DPStewart

1 hour ago, Mattias Burling said:

 

Shooting with a pistol grip on a bmpcc is actually nice. And I think it will be very popular on the Micro as well. Dont let your shots get ruined because of looks. If people have a problem with the looks of your gear, just show them the footage.

 

It's not an issue of cosmetics - It's my observation that that style of pistol grip has a very strong tendency to cause some of the most horrible camera shake ever to emerge out of the Ocean and trample Tokyo.

2 hours ago, Bioskop.Inc said:

Spike Lee has been using it, but I suppose he means shit to people!

1. - Spike Lee is an astounding film maker.

2. - That Digital Bolex is amazeballs. I have seen people put up footage where the people's skin not only looked incredibly natural, but the realism of the skin tones was so great that it looked like the subject was a little person living for real right there in my monitor. Like I could just reach over and touch their face. I have never seen that out of any other camera. It's UNCANNY.

Yes, it IS a cameras that requires one to learn some pretty specific methodologies, but I think the results are worth it.
Just rip the stupid handle off the bottom as soon as you get it. You don't want to be Zachary Zapruder.

 

3 hours ago, mercer said:

Sadly, there may be just as much of a chance of seeing a unicorn as there is that the BMMCC will be released before NAB. 

Now, I'm not saying you're wrong... I just happen to know that you're wrong. 
I'm also totally NOT saying that a couple hundred finished URSA Mini 4.6k's are ready to go out to the earliest pre-orders.
I'm not saying BMD isn't always late with their new models - I'm just saying they all have eventually been delivered. 
Well....it's eventually.

Okay...I don't follow. What makes the OEM charger better?

I got 2 of these for $17 each. So I have two extra batteries AND two extra chargers.
http://www.amazon.com/ED-BP1900-Rechargeable-Battery-Charger-Samsung/dp/B00T7GYAUY

They're working just fine so far.

I'm sure it's possible that the OEM is better. But can you describe exactly how? Thanks!

Yeah - once I realized the NX1 could run off of a USB power feed... gee THAT'S handy. Now I'm surrounded by batteries!

Or save a ton of money and get a Beholder DS1.
I did.
Love it.
Tool less. 1.6KG max payload. $699 from the main importer Owl Dolly.
The dual-weight programability is lovely. So I can go from a really light Pocket with a Voightlander 20mm pancake to a 5D or NX1 with something like the Samyang 16mm or 24mm on it.
Essentially it duplicates the 3 basic modes but comes with, and allows changing of, the motor strengths for the two groups. This is critical if you're going to attempt to use more than one camera on it...ever.

2 minutes ago, Mattias Burling said:

Yeah I payed $1600 for the NX1, 16-50 S, 30/2, 16/2.4, 45/1.8 and an extra battery. And Im sure I could have gotten it cheaper.

So image/dollar is definitely the NX1.

Between the a7sii and a6300 would probably go a7sii if money wasnt an issue.

Oh dear lord, you found a great deal Mattias!
I'm worried that by the time I have spare cash to get those "S" series zooms there might be very few available. It's not like they made that many.

But I absolutely agree with Andrew about the ergonomics of the NX1. Definitely a winner there.

1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

A7S II is contrast based AF, the A7R II is phase and contrast hybrid.

Phase detect active with Canon lenses with the Metabones adapter on the latter, it can be very fast.

Lack of native NX lenses, hmm... not really!

S 16-50mm F2.0-2.8 OIS?

S 50-150mm F2.8 OIS?

85mm F1.4? (It beats my Zeiss wide open)

30mm F2.0? Lovely cheap pancake

45mm F2.0? Again very cheap, light, fast and sharp!

Those are the best ones... not a bad line up and covers 16-150 all at fast apertures.

AF is best on the S premium zooms

What else would you need? Plus you can adapt Nikon, Sony Alpha and a ton of other lenses to it with adapters.

