BTM_Pix

I wouldn't advocate wearing one out it public obviously but, then again, we've all been wandering round supermarkets and shops wearing surgical masks and nitrile gloves for the past two years looking like we're cosplaying surgeons so I wouldn't rule anything out. What is the deal with the rear filter ? On the Canon site it looks like you cut slivers of ND gel to mount in a frame that slides in, is that right ? And if so do you get more than one frame.

How will you achieve the 3D from the single lens ?

Is that Abbey Road mastering? I very much enjoyed the Radiophonic Recordings one that you did recently so look forward to seeing this too if its on SOS at some point ?

This has been out a while now and, whilst its going to be everyone's cup of tea, I think its really interesting. It only works with the R5/R5c and utilises the 8K sensor to give a little bit under 4K per eye with a 180 degree field of view after stitching. I think 180 degree and 3D is the sweet spot for me as 360 degree is great for overcapture/re-framing but just for straight up filmmaking 360 degree throws up too many challenges. Forget about 3D TVs to watch it on, this is all about headsets and for the mass market that is the Oculus Quest 2. If do you have a Quest 2 etc then I'd certainly suggest firing up its YouTube VR app and go and look at the early content . In the spirit of camera tests, Canon themselves have done one with cats. And a wedding ! As I say, this isn't going to float everyone's boat - least of all for narrative - but I definitely think its got legs for documentary/travel/events etc where you are getting a simple workflow to create 3D VR180 at high quality with all the image frills like C-LOG, RAW etc and it has a rear mounted filter holder for ND. The lens costs €1800 (or €900 per lens if you want to feel less bad about it !) which, even if you do have the R5/R5c already, isn't something you would be wanting to buy just to have a play about with but if you have an interest in the type of content it can be used for then it is something to consider.

Yeah, thats roughly the same price that I paid for mine too. The longer focal length Contax Zeiss lenses offer great value. I've got my eye on the 200mm f3.5 or possibly the 100-300 f4.5-5.6 if I can get one for the right price.

Obviously, I'm no stranger to being proven wrong so its not unexpected but I'm happy to be so in this instance.

I'm struggling to see on what grounds Canon are expecting to receive a patent for that? It has an impressive spec but, reading the article, I can't see that there is anything new enough about it to satisfy a patent being granted. Unless the innovation Canon are hanging it on is that they have not crippled it because, yeah, that would certainly cover the "novelty" aspect of a patent in their case.

I couldn't work out whether he meant that he himself was paying an ad guy who was useless or it was a useless ad guy who he was being contacted by ? He needs to up his shock face thumbnail game if he wants to be taken as a leading authority on anything. In all seriousness though, one of the best things about trade shows was that you could sit down for an hour and watch a live presentation from a genuine expert in their craft. Over the course of a three or four day show you could catch six or seven of them and come away with something lasting rather than just a hands on with the latest gear. Although the hands on was obviously priceless in translating marketing into actuality and also gave you a chance to see quirky stuff that didn't come from behemoth manufacturers with a dominating prescence. The demise of trade shows (even in pre-plague times) has benefited and been exploited by some vested interests that don't align with our own interests. Sadly, I think the gear part of it is lost to the YouTube "method" now but I'd love to see in person exhibitions return in a form where you could go and watch a programme of live workshops from actual experts.

DJI

Xiaoyi

I remember how pedantic the replies to your last trivia question got so I'm going to get an early bid in by saying Metabones.

Yongnuo

Its that hypocrisy that gets me.

To be honest mate, he was more than happy to set his gang of rabid little shits off on you over the R5 overheating issue until he belatedly realised he had backed the wrong horse. That was grade A shithouse behaviour.

If its for travelling and you've got an iPad then I'd be temped to use Sidecar to use it as an external monitor. It will fit the need for something smaller than a 14 or 15" external type, they are decent screens and of course it will be useful for other things when you aren't using it as an editing monitor. Saves you taking the BM box with you as well. If you prefer to monitor using the screen on the MacBook then you can also flip roles and use the iPad for the UI. Another bonus is that you can put LumaFusion on it to do some assembly editing on hoof on the plane, train, coach etc and then use its XML export function to carry on in Resolve when you get to somewhere more fixed to finish it off. As it can now edit directly from external drives, its a very viable workflow.

