BTM_Pix

When this system was announced, there was a discussion over the internal rechargeable battery not only in terms of run times but also over longevity and if it failed would that be game over for the units.
At the time, I speculated that based on the power spec quoted by Sennheiser and the shape of the units then it was likely that it was going to be a standard off the shelf battery (a 3.7V/850mAh  14500) so not only should it be possible to replace a dead battery, it shouldn't be that much of a challenge to make it swappable if you needed really long run times in the field.
So.....now that I actually have one, I thought I'd have a look.

And, yes indeed, it is a standard 3.7V/850mAh 14500 battery.
You can pick these up for less than £1 each and a charger will set you back about £5-7.
The connector to the board is also just a standard connector so if you really need the longer run times and swap out capability its pretty straightforward to fashion this yourself and have all day run times for both receiver and transmitter for under £20.
Now, where did I put that warranty form....

When this system was announced, there was a discussion over the internal rechargeable battery not only in terms of run times but also over longevity and if it failed would that be game over for the units.
At the time, I speculated that based on the power spec quoted by Sennheiser and the shape of the units then it was likely that it was going to be a standard off the shelf battery (a 3.7V/850mAh  14500) so not only should it be possible to replace a dead battery, it shouldn't be that much of a challenge to make it swappable if you needed really long run times in the field.
So.....now that I actually have one, I thought I'd have a look.

And, yes indeed, it is a standard 3.7V/850mAh 14500 battery.
You can pick these up for less than £1 each and a charger will set you back about £5-7.
The connector to the board is also just a standard connector so if you really need the longer run times and swap out capability its pretty straightforward to fashion this yourself and have all day run times for both receiver and transmitter for under £20.
Now, where did I put that warranty form....

Another potential contender for all round compact lens for the OG Pocket is this Lumix G X Vario PZ 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6.
It has two levers (one for zoom and one for focus) but in terms of smoothness I think the focus works better than the zoom but its still easy to overshoot. Like a manual version of DFD really.
The OIS is reasonable and is obviously a big advantage with the OG Pocket.
I only got this lens under sufferance to check remote zoom functionality for my controllers as it is a powered zoom and thankfully I got it really cheap because after using it in semi-anger for the first time a few days ago I am not particularly fond of it at all.
In use, I found it tricky to get focus with but the combination of it having lowish contrast so not firing the less than ideal focus peaking of the OG Pocket and monitoring on the the less than ideal OG Pocket screen and the failing eyesight of the less than ideal OG Me might well explain that so I'll have to give it another go under different circumstances.
Anyway, here are some rough, soft, low res grabs from the ProRes 422 video file and I suppose I could maybe recommend this combo if you are after less a Super 16 and more a Super 8 feel 🙂

Another year, I return with my traditional police Christmas video. This year a short film of a thief who climbs the walls dressed as Santa Claus, to camouflage himself as the popular Christmas decoration. Remember that it is a video that we make in which each roll is interpreted by policemen, not actors, and that the technical section this time is made up of some more members of the squad, where only 2 of us have audiovisual knowledge.
I hope it makes you laugh at least a small part of what we have laughed shooting it.
 
A greeting to all, and especially to Andrew.
 

Some frames from the Panasonic 12-32mm F3.5-5.6 on the OG BMPCC.
This lens is a good size appropriate option for the OG BMPCC as a general all rounder and has the additional benefit of IS.
It is pretty slow though but this has the advantage of you not really needing ND when you are in what passes for broad daylight in Copenhagen.
The big downside is that there is no manual focus so you have to rely on the one shot AF on the camera to pre-focus. 
Again, though, the small aperture is an advantage here as you generally have enough DOF to get away with the AF getting you in the ballpark.

Some frames from the Panasonic 12-32mm F3.5-5.6 on the OG BMPCC.
This lens is a good size appropriate option for the OG BMPCC as a general all rounder and has the additional benefit of IS.
It is pretty slow though but this has the advantage of you not really needing ND when you are in what passes for broad daylight in Copenhagen.
The big downside is that there is no manual focus so you have to rely on the one shot AF on the camera to pre-focus. 
Again, though, the small aperture is an advantage here as you generally have enough DOF to get away with the AF getting you in the ballpark.

Some frames from the Panasonic 12-32mm F3.5-5.6 on the OG BMPCC.
This lens is a good size appropriate option for the OG BMPCC as a general all rounder and has the additional benefit of IS.
It is pretty slow though but this has the advantage of you not really needing ND when you are in what passes for broad daylight in Copenhagen.
The big downside is that there is no manual focus so you have to rely on the one shot AF on the camera to pre-focus. 
Again, though, the small aperture is an advantage here as you generally have enough DOF to get away with the AF getting you in the ballpark.