Yeah - there are those. But for how long? 
At the online retailers (B&H etc,.) they've already knocked the NX1's batteries out of production. Also - the good "S" lenses are really pretty expensive, and their cheap lenses don't seem to be anywhere near as good as the "S" line. So first off - there are indeed only about these 5 lenses, and for how long will they be produced and available? And yeah, I have adapters for my Nikons on my NX1, but that means 100% manual only. Certainly kills the usefulness for stills - I grew up shooting stills on manual lenses, but you miss a TON of shots compared to using modern AF and OIS lenses. There are a lot of great lenses with AF and OIS for the A7s that cost in the area of half what the Samsung "S" lenses cost. 
And I don't even like Sony alpha series colors, but I guess maybe what I'm saying is that I feel that NEITHER of them are a really great platform if you'll need compatibility and a few years of longevity.
If Canon had put out something like a "5D mk IV" that did nothing really but add 4K, and sell it for the price of an A7s - THAT would be the platform. ..sigh....

I think that if you want to do a lot of production in 4K right now, there are no "great platforms" for under $3,000 - despite the fact that there are great images in 4K being produced by a number of cameras - a "great working platform" none of them are. Ending this like Yoda I am. 

If you really have the money - yeah, the A7S II. ESPECIALLY if it is going to be put into heavy production use.

As much as I perhaps might prefer some aspects of the NX1 image - the utter lack of native lenses and Samsung's leaving the market put it at a disadvantage as a daily production tool.

11 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Canon have a knack for this. When all around them is a circus of silly menus, bad ergonomics and underperforming images given the raw power under the hood, Canon with their underperforming specs have over-performing images with very good automatic white balance, well thought out menus and no frivolous stuff to get in the way on a shoot. I like the simplicity.

Clearly you get a lot more colour information in a 300Mbit or 500Mbit 4:2:2 file like on the XC10 and 1DC, plus it helps the colour science is bang on in Canon LOG unlike in S-LOG.

Clearly Sony know something is wrong otherwise they wouldn't have added 3 separate S Gamuts to the FS5 for different WB temperatures.

Sony seem hell bent on squeezing every last drop of dynamic range and colour gamut out of the image, then packing it into as small a file as possible... the end result is a bit of a car crash.

The A7S II was almost the 'dream camera' wasn't it... but I've barely felt compelled to use mine... I keep picking up my NX1 instead.

That's because the body design of the A7S II is soulless, feels awful in the hand - it has the ergonomic charm of a brick. They went backwards from the A7S and that wasn't exactly perfect to begin with.

Please Sony hire some designers from Fuji or whoever were responsible for the NX1 body at Samsung.

Then sort the menus out - it isn't rocket science.

I think they underestimate the importance of this... the shooting experience.

I feel a little bit guilty when I see someone struggling through a shoot with a Shogun bolted onto the top of a small Sony mirrorless camera... great specs and we should support the push, in the face of Canon's paralysis... but it's a horrible shooting experience isn't it...

KaPlunk!

Drops mic...walks away.

Uh-huh.

5 minutes ago, Chant said:

Thanks to some ideas I had regarding hardware and if the nx1 was a true uhs2 camera or just backwards compatibility with uhs2 and thus only being a uhs1 camera I have found proof.

page 3 main pcb shows the full sd slot.
https://fccid.io/pdf.php?id=2394050

The sd slot http://www.alps.com/prod/info/E/HTML/Connector/SDMemoryCard/SCDA/SCDACA0200.html
 Made for uhs2. So the reality of the full speed uhs2 sd bus is possible.

Darn good to know.

Thanks Chant!

Yeah, I've been pursuing this issue with my lenses quite a bit recently.

I don't yet fully understand all of the optical science being discussed but the common factor of fewer elements seems to hold true, and is useful as a general guideline considering that we're looking at a lens that is well designed optically in all the other important areas.

Basically I look for the following: Lenses that are widely reviewed to be very good, but also happen to have as few elements as possible within them. So far the author's claim that this will be a lens with better 3D characteristics has held true in my experience.

