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Everything posted by BTM_Pix
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For the job we are talking about, thats a pretty big issue though But apart from that, off the top of my head.... Marginally faster fps, four times the buffer size, five times the battery capacity, no battery drain just to have the camera on and available, better weather sealing, top plate display, illuminated buttons, on board ftp over ethernet and wireless, access to a much broader and cheaper selection of long primes (particularly used), flash sync port, support services at events.... For day to day stuff those might not be significant but for the specific task of shooting sport stills on a professional basis - which is the perspective that I was making the suggestion from - then they are vital differences. The reasons that the X-T2 couldn't cut it for doing the job to the same standard as the D4 were not really to do with the image quality (save the waxy skin at high ISO) and those same reasons would apply to the A7iii and, for what its worth, to the Z6.
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Twas the night before launch and a world's first for any app or device was stirring..... Really pleased to reveal that the PBC is fully compatible with both the Pocket4K and the Pocket6K. And yes, that also includes focus control.
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I'm almost certainly the wrong person to ask because neither of the mirrorless cameras in that comparison or anywhere else in the thread will reliably turn in the same level of performance that I'd personally need for actual work that a D4 would provide so they wouldn't be under consideration. It would just be the X-T2 fiasco all over again. Whether you can squeeze enough out of one camera to do both tasks is debatable when one of those tasks is as specific as sports photograhy. Its a bit like a farmer having a 4x4 truck to get around his land and take the produce to market etc. Conceivably he could rig something up to it so he could plough the fields with it as well but the reality is he's going to need a tractor to do the job properly.
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The problem with the A9 for is that the mechanical shutter is capped to 5fps which means that you have to use the electronic shutter and run the very real risk of banding from LED boards in most pro sports arenas and stadiums. That was one of the factors that seriously hindered the A9 being accepted by its target audience although I did a couple of Champions League matches last week and saw the first two I've ever seen being used pitchside. Whether that was due to Sony's sponsorship arrangements with UEFA meaning they were being trialled or whether the tide has turned for them remains to be seen.
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My perspective as a professional sports photographer is if you are going to be shooting stills in that environment a lot then you should have a dedicated camera that is made for the job so I'd be looking at a used Nikon D4 and Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 which you should be able to pick up for around £1500-1600. If you want to cut the budget a bit then substitue in a D3s instead of the D4 or up it to a D4s if you have a bit more budget. I trialled shooting with the X-T2 system as an alternative/supplement to Nikon about 3 years ago and whilst it made decent images it just wasn't up to the job at the same level and the experiment didn't last long. For video, you don't need a particularly low light monster as you won't need the same shutter speed so your 1000th/f2.8/ISO6400 even if you want to shoot 50p and have 180 degree shutter is only ISO640. Incidentally, the reported exposure from the X-T2 exposure will be innacurate as shooting one alongside a D4 in fixed lit stadiums, the X-T2 would be at ISO6400 and the D4 would be at ISO5000. The Nikon Z6 would be the obvious choice for the video to keep in the same brand as the tests I've seen with the FTZ adapter and the 70-200mm f2.8 show it performing well. Again, if you go for used then you should be able to pick up both cameras and the lens for around £3K. For that you will be getting a genuine professional sports stills camera that will take the shooting conditions you describe in its stride, a very capable 4K video camera with IBIS and a ProResRAW option (any year now) and a fast, stabilised high quality optic.
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The screen colour scheme is user defined so there is an orange option you can set as well as cyan, blue and black. BM have not included the stills option in their protocol unfortunately.
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Its had a shorter working life than a tube of toothpaste then if thats the case. Yeah, Its far more likely to be software related in that the unmount from the Android device fixed it but without iOS having an unmount function that brings me no nearer a solution to knowing whether its the underlying OS, the new fangled File app in ipadOS or the integration with LumaFusion. The whole situation with external file handling with the new iPadOS is very flaky and probably explains why they were so very reluctant to introduce it for so long.
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Cheers I have to confess I didn't really check what it was called. "Somewhere in Brugge by that place with the nice stew" is about as precise a note that I have for it. They are all part of the focus pull demo collection for my controller so will have been fairly wide. The statue one was definitely wide open and the London one would probably have been around f4. I'd love to pretend that it was some studiously considered technique but its mainly just random messing about with settings so any similarity to anything decent is purely coincidental!
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A couple of grabs from some things I was doing last week with the Canon EF 50 mm-f/1.4 USM c/w Metabones 0.71x on the Pocket4K.
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Plot twist.... Tried it on yet another OTG cable on an Android phone and got it to mount, view and play files. Used the unmount option, unplugged it, plugged it into the Mac and now it is fine. So I now know the solution if not the cause.
