Robert Collins

8 minutes ago, Trek of Joy said:

Check your settings, in MF or DMF mode mine magnifies when I turn the focus ring to the first zoom stage, then I hit the magnify button for more zoom.

Chris

I think that is just for stills. I dont even think they have DMF in video mode.

@jonpais 1. Well you could put focus magnify on a custom function button. 2. I am willing to bet (never used the Sony FE 85 1.8) that you will get better stabilization with the Batis 85 (my favorite video lens) because of the built in OIS - it still wont be up to Panasonic though.

9 minutes ago, mercer said:

I hope Canon doesn’t make the same mistake as Nikon and introduce a new mount on their FF mirrorless. Or if they do, maybe they’ll introduce a new and improved FD Mount.

Purely speculating. But I think it is very likely that Canon will put FF in its existing EF-M for APSC. The throat diameter of EF-M is 47mm which is wider than Sony E mount. This would also give an (ongoing) upgrade path from APSC to FF for mirrorless buyers.

2 minutes ago, mercer said:

I still believe the problem with the Tweets wasn’t even the subject matter as much as they weren’t funny at all. There have been plenty of jokes about molestation regarding the Catholic Church and Michael Jackson... a lot of which were humorous on a removed level. Gunn’s jokes weren’t funny, even in form, but more importantly because he chose to play the role of the molester. When you take the two ingredients... unfunny joke in the first person... he just should have known better.

With that being said, I still think he had the right to make the jokes, but he also had to deal with the consequences of the jokes. How old they were or how many times he apologized is irrelevant if Disney decided they didn’t want him to be an ambassador of their brand.

The question becomes, would the chorus of support be the same if made a joke about black people with the voracity he did with the pedophile jokes? Or what if he made first person jokes about raping women? Would Selma Blair and the other members of the #mettoo movement be okay with it then?

I dont agree with the first point at all - in fact I havent bothered reading his 'jokes' because whether they are funny or not I think is irrelevant. And I definitely dont think you should sack a film director because his jokes arent funny.

The second point is far more salient. What it comes down to is this.  There are many things we say to our friends - call it pub talk - which can be enjoyed between us because we are friends and we know each other. But it is ill-advised/stupid/problematic to transfer your 'pub talk' to the internet because it is both bound to be taken out of context and likely to cause offense.

Afterall, there are some things that you say to your mates that you dont say to your grandmother. And if your response to that is 'not really, you dont know my grandmother' - I would say 'exactly'.

1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

Clearly this topic is too edgy for some people.

Personally I find it interesting.

The culture and politics around it are interesting.

I have also learnt that compared to the UK and Europe, the US in 2018 is a very politically correct and conservative society with easy to offend sensibilities. Feels like Victorian England out there! What's up with you guys? Lighten up!

I think this a good point. Brits have a very dry sense of humor and they also consider that 'jokes about pedos sort of makes you a pedo' a very strange and false equivalence.

But it is dangerous territory. I have just been watching Sacha Baron Cohen's 'who is America?' and I laughed so much it bought tears to my eyes. Others, however, think he should be thrown out of the US and are threatening to cancel their Showtime subscription.

So I also feel that Disney is perfectly entitled to sack Gunn if he is damaging their brand. Take Ricky Gervais - who used to insult the audience at the Emmies - even he would say 'well if they find it offensive, they wont invite me back, will they?'

19 minutes ago, jonpais said:

I just discovered being able to punch in focus while recording and it’s awesome!

Are you doing something like this?

I have always thought that Twitter was a very bad idea.

I mean taking the first thought that comes into your head, immortalizing it on the internet where it can be taken out of context by random strangers, is virtually guaranteed to end badly at some point or another..... 

34 minutes ago, kye said:

What about if you want performance while in the studio but also need to retain portability?

For example for those who shoot travel films and will need something to do media management and the odd quick edit in the field, but who will return to the studio and will want more power.  Your solution proposes to have two computers, which is the least economical of all.

