UncleBobsPhotography

I have had this lens now for about 3 weeks, shot a few different types of scenes, and am really impressed with quality and over all ease of use. Canon's VR utility renders/converts the video and pictures much faster than I thought it would. Though some of you old guys (yeah I'm 51, bite me) are sounding like my grandfather did when TV's showed up on the scene...."nobody's gonna waste time with that thing" or "What kind of idiot just sits on the couch and looks into a box?".... well between Facebook (Meta), Microsoft, and Disney there are literally billions of dollar getting dumped into this format because it is clear to them, and me, that in the next 3-5 years damn near half the people you know will have some form of VR gear in their family or household. It really is incredible if you let yourself actually consider the ramifications. I took my first picture in a family party setting, a few days ago I took my Oculus over there to share those clips and pics and literally everyone was amazed to be "in" that party again, seeing everything exactly as it was like you're standing in that spot again. In fact my uncle, the oldest person there, was the one to point out how absolutely amazing it would be to be standing in his childhood home again, looking at his brothers and sisters and seeing it all again "like time traveling to the past" is what he said. I don't think many people are recognizing this aspect of VR yet, but it's going to be huge. I've already had my first wedding party request a VR shoot, I might make this the focus of my future photography business. 
 

I've got the lens, but just received it last week so haven't had time to edit anything from it yet.
A few notes:
- the lens is much smaller than I first thought it would be. I take this as a plus as it's very easy to bring with me.
- the R5 firmware actually has quite a lot of features specifically for this lens. You get the framing for each eye, and instead of a box, it's rounded, accounting for the fisheyedness. When you zoom in you'll zoom in on a single eye and use the "Info" button to switch between the eyes. The eyes are also labeled "R" and "L" on the screen, with R being to the left and L to the right because of how lenses flips everything.
- the manual focus is smooth and seems quite easy to work with with the manual focus assist. Some zooming in to make sure it hits is of course still useful
- because of the bulging front elements, it feels like it's very easy to scratch the lens. I never use lens caps for my lenses (just permanent lens hoods), but with this lens I am hesitant to let anyone else touch it without the lens cap on as I feel it's a gamble if it will be handed back to me without fingerprints on the lens.
If anyone has any specific questions/things I should test with it, feel free to let me know

I don't think there is any removable frame. You simply cut out a piece of ND gel and slide it in. There is a small track to stop it from falling out, and since the exit pupils are rather small, the gel will cover them even if your cutting is not very accurate. The solution is a bit crude, but I don't see why it wouldn't work as long as you've got high quality gels.
That was definitely one of the first adopters, but VR has grown quite a lot in the real estate industry. I've got clients using it for visualizing unbuilt homes and for visualizing outdoor city-scapes. Admittedly, most of this is based on renderings. VR videos are mostly used for placing new objects into the scene as a substitute for AR.
One of my clients has even got a large 3D 180 CAVE so that you can use cinema style 3D glasses instead of VR glasses. I haven't figured out how to run VR videos on it yet though. So far it's only for renders.

I've got the lens, but just received it last week so haven't had time to edit anything from it yet.
A few notes:
- the lens is much smaller than I first thought it would be. I take this as a plus as it's very easy to bring with me.
- the R5 firmware actually has quite a lot of features specifically for this lens. You get the framing for each eye, and instead of a box, it's rounded, accounting for the fisheyedness. When you zoom in you'll zoom in on a single eye and use the "Info" button to switch between the eyes. The eyes are also labeled "R" and "L" on the screen, with R being to the left and L to the right because of how lenses flips everything.
- the manual focus is smooth and seems quite easy to work with with the manual focus assist. Some zooming in to make sure it hits is of course still useful
- because of the bulging front elements, it feels like it's very easy to scratch the lens. I never use lens caps for my lenses (just permanent lens hoods), but with this lens I am hesitant to let anyone else touch it without the lens cap on as I feel it's a gamble if it will be handed back to me without fingerprints on the lens.
If anyone has any specific questions/things I should test with it, feel free to let me know

