Phil A

As we're discussing travel videos, I'm curious about your feelings about duration. I think that the "parties involved" tend to go towards too much length due to having an emotional connection while an un-involved viewer might be better served with a short clip of only 1 or maybe maximum 2 minutes? Maybe split a longer clip up into multiple shorter ones with a specific theme?
Obviously if it is to be posted via Social Media, attention span of most viewers is more like 10 to 30 seconds.

To save everyone else the math, it takes light 8 seconds to travel 2.3 million kms.
I guess that's written the camera off for me - there's no way I can hand-hold something that size, even if it does have IBIS!

I just wish the sun hood was
a) better designed/engineered
b) less expensive
c) both of the above
Besides that the monitor is a pure pleasure.

Used an A6300 with the kit zoom on a Zhiyun Crane. It's light enough that even when you zoom the gimbal motors easily compensate the off-balance. You could even motor-zoom from the gimbal itself if you have the connection cable.
So it depends on your setup. Also internal focusing isn't really helping over externally focusing as it will move glas in the lens and change the center of balance.

I’m in the minority, I love the CX00 series, so I’m a biased.
But while I can agree with most of the complaints against them, including poor highlight dynamic range (relative to A7S/A7RII, FS7, etc. where there's about one stop missing in the highlights–not relative to mirrorless or dSLR, where they're still excellent) and thin codec, sharpness isn’t one. What settings did you have when you were using the C100 Mk II that led to a soft image when you used it? Perhaps it was the lens or underexposure or something else?
Imo, that series still has the sharpest out of the box 1080p image I’ve ever seen, sharper than Alexa 2k or downscaled Red MX (and I've intercut the three in the same scene before). I think because it’s exactly 2x oversampled without being downsampled it’s razor sharp since there's no loss of sharpness in the downsampling algorithm, but I also think it has a thin AA filter on top of that because the C500 is sharper at 4k than you’d expect, and aliases where the Red MX doesn't. (Not necessarily good.) The cinema lock mode on the C300 has most sharpening disabled and is still razor sharp, sharper at 1080p than 2k Alexa , which has always been sharp enough for me, and is plenty sharp enough for theaters.
But the rest is outdated, particularly the codec, and I agree it isn't the best deal for the price based on image alone. I'm just surprised you found sharpness to be the big problem with this camera. But otherwise I agree it's long in the tooth.
To the OP, I would rent and try it out. We all have different needs. Personally I would also look elsewhere on the basis of technical image quality alone, which is the concern of most on this forum (either spend less or spend more for best price/performance) because the AVCHD codec is a bit thin for pushing things hard in the grade, and it has a three-frame GOP (group of pictures, not the party) where you can get ghosting artifacts in the shadows or desaturation for dark scenes or very high contrast scenes that fill the full 12 stops. But the ergonomics are great for an owner/op (bad for traditional production where you have two ACs)... so it might be a good doc camera and the basic look is great imo, the basic look of Canon Log is pretty baked in and requires less grading but has great skin tones and proper chroma rolloff (most dSLRS don't, though GH5 does), which makes up for the thin codec a bit, assuming you like the look.
Not trying to start a flame war or big argument, just offer my opinion. Sharpness is the one area (despite the 1080p resolution) where I found the original C-series cameras to be rock solid, so just offering a difference of opinion. DPs I work with recommend using light diffusion filters on them when interacting with Alexa, in fact.
I've been working lately on content graded by Technicolor, the Mill, and Company 3 and sharing stories with others who sit in there and haven't heard anything from them in the way of using post sharpening with any camera–and that includes a piece shot on the AF100–so I'm confused about why it's brought up so often on this forum. But again I'm not a colorist, just offering a differing opinion, that's just that–an opinion. No one's is more right or might wrong. If you're producing content for 4k tv displays specifically, that's different from Technicolor producing 2k for a theatrical DCP, and so in that case Technicolor's opinion might be wrong. Just offering my perspective. 
To the OP, I recommend trying the camera out. I love the C-series the best of anything and recently considering a C100 Mk II but decided otherwise. The price/performance on the C100 Mk II is not good from a technical perspective in today's market so I'd go downmarket (original C100 is nice, GH5 is nice) or upmarket (FS7) unless it very specifically fits your needs. That said, sharpness isn't the concern I would have with that camera, I always tended toward using diffusion filters or vintage lenses with it to intercut with the Alexa at 2k, in fact.