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Yeah what I meant was that I'll look into a bit further when this time crunch has gone away as its not about this single drive (not now I've got the data off that I needed anyway ) but about the T5s in general as I used quite a few of them so I want to get to the bottom of it to see what's caused it. I think this is God's way of telling me to buy a Gnarbox if I want to edit on the iPad.
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Its now launch eve eve and our second to last window reveals a reminder that although the PBC can do a lot of tricks - and is the hub to which other tricks will connect to in the future - it can still be used as just a wireless remote Record Start/Stop switch on a rig if that is all you currently or will ever need.
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To be fair, the Apple products are all working fine and its the Samsung one thats fucked. Oh, tell a lie, its done its best to take the WD Wireless Pro drive with it now. Although that thing is so flaky that trying to work out exactly whats caused it to not be currently working is like trying to establish which particular baked bean in the tin made you fart.
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There is a First Wave package that adds up to a 33% discount.
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Thanks for all the input. I'm tempted to just say "oh well its fucked" and throw it away after I've got everything off it but its spooking me a bit about whats happened. These T5 drives are becoming ubiquitous for me because of the Blackmagic cameras and editing on LumaFusion as well as just as general work portability so I have quite a few of them so I'd like to get to the bottom of what's caused it. Oh well, I'll have some free time at some point in 2024 so it will have to wait until then.
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No, there is no need to in terms of data recovery now as the drive is visible to the WD Wireless Pro on its USB expansion port so I'm able to copy the files to that. I'll ponder why it won't mount on anything else when I'm through with actually using the files it was holding hostage
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Yeah, absolutely no sign of it in Disk Utility. I've tried it with multiple cables, multiple Macs, multiple Android devices with multiple OTG adapters, through USB3 hub, USB2 hub, Pocket4K, Pocket6K and the only devices it wants to play ball with is the iPad and ,somewhat inexplicably considering how crap it usually is, the WD Wireless Pro. As it happens of course, this gives me the chance to (slowly) back up the T5 directly to it so for once in its miserable existence its actually proved its worth. Definitely seems like some sort of issue related to there not being a defined eject procedure on the iPad but its worked perfectly well thus far as have 2 different T5s I've used for the same purpose.
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Absolutely nothing other than the drive light coming on. Doesn't show up in Finder or System Report. On Android it doesn't show up as an OTG device as it should be doing. Yet there it is in iOS bold as brass in Files and also as an external source on the WD Crankdrive which often has trouble finding its own internal one let alone an external one connected to it. Previously, the T5 had happily been trundling around between Mac, iOS and Android without any issues whatsoever. Its very unusual and I can't find anyone else online having a similar problem with it although being able to mount and use them in LumaFusion etc is a relatively recent development so I'm not sure there is a big sample out there.
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Well... The recovery software route didn't work. Attached the drive to a PC and...nothing. Even connected it the Pocket4K and Pocket6K who were equally unimpressed. Connected it to the USB port of the WD Wireless Pro (aka the worst wireless backup hard drive in western Europe 2019) and it welcomed it with open arms. I'm currently copying the vital stuff onto that. If my previous backup efforts with that drive are anything to go by then it will take another 3 or 4 attempts to get them all across but I'll take that in this instance. Really weird problem though.
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I'll take a look at that tomorrow when I've calmed down! Cheers
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So I've been using a T5 drive with an iPad to import some footage without any problem for a while. Tonight (when I really, really fucking need it obviously) the drive is no longer readable in anything OTHER than the iPad. Tried on different Macs and different Android devices and the drive LED lights up but it doesn't show up. Put it back in the iPad and its fine. Seems like the iPad has put some sort of lock on it but as there is no eject disk option I've tried different approaches such as completely powering down the iPad with it connected, closing the File app and just yanking the power out and absolutely nothing STOPS it working again in the iPad or MAKES it work in anything else. If anyone has a fix then to say I would be grateful would be an understatement. I can't stress enough how much I do not want to hear any sort of variation of "have you backed up the data onto another device"
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72 hours to go... When you are using either the Nucleus Nano wheel or our now PXP expander to pull focus using the PBC, you can store A and B focus points and then activate the focus Limit function to enable you to pull focus between the two points at your own rate without worrying about overshooting. Works for both native and adapted EF lenses as in this example using a Sigma 18-35mm f1.8 on a Metabones adapter. More tomorrow.
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T minus 4 and we welcome our upcoming PXP expander module to the party. The PXP wirelessly connects to the PBC to give you five more hardware switches to assign controls to and a focus control wheel for your native and adapted lenses. As they are wirelessly linked, you can use them separately so the PBC on top of the camera as a status monitor and the PXP on a tripod/rig handle or combine both units into a single comprehensive hand controller. As well as acting as a hub for the Tilta Nucleus Nano wheel and the PXP, the PBC will also be the central hub for our other upcoming control modules such as the Auto Focus system. More tomorrow.