BTM_Pix

Maybe one of the new Libec hands free monopod might be a compromise when out and about Jon?

I've bought most of my Fuji lenses used but I don't really feel too violated by the prices I've paid for the new ones. Its a pity Sigma have stayed away from the X mount though as you can see from the MFT stuff they do that they certainly offer a good alternative. I've only got really basic MFT lenses despite having quite a few cameras that can take them and its definitely down to that idea that I look at something like a Sigma ART 35mm 1.4 in Nikon mount and think "well I can mount that on my Nikons, Fujis and the MFTs so I'm getting 3 lenses" so nothing in MFT stacks up against that in practical or financial terms. Its the same with the Fujis being tied to their own system of course but as they are predominantly for stills for me, the AF isn't negotiable so I have to have them. Fuji's summer deals are supposed to launch next week for Europe and I expect this deal for the three f2 primes on B&H might be one of them https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1338126-REG/fujifilm_xf_50mm_35mm_and.html I'd be tempted by a similar MFT set but its the price of the wides in MFT that really stings and puts the prices way over the cost of the Fuji set.

If you want to inadvertently gain some, erm, 'quirky' looks from your perfectly good Contax Zeiss lenses and make yourself £140 poorer in the meantime then I can't recommend the Fotodiox Excell+1 C/Y to MFT reducer enough. You gain the extra field of view and a terrific 'shot through a bunsen burner' central blue flare whenever anything remotely considered to be brighter than a coal mine at night passes across it. Not only that, if you don't close the lens down by three stops, you get a built in diffusion filter. Not like a ProMist, more just like actual mist. And not like shooting through a sheer silk stocking but more like shooting through woolen tights. That are covered in more tights. Its some feat for a reducer to gain you one stop of light and then you have to pay it back with two more in interest if you're shooting anything other than 80s soft porn. I'm selling mine if anyone wants one. Hardly used. As long as you count not hitting myself over the head with it whilst sobbing and gently repeating "stop buying crap because its cheap"

I have just got the Lens Regain version for MFT last night. I had to take it apart as the tripod foot won't let it mount on the LS300 because of the ND wheel position. Depending on the rotation of how you put it on the FS7 you might find the same thing but with its ND wheel being higher you might be OK. It works, it just means it not a quick swap and you have to be very careful with it as the weight of the foot pulls down on the wires while you are turning putting it on the camera. On the upside, its not some proprietary plastic ribbon cable but actual discrete wires so if it does break its fixable by anyone with a soldering iron. The fit of the receiver/control unit into the mount is flimsy though. Not related to the Sony version but might be of interest to anyone getting the MFT version is that it was also very tight on the mount of the LS300 (worryingly tight actually) but was OK on a GX80. Reading some reviews on B&H, some people are finding that its too loose on the MFT side of the mount so obviously some consistency issues might be a concern. Or maybe mine is a later revision where they've improved the tightness of the MFT side a bit TOO much!! I tried it with a few different lenses of varying quality from a Canon 16-35mm 2.8L and Sigma 18-35 1.8 ART to a Tamron 17-50 2.8VC and a cheap Canon EFS 10-18 4.5 which I had pre-modified to work with it (i.e. sawed the back of the mount off). And they all worked with it, although I had a bit of an initial idea that they didn't because I didn't realise that you had to switch it off between lens changes as it calibrates itself to the whole throw of the lens when its powered on. As a consequence, I put the Canon 16-35mm on and happy that that was working put the Tamron one on only to find it would only focus on a really restricted range. I put that down to it maybe not being supported but then put the Sigma on and was getting a similar thing. I started to wonder if it was the LS300 and something going funky because of that very tight mount so switched it off and put it on the GX80 which of course worked flawlessly and then I put it back on the LS300 and it was now working. Well, you get the gist of how the penny finally dropped about what was happening! So, yeah, switch it off between lens changes! What I would say though is to check that all of your lenses are supported. I wouldn't see a problem with the 24-70 or 70-200 but there are a few variants of the 300 (I presume its the 2.8?) and your 800 is one that I highly doubt they'll have had access to in testing! Probably a good thing to seek out existing users for confirmation as well because Aputure's own site only lists about 15 lenses. The A/B transitions thankfully look a lot better on the files than they sound in real life as it really is a bit crunchy stepping between positions. The transition speed control is OK but has a lot less finesse than a zoom rocker switch on a broadcast lens for example. I'm sure someone somewhere has tested how variable it is but it does feel a little bit fast, quite fast and quite slow. I'd need to test it more though and you should look at some of the YouTube videos to make a judgement. I can't vouch for the IS as I really haven't tested it enough and I've only got mainly wide angle Canon mount lenses with me at the moment. Ditto battery life and range. I'll do a proper thing when I've had some proper time with it. Interim verdict = Not shit at all.