The XPS 9570 still suffers from CPU and GPU throttling when run hard (like my 9560) but as it has Thunderbolt it can use an external GPU. These slim laptops are just not designed to deal with the thermal stress of sustained high CPU and GPU rates but if you can offload this work to an external box it may solve it. I have a 4 disk RAID0 on my 9560 via Thunderbolt which gives me 500 mbps data rates but the Thunderbolt chip side of the laptop gets very hot. If you have a big raid storage box and eGPU + laptop you have to ask yourself why are you not using a small desktop ( micro ATX form factor) PC and a Screen......

Please dont take this offensive, but why I am in love with a particular lens is not the subject of this topic. This topic is solely about whether the A7 II is really as bad as people tell. The result is that I will test this by myself :)

As a Fstoppers staff writer, I can give the reason behind this policy: it would be unfair for the video creator to summarize the video. Basically we would steal his/her work and content without benefits for him/her.
This type of article is called a "repost." If the video is interesting, we make a short introduction and the reader is free to watch the video. Otherwise, people would simply read the summary and skip the video while the website pockets the ads money and there is nothing left for the video creator (views and/or ads money).
 
 

BMD partnered with Apple for an external GPU, it was announced today.
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagicegpu/

Tremendously so.

I'm definitely not JB, but I can talk about testing, having been involved in software development and testing in my day job.
The short version of why things are released with bugs is this:
A company figures out that they can build a camera with X features in Y time, and they think that it will fill a niche and make money They start to develop it, and due to how dependencies in projects work, development takes longer than anticipated The company knows that releasing a product late is a huge mistake, especially in a rapidly developing market, but they also know that releasing a product that is flawed is also a bad idea The company goes into TESTING, where people are using the camera, noting down issues, annoyances, and product features in a big database Everything in the database is ranked (according to importance) and then allocated to a tech to fix Once an issue is fixed it is then sent back to the person who found it to test it again It is common for a change to fix something but break something else, and it's also common for a problem to be caused by two things (eg, hardware and software, or two different software modules) not being completely aligned.  Communication needs to occur, discussions to understand what is happening, what to be done, implications etc.. At some point (normally the publicised release date) a huge meeting is held and all the remaining items to be fixed are reviewed by management and the decision to release it anyway is made.  It is very very very rare for something to miss the delivery deadline because of the number of issues. The process of identifying, tracking, fixing, testing, continues during the lifetime of the product (and is why there are firmware updates to a product) In reality there will be thousands, maybe tens of thousands of items involved in a process like this.  Nothing is ever perfect.  It is not possible to test every function with every combination of data. 
Here's a quote from an article about developing the software for the space shuttle:  [Edit: here's the link to the below]
I highlighted the relevant passages in bold.
Obviously, NASA has more at stake with software problems than a consumer electronics company, and even then, they can't possibly test everything.
There is a typical divide in culture in an organisation around Risk.  
IT and engineering professionals are normally trained in a culture of excellence, where due to advanced mathematical training, there is often an underlying and often unconscious mindset of there being one answer to a question, and therefore one solution to a problem, with the rest being sub-optimal.  These teams are often incentivised by having KPIs and bonuses around system reliability. Sales, marketing, and product managers operate in "the market" which is complicated, messy, and is basically a shit-fight, and know that sales (and therefore profit) are more related to perception rather than facts, and they know that every day a product shipping date is delayed is lost sales.  They know that nothing will ever be 'perfect' and are fully ready to 'explain away' any shortcomings of the product once it's in the market, but they can't do a single thing or sell a single unit until it is actually released.  These people have KPIs and often have large percentages of their income based on sales bonuses.  They care about quality, but only as it impacts sales. Often, Sales, marketing, and product managers think that IT and engineering professionals are ivory tower elitists who will 'gold plate' everything until the company goes bankrupt and products have to be ripped from their hands in order for the company to ever be finished and for anyone to ever get paid. Often, IT and engineering professionals think that Sales, marketing, and product managers are reckless, dodgy, cowboys who have no pride in quality, no understanding of shafting the consumer by fast-talk and no integrity, and they need to prevent products from being released too soon otherwise their lack of quality will immediately sink the company and no-one will get paid ever again. I hope this illuminates why products ship will bugs.  It's a fundamental issue, and the final result is always a compromise.