I've raised this point before, and it's not specifically aimed at you Robert, but there's a pretty significant undercurrent of "if you want high quality you have to shoot the way the pros shoot with a huge camera and shot lists and studio editing suites" or "if you want portability then you obviously don't care about quality - go and buy a camcorder and stop pretending to be a real film-maker" on these and other forums, and it's basically discrimination against the new types of film-making that technology is now enabling.

Forgetting the rant at the end there (which may make a lot of sense) but is a totally different subject.

I fundamentally disagree (in most cases) with the point I have highlighted in bold.

Generally speaking, video editors 'want' as much power as possible to 'render' video. And 'as much power as possible' (as well as quite a lot of disk space) is the complete antithesis of 'small light and portable'' in every sense - battery life, sound, efficient use of cpu/gpu etc.... So what you end up with imho is a massive compromise on both usually at a very large expense. Your laptop isnt very powerful or if it is, it isnt very portable. You can add an egpu, docking station, decent display and laptop fan but all you really end up with is a feeble desktop with no portability.

So if you look at all the add-ons for a Macbook Pro, they really appear to me to be trying to recreate a 'desktop replacement' in a 'minute form factor' and that is almost certainly a concept for an extremely 'expensive' solution to the underlying problem. It might be the right one for some people but I doubt it is for most. I would guess for most people who split there time from needing 'portability' and 'power' - actually two computers makes a lot of sense. 

31 minutes ago, kye said:

I'm surprised that no-one has made a cooler for the MBP.  Considering that these computers use the case as a heatsink, all you would have to do is make a platform to put it on that gets a good thermal couple to the bottom and then have some way of getting rid of that heat elsewhere.

Things like these would have some effect:

but even something like a larger aluminium heatsink would probably get a better thermocouple, especially if you shaped it to fit snugly, and then you could have a much larger surface area underneath that with fans.

This might seem a bit ridiculous, but eGPUs only make commercial sense because they improve the speed of your computer, which lessening the thermal throttling will also do, and installing some fans and a heatsink is a lot cheaper than having an entire device with a video card in it!

I'm not sure I agree. By the time you have bought your fan, external egpu and desktop monitor to recreate a fairly feeble desktop, you should realize that what you probably need is an iMac (pro). And if you need to save money and want to remain portable just get a fairly basic Macbook Pro 13.

I used to use M43 which has a relatively small sensor. I found I was spending more and more on heavier, faster lenses that eventually I realized what I actually wanted was a bigger sensor.

A pretty strong comeback to the i9gate issue...

On 7/19/2018 at 6:52 PM, BTM_Pix said:

I think BM will do well with ths box.

 

It certainly seems a popular product with youtube vloggers.....

On 7/19/2018 at 10:16 AM, jonpais said:

Not only is the grip too short, but it’s also too close to the lens mount: so with many of Sony’s lenses, my fingers are sort of squished between the grip and the lens. 

I agree with you about the lens mount (but at least they put the lens release button on the right side.)

Not so much about the grip being too short. Yes, I hear where you are coming from - you are used to a DSLR where your 'pinkie' fits on the grip and that feels comfortable - so it doesnt feel comfortable when it doesnt.

However, I have a different experience. I have never owned a DSLR - only mirrorless - so I am used to having my pinkie under the camera. If I pick up a DSLR or even use the battery grip, it feels uncomfortable/klunky to me.

But I would guess that Nikon will design their mirrorless to suit DSLR/ex-DSLR users and go with a longer grip. In fact, I suspect they will go pretty retro and their mirrorless will look something like a FF Fuji....

53 minutes ago, DBounce said:

Well I’ve had more time to play with the eGPU and.. I’m not sure it has anything to do with the perceived performance gains. I think it’s not that the RawLite files require a lot of computation power, but rather just a lot of bandwidth to read them quickly enough for smooth playback. 

Yesterday I moved some footage over to my built in drive which can read at 2000/MBs and had no playback issues at all. Also no performance difference with eGPU connected or unplugged.

I now believe the 2016 MBP 15” is fast enough to handle playing back these files... provided you have a fast storage solution. 

Rendering may be another matter, but honestly I never had an issue with rendering.

Ok so here is what I dont get about this.... (BTW I understand that 2000/MBs disks are great for operating system start ups.)

