BTM_Pix

Hang on a min....

Its the catch-up version for the FP of the new features added in the FP-L recently so the two biggest inclusions for me personally are the false colour metering and the selectable parameters function when switching between stills and cine. I've installed it and had a quick look at the false colour monitoring and as expected its a pretty big new function to have. Interestingly, you have to assign it to a function button on the camera (I've put it on the right button of the control wheel) and unless I'm missing something (quite possible) it is a momentary switch rather than a toggle so it overlays on screen only for as long as you have the assigned button pressed in. I tried it being assigned to the AE-L button to make sure its not a quirk of assigning it to the control wheel but its the same performance. I actually prefer it being momentary rather than a toggle in most scenarios but I would definitely prefer to have the toggle option too. On the upside, if you hold down the assigned key, it doesn't block any other controls so you can simultaneously use the aperture and shutter controls and dynamically see the effect. I haven't got time at the moment to look into whether this provides a solution to the "quirky" RAW exposure in video aspect so hopefully someone else can have a look at it and report back. It is available from here https://www.sigma-global.com/en/cameras/fp/?tab=support&local=firmware Full release notes : Ver.4.00 2022.04.20 * 1 Only for compatible lenses. * 2 To use this function, it is necessary to update the firmware of the compatible lens to the latest version. * The following settings are affected: Shooting Mode, Shutter Speed, Aperture, Exposure Compensation, ISO Sensitivity. ・It adds the “False color” function where the exposure status on the screen is displayed in different colors, allowing users to easily see the exposure status of any part of the frame. ・It adds the “Focus Ring Control” function that allows users to change the movement of the focus ring to either linear or nonlinear. ・It adds the “STILL / CINE Link Settings” function that allows users to select whether or not they want to link key exposure settings between STILL and CINE modes. ・It allows the “Screenshot” and “False color” functions to be assigned to “Custom button functions”. ・It changes the specification so that the countdown before a shot in self-timer mode (2 seconds and 10 seconds), and the exposure time for long exposures (bulb shooting and exposures of 1 second or longer) are displayed on screen. ・It adds a function available in STILL mode where information from the attached lens (focal length and shooting distance) can be displayed on screen. ・It adds a “Clip Numbering” function in CINE mode that allows users to change the clip numbering of the “File name / Number” in the “SYSTEM” menu. 【For Blackmagic Design Video Assist 12G Series users】 Blackmagic RAW recording using the HDMI output of SIGMA fp updated to Ver.4.00 may not perform correctly without updating the Video Assist firmware. This issue has been corrected in the “Video Assist 3.5.2 Update” released by Blackmagic Design Pty Ltd on February 16, 2022, so please update your software accordingly.

That is a hell of an update. I bet you all 27 people who have managed to actually get hold of a Z9 will be thrilled. I'm thinking of downloading this update as a precaution anyway on the off chance that, by the time I am able to get hold of a Z9, Nikon's circumnavigation of RED's patents has proven not to be quite as watertight as they must clearly believe it to be. My fanciful idea of getting one in Japan in October looks to be completely doomed based on Yodobashi Camera's site.

Lets not be too hasty. I think this idea probably warrants a ten page thread of attrition about what codec you are going to use before you put pen to paper.

Some frame grabs from different focal lengths of the Tokina 18-200 EF boosted on an OG Pocket Cinema Camera.

I think perhaps a lot of the similarity aspect might be to do with there being so much more received/perceived wisdom about the best way to expose and colour footage etc now than there was a decade ago so a lot of people ploughing a very similar furrow. Back then people were finding their own way and working within what they had in camera a lot more, particularly as the then £250K DaVinci colour correction suite had yet to be released as a free of charge piece of software, so there was a lot less fannying around in post. At some stage, helpful advice and shared experience morphed into dogma and many people end up singing the same song. An example of which would be a sizeable amount of Tokyo Rain Cinematic videos you'd find on YouTube now would have a substantial amount of slow motion in them as that is the common expected aesthetic. Also, life was a lot less shit ten years ago so there's that as well.