So... I've been messing around with making a new add on for my controller system and this is it in its embryonic (cardboard and electrical taped chassis) form.

It has 3 dedicated keys on the controller for incrementing and decrementing in stops (it goes to about 95% total blackout) and a clear function. Though this is not a full clear as there is about a half stop of ND at the lowest position.
The level of reduction is actually fully variable but for the implementation I'm after it makes more sense to control it in stops.
As with the other functions, it can be recalled within one of the 8 one touch recall global presets along with exposure, white balance and picture settings.
I've also incorporated an automatic aperture tracking function.
This means that you set the exposure and ND level that you want at a given stop (say f8) and it will adjust the amount of ND up and down as the aperture changes to keep the exposure constant at any aperture.
Right, thats the good news out of the way....
The bad news is that the surface area is going to need to be a lot bigger (these things are usually mounted at the back of the lens but I'm after a front mounting solution for flexibility) to work properly.
Quite a bit bigger and unfortunately that will mean quite a lot more expensive.
The question is how big and how expensive would this be before you wouldn't want it, if you even want it at all? (currently its part of my controller system but I've already ported it to a small micro controller to have it be a standalone as well).
The other question is would you want it within a lens adapter solution anyway rather than it being front mounted (as per the Lens Throttle EF to MFT) so it could be an electronically controlled version of one of those ?
 
 

Heard about that stuff yesterday and I'm very positive, it could be really big for hobbyists and travel/vlogging kinda stuff.
 I have personally two scenarios with the stuff I do:
a) I want to create something nice, will sink quite some time into editing, colouring, etc. and the result is a few minutes long and will go to YouTube
b) I want something for Instagram/Facebook and it will be 15 or 30 seconds long, might go into the InstagramStory and be gone within 24 hours
For a) I have a custom workstation with an I/O card, multiple monitors, etc. where I use DavinciResolve and am happy. But Resolve is imho not ideal for laptops when travelling. My laptop runs it okish when having simple edits + ProRes converted source media (but my laptopt is a 15.6" gaming laptop and weighs 3kg + charger), on my girlfriends MacBook Pro 13" it's just ugh. For scenario b), this will be perfect. Because of the weight/clumsiness of the laptops we have transitioned to LumaFusion on an iPad Pro because you can hack together the material, you can use *.cube LUTs to grade it (you can generate a custom LUT in DavinciResolve so you get really close into the ballpark of your "usual look" with a click, you can even stack multiple LUTs in LumaFusion and adjust their intensity), add your music (Soundstripe can directly put the track I pick into my Dropbox and LumaFusion can directly retrieve it from there). With that you have top notch social media content compared to most channels who shoot video with their iPhone directly in the Instagram app with maybe like 5 or 10 minutes of extra effort.
Adobe Lightroom CC Mobile is great for this when it comes to pictures, so I'm really looking forward to see what this will bring for video. I just hope they won't make you get the 720€/year Premiere Pro subscription just so you can use the Rush mobile app.

It’s not that it’s big, the arm being at a 45° angle causes the overall height to increase several inches. This combined with the fact that it is also on the mount in this picture make it appear much larger. 
I had a chance to play with several gimbals in this category back to back at NAB, and at no point did I conclude anything other than it was the best gimbal at NAB... and they were all there.

Satin, BPM and Smoque are my favourites.

I'd be concerned about latency with some of these recorders, the cheap ones can be pretty bad. No help for pulling focus if it's lagging too much. Clearly an important point for research before buying.

I'd be concerned about latency with some of these recorders, the cheap ones can be pretty bad. No help for pulling focus if it's lagging too much. Clearly an important point for research before buying.

I wish you successful resolving... But, one of the reason I dropped  usage of adapted vintage lenses is painful trying to achieve infinity focus, especially (almost impossible) with wide lenses.

