BTM_Pix

I did a first impressions thing here when I got my H3-VR. It has examples of the auto down mixed binaural output for general city ambience and you can download the original ambisonic files to see the extent of the steering that you can do with them in post if you every wanted to. I think it obviously punches above its weight and even in binaural mode it does add more pickup width outside of the visible frame as well as a certain degree of rear and height cues so for 180 video I think it might do the trick for what you are after without having to do anything in post. The step up would be the Rode Soundfield mic paired with something like the Zoom F6 or even the new H6 Essential but, obviously, you will then need a more elaborate rig versus the diminutive H3VR and, of course, with no down mix you'd have to do that in post.

Sigma have announced that they are releasing a range of RF mount lenses, indicating that Canon have softened their “no 3rd party lenses” stance. I say softened rather than abandoned as, whilst these lenses are fully licensed by them, they do not include any full frame lenses. At least for now. The initial offerings are the two f2.8 zooms and four f1.4 primes from Sigma’s Contemporary range that have been available in other mounts for a few years now. The 18-50mm is the first one that will be available but it is not until July and the others will follow in the Autumn. No word on prices but they are usually similar in different mounts so you can take that as a rough guide, although maybe there will be an additional cost on top for the official licensing from Canon. Good news for owners of crop RF cameras to have different options and also for people using the KOMODO (or maybe we should call it the NIKOMODO now). Full details here https://www.sigma-global.com/en/contents/sigma_rfmount_lenses/

I like the look of it too. I think what it is benefitting from greatly, aside from the compositions, image quality and general shooting competency, is what I would call accidental environmental production design. The uniforms and demeanour of the subjects are consistent and tie together as does the station setting and its train and staff. When the shots are framed, as many of them are, to only include those elements then it provides the right aesthetic to sell the "cinematic" image. The proof of that, for me at least, is when other none designed elements stray into the frame and not just the obvious of modern vehicles etc but onlookers with modern clothes (particularly those out of the general colour palette) then the illusion is gone and quite jarring to be taken out of it. No amount of obsessive grading is going to cure that. Oh and the use of a tripod does absolutely no harm whatsoever in this as does the flattish light of what I am guessing is the archetypal overcast Bank Holiday day in the UK. All in all, aside from it being a good advert for a camera from "yesteryear" in modern terms, I also think this is more broadly a very good example of why "cinematic" doesn't just happen when wafting a camera at random scenes no matter what YouTube thumbnails will scream at you. When it comes to trying to do this in the wild, its definitely a case of granting ourselves the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the skill and vision to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

I did a little man in the middle interface for the SpeedEditor a while back so I could remap it to use with other products like FCPX and LumaFusion. If the will was there then I'm sure the other surfaces would follow a similar investigative pattern to evaluate and emulate their protocol. Not to use the surfaces on other software of course but to provide a way for other devices to mimic them.

YouTube link is now up

Only a couple of hours of speculation/prediction time left. Maybe this will finally be the year they boxify the cinema cameras that everyone has been asking for ? Or an actual fits in your pocket cinema camera ? 4K ATEM Mini ? I'm guessing there will be a live stream posted on their site at that time. https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/

Yeah, I know. Its on that basis that I was surprised to see him as an advisor if he was as "retired" from RED as he stated. Agreed. I doubt it will last beyond the next product launch though.

Well, the takeover is officially complete now and no executive roles for Jannard or Land so, with that, hopes fade for the release of the Nikon BASTARD or Nikon CRUSHER Full press release here : https://www.nikon.com/company/news/2024/0412_imaging_01.html

“No changes to product support, warranties or policies” does leave plenty to infer about where there could be changes. Notably product development, pricing and manufacturing.

The camera itself can’t be powered over USB but that hub does allow the zoom on demand to be used simultaneously with SSD recording so that is a positive, albeit that BM doesn’t specify it in the manual. He reports no issues with doing it so that’s all we have to go on and it might well be that BM doesn’t specify it because there are a LOT of USB hub/SSD combos that people could use that would make it a support nightmare. The zoom on demand handle is very much a sledgehammer to crack a nut to get that external control though as it certainly takes away the Micro element and its primary function is only compatible with a few very average lenses. The hub usability (difficult to refer to it as compatibility until BM official support it!) does open up the possibility of them making a more appropriate form factor interface for some external control. Or maybe someone else will if there is sufficient demand from people buying the Micro as a cinema camera…

Yeah, they improved it’s performance over firmware updates but it’s AFS only and still fairly basic, hence why I developed the AFX to give it AF-C without having to use the internal CDAF. Its really bizarre why they excluded BLE on the new micro as it has closed the camera to products such as AFX and other external controllers, something that is actually even more applicable to this form factor as it has such limited direct control. Obviously it’s a differentiator to keep it in the realm of being a studio camera - hence why it can be fully controlled through an ATEM - but it’s a shame nonetheless for people who want it to do double duty as a cinema camera. It has three great uses for the USB-C port in that you can use it to record BRAW to an SSD, connect BM’s excellent and pretty affordable focus demand controller and finally connect an Ethernet adapter to enable it to be controlled with a REST API. Unfortunately, with it only having a single port you have to pick only one of those features when it’s easily foreseeable that you might want to use at least two of them simultaneously. For the purpose that they are offering it, the camera is absolutely fantastic it’s just frustrating that it is so close to being a bit more things to a bit more people.

The P4K does have CDAF AF-S, does this variant have AF-C then?

If you do go down the ATEM path then I think you might be interested in my new product as it addresses exactly this type of operation, amongst many other things.