To what extent the camera is playing a role I don't know - but I suspect it's at least a bit. 
To my eye ALL Nikon Digitals seem to suffer enormously from the "flat" effect compared to Canons. To the point that despite owning a lot of Nikon glass (all of it falling into the fewer elements older design category) I feel I would never buy a Nikon camera.

2 hours ago, Matt Kieley said:

Yeah, but if you conduct a survey on whether or not vimeo sucks now, do you ignore the "no" reponses and just take the "yes" responses as a definitive answer? The "yes" answers are meaningless on their own. If 2/5 people say "yes" and 3/5 people say "no", does vimeo suck now? I was almost ready to cancel my vimeo plus account, but after testing it myself and seeing a few people here not having the problem, it made me reconsider. I'm not totally decided yet, but both experiences are important data in that decision making. That's why I reported my results anyway.

Of course Matt, your experience is relevant, but just be sure and quantify it as much as you reasonably can.

It's like when we're all trying to find out if there's a bug in some new software release - we need to flush out and get clear on exactly what all the conditions are that either trigger the bug, or avoid the bug. But in all those instances we still know that the bug really is there, even if many people are not experiencing it. That's how we pin it down, right?

As for Vimeo's reliability - some people having the problem and others not having it should be the BIGGEST red flag for you. If everyone was getting the problem, then we know it would almost certainly get addressed by the company and fixed. But when it's unpredictable, then that's when problems drag out for too long and don't get fixed. It also means that if YOU pay for Vimeo's sevice because you need your work to look good either to your client's or to your subjects, or even just for the sake of your own hard work and effort - then having UNRELIABLE service is exactly what you don't want.



 

46 minutes ago, Zak Forsman said:

and that works for me at home where I have very fast broadband. but I went to friend's place recently and selecting 1080p on a slow connection, where you'd expect to wait for it to load before playing, didn't work. despite having selected '1080p' it behaved as though it were set to 'auto' forcing you to play the video at a reduced resolution.

Or like for me - on the slower connecton this past week or so it just freezes when 1080p is manually selected.
Usually it will start playing within TWENTY MINUTES, but not always. Sometimes it just freezes completely until I switch it back to AUTO. And of course then t looks like YouTube 2011.

Guys - nobody is saying that it's "100% failing for 100% of everybody 100% of the time."
Saying "it works for me" doesn't address the observed behavior by those who ARE having these brand new problems since Vimeo has changed their streaming methodology.

Yup. VIMEO BLEW IT.

They had something and now they broke it.

Someone in their tech department trying to justify their paycheck by being a busy-body. 

"It's a fine line between clever and stupid."
~Spinal Tap

Specs mean nothing. They do NOT tell you what the image will look like. Often "high spec" cameras suffer in Image Quality while "low spec" cameras shine. 
That's all you need to know.

As for High Frame Rates - that's not really a "spec" in the way we most often use that term when we're talking about cameras. Frame rate is really more like a "product category".
Would you compare "specs" of one vehicle that has a cargo bed - like a pickup truck - to the "specs" of a vehicle that had no cargo bed? Of course not. They are 2 different product categories, even though they both have 4-wheels and a motor etc,...

You pick your desired product category first. Then maybe, if it's NOT a camera, you compare specs.
But if it's a camera - you LOOK AT THE IMAGE, because that's the whole point of the device.

 

18 minutes ago, sidi said:

Would love to see unlimited video recording maybe with file spanning every 29:59

This should be do-able from a very simple hack.
It's really just a matter of removing a flag.
But at higher bit-rates, issues with the buffer and data pathway speeds can often make spanning not possible.

The Canon image is one that is very firm, not soft and flaccid.
It is an image that can stand erect against the competition, maintaining its rigidity throughout the entire act of image gathering.
When the other Cameras go limp and shrivel up, the Canon is virile and strong.