Amongst the plethora of "Is xyz camera still worth it in 2022?" with shocked thumbnail videos on YouTube, there are a fair few with the C100 and C300 in them.
This is an interesting example of one comparing it against the known modernish entity of the P4K.
 

Today I decided to just rubber band the drive to the top of the camera... definitely not ideal but better than the L-Bracket I was using.
I must admit... it's a damn nice image. I love shooting at dusk at 3200 ISO with a VND...

After months... years of lusting over the Sigma FP, I finally found one at a price I felt comfortable with. Other than a few, short-lived, camera purchases, I haven't bought a camera, that I use regularly, in 5 and a half years... I still have a BMMCC, I bought nearly 3 years ago, sitting in a box on my shelf that I only used once to test the rig.
The FP arrived a couple days after I purchased it (big hat-tip to Used Photo Pro) and although I knew the measurements and saw plenty of photos of the camera, I was still really surprised by how tiny it is. It really isn't much bigger than a deck of cards. but out of the box, it also isn't very ergonomic, so I picked up a grip for it, and it now feels like an extension of my hand.
While I awaited its arrival, I researched lens adapter, SD cards and external drives and settled on a few that could arrive in time for the weekend. When Saturday came, I had two lens adapters (Minolta MD and Nikon F), an Angelbird 128gb card and a 1TB Sandisk Extreme SSD. I instantly chuckled at the sizes of the adapters and SSD compared to the camera and thought.... this is so dumb... why am I going to attach this huge SSD to this tiny camera ( FYI - the SSD is quite small actually but in comparison...) but I still packed it in my camera bag and found an extra L-bracket I had laying around so I could spit and glue something that resembled anything usable for my first, and possibly only, test of the FP... As some of you may know, I have been quite happy with my current camera and have felt a very little need, or want, to upgrade my camera.
When Saturday rolled around, I had my camera packed, I asked some questions to a fellow EOSHD member, and I was ready to test this miniature cinema camera. It was a gorgeous day for mid-November, so me and a friend drove to a familiar spot down the shore to see what this little thing could do.
Due to my distaste for external monitors, and tentacles of cords, my first intention was to shoot internally to the SD card, so I wanted to test the 8bit cDNG files, hoping they'd be good enough for B&W delivery or a quick downscale to 1080p. In fact, on my drive down, I convinced myself that I wasn't even going to test the external drive.
Since we got off to a late start, we quickly hit the boardwalk for some quick tests. After formatting the card and turning on the camera, I was a little shocked to see that a 128gb card, that cost more in dollars than its GB storage, only provided 10 minutes of footage. Now I already knew this, but seeing the ticking clock made me really slow down and think about what I was going to shoot. My main camera has been a 5D Mark III with Magic Lantern Raw, so I'm used to a lot of storage, but CF cards cost a bit less and provide a bit more footage than what the Sigma FP was offering...
Anyway, I walked around and took a handful of shots. With the camera strapped to my neck and Minolta 35mm 1.8 lens locked and loaded, I instantly enjoyed shooting with the FP. I had a few minutes to set the camera up the day before, so every function I needed was in a logical place for my brain and fingers...
So... the FP is a lot of fun to shoot with.
In fact, I am used to people looking at me, or stopping, when I shoot with my 5D, but the FP seemed impervious to the passersby as they went along their unseasonably warm, Saturday afternoon stroll down the busy boardwalk.
After a half hour, or so, and a trip to the bathroom (I drink a lot of coffee) we headed back to the car to hit the next spot. When we arrived, I decided to change lenses before we headed down a coastal trail. After a few shots with the Nikkor 28mm f/2 lens in 4K 8bit, I decided to give the 1080p a test. Other than an occasional slow motion shot, I'm not too interested in the 1080p from the FP... I already have a perfectly capable full frame, 1080p raw camera... but I was here and the card's storage was getting smaller and smaller... so why not? When I switched to 1080p, I gave a sigh of relief when I saw that the available storage nearly tripled. So we continued down the trail and I took a few shots...
One thing I noticed while shooting with the FP, at this point, was that although the LCD is sharp and bright, the footage didn't have any kind of discernible look. Perhaps it's the small size, or using the OFF picture profile for viewing, but with my 5D, you can really see the magic of the footage while shooting it. The Sigma did not have that. So the process didn't feel as fulfilling as it is when I shoot ML Raw with my 5D3.
But I carried on... until we quickly realized that we were surrounded by mosquitoes. I don't know if we were near a nest, or what, but we were surrounded by a swarm of these buzzing, blood sucking monsters. Apparently, nature forgot to tell them that it's mid-November in the Mid-Atlantic. Needless to say, we retreated back to the car. There was still enough daylight to hit one more spot, so we drove a couple miles down the road to the next spot.
As I was driving, I decided that I may as well test out the external drive and 12bit 4K raw. I was already here. So when we stopped, I quickly jury rigged the SSD to the L-Bracket with a zip tie and headed to the beach. With the sun in tis final descent, I decided to test out the Dual-ISO function of the FP... which is one of the reasons I've been so intrigued by the camera. I intend to shoot horror/thriller type of stuff, so the one downfall of my 5D is chroma noise in lowlight. I can push the camera to 1600 ISO, but it can get ugly very quick and you really need to push your blacks into oblivion to rid the footage of that the blocky, patch rainbow goo.
With my jury rigged SSD and the Minolta lens back on the FP, I turned on the camera and was surprised to see that it automatically changed itself to 4K 12ibit via the SSD and I was really happy to see that I had near an hour of possible footage... way more minutes of footage than daylight to shoot. But that's okay, I had ISO on my side...
TOO MUCH ISO... so I'm glad I tossed my VND into my pocket. After a few awkward screws, I was ready to see what 4K raw footage is...
Well... other than the awkward rig... the IQ in the LCD looked instantly better... but what was more surprising was how clean an image can look at 3200 ISO...
So as the sun set on the horizon, I hit record... over... and over again...
Sorry for the long post... but fast forward a couple hours and I was home. My girlfriend was taking a nap, so I quietly grabbed my laptop and uploaded the footage...
I won't bore you any further with my post details... hell... I'm still trying to figure them out, but I did manage to get a few shots in 4K raw that I didn't hate. Here are a few samples from my first outing with the FP... hopefully they don't suck too bad...
 

