BTM_Pix

Will do.
Just let me finish prototyping this interactive picture profile creation tweaker 
 

Yeah, I was very interested in how much faith could be put in them if you wanted to really expose to the right and have them set at 100.
And my takeaway is that they can largely be relied on if you want to push that far. It was also interesting, for me at least (!), to see the interaction between the profiles and the levels at the same exposure settings. Considering how coarse the histogram display is then this is a good thing
What I've seen here might form the basis of a bit more testing for me at some point actually to look at the relationship with the profile, the contrast parameter within it and the additional global shadow and highlight adjusters in the camera. I think there is possibly some scope there to create profiles that incorporate all those parameters into single combination packages to create potentially finished OOC looks that I could make be deployed with a single button press.
There might actually be combinations of these parameters that you'd maybe describe as non-intuitive that you look at the actual image its producing and think "You know what, that shouldn't work but I like the way that that looks".
With analog synths for example, you pushed and prodded at the controls because they were there in front of you rather than having to deliberately go into menus and find them like you did with digital synths. It brought about happy accidents (as well as absolute abominations of noise) and I think it could be the same with these cameras. Its too fiddly to go in and change things in them through the menus so you become so methodical that you seldom create combinations that might just be really interesting.
If all those parameters are laid out in front of you for you to twiddle with and you can see the live results of them (because you don't have to go in and out of menus) then I think that might happen.
You'll probably end up with lots of rubbish but might just pan some gold.
I'm quite enthused about this now and I'm going off to hack together something to do it!

The very first prototype I did was not too dissimilar actually !

I've often thought the Sony Vita (the handheld PlayStation) would be perfect for this sort of thing... but I'm sure there must be a reason why it's not!

Just a slightly different aspect to this but I was curious about how accurate the zebras are and how useful the histogram is with these cameras so I did a little test with the G7.
I set the zebras to 100 to flash the middle column where the colour checker is stuck on and framed it so the door was in shot to see the different shadow levels with different profiles.
Ignore the completely deliberately blown out right third portion of wall and sky as this is for a completely different test !
So that you could see what the camera was actually doing (and more importantly what it was saying it was doing), I recorded the output with the overlays on into a Ninja Inferno and did 3 passes using Standard, Cinelike D and Natural profiles, altering the shutter speed to change the exposure to show where the zebras came on for each.
Annoyingly, I can't record the scope overlays of the Ninja Inferno as it was interesting to monitor what the camera thought was 100 and what the Ninja Inferno did.
The good news is that the zebras are pretty accurate (I checked at 80, 70 and 60 as well) and you can see that reflected in the scopes in these grabs in FCPX.
You can also see that Cinelike D is reducing the peak and stretching other parts of the range compared to the same exposure using the different profiles (all profiles were set to 0 for every parameter so there is more to be had from tuning but that was outside of the scope if you pardon the pun of what I was doing.
What I found interesting is how there was quite a coarse change in level between the exposure combination of ISO/SS and F stop that would trip the zebras and the closest one that wouldn't, with the level going from 100 to around 92-ish. Using a variable ND, I was able to slightly tune that between the cracks as it were to eek a bit more out but if you've got the precision to be turning an ND like that all the time then you'd be better off being a safe cracker.
So, the takeaway for me from doing this is that the zebras are accurate enough to use at 100 if you want to really expose to the right and the histogram is, erm, a yellow graphic.
Download link for the video file if anyone wants to have a look in their own NLE is here
https://mega.nz/#!ZyYCgC6R!WTM3Nz2MXfSzKtwG0hPhOBAvSqNaOq4eOnIUycnPQ3I
 

That is brilliant, great work. Would be great for a hand grip like FS7/5 but on steroids. Also the little Bluetooth joypad for gimbal work would be sweet. Can't wait 

Yes and yes.

Ooh yeah that is bad. Not as bad as I get by doing a crash zoom with a similar lens but really ugly.
You can see someone using it on a C100 mk II here but the aperture racks when he zooms. That said.... no flicker.
I wasn't considering this but given the cheap gray market availability of the lens and second hand market (since it's a kit lens for so many cameras) I might have to sell the old hvx and pick one up.
18-135mm is also the most useful range for video IMO and outdoors I don't need anything faster than f5.6 whereas my prime kit is really heavy.