Don't think its necessarily the cameras myself. Its mainly the move away from slowing down, seeing the composition rather than just the opportunity and using the lost art of putting it on a tripod. Too much running, too much gunning and not enough cunning these days.

Backstory here for the lovely 10 year old Tokyo footage. https://www.eoshd.com/news/tokyo-test-footage-attempting-a-ridley-scott-with-the-hacked-gh2-and-olympus-12mm-f2/

As per the shitty links that he edited into his post (and every other one he's made on this forum) after it was posted, this is the most applicable video to what was happening.

I thought they added HLG video in version 1.6 ? Has to be in Manual exposure, 10bit MOV format and the lowest ISO is capped to 320 according to the manual. Maybe they hide it as an option if you are not in Manual and 10bit MOV ? It wouldn't be the first time Panasonic have hidden a picture profile.....

My favourite line from the description is : It will not work for everyone (no app or box does). I was curious about the reviews, this one on Play store caught my eye : It actually works!!!! Not fake like the other apps. I just wonder how many spirit decoder apps one has to go through first before thinking that maybe its a load of old bollocks. My limit would be less than one so credit to that user for having the patience to do the heavy lifting for everyone else so that they can now buy the real deal. Maybe you can review lenses that can spot unbiased reviews on YouTube? Probably need to start with something like this though.

His "Miracle Box" app for communicating with spirits seems to be doing quite well for him. He just needs to be careful that the spirits he's communicating with don't have names that can inadvertently lead to creating phrases that are so hilarious that they can bring the facade of even leading TV programmes about it crashing down.

Silent mode being switched on is usually the culprit for this with Panasonic cameras.

How's that been working out for them ?

He does supernatural investigation videos too. Maybe he got a tip off from the other side that the end was nigh for camera reviews. Equally they might have told him to repent.

This is an interesting video from the host of one of the more long running camera review websites. I don't know whether he has recently found God or recently found himself off the favoured reviewers list but for whatever reason he has decided to spill some of the beans about his fourteen year history in the game. I say some of the beans as, although he gives specific detail about one source of revenue (the affiliate deal with B&H), he leaves it up to the viewer to extrapolate an estimate of the overall total when including the other streams such as Amazon, advertising and sponsorship etc. He also holds back much in terms of too many specifics amongst the war stories of complementary trips, free or heavily discounted gear, passive agressive editorial control and so on. However, there is enough there to put the picture together about his own activities as well as more than enough hint of how his own discomfort with it have caused him to reign it in whereas a great number most definitely haven't. Obviously, most of us will file this under "absolutely not shocked at all" My own view of Steve Huff was that he seemed personable enough but that he seemingly never came across a product that he didn't like. Which is an obvious red flag. On the generous side, you could say that that was due to him being so enthusiastic about gear. Or, on the less generous side, you could say that he lacked sufficient judgement to differentiate between good and great. Or, most cynically, you could say he was just simply "at it" and every new wow equalled more affiliate clicks. Clearly, the money that he has declared from B&H shows that he was obviously "at it" to a certain degree and I don't think anyone would do a public confessional video if they too didn't accept that they were "at it" either. But the majority of his income was based around the website rather than YouTube so the degree to which he was nakedly "at it" compared to some of his latter day peers was likely a bit more of a side effect than the whole raison d'etre of the new wave of teleshopping hosts. I was quite interested in footage he had in there of earlier promotional trips and how wide eyed giddy many of the invitees seemed to be. I bet the marketing arms of these companies absolutely wet themselves when they realised how easy and cheap it was to drive sales without so much as a half page ad buy in a magazine. It seems if you didn't feel generous enough to give a free camera away to an attendee then just massaging their ego with the invite and a discount on retail was enough. I hope that the what I would politely describe as "whining cunts" who trail our very own host of this ad-free and affiliate link free website around social media posting shitty replies to his posts watch this video. They want everyone to be polite nice guys who keep their criticisms of manufacturers to themselves while they show them slow motion B roll and make them feel better about their purchases. Well, here's one of your politest nice guys and guess what? He was at it. For years.