Do I have this right?

8 hours ago, nougat said:

1. Higher bit rate recording for 4K and 1080p (160 Mbps+)
2. Higher frame rates (4K/60 fps, 1080p/240 fps)
3. 2K recording mode and/or 4K crop mode similar to NX500
4. Ability to turn off noise reduction completely

THIS is what is reasonable to expect.

The bit-rate increase will make the SINGLE BIGGEST improvement because it will solve virtually ALL of the IMAGE QUALITY issues the NX1 has.
While 160 Mbps will be wonderful going as high as 220 or 260 in 4K will be even better.
Even the noise reduction problems will nearly vanish when it has this much data to work with.

These will be able to be implemented once someone figures out which line in the code is passing the values into the "current camera state", and can figure out how to write it into a new firmware file that can be loaded into the camera in its normal manner. There will probably be no "evidence" that you have changed anything - until you look at the new recorded files themselves. 
Some folks are making good progress with the publicly available Developer's Kit, but I suspect that may not pan out because Samsung never intended it to be used that way. We can hope they screwed up and left a door open, but they probably didn't. 

ALL the other requests are unlikely to ever happen because they would require a hack and probably an entirely new GUI all happening at the radically more advanced level of something like the Magic Lantern hack, which is unequaled by any other camera hacks yet done.

Double or triple that bit-rate and all the current image quality issues will be gone.

Find a way to pipe out RAW and you'll get the whole world's attention. I guarantee it.

1 hour ago, Flynn said:

I recently watched a vimeo vid you made about gear for the BMPCC. Was fantastic and you're a funny guy.

Thanks mate!

59 minutes ago, Ebrahim Saadawi said:

Samyang makes an nx mount 135mm F/2, the best value for money at 500 bucks 

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1110694-REG/samyang_sy135m_nx_135mm_f_2_lens_for.html/prm/alsVwDtl

That's good news. I didn't know Samyang was doing the NX mount. Very nice of them.

And that new 135mm of theirs is an exceptional lens for sure.

1 hour ago, timmyturntable said:

Thanks, Andrew!  Anybody try any vintage glass with adaptors that resulted in a nice image?

I shoot a lot of Nikon Nikkor Ai-S manual primes and a couple of zooms too. These are generally pretty darn sharp lenses and they look fantastic on my NX1.
I also have that good old Sigma 18-35mm. Which is always great, it just really is.
Also a couple Samyangs - they match the Nikkors very closely. 
And I have a Voightlander 20mm, but I've never tried it on the NX1. I suppose I should. I bet it will look just fiiiiine....

1 hour ago, IronFilm said:

I haven't exactly measured it yet, I'll need to get back to you on that

Cool. Thanks mate.

7 minutes ago, kidzrevil said:

Thank you for your support !

Hey man, what's up with the new Avatar?
That kid doesn't look very evil. 
You goin' soft on us now?

3 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Very cheap, and elegant:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/BMCC-4K-BMPCC-Camera-DV-Battery-Mount-Plate-Power-Supply-For-Sony-BP-U60-U30-/231491513424?hash=item35e5f82c50:g:fIcAAOSwT6pVilrh

I think your proposal though wins slightly for overall value for money.

But I think for elegance, and overall versatility (as BP-U is a very common battery format that gets used in lots of things), I think mine takes the edge over yours.

In the end, which is a best for a person, depends on their personal preferences/needs

Ha! Hey, that's the exact battery holder I use to mount a smaller Sony NP-770 directly to the top of my BMPCC when I have it on the Beholder DS1 gimbal!
Yeah, works like a treat, don't it.

Now, I only get about an hour out of the NP-770 but that's a LOT better than taking the camera OFF the gimbal every 20 minutes for a new internal battery. (Plus is helps act as a counter weight for balancing the gimbal.)
I get just under 3-hours with the battery I linked here in this thread.

How much continuous run time do you get with one BP-U battery IronMan?