Yes, if you are using electronic EF lenses then there are no additional requirements. If you are using manual focus lenses then of course you need to add Nucleus-N or M motors. As above, the current production have all sold out and there will be another run when the component cost/supply chain issues have settled down so there is no ETA at the moment. If you have contacted or do contact cdatek regarding future availability then you will automatically receive an email when they are available.

Great, I'll be humming that all night now.

Sigma have quietly-ish released quite a significant update for the FP-L https://www.sigma-imaging-uk.com/major-firmware-update-for-the-sigma-fp-l-ver-2-00/ The big headline is the inclusion of false colour and I'm curious to know whether this can go some way to address the, erm, "quirky" metering issues when shooting RAW. It also adds the linear/non-linear option for the focus ring on compatible lenses and smart new option to select which exposure settings you want to carry over when switching from Still to Cine. No word yet on whether that will adopt the new Canon industry standard metric for hybrid cameras of taking 8 seconds to switch between.... The big question, of course, is when this is coming to the regular FP as it seems unlikely Sigma would do a snide differentiation thing. Has anyone here actually got an FP-L ?

Yes, funnily enough it was a toss up between that one and the one in the original post as regards an example of the destination. Although its the steps that I use to get there and whether I branch off somewhere else that remains to be seen. My ultimate end with this may not be using it myself creatively at all but more ending up having developed tools for others to do it. Incidentally, the posts I've made so far are summary recaps and are about two weeks behind real time so there has been some decent progress on that front already that will be coming up soon.

I still think back to when we put the Contax Zeiss 35-70mm on your GFX100 and how fantastic it looked. In the spirit of that particular trip, I would've attempted to buy it off you even though it was actually mine.

Step 3 - Start your engines.. So, a few days on and where are we up to ? I'm happy to say that we have moved forward but, obviously, its a very long journey so the extent of that movement is all relative. I'm happy to see though that @majoraxis has put together a good primer regarding the projectors for when (or if 😉 ) I get that far. First step forward was installing Unreal Engine and the first decision there was whether to use the current version 4 (4.27 to be precise) or the early access version of the upcoming version 5. Both versions are free so the choice for me really was to stick with the current v4.27 release version as its more of a known entity so the learning resources are more plentiful, which is important whilst I'm just paddling in the shallows. There is also less of a resource requirement in terms of the machine to run it on which, as I'm using a MacBook pro that is really long in the tooth, is a big factor. Going into this, I am well aware of the limitations of the 1.5gb built in Intel graphics of my MacBook so there is no point trying to explore what v5 brings to the table as judging by the hovercraft noises coming from it when I'm running v4.27 then I'm guessing running v5 would require a fire extinguisher to be at hand. You can have both versions installed on your machine though so if you have a suitable machine then go for it. Just to briefly touch on why v5 is a big deal, the primary aspects are two elements called Nanite and Lumen which offer huge advances in terms of detail and lighting control as discussed here : Obviously, v5 will be the ultimate destination but thats some way off yet, particularly considering that a wallet damaging computer upgrade will be required. As what I'm interested in doing first is applicable to both versions then it can wait anyway and I'll be working in v4.27. OK, so just circling back to the fundamentals of what the hell Unreal Engine is and using very broad brush strokes to discuss it... (apologies for the baby steps) It started as the engine used to produce a game called Unreal back in the late 90s (the clue was always in the name 😉 ) and was then licensed to other game developers over the subsequent years using various licensing models to its current status where it is free of charge in terms of royalties for products grossing less than $1m. Which means its definitely completely free for us ! You can read more about its history here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreal_Engine Such is its longevity, ubiquity and support of all gaming platforms, its fairly likely that if you have played any games more graphically challenging than Pong in the past few decades that you have already experienced something created with Unreal Engine. If, like me, you have been playing more recent titles such as those that have had you running around Midgar lashing Materia at anything with a Shinra logo on it then you will have noticed how much more cinematic everything is. There have always been the pre-rendered cut scenes that have always looked cinematic of course but now the real time in game content is also taking on an increasingly cinematic look thanks to the simultaneous advancement in machines we are playing them on with the tools in Unreal Engine to simulate the aesthetic. Bringing this down to two very basic elements, Unreal Engine offers you the ability to build and light the set and then provides you with the camera with which to capture it. In real time. And of course, as this emulates the exact paradigm of real world production, the advancements in those two elements is what has sparked the interest in using it for virtual production. From my point of view, the creation of the set is secondary at this point as I don't have the skills or the time at the moment to be creating the assets but, fortunately, I don't have to as there is plenty of starter content that is freely available from the Marketplace for Unreal Engine that we can use to get going. For me, this is all about the virtual camera as this is what we will see the scene through and what we will be looking to match to a real camera so all the initial work I've been doing is using very simple sets and seeing what I can do in terms of operating the virtual camera. The virtual camera has all the same elements of a real camera in that you can not only move its position, change the lens focal length and aperture etc but also control its processing elements such as white balance, ISO and shutter speed. In the parlance of Unreal Engine, this virtual camera is referred to as a Cine Camera Actor and here is an example of how you see it within the editor. So as you can see in this example, we have the Cine Camera Actor pointing at the figure inside the set that has been created and in the bottom right you can see its generated viewport of the scene based on its current settings. The Cine Camera Actor has all the same elements of a real camera in that you can not only move its position, change the lens focal length and aperture etc but also control its processing elements such as white balance, ISO and shutter speed and all these changes that you make will be reflected in the generated viewport in real time. So, if we change the focal length to be wider then we will get the matching field of view, if we move the position of the camera we will see a different part of the scene, if we open the aperture we will get a shallower depth of field and so on, exactly as it would with a real camera. How we make those changes in real time as we would with that real camera will be covered in the next enthralling episode 😉

