BTM_Pix

I'm going to make an analogy to recording music because it has already been through the democratisation (for want of a better word) process that film making is going through.
This is a local band from my town making a half decent album in 1967.

Great room, great mics, great mic placement.
Because they'd got those aspects so right, it didn't matter anywhere near as much that they had such limited capabilities of a console like this to fix it in the mix.

My phone has more recording and mixing capability than they had available there but unless I take that same approach to acquisition then I can tweak away forever without really being able to get anywhere near it.
That isn't necessarily about having to have a world class room and world class mics but it does involve approaching the craft of it in the same way but also making an artistic decision about what it is you are trying to capture in the first place.
The same is true for image making.
I think it is great that we have the colour grading tools available to transform and even potentially rescue footage that you would ideally have shot under more controlled circumstances but I certainly hold with it being something to enhance or finesse a solid base.
I actually find one of the Pocket4K's most interesting yet hardly ever discussed features is the ability to record with baked in LUTs as I think creating a virtual film stock and taking the time to learn its response inside out and making those commitments to the final vision when shooting will ultimately yield better and more consistent results over time than the time draining options of noodling around with RAW all day.
To offer a parallel to this, for work I  have to shoot jpeg with very limited latitude time or manipulation wise to make anything other than minor tweaks. 
Due to this, I have the same 'film stock' on the multiple cameras I'm using and I'm completely familiar and comfortable with how it will react to the multiple types of lighting that I have to shoot in in terms of colour balance and dynamic range, how far I can underexpose it to boost shutter speed etc so no image that comes off any of them is a surprise or a challenge to get it where it needs to be.
As a consequence, images fly in and fly out with no delay, angst, analysis paralysis or regret.
By contrast, if you give me a single RAW file, I can fuck about all day with it.
Often with inversely proportional benefits.

Accepting defeat and levitation is exactly what I've been trying to do by rising above the Brexit hysteria so you know how thats gone!

I think you meant "consolidation" rather than "consolation" as there is no consolation in this consolidation for me personally
NHK have been broadcasting 8K at 120p which does offer a workable compromise if you want to maintain the 180 degree rule. There are also the main super slow mo cameras behind the goal that take that already produce fast shutter speed captures.
The key to it is the additional angles that stills photographers can't produce and will actually provide some pretty compelling content.
The Steadicam operator for example can get much closer to the action and isn't limited to the crap shoot of hoping the action happens where he happens to be as he can go to the action.
And with the best will in the world, I'm never going to be able to levitate over the pitch to get the shots that the wire cameras can

Mine cost me more than that to be fair and as it has now developed a sticky shutter issue that makes it borderline beyond economic repair then I suppose I do by default now own a mirrorless full frame Nikon albeit an HD one !
I suppose I am guilty of having an outdated price perception threshold in my head of anything north of £3K being the realm of pro workhorse cameras and of MFT cameras topping out at £1K. 
A loaf of bread is still 2 shillings and sixpence though, right?

I'm going to make an analogy to recording music because it has already been through the democratisation (for want of a better word) process that film making is going through.
This is a local band from my town making a half decent album in 1967.

Great room, great mics, great mic placement.
Because they'd got those aspects so right, it didn't matter anywhere near as much that they had such limited capabilities of a console like this to fix it in the mix.

My phone has more recording and mixing capability than they had available there but unless I take that same approach to acquisition then I can tweak away forever without really being able to get anywhere near it.
That isn't necessarily about having to have a world class room and world class mics but it does involve approaching the craft of it in the same way but also making an artistic decision about what it is you are trying to capture in the first place.
The same is true for image making.
I think it is great that we have the colour grading tools available to transform and even potentially rescue footage that you would ideally have shot under more controlled circumstances but I certainly hold with it being something to enhance or finesse a solid base.
I actually find one of the Pocket4K's most interesting yet hardly ever discussed features is the ability to record with baked in LUTs as I think creating a virtual film stock and taking the time to learn its response inside out and making those commitments to the final vision when shooting will ultimately yield better and more consistent results over time than the time draining options of noodling around with RAW all day.
To offer a parallel to this, for work I  have to shoot jpeg with very limited latitude time or manipulation wise to make anything other than minor tweaks. 
Due to this, I have the same 'film stock' on the multiple cameras I'm using and I'm completely familiar and comfortable with how it will react to the multiple types of lighting that I have to shoot in in terms of colour balance and dynamic range, how far I can underexpose it to boost shutter speed etc so no image that comes off any of them is a surprise or a challenge to get it where it needs to be.
As a consequence, images fly in and fly out with no delay, angst, analysis paralysis or regret.
By contrast, if you give me a single RAW file, I can fuck about all day with it.
Often with inversely proportional benefits.

