BTM_Pix

It was quite a coup for Sony to get The Smurfs on board though as the little fellas had traditionally been Polaroid ambassadors.

I think you may see the Sigma mount version being bundled with the SD Quattro before too long. The current SD Quattro c/w 30mm 1.4 ART bundle is around £800 so with the 18-35mm being £280 more retail than the 30mm 1.4 then £999 would seem right as a bundle.

There is a 10 page argument about it (without a single photograph) here if you've got the patience for it. https://***URL removed***/forums/thread/3650127 Meanwhile.... I took a couple of shots for you at ISO400 on my DP0 which is the fixed 14mm version of the SD sensor. The DR issue (as hotly debated in parts of the DPR thread) is one that partly comes down to what can be measured and what you can use based on what you can do with it in Sigma's RAW editor. The RAW editor gets a lot of abuse (and not without foundation it has to be said when compared to stuff like Lightroom and Aperture) but its not dramatically worse than Hasselblad's Phocus app for example but at least you can open their files in something else, unlike Sigma's. Well, you have the DNG option now in the Quattro range and there is a freeware app who's name escapes me that can open the .X3F files but Sigma's open app is the key to getting the absolute best out of the files as they're the gatekeepers of the Foveon voodoo! Yes, its slow, but so is the pace of photography you will largely do with these cameras so its no big deal to me. Its not like I'm dealing with a DSLR where I've been machine gunning my way round a sports field and its more akin to film photography where you come home with a couple of rolls of 36 exposures. Anyway, so here is an illustration that I shot for you (at ISO400) to show you what's possible DR wise and the key to this is the X3 Fill Light function which will bring back a ton of shadow information so you know you can ETTR and recover usable info The top picture is the JPEG from the camera to show how it was shot and the bottom one is after using the X3 Fill Light. . Next is a comparison between ISO200 and ISO400 as I needed a coffee after looking at those old ruins (what do you mean, I see one in the mirror every day). With the Quattros, the native ISO is 100 and AFAIK there is a drop from 100 to 200 but its not so marked between 200 and 400. Basically, once you've taken the hit by moving away from 100 then you might as well take the extra shutter speed/aperture opportunities on offer by shooting at 400 Top picture is ISO200 and bottom is ISO400 with 100% crops from each to show the untreated noise in both. This final one as a way of comparison between the current and previous generations is from my DP1m which is the fixed 19mm lens compact with the Merrill sensor. The native ISO on the Merrill versions is ISO200 rather than ISO100 and as with the Quattro's you can shoot ETTR (as per the original shot top left) and the use the X3 Fill Light function to bring out the shadows (top right) and then take it from there to do more colour work or black and white conversion. If anyone wants to have a play with it themselves then I've put the original .X3F file here and you can then go over to Sigma's site and download their SPP software to edit it with. https://mega.nz/#!BiYwRCQZ!1725R1XDQlhRPliyTdnpusi3rqspEWirIvByYqvA-tI As everyone says, these cameras have as many quirks and limitations as they do different models but if you're prepared to accept them then you're getting a hell of a lot in a compact form and price. I started off with the DP2m and if I had to have just one then I think that is the sweet spot for me in terms of size, focal length (stitched comps for faux wide angle are great from it) and price. Well, price is only ok for now until @Mattias Burling does one his reviews on it

Cheers, I'll go and have a trawl through.

When I heard about this, I wasn't sure how well it would perform but from reviews I've seen there does seem to be some actual sorcery involved. Considering what you can adapt to M mount cheaply (i.e. everything !) this is pretty intriguing. Does anyone have one?

I know that we like to go for low cost solutions but in this case, because easy reliable chroma key is going to be so vital to what you are doing, I'm going to recommend you have a look at the Reflec system. It has been around for years (it was originally a BBC development) and has also been ridiculously overpriced for years but at the end of the day it does produce good, easy, reliable keying without you having to do anything elaborate lighting or setup wise, which is vital if you are working on your own or with a small team. You can set this up in a few minutes and if you had to then go somewhere else and set it up again and get exactly the same results. Basically, it is a piece of reflective material which fires the light from an LED ring that you mount around the lens straight back to the camera which gives you a pretty perfect key without having to worry about lighting the background and the bi-LED versions of the ring mean you can switch from green to blue background instantly. It is not absolutely perfect but it is a very easy solution to work with and it means the time and expense of lighting the backdrop can be better spent lighting you. There are a bunch of different versions of it to suit cameras from palmcorders up to broadcast ones and a lot of different sizes of the background material (including a pop-up round version like a reflector) but something like the Deskshoot Lite kit would be fine with a Panasonic GH camera. If you hunt around on eBay you can find kits for around £800 and even less. There are also a few knock off versions kicking around as the fabric itself is based on (for which you could read possibly identical) to one made by 3M for safety clothing. As I say, its not cheap but as what you are doing is solely based on chroma key then it might actually be worth putting money into this rather than say going big on a lens as for your application, my view at least, would be that your audience would spot the deficiencies in the keying long before the lens.