I've got the lens, but just received it last week so haven't had time to edit anything from it yet.
A few notes:
- the lens is much smaller than I first thought it would be. I take this as a plus as it's very easy to bring with me.
- the R5 firmware actually has quite a lot of features specifically for this lens. You get the framing for each eye, and instead of a box, it's rounded, accounting for the fisheyedness. When you zoom in you'll zoom in on a single eye and use the "Info" button to switch between the eyes. The eyes are also labeled "R" and "L" on the screen, with R being to the left and L to the right because of how lenses flips everything.
- the manual focus is smooth and seems quite easy to work with with the manual focus assist. Some zooming in to make sure it hits is of course still useful
- because of the bulging front elements, it feels like it's very easy to scratch the lens. I never use lens caps for my lenses (just permanent lens hoods), but with this lens I am hesitant to let anyone else touch it without the lens cap on as I feel it's a gamble if it will be handed back to me without fingerprints on the lens.
If anyone has any specific questions/things I should test with it, feel free to let me know

Well since I will Never ever use those silly ass googles I guess I never will, I will just see things in a different perceptive using a 21mm lens from my normal 45mm ish view from my eyes. 
 Not really into looking like a total MTV Jackass wearing a headset like you will need. But young people do dumb shit.

If they wanted to do the test a bit more seriously, they should have at least tried to find lenses with the same design for the different formats. Finding a Double-Gauss design lens with a similar angle of view for all formats shouldn't be too hard.

A bit of a thread resurrection, but I don't mind. I'm actually doing these lessons these days as well. I learned Premiere by trying and failing and really wish Adobe provided something similar back then. It's easy to miss some key feature when learning a tool by oneself.

I should preface this by saying that most of my experience with medium and large format cameras are from analog cameras. I don't own any medium format digital cameras, but I've got 4 medium format analog cameras and 2 large format.
More surface area makes it easier to put in more/better electronics than on a smaller surface area. If it can be explained it isn't magical?
Lenses are perhaps even more important than the sensor, and adapting a lens to a smaller format than it's intended to will cripple its potential. This combined with the point above is the advange of larger formats.
I guess this discussion is the one I dislike the most. The light gathering mostly comes from the lens. My fastest 6x9 lens is a Schneider-Kreuznach Xenar 105mm 3.5. My Canon f/1.2 lenses gathers more light on a full frame sensor than any of my 6x9 lenses. However, I don't really care as both of them gathers enough light for my uses.
My Kodak Ektar 152mm f/4.5 might challenge my Canon glass... if I only had a digital back for it.
And now to the admission that you might be right. Every time I've taken photos with my GH5, I've been disappointed with the look. It's hard to explain why, but the photos simply looks boring compared with my full-frame photos. It's almost like the magic is missing. Maybe my full-frame cameras would feel the same if I owned a medium format digital.

I find sensor format discussion to be the least fruitfull discussion in the video/photo community.
But I'll join it anyway with my opinion:
- There isn't anything magical about any certain sensor sizes
- "Full-frame" is the best choice in most situation simply because it's the most adopted format with a large selection og good lens and up-to-date image sensor and focusing technology
- I enjoy shooting 6x9 and 4x5, but 4x5 is too impractical for everyday use
 

This is why if something has a micro-hdmi port treat it like it doesn’t have hdmi out. That port is so flimsy and shitty and it is directly mounted to the main board on the R5.

CVP shows that the dual iso also occurs in the R5. Strangely, the R5c has noticeable more chroma noise. Maybe they didn’t black balance.

Dual ISO is confirmed in the menus and several people show it on Youtube.

A bit of a thread resurrection, but I don't mind. I'm actually doing these lessons these days as well. I learned Premiere by trying and failing and really wish Adobe provided something similar back then. It's easy to miss some key feature when learning a tool by oneself.