"Hackine D"  today test on GX80 and Pany 20mm 1.7  , 1080/50p
By mistake Sharpness is set "0"     :-(   And it can be seen , I always set up for panasonic sharpness -5 
 

Not thus far but my work on it at least is suspended while I'm doing the hardware controller.
We've got a lead with an old version of the app that had the 'free' VLOG glitch but needs someone with a GH4 with the old firmware before Panasonic shut the door on it to try and do some exploring to see if it could be applied to the G7.
Priority list for what I'm up to is the hardware controller, followed by Cinelike D on LX100 and then after that I'll revisit VLOG if no one else has been looking at it. I don't think the extra bitrates are viable using this method.

Not thus far but my work on it at least is suspended while I'm doing the hardware controller.
We've got a lead with an old version of the app that had the 'free' VLOG glitch but needs someone with a GH4 with the old firmware before Panasonic shut the door on it to try and do some exploring to see if it could be applied to the G7.
Priority list for what I'm up to is the hardware controller, followed by Cinelike D on LX100 and then after that I'll revisit VLOG if no one else has been looking at it. I don't think the extra bitrates are viable using this method.

I have a friend who has the old FW GH4. I can see if he'd be willing to help

Not thus far but my work on it at least is suspended while I'm doing the hardware controller.
We've got a lead with an old version of the app that had the 'free' VLOG glitch but needs someone with a GH4 with the old firmware before Panasonic shut the door on it to try and do some exploring to see if it could be applied to the G7.
Priority list for what I'm up to is the hardware controller, followed by Cinelike D on LX100 and then after that I'll revisit VLOG if no one else has been looking at it. I don't think the extra bitrates are viable using this method.

I don't have a Sony camera to test it with but does their smartphone app enable manual focus or touch AF with the A7xxx cameras?
I might be able to do a version of my Panasonic wifi controller for it for gimbal use if it does.

And in today's episode of "Fun With Lumix And Gaffer Tape" we have the new LCD display module which gives you a pro SLR style top panel info for your little GX80/G7 et al.
Well, pro style if Nikon and Canon used more gaffer tape in their production process that is.
 

Its definitely smoother but its still disruptive as you've got hands on to do the turning, which sounds like it would be a big issue for the application you're talking about. Depending on the filter there is also colour shift issues to be considered but its one of those things where there are plenty of reviews online so you you should be able to find one that suffers less from this.
The version Aputure do of their Lens Regain with variable electronic ND looks like a great solution but it comes at a price at around $700.
One potential way of giving you a different solution would be for you to lock your exposure put a fixed ND on which is strong enough for the brightest zone and and then ride the ISO for those exposure changes to effectively counteract it for darker zones. Unless you go too mad, there is enough wiggle room with ISO on most cameras to tolerate that without destroying the image. It will still be stepped so not as smooth as a variable ND but at least you know you won't be getting colour shifts etc. 
I know exactly the person that could offer you a small handheld solution to do that wirelessly ....
If you look at this video from my controller yesterday, you can at least get an idea of how riding the ISO (or the aperture or shutter speed actually) would look. As I say, its stepped so nowhere near as smooth as a variable ND but its not too bad (and could be smoothed further quite easily in post). Ignore the fact its running on a gamepad type controller as that sort of function can easily just be put on a tiny controller with a few buttons on to do what you want.
 

And in today's episode of "Fun With Lumix And Gaffer Tape" we have the new LCD display module which gives you a pro SLR style top panel info for your little GX80/G7 et al.
Well, pro style if Nikon and Canon used more gaffer tape in their production process that is.
 

And in today's episode of "Fun With Lumix And Gaffer Tape" we have the new LCD display module which gives you a pro SLR style top panel info for your little GX80/G7 et al.
Well, pro style if Nikon and Canon used more gaffer tape in their production process that is.
 

Yes and yes.

And in today's episode of "Fun With Lumix And Gaffer Tape" we have the new LCD display module which gives you a pro SLR style top panel info for your little GX80/G7 et al.
Well, pro style if Nikon and Canon used more gaffer tape in their production process that is.
 

And in today's episode of "Fun With Lumix And Gaffer Tape" we have the new LCD display module which gives you a pro SLR style top panel info for your little GX80/G7 et al.
Well, pro style if Nikon and Canon used more gaffer tape in their production process that is.
 