WEX has them in stock in most sizes http://www.wexphotographic.com/tiffen-62mm-black-satin-1-filter-1561521/

There is a flickr pool but usual rules apply with those pools in terms of separating the wheat from the chaff. https://www.flickr.com/groups/451809@N25/pool/

That was a close one. I walked in the shop and Satan himself was stood there with two Leica SLs at "oh hang on" prices so I had to get the Fuji quick and get out. Anyhoo, what I mainly miss about England is the ready availability of secondhand lens bargains and of bacon and sausage sarnies so it seems entirely appropriate that the first picture I took with one should be of the other.

Well, unless it was a circus act, the bearded receptionist means that the Contax Zeiss will have to wait.

I don't think you get arrested for not putting it on the pan bar its just the usual place for it There is a benefit there for not physically touching the camera to reduce shake and it gives you the option of someone else pulling focus remotely as well of course but neither of those might be applicable to how you're working.

This is ridiculous, it was one of those automated e-gate jobs so we still don't have a winner ! We now go on to the hotel receptionist gender then. At this rate it'll be Bruce Jenner and I'll have to buy both.

They had the SD and the 30mm as a bundle for £799 in their summer sale and I thought it'd still be available so I could get it when I was next over (ie now). Wrong!

It will mirror whatever you have assigned to the zoom rocker on the camera. It mounts to the tripod pan bar

Fuck. In an aisle seat with a man on the right and a woman on the left. I'll go with the gender of whoever checks my passport at the other end. Update in 2 1/2 hours !

Well here's ironic.. I found the H3D for you because I was trawling Park Cameras as they had a deal on for the SD with a 30mm but they've stopped it ! I've got the 0 and all 3 of the DPm's and I wanted to hate the SD so I didn't have to buy it but tried it and , well, you can guess the rest. I'm not sure people are feeling the benefit of the H version versus its extra price and, for me, I'd have to pair the SD with the 50-100 to make it make sense in terms of filling the gap as something different to what I've got from the rest of the range. The big problem with that is finding anyone with a Sigma mount version of that lens to try it. I don't suppose you've got one have you?

No excuse not to get that cheap 50-110 now then, you know you want to ! The mirror delay is a good option when you're hand holding to offset any issue with the slap/thump/seismic event of the mirror. You might want to get familiar with cleaning the sensor by the way as it draws in shite like no other camera I've ever known. Possibly due to the air displacement caused by the shutter

I'm going to let fate decide. I'm getting on the plane to London in an hour. If the person sitting next to me is a man then I'll take the sensible route and get the Fuji. If its a woman then I'll take the Zeiss path. Stay tuned...

I got mine in 2009. It felt like when we got a colour telly in the 70s

That is exactly the problem isn't it that the complete set would be showing me a bit too much ankle if I got the 85. I thought it was God giving me a sign but it might well have been the other fella!

Well according to FujiRumors, feature updates are largely driven by what Fuji read on their site so maybe we should register 200 fake accounts and ask for it.

Maybe they'll put 4K on the GX50S while they're at it

Set it in stills mode to one of the 3 custom ones and then you can select that one from the Q in video mode. Daft that they couldn't make it follow through to the video mode for setting but it seems to be because it uses the shutter button. You can go through all the motions exactly like when its in stills mode but then there is no way to set it when you have the square over an area you want as the shutter button does nothing! Unless it uses another button to set but I can't see which one it would be and, of course, I can't possibly countenance reading the manual

I have the 28 f2.8, the 50 f1.7, the 135 f2.8 and the 28-85 f3.3-4 which I've built up over a few years if I see them cheap. The one I've been after for a while is the 85 f1.4 but never found one cheap enough to make me cave in! Until now.... Well, until tomorrow at least. I've found one in London but the same place has also got a used Fuji 23 f1.4 for a silly price and which would probably be more useful (but I could easily persuade myself otherwise !) so I've been agonising over it as I can't get both. To break the impasse, I thought "I know, I'll put my Sigma Art 35 f1.4 on the X-T2 with the Lens Turbo and do a few shots and see if I can dissuade myself of needing the Fuji so I can get the Contax Zeiss....." I took the Lens Turbo out of the ever growing box of adapters I've acquired, went to put it on the camera at which point one of the elements promptly dropped out and smashed on the floor. I don't know if this is God's way of telling me to get the Fuji (because there'll be no speed boosted Nikons for a while now) or the Contax Zeiss. He was telling me to get both wasn't he? Yeah, lets go with both.

The flickr pool for that lens is quite interesting. The first few pages are dominated by a single shooter (seemingly on a holiday to New York) and the processing is not to my taste but its all shot on A7Rii so its interesting to see from a resolution perspective. The content gets a lot more people-y towards the bottom of page 6. It's a shorter range than the 28-85mm that I've got but its a bit smaller, lighter, sharper and usually cheaper.... I'll see you on ebay https://www.flickr.com/groups/1571522@N25/pool/