Sorry, I meant if you run through the zoom range on the 10-24 as a test you'll clearly see even on the screen the points at which the exposure changes occur (like little flashes) If you then set the focal length for your shot midway to be between two of these flash points (or more likely just after one) and see if it makes a difference. It might not work - and is less than ideal as in all likelihood the focal length that doesn't show the problem won't be exactly the right one for your shot - but better to move the tripod a bit than try and correct that exposure change in post

Looks like it dips when its stopped having to do anything when the pan ends? From the zoom test - which you should be able to quickly do yourself and see on the 10-24mm - you'll see that its at fairly set transition points that it changes the exposure. I'm wondering if a possible workaround for what you are having a problem with right now is to just tweak the focal length a few mm and try it again so its corrections aren't passing through these transition points? Its a long shot and probably won't work but doing the zoom test should let you see where the transition points are and have a go.

I've just done it again with that switched off and the results are the same when doing the zoom test. So if it is the same root cause then it wouldn't appear to be related to that. Are you seeing these changes as flashes throughout the pan/tilt or is it a permanent change of exposure?

It sounds suspiciously like it. The tests I did had it happening on the short zooms.

Its odd how Canon don't have anything in that area and have just let Panasonic and Sony have a clear run with the FZ1000/2500 and the RX10. The XC10 had the requisite spec for them to spin it into a consumer/prosumer rival to them and potentially dominated.

I don't have a GH5 so I was drifting along reading that. And then he mentioned a new version of the LX100

Sorry, my lack of clarity remembering there. You do it whilst in stills mode and save them through the custom settings in the IQ menu. That item is not there in video mode so they must be setup in stills mode. You can then select the profile using the Q button before you switch to video mode and it will use those settings. You can then tweak the parameters of that profile while in video mode by pressing the Q button but if you want to change to a completely different profile then you have to quickly switch to stills mode and select it through the Q button before going back to video mode. It's far less clunky than I've just described when you actually have the camera in your hand! The reality is that you'll probably have two profiles - a stills one with everything flat and the video one with ProNegStd -2/-2 etc although I have a few for different white balance and NR settings for night matches under floodlights

Yes, same process. I haven't got it in front of me but it saves some additional stuff too if I remember correctly. I think it might be the custom AF settings but don't quote me on that.

I did some 1080p60 on Sunday with it at a game. I'll post a bit of it when I get back from this trip in a few days. You can save 8 custom profiles which store your combination of film simulation,ISO,WB,NR,File type,Highlight,Shadow,Saturation and sharpening. They are accessed off the Q button and then you scroll through them. Makes it really fast to go from stills profiles to video ones etc