So, say my Sony records at 100Mb/s which is 12MB/s and my Mavic Pro records at 60Mb/s which is 8 MB/s. I can download RED 4k Raw which will be 20MB/s and 160Mb/s.

So what essentially use is a 2000/MBs hard disk in terms of read or write speeds for video?

And I know I sound a bit of a whinger. But essentially I am in the 'dont mind spending money camp' as long as I get 'decent performance gains'.

And I just feel there is a bunch of smokes and mirrors trying to sell us i9s in wafer thin laptops, egpus because we have wafer thin laptops, thermal throttling, thunderbolt 3, Titan Vs, fast ram etc without a whole of evidence it does a lot of good - and if it does what?

And really I dont think everything should be setup in a way that you need a degree in particle physics to work out what you should buy.

On 7/17/2018 at 3:13 AM, DBounce said:

Yes indeed, I plan to get a maxed out 15” once they are in stock at BH.

Looks like the i9 is to be avoided....

1 hour ago, cantsin said:

...and that makes the numbers worthless (sorry). Olympus is primarily a medical imaging company (holding, among others, 70% of the world's endoscope market), and these products have a high margin. For sure, their consumer products don't make these profits.  

....Or you could at least look it up....

5 hours ago, jonpais said:

I wonder what it really cost to design and manufacture the camera. ?

Well here are a few numbers.....

What does it cost to manufacture a camera?

So here are Olympus's financials (admittedly for the whole company)

Note that their gross margin is 'massively' high at 65%. Historically they used to breakout the gross margin for their cameras which was around 50%. To put that in perspective Apple's (a company that gets away with charging a lot for stuff) chugs along at around 38%.

So manufacturing cameras - especially mirrorless which is just a bunch of chips on a motherboard - doesnt cost a lot (Nikon and Canon's gross margins are lower.) However, SG&A expenses are also incredibly high - these are largely fixed costs and so if you dont sell much they end up as high (Nikon and Canon's are a lot lower as a percentage.)

When it comes to R&D, Olympus reports for 'imaging'....

4bn yen (US$40m) which is around 6% of revenues (and Japanese Cos overstate R&D for taxation purposes.) And even US$40m isnt a lot...

So if you take the Panasonic GH5s, I dont think there is a whole lot of cost or R&D. The sensor is made by Sony (and by most accounts) is an off the shelf security camera (Starvis) sensor. The shutter will be made by Nidec Copal, the EVF most probably by Epson etc... etc...

2 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

Doesn't make much sense to be honest. Like I said in a thread Red sold the Red Rocket video card thingy just to do it on a PC! Kind of hard to believe. It would be a ball buster today to do it. No info in that link I see.

Actually I dont think this is true. I just downloaded some 4k REDcode RAW applied a bunch of color grading in Premiere and rendered it out. (As an aside, wow it is great fun to color grade with raw footage.)

But the footage with edits played back flawlessly in Premiere. It also rendered out in real time - essentially 20 seconds in 20 seconds. That is at least 5 times faster than my Mavic Pro 4k footage.

The problem a lot of us face is that we are dealing with heavily compressed codecs which massively slows down our video editing...

34 minutes ago, jonpais said:

 

So a decidedly mixed bag in terms of performance. Not particularly surprising as an egpu provides a mixed bag of results on the Windows side too.

Of course we are bound to see a lot of evidence about how Blackmagic's egpu improves performance in Resolve in a 13 inch Mac Book Pro which doesnt have a dedicated GPU.

But as Resolve actually needs a GPU to meet its system requirement all you are really seeing is how badly Resolve works without a dedicated GPU.

10 hours ago, jonpais said:

That makes sense.

 

It will be interesting to see his test results.

One thing to note. Davinci Resolve is the only NLE (that I know of) that includes having a GPU (with 4GB memory) in their system requirement. Premiere and FCPX say a GPU is optional.

My assumption would be that if you write a program that doesnt require a GPU, it is unlikely to be optimized for use with a GPU.