@hansel thanks for the reply and the caffenol info. Eventually, I'll look into it more. I am still shooting some stills and I went a little crazy with cameras, but I never spent a lot on any one camera. So far my favorites are the Nikon FM, Minolta SRT 201 and XD11, and the Yashica FX-3 Super 2000... which is just a joy to shoot with. I also have a Canon Rebel G which is kinda neat, with super fast AF. And an Olympus OM2N which is a marvel of mechanics, and a half dozen other ones... but I'll probably end up keeping only a few of them. I was going to sell almost everything and buy an FM3A, but I haven't decided yet.
I ended up shooting a dozen or so rolls before I sent any out to get processed/scanned. Here are a few of the ones that turned out okay...
 

I'll be sure to post my cack handed results on iBrokeit shortly then.

I'll be sure to post my cack handed results on iBrokeit shortly then.

Yes, its universal for all Panasonic cameras.
FZ1000 already has Cinelike D though so its of less use.
Funnily enough, the HDMI port on my FZ1000 is also fucked. 

Even though I have n* number of cameras capable of shooting 4K and above, I don't have a 4K TV let alone an 8K one.
If I was absolutely realistic about the number of people even remotely interested in watching anything that I've shot then, including myself, then my total audience is precisely one.
And on a lot of occasions, this number can actually be less than that as I'm barely interested in watching any of it myself these days either.
So, on that basis, if I was to only have cameras capable of shooting 1080p then I would have a 100% match with the display technology of my audience.
That doesn't stop me wanting all the Ks though.
 
 
 
n* - precise number redacted out of acute embarrassment regarding the extent of my addiction.

Even though I have n* number of cameras capable of shooting 4K and above, I don't have a 4K TV let alone an 8K one.
If I was absolutely realistic about the number of people even remotely interested in watching anything that I've shot then, including myself, then my total audience is precisely one.
And on a lot of occasions, this number can actually be less than that as I'm barely interested in watching any of it myself these days either.
So, on that basis, if I was to only have cameras capable of shooting 1080p then I would have a 100% match with the display technology of my audience.
That doesn't stop me wanting all the Ks though.
 
 
 
n* - precise number redacted out of acute embarrassment regarding the extent of my addiction.

Impressive Strides sounds like the name of a shop in 1960s Carnaby Street where Austin Powers would go to buy his best kecks.

Even though I have n* number of cameras capable of shooting 4K and above, I don't have a 4K TV let alone an 8K one.
If I was absolutely realistic about the number of people even remotely interested in watching anything that I've shot then, including myself, then my total audience is precisely one.
And on a lot of occasions, this number can actually be less than that as I'm barely interested in watching any of it myself these days either.
So, on that basis, if I was to only have cameras capable of shooting 1080p then I would have a 100% match with the display technology of my audience.
That doesn't stop me wanting all the Ks though.
 
 
 
n* - precise number redacted out of acute embarrassment regarding the extent of my addiction.

Nikon have launched the MC-N10, a $429 remote grip for the Z9 which really does bring a lot to the party for video shooters.
it let’s you control all aspects of the camera like ISO/Shutter/Aperture etc but also has some neat tricks for focus and zoom.
They are not making getting the Z9 any less appealing are they ?

Nikon have launched the MC-N10, a $429 remote grip for the Z9 which really does bring a lot to the party for video shooters.
it let’s you control all aspects of the camera like ISO/Shutter/Aperture etc but also has some neat tricks for focus and zoom.
They are not making getting the Z9 any less appealing are they ?