LED panels are generally not soft enough by themselves, but an LED panel with a 4x4 diffusion frame will be softer and quieter than a COB/fresnel with the same output.
A COB light which interchangable fresnel and softbox gives you as much flexibility as possible. I've got a couple of COBs/fresnels and a couple of panels and both have their prefered use cases.
It's also worth noting that not all fresnels have the same focusability. Old-school fresnels typically have a larger lens and larger minumin focus area than specialized COB fresnels that can focus very tightly. Some fresnels will also lose more light than others. A bowens mount attachment fresnel might not be as effective as an all-in-one COB and lens since there is more space and the lens has to handle more than one lightsource.
 

I like fresnels, they are in my opinion the most flexible type of lighting. However, if you want soft light, an LED panel will usually be more quiet and softer. You can do some nice bounce lighting with fresnels which are impossible with LED panels. Pointing it at a white ceiling or white wall basically produces a light source anywhere, even if it's rather far away. Fresnels are also much better at making hard light. For learning how light properly and to be able to experiment with light, nothing really beats a fresnel light.
Conclusion: fresnels are a lot of fun

I like fresnels, they are in my opinion the most flexible type of lighting. However, if you want soft light, an LED panel will usually be more quiet and softer. You can do some nice bounce lighting with fresnels which are impossible with LED panels. Pointing it at a white ceiling or white wall basically produces a light source anywhere, even if it's rather far away. Fresnels are also much better at making hard light. For learning how light properly and to be able to experiment with light, nothing really beats a fresnel light.
Conclusion: fresnels are a lot of fun

This is a great comment. I prefer to do the first type of shooting, and when the goal is to get the best photos without caring about documenting the event, I will almost always chose a 50mm prime. From my experience, my photos simply turn out better with a 50mm than a 35mm or zoom, but I have to admit that a 35mm is considerably more versatile and a zoom even more so. When it comes to video, the argument becomes even more important.

Some posts back I made the comment that people only share the images that look good, or situations that paint them in the best possible light.  I got a little bit of that from those two videos.
The first video was a guy standing next to a volleyball court on one side of the net and taking shots that are all within the width of a volleyball court.  This is great, and if you're only ever going to be shooting full-height or mid-shots of people playing volleyball then that video shows it's all good.  
However, if you will ever:
shoot something other than volleyball shoot something other than those compositions (full or mid shots) stand anywhere other than right next to the court Then the video doesn't really cover what happens then.  You might find that this guy went out and shot 2000 images that were all terrible for a variety of reasons, but managed to scrape together a dozen or so nice images and then tell a story of success in order to make himself appear like a pro, get paid work, drive people to subscribe, or use his affiliate link (or whatever motivation he has).  Sadly, these things happen and it pays to be skeptical.
The other guy took some nice shots, but think of all the other compositions he could have taken.  
I don't know about your role in shooting, but there are two kinds of shooting situations.  The first is where you shoot what you shoot and you get what you get and you enjoy that.  The second is that you must capture what happens.  I would imagine that if you're shooting sports in any systematic way, then each player will want a selection of shots of them doing cool things, and it's not acceptable to deliver spectacular shots of some players and crappy shots of other players, regardless of where they were standing.  Nice shallow DOF looks great, but if it comes at the expense of the composition or coverage you get of the other players, or that great moment that happened, then it's too high a price to pay.
Renting is a great way to get quick feedback, but don't rent the good ones.  If you rent a 24-70/2.8 and 70-200/2.8, take them and use them, then you'll get great results but probably won't have learned anything.  Only by actually shooting with limitations will you understand what impacts that limitation has, what options you have to overcome it, and if you can live with that.
Every equipment purchase I have made has been based upon trying to go without, trying a lesser solution, trying a workaround, and only buying the expensive things when I tried to shoot real projects with lesser equipment.  