I believe it best to capture the footage as close to the final output as possible. Granted I’ve done some pretty heavy handed stuff. But usually this is so I can understand the limitations of the footage. When I find looks that work I’ll save them as presets for my edits. That way I can have consistency as I switch from angle to angle in my multi-cam shoots. In order to make certain this works you need to have the cameras setup so that they are easy to match in post. I control lighting and manually set everything.
I just about have everything to where I want it now. But honestly it’s been a long time getting here. 
Grading is an important part of the project to me. But with thoughtful planning it does not need to be painful.

Interesting poll and discussion. I struggle with color... both in theory and practice. I’ve always been a tinkerer and with most things in life, I can figure it out but color correction/grading has eluded my tinkering ways. It is an art, and a craft. And the folks who are really great at it are either naturals or well trained.
There are so many facets to the craft that out of respect for it, and the people that take the time to perfect their craft, I hate even referring to myself as a hobbyist colorist.
I can only speak for myself, but I find the most difficult part of color work to be correction. That portion of the craft can make or break the acquisition phase and the grading phase. There is such a symbiotic relationship that it does make sense that shooters are also coloring their own work but traditionally and professionally that is not the case.
I’m guilty of it myself, but I think mistakes in the acquisition phase can make color correction/grading more difficult than it needs to be... 
For instance, most shooters, in most situations, do not need Log footage, or 10bit video, but they use it anyway because they want more latitude... because somewhere, someone told them they needed it.
Proper exposure for 8 or 10 stops of dynamic range is difficult enough, when you start adding 3 or 5 more stops of DR with a Log curve you are entering a different level of skill set and understanding of Log Curves that could be more detrimental than just shooting with a flat Rec709 profile and keeping your color work more basic.
I have not shot in every scenario possible but with my basic understanding of shooting, most situations can be properly shot with 8-10 stops of DR. So if that’s the case, why shoot with a Log curve designed for 12 or more? I’ve personally found 10-12 stops to be a good sweet spot for the type of image I am looking for. If I was a Hollywood DP, I’m sure I could justify 15-18 stops.
I guess what I’m trying to say is... like most things in life, less is more in most instances.
So in summation, this is a learning process and as I learn I realize what I don’t know and more importantly what I don’t need. But color grading is fun and I wish I were better at it. 

Hague are a UK company that make a wide range of internal and external camera mounting gear for car shooting at reasonable prices.
Nice people too.
https://www.cameragrip.com/camera-car-mounts-suction-pads/

Accepting defeat and levitation is exactly what I've been trying to do by rising above the Brexit hysteria so you know how thats gone!

I think you meant "consolidation" rather than "consolation" as there is no consolation in this consolidation for me personally
NHK have been broadcasting 8K at 120p which does offer a workable compromise if you want to maintain the 180 degree rule. There are also the main super slow mo cameras behind the goal that take that already produce fast shutter speed captures.
The key to it is the additional angles that stills photographers can't produce and will actually provide some pretty compelling content.
The Steadicam operator for example can get much closer to the action and isn't limited to the crap shoot of hoping the action happens where he happens to be as he can go to the action.
And with the best will in the world, I'm never going to be able to levitate over the pitch to get the shots that the wire cameras can

Yes.
The Kenko branded ones were (and might still be) something that some people used when they got FX cameras to still be able to use their DX lenses.
If you want a modern still lens with an integral switchable TC then Canon's 200-400mm has one. Albeit only a 1.4x. And albeit it at £10K