I did a series of docs a year ago recording wireless audio onto a H1.
All audio was recorded "out-board" and, in post, the H1 audio and cam-audio tracks were synced with Plural Eyes.
The Zoom and audio receiver were carried in my pockets. This allowed me to be rather incognito since that extra gear was off the camera.  More importantly, this also allowed me to not be tethered to the camera via the headphone cable.  Liked it better that way; no weird boxes, rubber bands, or wires on top of my camera --or wires running to the camera.
That would be my recommendation, assuming you're willing to do a little post-audio-sync work.  You'll get better audio using the H1 recording anyway, and your camera will have a little more freedom when out there actually doing stuff.
(I love those old Nikkor lenses, btw.  That's the 24mm, right?)

There you go:
 

It actually might be the combination with the speed booster. Did you try to adjust the optical element to fix it?
http://www.metabones.com/article/of/infinity-adjustment-speed-booster-only
I also heard that with some focal reducer brand/model + lens combinations, there are issues that it's not possible to get perfect infinity focus.

Long and heavy lenses are notoriously harder to balance, no matter the gimbals' maximum payload. If you choose a one-hand-gimbal, you might want to keep it lighter, if possible.  Follow my (very personal, wedding videographer owning Ronin M and Zhiyun Crane) reasoning or find your own arguments:
1. The angled roll-motor of the Ronin S doesn't obstruct the cameras' display. Now it seems that this lets you forgo an additional external monitor. But does it? Depends on whether you just need to frame the image - and that's possible even with the considerably lighter Moza or Zhiyun with the motor in front of the screen - or, other story, if you need to focus manually. Because you have no or a poor autofocus. In this case, most camera displays won't be sufficient anyway. Probably. And you needed a free hand (one-hand-gimbal literally) or someone else to pull the focus (watch the promotion video). Heavy gimbal, heavy lens, field monitor, follow focus add up to a total weight not suitable for longer shots and longer shoots.
2. What is it that you expect from gimbal shots? Majestic crane moves or buttery smooth dolly shots through empty architecture? These are possible even with heavier setups (because they run just seconds), but they require more or less the same skills a steadicam operator must have, hashtag ninja walk. Also be aware that the Ronin S also stabilizes just three axis, and that there are more:
(these flexible arms can also be added to existing gimbals, see here).
3. But there is another purpose. You can follow a person. If you consider yourself a good handheld operator, you won't need to practice an awful lot with a good gimbal, set up well (see next point). There are roughly two scenarios for a wedding: shooting static telephoto images with very long lenses, from a tripod or handheld with IBIS and OIS, and do the rest (we are talking *hours*, therefore you will learn to hate every unnecessary ounce!) with the gimbal and 24-35 mm full frame equivalent focal lengths. 50% of all footage you see in films and TV shows fall into that latter category.
4. Well set up means the gimbal will ignore little shakes (I think that's called dead zone) and smooth out your big, intentional moves. As of now, there is a limit to the speed of pans and tilts, because if you move too fast, the gimbal will of course follow, but the movement will look robotic (because that's what it is). The Ronin S advertises a 'sports mode', and again, watch the official promo:
I think this feature is the most outstanding one of this gimbal. But one has to be aware how it should be used. Shooting a staged breakdance? Fine. Documentary style (like a wedding)? I'm afraid then it was too heavy.
 