Try PhotoJoseph’s complete 3 1/2 hour masterclass here: The Mini Pro versions of the ATEM have the MultiView option for the HDMI output and the Extreme has the hardware macro buttons. Audio delay is adjustable per channel. If you can stretch to the ISO version of the Mini Pro or Extreme then each individual channel and the master are recorded to SSD along with a project file of all the cuts that you can then load directly into Resolve to re-cut it. If you are using BM cameras then you can then automatically swap in the original camera media and there is now a workaround (see PhotoJospeh’s channel) to do this with any camera. I have designed two products for the ATEM that will be released at the end of April and one of those will be of interest in terms of creating custom functionality for DVE etc as well as offering more direct control of existing functions that do not have dedicated hardware input on the control surface.

MPB? They've had a bunch of them at great prices recently and it is so much bang for the buck.

Not 100% of riders. No, you’re trying to prove your own point that 100% of riders were using. Floyd Landis’ TdF title in 2006 went to Oscar Periero just as Alberto Contador’s went to Andy Schleck in 2010 so that proves the point that they only had to go one place down to find a rider that they could give it to. I’d venture that the Armstrong “asterix” years are more to do with UCI/ASO complicity and/or legal issues that are still ongoing. Anyway, enough of cycling, I’ve derailed this thread enough so will politely withdraw from the sport vs spectacle conundrum.

Likely none. The issue at hand is being lukewarm about when someone is caught. That just doesn’t chime with me personally in terms of being sport. Transparency? Armstrong colluded with the UCI to cover up his positive tests FFS.

It is indisputable that they were the leading systematic doping team. As for their other successes in the other Grand Tours or Classics then, again, it was all whilst cheating. If Red Bull’s domination was achieved through cheating (that marginal financial doping issue aside)then you might have a point.

I’m not sure as a hardcore fan of any sport how you could be lukewarm about systematic cheating as, well, it doesn’t seem very, erm, “sporting”. From my personal point of view as a pro sports photographer covering Tour de France in that era though I’m far from lukewarm about having sat in press conferences being lied to by him and watching him ridicule and soil the reputation of David Walsh and Paul Kimmage. Or Emma O’Reilly. I’m also sore that in Armstrong’s case, unlike all the other ones I’ve covered, that I get zero residuals from my “winner of stage x” or “winner of TdF x” images 🙂 I might be being old fashioned here but I’d give it to the highest placed cyclist that wasn’t using PEDs. I have some sympathy with the “well they were all at it” aspect so, fine, let everyone do it and have a special event. Just don’t call it sport when it’s only being used by some of the field.

Not RED per se but it’s founder Jannard’s role in suppressing the truth about Armstrong’s doping. The documentary tells the whole story so if you have a VPN it’s worth watching if region blocked. A summary of it is here https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-02/sponsor-turned-blind-eye-to-lance-armstrongs-doping/5564074 “Turning a blind eye” is doing some heavy lifting there.

Aiding and abetting the biggest sporting fraud of all time.

Well he certainly did know very accurately didn't he !

Its definitely a puzzler about what will happen there. I'm guessing Canon has a veto/sign off on new models that use it which would mean they could carry on as is but who knows really as I don't think it has ever been confirmed what the actual agreement is between RED and Canon. From the outside it would seem obvious its swapping compressed internal RAW for mount and AF technology but who knows if that is the extent of it and what the fine print is. Well, I'm guessing Nikon must know by now though ! Could be sensor tech as well to free Nikon up from Sony. The presumption is that nothing will change at RED in terms of them being an ongoing concern doing what they do now. A few days ago RED released a mini EVF that is $4.5K dollars so there is definitely some scope for Nikon to make RED cameras a LOT more affordable. Nice to see he's named his son after a Bob Marley record. Maybe they want to do with the Z8/9 what Canon did with the R5 and bring out a cine version of it like the R5C. I could certainly see a Z8C turning a few heads. If they ran those products through the RED brand (a Toyota/Lexus style) then I could see it turning even more heads. Its a bit of wild cultural disconnect between Nikon and RED though in terms of keeping RED going as is with that, erm, "style" of theirs so maybe it just is for the IP. Can't really see Nikon releasing a new camera called the Nikon BASTARD or Nikon CRUSHER or some such.

It’s certainly a plot twist in the “how can Nikon get round RED’s patent for internal RAW” story. And likely not good news for Canon extending their current arrangement for it with RED either. Funnily enough they do. https://www.nikonlenswear.com/in/sunglasses/

I think the closest that you're going to get with that will be the Sigma contemporary range. They are behemoths compared to what you can get in MFT but, actually, when you line it up against an MFT package of actual equivalence (or slightly less in this case) then the story changes. Its just that with MFT you have the option and thus far in L mount then you don't. Unless.... You don't mind sacrificing a daft amount of money and going APS-C and picking up the Leica range that they made for the TL and CL which are very compact indeed. Leica have abandoned APS-C and Panasonic seem content to sit either side of it with their MFT and L mount so it might be a place that Sigma could carve a niche for themselves with an APS-C body, particularly as they have an excellent set of fast primes and a zoom for it. With the trials and tribulations of them trying and thus far failing to make a full frame Foveon, it could well be that it would find a home for an interim APS-C version in a rehoused Fp. Realistically, though, the only current way to get pancake-ish full frame in L mount is to go for the manual focus route of using M mount on them like I've done on mine here with a 35mm f2. As @MrSMW has just posted, the E mount system is currently better served with compact FF lenses particularly in regard to 3rd party manufacturers like Samyang. The closed shop nature of the L mount alliance (in terms of electronic lenses at least) is definitely a hindrance in that regard.