@BTM_Pix Great post - thanks for taking the time to type all that
The consolation makes sense, both from an economics perspective as well as an efficiency perspective (which are related under the assumption that a perfect market optimises efficiency) and the subsequent exclusivity and price hikes also make sense from a profit and power-broking perspective.  I was once part of a business that ran an online store of sorts, and the system provided an easy way to gather competitive pricing for the clients, and they were surprised when the system provided better prices than their "special deals" with suppliers (who knew they were the only people quoting), and then after some time our business went under because the main client tried to eliminate the fixed per-order cost that we charged by going back to the "special arrangements" they were being promised by the suppliers behind our backs.  Capitalism is a strange thing when you understand how far from a perfect market we actually have.
In terms of the images suffering, I can see competing priorities.  Having wide angles for the TV audience to follow the ball and stay oriented with who has the ball and who is open for passes etc, having simultaneous coverage and detail for the virtual umpire to make decisions on, and having the right angle and framing for the killer photo are definitely things that aren't 100% overlapping.
8K will help to crop in to wider shots for stills, but there are still fundamental conflicts because no matter how much you crop in to this angle:

you can't get this angle:

In a sense that decision isn't one I'm forced to make personally as my only choice at my kids games is to sit down or stand up, but if I'm shooting for video then I'll still want images that are a lot wider than the portrait shots, and without multiple cameras it's a tradeoff between resolution for stills, wide enough shots for video, and simply being too cropped in and losing track of the action or players.  It's also a tradeoff in terms of having a nicer image with a larger aperture vs losing focus and missing a moment, or having a shorter shutter speed for images vs 180 shutter for nicer movement, etc.

Many b4 lenses, including this one, have an integral switchable 2x teleconverter that will enable them to cover MFT when it is engaged.

Its a combination of a few different elements of that.
Exclusivity of event access given to certain agencies would be one aspect of it and in cases where that isn't the official case it is becoming the de-facto one by virtue of a combination of preferential pre-allocated positioning and the number of accreditations granted. So if you take football as an example, a small agency would be given one accreditation and have to take their chances where they are positioned and cross their fingers the most important action of the event happens where they are sat while the larger agency are able to cover the entire field from four or five positions guaranteeing they get the shot.
Subscription based distribution of images favoured by those agencies also means that per image payments are becoming rarer as its so much easier and cheaper for a newspaper to illustrate a story with any number of images as part of their subscription plan than it is to deal with individual payments per image.
If you combine both of those factors then it becomes economically unviable for a lot of agencies and photographers to cover events so where you might have had a typical match with, for example, 30-40 photographers covering it then even if you have two agencies with subscription models and multiple photographers at it the opportunities to earn a worthwhile sum is reduced to a very small amount for half of them. 
When the market opportunity for the images to be able to be sold into gets reduced to that extent then so does the market for the purchase of the gear to make those images, hence why I'm bewildered by Sony getting involved for anything other than vanity or completeness purposes in it.
These agencies also have direct deals with the clubs themselves which also severely limits the opportunity to sell images from aspects outside of the 90 minutes such as training sessions and press conferences both by price (because again, these images are "free" for publications who have all you can eat subscriptions) and also by virtue of them having enhanced access to the stadium and the players.
The same agencies also have deals with the organising associations of the tournaments so its a short hop to tie the whole thing together into a deal to being the official and exclusive supplier of images.
Its worth bearing in mind that as with any editorial content, in sports photography it is often the most controversial images that will earn the biggest fees through syndication bolstered by exclusivity. Very often of course those images would be considered 'off brand' for players, clubs and organising associations so control of the brand image though exclusivity of access is also a powerful driver for this change. 
And then you get on to the TV rights holders who are paying literally billions of pounds to broadcast the events and who are also very keen on protecting and polishing the brand as well.
If there is a fight in the crowd at a football match or a streaker runs on the pitch etc then you are very unlikely to see that on your TV screen as the broadcasters choose what goes out so it irks them that photographers (who pay zero of course to cover the event) don't also turn their lenses away from a disturbance but are very much likely to turn their full attention towards it and start firing away. With the super fast distribution of still images from pitch side these days those unfiltered scenes can be on newspaper sites unhindered within a minute and be damaging the 'brand'.
Taking all of that into account leads to a logical conclusion that TV rights holders will eventually do a deal with a large agency to give them live access to the TV images for frame extraction and editing (transmission of out of camera images to remote editors is already standard practice anyway) as soon as the image quality is there.
Will the pictures suffer ?
Yes and no.
The TV companies have the best coverage positions and quantity of coverage of anyone in the stadium so they can produce arguably more interesting content anyway.
What you will lose is the individual aspect of choice with which a photographer will create the image as you will be stuck with making something out of what you are given so if the TV framing of a piece of action is wide then so will your 'picture' of it and if its in tight then so will your version of it be as well whereas you might well have chosen to do the exact opposite in both cases.
One thing that will also advance its introduction in football at least is the phasing in of the VAR video refereeing decision system which is used for supporting or overturning decisions made by the on field referee. As these are normally the contentious and hence newsworthy incidents such as was it a penalty, was he offside etc, the images from the numerous cameras that the system uses arguably capture the peak moments of action and frame extracts are increasingly being used by newspapers to illustrate them with.
I'm going to give the whole thing probably three or four years tops (particularly in light of the 8K at the Tokyo Olympics) before the balance tips, which is why I've wound down my involvement in it virtually completely in the past six month.