@herein2020 raises an excellent point about shooting with a potential crop mode in your camera to gain a new focal length.  Does the R6 have such a mode?
In terms of the wide end, how experienced are you with using a 24mm prime?  The reason I ask is that 24mm has a certain look that you would effectively be stuck with unless you changed to the 70-200 which is much much longer and huge and conspicuous.  If you've filmed many different events with just a 24mm then you'll know what you're getting into and that's fine, but I'd be cautious about that.
In my own personal work I use a 35mm equivalent lens as the default walk-around one on the camera, which combined with a 2X digital zoom feature (which doesn't lose resolution or quality) gives pretty good flexibility, and I don't have to change lenses much.  However, I also carry a 15mm equivalent for landscapes/vistas/interiors, and an 85mm equivalent for portraits and details, which suits the travel work that I normally do.
I'd suggest that keeping your options open on the wide end might be a good idea, for example leaving enough budget to add a 35mm or 50mm prime later on if you find that the 24mm is too wide.  Certainly, I find it too wide for people shots because as soon as you want a shot tighter than a mid-shot and step forward to reframe then the width of the lens starts dominating the image.
Have you filmed entire events on your phone?  it's an easy way to trial having a single 24mm (or 28mm) prime.
Considering the price difference between a 70-200/2.8 and 70-200/4 I'd suggest @SRV1981 confirms that the extra stop is required under the typical lighting.  I'd make sure to include tests about raising the ISO and using noise-reduction in post too, which can have more of an impact than you'd think.  
This is actually a really significant point - cinema cameras are often very noisy, even at their base ISO, and professional colourists often have NR as their first node in the colour correction.  It's regarded as normal and a base-level skill in post for professional cinema and TV, yet amateurs act like noise will escape from their images and kill their family, so seem to spend thousands of dollars buying cameras that can see in the dark and lenses that look like mechanical owls, and cart around huge cases of equipment in order to avoid the slightest noise which could be eliminated in post for free in 2 minutes.
Dropping a stop on the zoom, would save a huge amount of money and free up more funds for more compact primes at the wider end.  It's definitely worth confirming that you *really* need that 2.8 aperture.

If you don't have any EF lenses I would go straight to RF, they are better after all. Not just in sharpness, but also autofocus and stabilization.
The 24-70 2.8 is of course a safe but fairly expensive choice.
The non-L primes is a good option if you've got a smaller budget.
The 24-105 4.0 is half the price of the 24-70 and is also sharp.
There isn't really any right or wrong choice among the RF lenses, it depends more on your shooting style.
 

If you don't have any EF lenses I would go straight to RF, they are better after all. Not just in sharpness, but also autofocus and stabilization.
The 24-70 2.8 is of course a safe but fairly expensive choice.
The non-L primes is a good option if you've got a smaller budget.
The 24-105 4.0 is half the price of the 24-70 and is also sharp.
There isn't really any right or wrong choice among the RF lenses, it depends more on your shooting style.
 

I think this is great news. The more we can do with generic devices like smartphones that can run 3rd party software, the more creative options open up to us. Some purists are married to using large sensors to get "real" depth of field control, but I say that once it can be simulated to the point of not being able to tell the difference, we'll all be free to use smaller, lighter gear with fewer expensive accessories. Will this camera be indistinguishable from a full frame camera with a 50mm f1.4? Probably not--but it's getting excitingly close!
I'm not an Apple user as I don't like their closed ecosystem, but good for them for pushing a little farther into pro imaging quality with iphones.
 
Yeah since apparently it's physically impossible to make a ProRes encoder that is smaller than a Ninja V.

It's not possible to get the GoPro7 frame-locked like the earlier GoPro. With 60fps i didn't really have any problems with time difference between the cameras, but I have mostly used it for next to static shots.

Cool 3d photos. It worked fine to watch them with google cardboard by zooming a bit.
I've found a Viewmaster Personal Stereo from my grandfather's collection. It uses a crop of 135 film and you take photos in both directions (first like normal and then when you rewind). However, I haven't found a single photo or film-strip from it, so I doubt my grandfather ever got it to work properly. I haven't dared loading a film in it since I've had some problems with the mechanism to change direction.
I've also been experimenting a bit with different analog cameras lately, small format, medium format and large format, and I've come to like shooting 120 film the most. It is not such a pain as shooting large format yet gives me a larger format and different experience than what I get digitally. I've had the most success with the 6x6 Rolleiflex, but I've got a few 6x9 cameras as well which I should use more.