower since as far back as 2014.
What kind of gratitude level am I dealing with here.
Sometimes I spend hours a day reading this forum, and I don't want to read comments like this, quite frankly. So closing it down would lighten my mood.
It's not about ego. Would have been a simple courtesy for Blackmagic to keep me in the loop on the Pocket 4K camera, due to the amount of interest in it from you guys on my site, which yes I do appreciate but it goes both ways. They have had months to get in touch. It's not up to me to go chasing like a poodle.
I can't support you with a site, if you don't support me.
If I had gone to that event to interview Blackmagic and try the camera, It would be to the benefit of of you, you'd have more info about the camera. It would be to the benefit of you, if they got involved, however small, and helped me out here. I will now be the last to shoot with this camera, and I feel very much down and sad about that, after 5 years of buying Blackmagic cameras and all the articles, shoots, Speed Boosters, lenses, c-mount glass, Resolve tips, forum posts, music videos, Berlin stuff, and so on.
The way I am thinking right now, in this rather down mood I am in, is why do I even bother, quite honestly. Hours and hours and hours of work is not even worth a message of support from my own followers.

It isn't the logo that's the problem really, it's the relationship which put it there.
As soon as you have a personal friendship or a business relationship, you have inherent bias.
I don't expect these relationships not to exist, it would be very unrealistic.
However the internet is clearly evolving in a worrisome direction, where the sites with the most followers have the prime positions in our research via search engines and on YouTube, are the sites MOST under the influence of the manufacturers. I think the influence of the content with 'lifestyle aspirations' is eroding credibility as well. There's a reason so many hands-on sessions now happen under tightly controlled conditions organised by a PR company - so they can shape the editorial visually, and make it glossier. Again here there is a balance to be had. It is unrealistic to expect the DPReview team to post only pictures of ducks.
When a camera company once reached out to me, they invited me to such an event and I said no. I told them I'd rather just have the camera on my desk, that's all I need. They said it "isn't something we do". I think that was Sony. Once, Canon reached out - after a more positive blog post - and gave me a 5D Mark IV to review for a few days. Honestly it was very nice of them, but because I didn't feel like trashing it and throwing their effort back in their face, I just decided to send them back the camera and say nothing. I think you all know my opinion of video on that camera anyway. It's not good. And I don't need any pressure on my to either say nothing, or only the positive stuff (that would have been a very short blog post).
I think if negative reviews are to be extinct, customers less knowledgable (what's a 4K 1.8x crop?!), brands more powerful and marketing disguising itself as editorial to the point where it is absolutely normal and accepted, then the internet has basically been bought by the corporate world. And we cannot allow that to happen.
By the way, the absolute worst site for corporate influence for cameras in my opinion, is Cinema5D.

Will be joining the YouTube party at some point.

The video was shot with a single GH5 (with a little A6500 in there) in 10 hours, edited, graded and effects done in 4 days (by me). 
The new album (last I heard) was at No.7 in the official UK chart. 
I'm a big fan of what Panasonic has done with this camera. 
That said, the shining star of this video is the band. 
 

So I can update EOSHD Pro Color for Sony's latest colour science tweaks yours truly bought the new A7R III from Berlin's one and only Sony Store this week. Yes, 3500 euros seems to be Sony's new standard price and yes I am finally broke... but the improvements over the old model turn out to be quite special - especially the new Hybrid LOG Gamma picture profiles.
Read the full article

I've collected a few gems from Facebook:

I actually has a pre-order for this camera cus I really wanted a better stills oriented m43 camera. But since it doesn't come with HLG or rec709 I think I'll pass for now. As a b-cam to my GH5 for videos it doesn't offer enough improvements over the G85. I'll wait and see what the GH5s has to offer or maybe get another GH5 at some point. HLG is just too awesome!

I liked this one

Really nice frames @jonpais but I thought you were shooting ETTR  

And it's been really nice following your channel the past year as you're videos are just getting better and better!

I actually has a pre-order for this camera cus I really wanted a better stills oriented m43 camera. But since it doesn't come with HLG or rec709 I think I'll pass for now. As a b-cam to my GH5 for videos it doesn't offer enough improvements over the G85. I'll wait and see what the GH5s has to offer or maybe get another GH5 at some point. HLG is just too awesome!

@Greg Block Thanks for sharing the image of your rig! 
I'm thinking about getting a 5" or 7" monitor myself. I'm having a hard time deciding between VS-2 Fine HD, Ikan DH5e or DH7... I didn't think of the HDMI cable positioning as a problem as it's on the left side on my GH4. Here's how my rig could look when I decide which monitor to get. That's a 5" smartphone on top mounted with Shoulder Pod S1 and a ballhead screwed on to a SmallRig handle. I need the handle on the GX85 because of the HDMI is on the left but on the GH4 I won't need it so it can actually be an even smaller setup. 

Would love to see a video on that! 

Good schtuff. Great reflection there in the mirror too. Tried instead of modern 'n light to try something a bit more moody, thinks works quite alright with the indoor scene:

Really nice frames @jonpais but I thought you were shooting ETTR  

And it's been really nice following your channel the past year as you're videos are just getting better and better!

I've been shooting a bit with the HLG profile lately and I love it. I have to do a direct comparison with Cine D and V-log, but my experience so far is that it's super for a fast turnaround. I have the Leeming LUT too, but I often find it better (to my taste) to correct it my self. Have to look more into that as well. 
What are your thoughts on the Sigma vs the Veydra or are you saving that for video comparison? 

Really nice frames @jonpais but I thought you were shooting ETTR  

And it's been really nice following your channel the past year as you're videos are just getting better and better!

Very nice videos @jonpais The sigma looks great but I prefer the 12mm in the comparison as I like the color better, especially the skin tones. Too bad the Sigma is so gigantic, even though the price is nice.

Long time no see? I finally got my 4.2GHz, 1TB SSD, 8GB VR. 40GB RAM iMac. It handles the GH5 10 bit files easily and I haven't had the need to transcode anything yet. Thanks guys for all your input, especially @joema and @jonpais

@Mastermind It's very difficult to only choose 3 lenses for everything. If I made money shooting video I would agree with @jonpais and get the Veydras, but since I'm an enthusiast hybrid shooter I went with the PL lenses and I think they're great. The 12mm and 42,5 are really special and I just got the 8-18mm and it seems to be a very nice lens as well. 
Have a look at the great stuff by @jonpais and @kidzrevil are doing with native and vintage lenses. If the size and weight are not an issue the Sigma seems great,  otherwise I would go native. Also check out Martin Wallgren on instagram, youtube og vimeo, really talented guy.

Wait a minute... Ebrahim is that you?