No, we suspect many of the posters there eat vegan sausage rolls and as a nation we hate that shit.

This guy is a parody news reporter but sums the lunacy of the situation up.
Increasingly, the real news reporters are getting so exasperated dealing with the politicians over this absolute catastrofuck that a few of them are on the point of similar rants.
 

On the upside, with it being a Hydrogen you will see a holographic version of yourself appearing and answering that question.
I just had a look at the thread and well, yes...
"......If you look at high end screen protectors from other places, who don’t necessarily make them for the Hydrogen One, (I’m thinking of a certain Brand, beginning with, D, but I, “can’t seem to remember their name”,) they’re not that much less, and probably don’t have all of the features."
A brand that begins with D and wants to get away with charging you $40 for a piece of plastic and $50 shipping you say? Erm.....Dior? Daimler? Dolce & Gabbana
 

I'll dig something out over the weekend.
I've got a few bits of M and R mount lens stuff that I've been meaning to put up as well from some recent scores.

On the upside, with it being a Hydrogen you will see a holographic version of yourself appearing and answering that question.
I just had a look at the thread and well, yes...
"......If you look at high end screen protectors from other places, who don’t necessarily make them for the Hydrogen One, (I’m thinking of a certain Brand, beginning with, D, but I, “can’t seem to remember their name”,) they’re not that much less, and probably don’t have all of the features."
A brand that begins with D and wants to get away with charging you $40 for a piece of plastic and $50 shipping you say? Erm.....Dior? Daimler? Dolce & Gabbana
 

Ok. So I fell for the Hydrogen hype. 
And perhaps the 2d camera module will be superb. So final judgement suspended.
RED have released a screen protector for Hydrogen. It costs $40. Tax is extra (shipping to UK is rumoured to be an additional $50 but that’s irrelevant). 
I posted (on h4v) that the price was “interesting” (given the razer phone one fits perfectly well and cost me a fraction of the $40. For two.)
Outrage. And the best defence to date is that the RED one has “high transparency”! Yes, folks, it’s see-through. 
I’m starting to look in the mirror and ask whether I look stupid.
But once the module is released all will be wonderful and I’ll have roses growing in my drive.
$40... 

This guy is a parody news reporter but sums the lunacy of the situation up.
Increasingly, the real news reporters are getting so exasperated dealing with the politicians over this absolute catastrofuck that a few of them are on the point of similar rants.
 

I'll dig something out over the weekend.
I've got a few bits of M and R mount lens stuff that I've been meaning to put up as well from some recent scores.

I'll dig something out over the weekend.
I've got a few bits of M and R mount lens stuff that I've been meaning to put up as well from some recent scores.

It actually sits quite solidly in the hand if you use it with the screen tilted in the fashion shown in the pic in a look down configuration.
But yes it is very much a lens with a camera attached rather than the other way round !

Nikon has registered several new models with the wireless agencies worldwide, with rumours that a high-end mirrorless Z9 is due to be released this year, along with a more affordable Z5 aimed at the lower-end of the full frame market around $1200. The first affordable Nikon APS-C DSLR to shoot non-cropped Super 35mm 4K is expected to be the Nikon D5700.
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