2 minutes ago, jonpais said:

So you're saying that if you installed a Titan V 12GB, there would be a performance increase in Resolve, but not Final Cut, is that correct?

Broadly what I am saying is this. CPUs and GPUs do fundamentally different things. GPUs have a lot of cores operating in parallel and are good at essentially solving a single equation very fast - so graphics in games and bitcoin mining. CPUs are designed to resolve multiple equations at the same time, such as running an operating system.

In general, NLEs are likely to be CPU constrained (by that I mean if your CPU is running at 100% and your GPU is running at 80%, putting in a 4x more powerful GPU will not help performance as it will simply run at 20%.)

So to the extent that all NLE's are generally CPU constrained, I think that Resolve probably makes best use out of the GPU. In other words a higher end GPU might have a greater impact in Resolve rather than FCPx.

You can go here if you want a lot of detailed analysis of this

 https://www.pugetsystems.com/

But the simple point is that NLEs are largely CPU constrained so 'more powerful' GPUs dont add much performance beyond a certain point.

8 minutes ago, jonpais said:

No, I understand the GPUs in Apple’s computers aren’t the best. I’m just asking about the NLEs themselves. Sry if that wasn’t clear.

And I am arguing that you are looking at the problem back to front. The 'reason' Apple computers dont use 'better GPUs' is because NLEs are not capable of taking advantage of them.

They make efficient use of what they have got but if they had more, they wouldnt.

(Case in point if I moved from a US$700 1080 to a US$3500 Titan V 12gb gpu, for Premiere on a PC there would be virtually no performance advantage.)

54 minutes ago, jonpais said:

Not contradicting you, but is there a link to provide evidence of this? I was under the impression that Final Cut makes very efficient use of the GPUs Apple’s computers come installed with... Thanks.

You maybe looking at the problem backwards. Apple computers may make fairly efficient use of GPUs with FCPX but, in general, they dont have very powerful GPUs to start with. So a US$4000 iMac has a US$250 Radeon 580 GPU. Probably the same reason that the Blackmagic eGPU doesnt include a more powerful GPU.

On 7/12/2018 at 4:06 PM, heart0less said:

A lot has been said about alleged stuttering and jerkiness in videos on pages ~20.

Can some happy owners of the a7 III either confirm or deny these issues?

 

How do you like the video features? 

You need to bare in mind that I am more a photographer and have only attempted video in the last year. To me this video shows a lot of the A7riii (which is almost identical to the A7iii) features.....

1) Handheld video at 85mm 1.8 is a breeze

2) Video af is pretty good (note it wasnt distracted by the bright light.)

3) I dont know what the iso was but it was decently high (say 3200) and the video looks very clean to me

4) The internal mics sound pretty good to me (apologies to sound experts.)

5) Straight out of camera colors look decent to me

6) You, of course, have the full frame look...

9 hours ago, kye said:

I'm waiting for the support for multiple eGPUs to take off, and then it won't matter what the computer is because you'll be plugging in 4 or 6 of them and having a real-time render farm.  Resolve should be well suited for this as I hear it's more reliant on GPU than CPU, and if they're partnering with Apple that might give them access to the MacOS bits that might need to change there too.  Plus, the ability to sell multiple eGPUs to each person would be a huge deal.

I doubt the industry is going to go in the direction of multiple external GPUs for either gaming or video editing.

I find my 8 core 145 watt cpu is the constraint on my pc rather than the Nvidia 1080 so I seriously doubt we will get to the stage that mobile CPUs are not constrained with multiple gpus. (I am admittedly using Premiere with a compressed codec.)

BUT if you go here.....

https://www.pugetsystems.com/

...you will find a lot of testing and a lot of hardware recommendations. In general, they dont recommend multiple gpus (these days) even with desktop cpus.

In general software developers dont have any real incentive to produce software optimized for multiple gpus because they are a very small demographic....

13 hours ago, IronFilm said:

6. Not everyone has unlimited mobile data to view videos, but they've got enough to read text. 

Yep, this is a sort of pet hate of mine. Edelkrone, for instance, only offer product manuals in video form not in text. And I can pretty much bet when I have a problem it is always somewhere with very limited internet.