So......
A bit of an update
I've spent the past few days redoing this from the ground up and there's been what you might call 'a bit' of progress.
The camera functions are now controlled by a gamepad, which gives a bit more scope in terms of buttons etc.
By separating out the part that does the actual talking to the camera, this means that that can be smaller for mounting and the choice of the input device is now far more flexible as it can support pretty much any USB device that can be attached to it.
In this version, the gamepad itself is wireless too so not only is it a lot neater but it can also be used to extend the overall distance of wireless control (its range to the control box is added to the range from the control box to the camera).
I can also make it support multiple devices so you could have something smaller just to do basic control (or a USB numeric keypad would be quite good for that actually) and then use a more elaborate one when needed. Or do both simultaneously if you want control of exposure and someone else to do focus etc.
Speaking of focus, this is now controlled by an analog stick so has a bit more feel to it (ignore the transitions in the video, the debug mode makes the control much coarser) with a press in the centre of the stick activating a one shot AF.  
If your camera has a powered zoom lens (hello LX100 etc) then this is controlled from the same stick by pushing forward and back. 
I believe that this will also work with those MFT lenses that support power zoom but I don't have one so I can't confirm that.
I've made a drivable AF joystick point mode which you activate by pressing in on the right hand analog stick and then using the D Pad to drive the focus point around the screen and then pressing in the stick again to action it.
There will be more focus enhancements coming.........
The shutter speed and aperture are now controlled by the shoulder buttons on the gamepad and the ISO is now also directly switchable on two buttons.
I've got a few more enhancements coming over the next few days as well so I'll keep you informed.
In the meantime, here is a video of it controlling a GX80
 

So as I've hinted more than a few times in the other thread, the discovery of the Cinelike D and other bits and pieces for the GX80 etc was actually a bit of a happy accident while I was trying to do understand the Panasonic wifi stuff for something else.
And here is that something else.
Well at least a prototype of it but it is fully functioning and will just be finessed a bit more.
Basically, its a wireless hardware remote for the G series cameras that operates over wifi and can currently control record start/stop, shutter speed as well as aperture and focus if you're using a native lens, including a single shot AF switch.
For the non-Cinelike D cameras that can now be hacked to have Cinelike D there is also a dedicated button to toggle it on and off so you don't need to mess about with browsers and computers or smartphones anymore.
Focus and aperture control are done on a joystick and everything else is switches.
I'll be putting a layer switch on so that it can be toggled back and forth to a different control mode for ISO, WB and other stuff.
As this is the prototype it is nowhere near the finished piece and it will be reduced in form factor to just be about the size of the control board. Power is by any USB source so there are billions of options.
There is a lot more finessing and feature enhancement to go on with regard to the focus control (and yes, I know exactly what you'll all want it to do !) but the hard part is done now.
It does support the display of the values on a screen and I'll be sorting some options out for that.
The purpose of this gadget is primarily for use with a gimbal but it can also be really useful on a tripod bar for anyone shooting live event stuff. For cameras with inbuilt lenses I'm going to add a zoom mode on the joystick.
A very quick very rough demo so you can see it in action.
Any lag you might see between me operating the controller and the camera video is just a sync issue between me throwing the two recordings on very quickly  
 
 

Always amazes me too.
Just looking at  numbeo.com comparing prices of goods where I live compared to Sweden and according to that I reckon me an Mattias could have a mutually beneficial arrangement if he gets gear for me there and I pay him in beer, tomatoes, oranges, petrol, Levis or men's leather business shoes.

No its actually quite simple. 
The introduction prices are pretty much same. Then prices are even a bit higher due to higher salaries but also higher sales tax (which is awesome imo, free healthcare, dental, college, etc, bla, bla, bla).
But the big issue is that mirrorless cameras aren't selling here. I mean at all. Some do. The GH4 for example has only recently dropped sub $1k.
But lower end like the G7, gx80, g80.. they can't even give them away. So they start dropping fast and have great discounts already the first week.
So if that's for new cameras, what is the guy selling used gonna do? In Sweden we always start of by calculating a minimum of 30% off on retail. And thats from day one. If you only bought the camera 10minutes earlier and only taken one single image there is no way in hell I would give you anything above 70% of retail. (In reality its two weeks because thats the return period, by law.)
And the retail stores sell just as cheap when they get tradeins. Plus they never use bogus words like "refurbished".
Honestly, Im not sure "refurbished" would be legal. The correct term they use is "used". And that lowers prices.
Btw, refurbished...common.. people treat them as new when some guy have wiped the screen and maybe done a factory reset
An exception is Canon and Nikon. They hold their value extremely well. Not their mirrorless, they are for free