Impressive Strides sounds like the name of a shop in 1960s Carnaby Street where Austin Powers would go to buy his best kecks.

Impressive Strides sounds like the name of a shop in 1960s Carnaby Street where Austin Powers would go to buy his best kecks.

Impressive Strides sounds like the name of a shop in 1960s Carnaby Street where Austin Powers would go to buy his best kecks.

This is an interesting camera that is now on Kickstarter.
Takes Canon EF lenses and shoots Fuji Instax Mini film.
Not sure about naming it after Prince Andrew though..
 
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From my perspective of growing up as a kid in the late 60s/early 70s in the UK, the whole thing bemuses me !
It is now a fairly big deal in the UK too - although it hasn't quite become as ingrained in our national culture as changing Prime Minister every few weeks has - but it certainly wasn't the case until relatively recently.
Our halloween consisted of three elements, all of which consisted of some sort of fruit or vegetable and an element of borderline abuse.
The first was what was referred to where we lived as duck apple but was called bobbing for apples in other parts of the country.
This consisted of about a dozen or so apples being put in a bucket of water, having your hands tied behind your back and putting your head in the water to retrieve one with your mouth.
Putting your head in the water is a euphemism for one of your brothers repeatedly pushing your head in and holding it down until you'd completed the mission. Fair play to them, the skill involved in holding someone's head down in the water until just prior to the point of drowning was quite an art.
Hidden amongst the selection of apples were ones that had had a small incision made in them by my Dad to secrete a coin but the downside to this triumph was that if you managed to survive the drowning attempts to emerge with one of these prizes you then had to eat the apple to claim the coin.
These weren't your fancy dan French Golden Delicious apples, though, as these were the tartest inedible cooking apples that a 1970s UK grocer could provide so it was very much a pyrrhic victory.
The second element of the 1970s halloween in our house, retained the cooking apples and the hands tied behind the back aspect but added a new one in the form of a blindfold.
You were placed in a chair, bound and blindfolded, and you had to try and catch in your teeth whatever was swung past you on a piece of string and weren't allowed to leave the chair until you'd caught something.
The "somethings" on offer were one of the leftover apples from the previous fun and games and a bar of soap.
It was considered against the spirit of the game to not take a fulsome bite attempt at whatever wafted past so half hearted attempts were strongly discouraged using the clip around the back of the head school of correction.
In an act of unexpected generosity, all of the leftover apples were loaded with a coin this time but the same rules applied regarding eating it whereas with the soap you were at least allowed to get away with just the initial bite.
Either way, you weren't going to get away unscathed in the disgusting taste department.
We may have grown up on the shores of Liverpool Bay but with the blindfolds, hand bindings and forced water immersion techniques our house was very much more Guantanamo Bay at halloween in those days.
The final element is the one which most closely resembles the modern version of halloween in the UK, namely the carved lantern.
Now, I'm reliably informed that pumpkins were introduced into the UK in the 16th century but let me assure you that in our local shops in the 1970s you'd have been as likely to come across pheasant or quinoa as you were to encounter a pumpkin so our lantern base of choice was the turnip.
Due to its density, trying to hollow out a raw turnip and carve a face into it is something that should realistically only be attempted with the aid of power tools.
The potential dangers offered by us using the one sharp knife we owned and its main role (carving the Sunday roast) being a protected occupation meant that we had to make do with regular table knives and a spoon.
The process could be measured in days rather than hours which, combined with the rudimentary tools on offer, would inevitably lead to the adoption of the "fuck it, that will have to do" approach to fit and finish that is evident in this typical effort from the period.

As for interior illumination of the lantern, again, if tealight candles were available in the UK at that time they certainly weren't available in our local shops so it was the workmanlike though more inherently dangerous standard candle that had to be put in them.
As these never fit properly into whatever mounting hole that could be fashioned with a spoon, they would inevitably fall over and the smell of burning turnip was a constant in the atmosphere of the UK for the last week of October. Or every Sunday with my mother's propensity to burn the Sunday dinner.
The nadir of the grim lantern years was 1973 when we didn't even have the candles as there was a shortage of them as people prepared for the power cuts of the impending three day week where frivolity of using candles for turnip illumination gave way to having to use them for illuminating offices as seen here.

As regards, scary halloween movies, we didn't have any that come to mind but, truth be told, we were pretty much living in one anyway!
Things are very different now and it does appear to be on its way to being on a par with what happens in the US but for my era it was completely overshadowed by Bonfire Night a few days later.
Bonfire Night in the 70s took the danger levels of halloween to another level but as it was in honour of chaotic and ultimately doomed plots at the Palace of Westminster then it was actually very much on brand for the modern day life in the UK.