I can speak about this from actual experience. Lots of random thoughts that I will assemble into a travel blog at some point...
I've spent the last year and a half traveling around the world non-stop, visiting 55 countries on 6 continents (my wife and I scraped and saved, sold our house and everything we owned just to make this happen). I've used a mix of Fuji (aps-c) and Sony (FF). I went with a mix of wide angle, standard and tele zooms with a 16-35, 24-70 and 70-200 equiv and then went with one fast prime at 28mm, my favorite walk around FL. My tripod is just a small Siuri CF travel tripod that weighs about 1kg for long exposure stills and static video shots, it also makes a nice faux-steadicam counterweight when shooting video and walking around. I've shot 30k stills and tons of video, most handheld, so IBIS or stabilized lenses are an absolute necessity for me.
Personally I'd ditch the gimbal and the fluid head and get an IBIS body. Seriously, when you go to places like any museum or the Taj Mahal they won't even let you in with a tripod or a gimbal, so avoid carrying unnecessary gear and the hassles of checking stuff with a crush of people waiting behind you. You can cut your bag weight in half just by doing that alone. The A7r2 or GH5 can be had for less than $1500 USD. Move to an IBIS body and a couple zooms with a fast prime. If you're sticking m43, I'd go with a Olympus EM1.2 or GH5, the 12-100/4 or the 12-40/2.8 and a fast prime like the 17/1.8 (or the Panny equivalents for dual IS), plus a cheap backup body (crucial). Last thing you want is to be in Namibia and have the shutter in your camera seize without another option to shoot the one time in your life you get to see a sunrise over the amazing sand dunes. I saw that happen to one person, ouch. Also two bodies means fewer lens changes and less dust, this is a big deal across Asia, Africa, South America, Central America, China and so on - because they're all incredibly dusty and it gets everywhere - so I never change lenses in the field, I just carry two bodies.
For everyday stuff the zooms are fine, if you're visiting landmarks like the pyramids in Egypt, Borobodur in Indonesia, the Forum in Rome and so on, you're limited to daylight hours anyway, so absolute speed isn't necessary and shallow DOF is silly when you're standing in front of one of the world's great landmarks. Getting there first thing when they open is more important -- always try to beat the crowds. Travel photography is less about subject separation and more about composition and when/where to finding the best light or best locations to shoot from.
Make charging as easy as possible, the fewer things that need batteries, the fewer chargers/adapters you have to carry. I carry a universal plug adapter with 4 USB inputs. My wife and I can charge a phone, iPad, my computer and my cameras on one outlet. Many places we only have access to a single plug, so being able to charge everything from a hub makes life a lot easier.
I carry the 70-200 with the a7r2 specifically because I spent a few months in Africa with multiple safari's and trips self-driving through wildlife sanctuaries, so I wanted more reach. Beyond that I mostly used the 16-35 (10-24 with Fuji) and the 24-70 (18-55 in Fuji). If you're not shooting wildlife you can probably skip longer FL's. For lowlight with Sony I have the 28/2, with Fuji its the 23/1.4 and 56/1.2.
Here are photo albums from most of the counties I've been to so far, I'm a little behind (47 of 55 posted so far), but you get the idea. All of my gear, 2 bodies, 4 lenses, a MacBook,a GoPro, a portable HD, Rode Video Micro, batteries, chargers and so on fit in a Lowepro Flipside Trek 450 AW. Total bag weight was 8kg and the bag fit on every plane (including small regional jets), train, car, bus, Tuk-Tuk and so on. 
https://www.facebook.com/pg/trekofjoy/photos/?tab=albums
Cheers
Chris
P.S. Things like extra batteries, chargers, cards, plastic bags for bad weather, a blower for dust (its really dusty everywhere that isn't paved, which is most of the planet), lens cleaning cloth and so on are a given. Plan accordingly.
P.S.P.S. Traveling and shooting weddings/events are two different things. I wouldn't try to gear up for extended globe trotting with the same gear I use to shoot events (something I also do). With events your total kit weight is less of a concern since you're not lugging gear all day, every day - trying to check it on flights (weight + size), fit in cramped overhead bins on trains and so on. The dual camera strap is what I use at events, I'd never walk around in India (or anywhere else) with one because of the attention it would draw from police and gawkers. Plus its not secure at all, you'd be ripe for a slash and run.
YMMV.
One last thing - budget for insurance. A few hundred dollars will cover all your gear for a year. To risk losing everything is unwise, shit happens. Be protected.

A properly sampled 2K/1080p with enough bitrate can go long way. Most often I shoot 4K to get a proper 1080p image. Thats why I wish all companies offered something similar to what GH5/s offers. An oversampled 1080p intra-frame high bitrate file. 

I neither want to derail this thread, nor I agree with everything jcs has said over the years, but for anyone feeling depressed, the above steps can be a good alternative to medication. 
He shouldn't be banned though. He was never offensive to anyone, he just often expressed his opinions as facts like everyone else in any forum ever existed. Oops.