Barring a complete U turn from Sigma, it will definitely be L mount as they announced they will not be developing any new SA mount cameras when they joined the L mount alliance. https://www.sigmaphoto.com/article/to-our-customers-using-sigma-sa-mount-cameras

I had to google what that was. The advantage of VR headsets though is they can do mixed reality so you can carry on playing your game whilst using the in built forward facing video camera overlay function to safely navigate to the toilet without having to compromise the integrity of any hosiery. Even better, if you are playing some sort of Star Trek, game you can confirm the successful dispatch of the payload to the rest of the online players and stay in character by saying "Captain's Log".

I'm going to pitch this to YouTube as a new option so I don't have to keep switching otherwise potentially interesting videos off.

I'm guessing that from the protracted development cycle then it might well be going back to that as well as going full frame. You'd imagine that they could have put the SD Quattro into an Fp body relatively quickly and I'm still surprised that they haven't as an interim version. Switching to L mount would open up their own APS-C 16/30/56mm f1.4 lens range which would be an absolutely great match with the existing sensor. Being in the Fp body would also mean it not being built like a brick shithouse. I think they're committed to full frame though and I'm hoping that the delay is also being caused by them managing to squeeze video out of it. I'd take APS-C and video over Full Frame and not.

With the SA mount, you are pretty much limited to M42 adapters. Leitax do a mount product for Leica R where you physically change the mount so you would need one per lens. The "limitation" of only having an M42 option is all relative, of course, as there are plenty of excellent affordable lenses out there. Sigma dropped the SA mount for new cameras to concentrate on the L mount so any new Foveon will be in that mount, but you can still buy the lenses which include ART favourites like the 18-35mm, 50-150mm etc

Here you go, try it with this thumbnail to tick all the boxes that will get you on the front page.

Yes, consider it an MMX of sorts that takes input from the AFX and then talks to the lens of the virtual camera in the same way the MMX talks to FIZ motors. And it speaks to both simultaneously of course. The additional development is in the integration of a positioning element. More (relatively) soon.

I remember a similar thing came up a couple of years ago and a fix that apparently worked was to rotate it a couple of times around its axis. It might be worth a go.

The role of it in this scenario is just as a cheap and dirty way for me to generate basic input so an LPD-3806 would be overkill 😉 The real time dynamic information is coming from the camera system. Essentially, this is sending the raw data and the Blueprint itself is doing the interpretation so its conceptually the same. Because I am generating the MIDI data directly rather than taking it from a control surface and re-interpreting it, I'm able to use the standard MIDI data structures in different ways to work around the limitations of unsigned 8 bit values because the Blueprint will know how to interpret them. So if I want to change the aperture to f5.6, for example, then I can split that inside a basic Note On message on a specific channel so that I send that on channel 7 with a note value of 5 and a velocity value of 6. The Blueprint knows that anything it receives on MIDI channel 7 will be an aperture value and to take the note value as the unit and the velocity value as the fractional and re-constitutes it to 5.6 for the virtual camera. Using the 14 bit MIDI messages such as Pitch Bend or Breath Control also offers more scope to create workarounds for negative values by using, for example, the midway value of the range (8191) as a "0" point and then interpreting positive and negative values relative to that and using division if necessary to create fractional values (e.g. -819.1 to +819.1 or -81.91 to +81.91 etc). The reason to take the MIDI path was to use BLE MIDI to keep everything wireless and enable it to sit within the existing BLE architecture that I have created for camera and lens/lens motor control so it made for much faster integration. Having said all that...... As the saying goes, there is no point having a mind if you can't change it and things do change with this over the subsequent steps.