BTM_Pix

I think if you are looking to evaluate a single lens solution for travelogue stuff then one good option is to look at what people are producing using the two high end fixed lens (predominantly) stills cameras that are often used for that purpose. The Leica Q is full frame and fixed 28mm and the Sony RX1R is full frame and fixed 35mm so provide a good comparison between two different focal lengths and how they actually translate in terms of travel photography/videography when you really do only have one lens. Flickr for the Leica Q https://www.flickr.com/groups/qleica/pool/ Flickr for the Sony RX1RII https://www.flickr.com/groups/sony-rx1r-ii/pool/ Its a tough call really because I can see the arguments for both. The main compromise route I suppose is that the 28mm can kind of be a 35mm in terms of FOV but the 35mm can never do the same trick but there's more to the look than the FOV.

The 25% (at least) premium for SoundDevices stuff here in Europe is a real pain. For my needs, as timecode isn't a deal breaker, the new cheaper M version of the MixPre6 would be the sweet spot in terms of tracks, features and form factor if it was the dollar conversion price of £600. Unfortunately, though, its £800 by the time it reaches us. At which point the extra £100 for the F8n makes the weight and form factor something I'd probably turn a blind eye to

OK, we'll push the boat out and have 2 big buttons. Though if you've ever been in a queue behind drunk people trying to order in a kebab shop on a Saturday night it's often a good idea to not offer them such a wide choice of options. Within the confines of having to use a GH5 for this project, the only way to change the frame rate remotely would be through file format change. It would be masked of course to the user and implemented by way of a hardware selector switch triggering the command. With the QR code they wouldn't have to. They just point their phone at it and it instigates the download automatically. If if was being used in a communal event context like a wedding or birthday party it would be more applicable to upload it to the event's own Facebook page or the new fangled Instagram TV. Though we'd have to rotate the booth to meet the vertical video requirement of the latter If I was making these hypothetical booths for a living rather than trying to figure out ways to shoehorn the functionality into a GH5 then I'd base them on something like this https://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/product/asi294mc-color It's primarily designed for astrophotography but essentially it's a pretty familiar Sony MFT sensor in a box that can run up to 120fps and is operated and transfers over USB3. Cheaper, smaller and far far easier to implement as a solution than using a GH5

Detecting the Start button is hit again before the timer expires is an easy logic to include in the script which would restart the process and do a remote delete of the camera file. Changing frame rate could be a toggle switch between two file formats but that would mean the camera would have to be wifi controlled as well as the card so would need a small router which is no big issue really. File can be auto uploaded to a website and the URL presented as a QR code on the display screen when the clip has been replayed so they can retrieve it. Simpler to implement then letting them enter an address and clears the booth faster for the next visitor. File would need to be transcoded though to keep space requirements down but can be script driven into ffmpeg or similar Thats probably a hack too far for me and the Pi

I'm going to go out on a limb and say it'll be worse than Canon but better than RED or Arri

I think this is a very salient point in that the only camera its realistically going to be a swap out replacement for is one of BM's own ones. Its a better Pocket (though not if you need the form factor) or BMCC but despite it having a stills button its still in the same ballpark of being a more specialist device.

They're all shill accounts and its costing s much money for the pay per clicks so thats why I've had to cancel my Adobe subscription to pay for them

I have never needed to use every last facet of Photoshop so I'm probably not best placed to do the full A/B comparison but I don't miss not having it at all (even after 20 years use!) if that's an indication. With regard to vectors (and I now have the Airplane "what's your vector Victor" scene playing in my head ?) that's not my area but a friend of mine switched to an open source package called Inkscape and seems to have lived to tell the tale. It's the one that usually comes up in any "Alternative to..." searches and there are quite a lot of A/B comparisons with Illustrator.

The restricted smart mode is eye AF unless you have an A9, A7Riii or A7iii. It's only suitable for smaller (lighter) lenses due to the motors and it's never going to get anywhere near native AF or even in the same postal region so it isn't without it's limitations.

Its a standalone app that is also available inside the regular one from what I can tell. Doing a bit more digging and it looks like you can upload landscape video but it will appear in the app vertically so you'll have to rotate the phone. This is from Later about it With Instagram being so adamant about it being for vertical video, it remains to be seen whether content formatted for it will get prioritised in their mysterious algorithms. Particularly when it comes to when the ad links are incorporated over time. They initially have different time limits for content dependent on the number of followers so maybe that also will be a way they force people into Anyway, for now, it looks like I can still produce my makeup tutorials in landscape for now then. Phew !

Yep, as my MiniDisc collection will testify.

Which is why I said it was a considered leap of faith. Even so, they don't have an unblemished record with new cameras so its still a risk.

The original article says the new service will consist exclusively of vertical content so it sounds like it you won't be able to upload landscape format. Philip Bloom is already gearing up for it . According to the article, its 1.8 billion users to 1 billion users in YouTube's favour at the moment but it also quotes a stat about the 40% reduction in teens watching TV in the past 5 years. I wouldn't have put teens watching regular linear TV as being very high 5 years ago so God knows what the figure is comparative to 10 or 20 years ago! YouTube is primarily a linear TV replacement service but if you've grown up consuming your media in a different way then YouTube becomes much less of draw. Those girls liking the stuff on Instagram won't be 12 forever, just as those of us who have grown up watching regular TV won't be around forever either. As we fall off one end, they'll rise at the other so it won't take much of a swing for 1.8 billion to 1 billion becoming 1.4 billion to 1.4 billion. I don't think YouTube is going to go the way of MySpace of course but they do have more than a little groundswell of discontent from some of their 'stars' (both established and upcoming) regarding decreasing earnings who thus far have had to shrug and put up with it because there wasn't a viable alternative. I imagine some of them will be wondering about the possibilities with this alternative.