4K Internal 8it RAW There is zero movement (aside from camera shake) in those shots so anything motion would be pointless to be honest. I'll do something a bit more suitable with a few of the CZ lenses I've got and put it up in a few weeks.

Yes, there are a number of possibilities to do it differently with integrations of different bits and pieces. The advantage of the Vive for most people is that it is an off the shelf solution. Some of us have shelves with different things on though 😉 Not with my ancient steam powered Samsung it wouldn't ! But yeah, this is what I was referring to about how much shit you need to cobble together to reach the start line whereas the new generations of smartphones have all of the components built in. Including the background removal so you don't have to use chroma key. Not sure about the depth of support for it in Unity. Or, more importantly, the ratio of people that would be using it for VP versus those using Unreal Engine which means less support materials and user experience to help the journey along. Fuck that. This entire projects is just a thinly veiled excuse to sneak a 4K ultra short throw laser projector into the house under the premise of essential R&D. Until then, it'll be one of those pop-up green screens that are more difficult to get back in their enclosure than a ship in a bottle !

In their promo video at the cued up point here, they dedicate a whole section of it to the "hey, switch to stills....hey, lets do video...hey, back to stills". They make it appear to be seamless and pretty much instant when the reality is they should have shown this between each switch. So whether you need it or not isn't the point for me, more that there's no need for such blatantly misleading bollocks from Canon in their promo video. Mind you, its probably fixable in firmware as we know what they are like when it comes to timers don't we ?

Yeah, I have seen some people looking to integrate them and similar (like the now sadly discontinued Intel Realsense cameras) and they do have Unreal Engine integration. At $499 for the new Zed 2i they work out a fair bit cheaper than a start from scratch Vive system. For now the conservative option is the Vive because so many people use it that its easier to find resources for it so I'll see where I'm at when the time comes as they will likely be easier for me to integrate. The lens control aspect is the target product development project for me to emerge with from doing this journey. Well, the first one anyway. The idea of having the enormous OLED walls is obviously a pipe dream but I guess the peak at this level for me I think would be to use one of the 4K Ultra Short Throw Laser projectors like the LG Cinebeam etc. Sat off the wall at 38cm they'll give a 2.2 metre screen size and go up to just under 4 metres at about 50cm. Price is roughly €2-2.5K for those type of projectors (plus screen) so I'd have to be very keen on this to get one but in an era when no one is batting much of an eyelid at €6K hybrid cameras then its not really that eye watering a sum to invest. Particularly as if it all turns to shit you can always have fantastic movie nights with it in even the smallest of spaces ! Until then, I'll have a mess about with my current little projector to experiment with. At this point, not to mention for many points afterwards, I'm more concerned with the functional aspect rather than any semblance of quality !