It depends on what you're going to use it for. The X-T2 is better in terms of build quality and ergonomics (especially the joystick) but I've used them side by side for work and what ends up in the image file is identical. I don't find the AF lacking and for what I'm using it for the AF does get exercised heavily. The reduced FPS and buffer weren't a practical issue either to be honest. As for video, well you lose the 1.17 crop in 4K so there is some potential artifacts involved but I'd need to do full A/B comparison but it's not jarring enough for me to draw attention to itself. And there's no FLOG but there's no additional £1000 to pay for an external recorder either. The compact size is a bonus for me but I will definitely look at getting the X-T10 side grip to make it a bit more ergonomic. In a straight choice then of course I'd have X-T2 but if it came to saving or raising funds for additional stuff then I wouldn't be fazed by having to 'make do' with the X-T20

The problem with the NX1 is that the people who have them know how good they are so the sort of dirt cheap second hand prices you'd expect of a dead system that wasn't able success either just haven't materialised. Same with cameras like Sigma DP2m which when it ended up being sold off at £300 new then you'd expect to pick up second hand ones now for half that but the people who have them know what they've got and won't be getting rid of them! If NX1s were at the sort of level that I thought they would be under those circumstances (£400-500 ish) then I'd say chop in the XT2 for an X-T20 and a used NX1 and have the best of both worlds!

As a combo based on what was presented I thought the Samsung looked better but,yeah,there are are a lot of variables involved in the test that are influencing that

Nice test. The NX1+16-50 combo battered the XT-2+18-55 for me. I was watching it with trepidation as it was going along though thinking "I hope he didn't hang around Piccadilly Gardens to do the high ISO tests"

Cheers

And no doubt many garbage ones. Hence why I was asking longer term owners if they had any recommendations for them....

I've had mine a few weeks but had no time to really test it but I'm struggling without ND filters. What are you guys using? I was having a little mess around with it earlier today just learning to fly it really (frame grab attached) and I've got no issue with sharpness but without ND its hitting 1/4000th which makes it look pretty terrible in motion.

I have that exact MBA actually so thats an interesting test! My idea is that I can use the eGPU with my 2015 MBP then pass the project on to the MBA and hook it up to that to carry on so the cost will be shared between them I suppose. Food for thought about the Hackintosh actually Cheers

Don, have you got a "This enclosure definitely works with this graphics card and will be plug and play with FCPX/Resolve without modifying system files and rebooting in a certain order whilst standing on one leg" recommendation for an eGPU? I've got a couple of year old MacBook Air that got thrashed through getting one too many pitch side soakings (its screen looks like a lava lamp and its internal keyboard and trackpad can only type some sort of Klingon) but which I'd love to find some use for as a render station to hand stuff off to so my MacBook won't be tied up doing it and it sounds like the eGPU would be just the ticket?

Often the best position to be in when it comes to creativity though isn't it? Thats why most band's first albums are their best, because they wrote and perfected the songs without a clock or an accountant in the room.

I took one of these cheap shoulder/chest mounts on a flight a few weeks ago and when its folded for travel it looks uncannily like the sort of sub machine gun the French military use. Because I had so little space in my bag I had to lay it side down as well so in profile from the top down view of the x ray machine it looked exactly like one! So you can imagine my anxiety putting it through. They pulled the bag but not because of the massive gun shaped object but went off their tits because I'd left a travel size tube of toothpaste in there. I'm always amazed at the inconsistency between airports though about what they want you to take out separately. When I fly out of Spain I have to take absolutely every camera, lens and battery out to go through separately for no apparent reason as I hardly think ThinkTank have started lining their bags with lead so the x ray machine can't penetrate it. Yet flying back anywhere from the UK I have yet to find enough electronics that I can jam in a bag that fazes them. And believe me, I've tried. "Been buying every lithium ion battery that Amazon sell have we sir? No problem. Just make sure there's no toothpaste in there" Makes me think they make it up as they go along.

3 isn't a great range scale for a rumour is it? That only gets you from almost certainly true to could be true to no way is that true. Or from Elvis is dead to Elvis is alive to Elvis is alive and spearheading an alien invasion of 9 foot cyborgs in rhinestone clad jumpsuits. I might start a rumours site with a Spinal Tap scale where the rumours go up to 11.