From my own point of view, I voted No to the specific question of would you pay twice the price of the camera rather than do I not want it at all. I can imagine others did as well so I wouldn't take anyone voting No to be a definitive indication of their rejection of AF. We're already taking a (considered) leap of faith buying this camera without seeing a single frame of real footage to then compound it by doubling the price for the addition of a technology that BM have no track record of implementing even if they did have access to it. In some parallel universe where they could just flick a switch and have it implemented as well as Canon does ? Yeah, I'd pay some extra for a bit of that certainty in performance. But then if you look at the countless posts and debates all over the internet about AF performance, I have to say that it would throw up more problems than it solved for BM if it wasn't implemented perfectly from the get go and I'd sooner them focus (ho ho) on doing what they do best which is the image itself.

I have this lens and its AF performance is slightly better than the other small Sigma primes that I have for the A6500 (the 30mm f1.4 and the 60mm f2.8). Having said that, when I was testing it in the kitchen it decided to activate the face detect when it spotted the deep fat fryer. But thats the modern non judgemental way I suppose.

TechArt making a version of their AF for MF lenses adapter for MFT would be a huge seller just for this camera alone, let alone all the other MFT cameras. I've just ordered the E mount version so may revise this opinion if its shit

I was mainly musing about the format in general to be honest and I meant them as separate entities to be fair rather than the whole driver behind the decision. The first being a general observation regarding an increasing amount of non consumer created content being shot in a vertical format, so there is commercial content for Instagram TV. The last part of the linked post referenced future ad content so I meant it in reference to that. The second being that the user generated content from their most active creators (the younger end of the market using smartphones to shoot on) are more than likely shooting vertically as well. Every time one of my nieces or nephews hands me their phone to look at a video, I instinctively turn it landscape and tut and have to turn it portrait because most of the screen is black. And of course the reverse is true if I hand them my phone to look at a video they turn it portrait and tut and have to turn it landscape for the same reason This is not the death knell or anywhere even near close to being the end (or even the beginning of the end) of landscape format for video but it's probably the biggest marker that vertical format is definitely not going away and will likely co-exist at least. Which presents a challenge or opportunity I suppose in how to adapt or adobt for many people if they want to create content for it. This doesn't just mean for your own content for an Instagram channel but if you're looking to produce content for it for other people. And will need different solutions. Might it even be something that a 360 camera is suited for be because its framing agnostic and you can steer the point of interest in post ? Or maybe even in the app itself? Or do you shoot "landscape for portrait" with a regular camera for the same point of interest dynamic framing in post? It will all be moot of course if it doesn't have a strong pick up from users so only time will tell if the production value requirement of the uploaded content ever warrants any more consideration than holding a smartphone steady. The aspirational nature of a lot of the current still image content on there would suggest otherwise though but who knows how it will shake out. Certainly not me. I'm so far out of touch with Instagram that I might as well be sat in my attic listening to 78s and reading a book by candlelight.

A lot of ad boards in shops etc are showing vertical video content either on a portrait oriented display or as twin content arrangement (with info on the right) in a landscape oriented display. This is especially prominent in clothing and cosmetic stores, probably as a continuity of a traditional magazine format that those ads would be seen in if they were in print. Instagram is very big with fashion influencers so its quite a natural fit from that point of view as well as from those pesky youngsters tending to shoot everything in general in vertical mode.

And a testament to my addled brain that I'd forgotten all about it !

To be fair, its an easy hack for the unlimited record time and the USB powering means you can run it for as long as you have space on the memory card. Or until it goes on fire, which ever happens sooner.

I think its just a big button job isn't it? Person comes in, presses button, shakes hair for a few seconds and then it autoplays on a TV. So a button into a Raspberry Pi (either connected to a GPIO or a bluetooth key or midi button/footswitch), when it picks up the trigger it starts the camera, counts to however many seconds are needed, stops the camera, requests the files.html from the FlashAir, pulls out the last file name in that list, fires up mplayer with that file name, HDMI out of Pi to TV and job done. Funnily enough, I actually experienced a slow-mo photo booth in Tokyo last month at a Sasmung event for the S9. Which I had completely forgot about ! So, the alternative answer to this might well be to use a Samsung S9

Yes, its certainly functional and is a solid buy as far as I'm concerned. I'm sure that you can probably tweak it somewhere in those menus to eek a bit more out of it.

I've recently bought the Sigma 1.4 30mm lens for my A6500. I can't bring myself to do the whole sashay towards the camera or appearing from the bottom of the frame routines to test the AF in what appears to now be the accepted industry standard manner though. What I will say though is that in the brief testing I've done with it on non-catwalk or weightlifting simulation situations, it has thrown a couple of those "no, I'm fine where I am thanks" moments where it just wouldn't catch again that @jonpais saw on his 50mm version.

If you're looking for something where the presence of it was previously only available at the highest end so was also a reasonably good indicator of overall performance but when incorporated into cheap products is not only not a magic bullet but can be completely rendered pointless by the rest of the junk that makes up the product? Got to be the resurrection of valve mic pre-amps for me .

I probably should have mentioned that I do have one of the FlashAir cards that I have been testing with in a GX85 so I can confirm the functionality with mplayer addressing it and the simultaneous remote playback of a video file whilst recording a new one (which is a functionality I have an interest in for a different purpose ). The rest of it in terms of programming is just http request stuff which is no major hardship so that will be fine too. The only bugbear may be the start up speed for the sort of files that you are generating but, as I say, I can't think of an alternative hands off solution with the way Panasonic cameras operate. Well, I can but I'm not sure how keen you are to take the camera apart.....