kye

10 hours ago, CyclingBen said:

I had success using florescent lights going straight into the lens and putting some aluminum foil on the other side of the lens to reflect the UV back up through the rear element to remove some light fungus from the inside of a Super Tak,  

I also opened up and cleaned a Rokkor lens that had significant fungus with rubbing alcohol, a week long light treatment and then opening it back up to clean up the dried fungus.

The owner of the camera shop in my town recommended using this cleaner https://www.amazon.com/CleanSmart-Toy-Disinfectant-Spray-Bacteria/dp/B011ANDC78 which is normally used to clean kids toys.  I haven't tried it yet, but he's restored hundreds of lenses.

Interesting.  

That stuff looks promising - 'kills fungus' 'leaves no chemical residue' seems to be hitting the right points.  I liked the idea from the tutorial I liked earlier of running things under water then blowing the droplets off with a blower.  I'd be inclined to do a rinse cycle in distilled water so that on the chance that any droplets are left they would evaporate without leaving anything behind.

Do you know how your camera shop friend cleans the lenses?  Does he spray that stuff onto the lenses and wait, or does he just get in there and rub?  When using the chemicals method they say you have to wait until the fungus gets rinsed off under running water, and not to scrub it because you might scratch the lens.  That makes sense I guess as the fungus might have sharp bits in there, so with the toy disinfectant I wonder if it dissolves the fungus if left to soak?

7 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

Well if a person has the tools there are some amazing values around for old lenses infected by fungus. Like you I have no clue how many are really salvageable?

No idea.  I've read that you want the fungus to be smaller (as they're less old and won't have eaten into the glass as much) and around the edges in preference to in the middle, and towards the front in preference to the back.  

So basically everything opposite to the one I have!  I would imagine there are some people quietly beavering away buying the lenses they know are saleable, serviceable, and putting them back on sale.  I'd imagine this would be the same for adapting lenses and other niche things.  

If you look through the listings for a popular lens on ebay you'll notice that every so often one of them will have 10 people watching it, when the lenses either side of basically identical price will have no attention at all.  I look through listings like this trying to work out why some get attention, and is there something that other people know that I don't, like is it a different version or whatever.  One thing that always gets attention is a PL mount, sometimes it's converted mount but other times it's just a lens with an adapter, but the people searching for "lens PL mount" won't know there are heaps of them and will only choose from those search results.

9 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

I think most lens coating are on the outside of the front lens element. Not many have coatings inside the body. But yeah it is possible severe fungus could etch right into the glass permanently.

That's the impression I get too.  I figure that if it has etched into the glass then the light that hits that point will get scattered randomly and I'll just get a bit less contrast, and maybe a dark spot?  It looks like it's further back in the lens, which I understand is more in-focus than spots on the front of the lens.

35 minutes ago, mercer said:

Although fungus can be contained and cleaned from lens elements, the main issue to consider is what damage has the fungus already done to the lens coatings?

I’ve recently purchased a couple lenses that could use a CLA but I’d rather have them professionally done. But if you find some lenses at a cheap price, no harm at giving it a go. Just be very meticulous when you take the lenses apart, these lenses aren’t as simple as they look and the springs alone can cause you a major headache when trying to reassemble.

With that being said, I look forward to your hearing about your progress. Have you come across and good storage solutions for lenses... dry boxes?

Yeah, the lenses might already be toast, but who knows.  It's fun trying, right?

Dry boxes is the general concept I think.  Anything that protects them from dust and you can keep humidity out of is fine.  I'm thinking some kind of translucent container like a lunch box or small organiser should be fine, but I haven't done the research yet so maybe there's a piece missing from my knowledge as yet.

3 hours ago, thephoenix said:

are you sure about the pin for the 44-4, i have a 44-4 myself and there is the pin and no auto / manual thing.

but most of the adapters do press the pin so no problem.

i decliked it last week. quite easy even if it took me a while to understand how the aperture system worked.

Damn.  You're right, I think I confused myself.

My 44-2 doesn't have a pin and the aperture is fully manual.  My other Helios, which I bought as a 44-4, but is only labelled 44M, has the pin and a Manual/Auto switch.  According to camerapedia the M just means m42 mount.  But there are heaps of people who have lenses that don't have switches and can't set the aperture manually.

I also checked the Fotga adapter, and it definitely doesn't press the pin.  

Looks like the advice is to get a 44-2 or make sure you get the manual/auto switch.  Sorry @Stab, hope you didn't hit ebay in the last couple of hours? ???

22 minutes ago, Stab said:

Thanks for the extensive reply Kye!

Ok so my best bet is to lookt at a higher number. The 44-4 for instance, or get an adapter which takes care of the aperture pin-problem.

Are you using it with or without a speed booster or focal reducer?

The 44-4 doesn't need the adapter to push the pin, so get that one and get the cheapest adapter that looks sturdy.  I've bought a number of cheap Chinese adapters and they're all solid and work fine for me.

I've currently got my 44-4 on a Fotga non-SB adapter as a 116mm equivalent lens, and my 44-2 on a cheap Chinese SB (it's a SB and mount adapter in one) as a 80mm lens, but I've got more lenses in-transit so I'm not sure if they'll stay in my lineup.  They are quite soft, and prone to flare from highlights within the frame, so I might end up liking a more generic lens instead.  Now I've found the 5K mode on my GH5 that has much less sharpening I don't need the lenses to do as much softening for me.

Vintage lenses are so cheap, plentiful and interesting that it's hard to fight the urge to try all of them 

Not to tempt you (ha ha ???) but there are some other nice lenses similar to the Helios.  I've got a Mir 1B 37mm f2.8 on order that's meant to be the 35mm equivalent of the Helios, so that'll be interesting when it arrives.  You can even buy them new!

I've gone a little crazy and ordered a bunch of cheap vintage lenses, some with fungus in them.  I've ordered some without fungus, but I'm not 100% that they won't contain any, and cleaning them is probably a good idea anyway, so I'm kind of jumping in at the deep end, and I thought I'd just make a new thread to compile my notes etc.  This might be useful because in my reading I've discovered that  there are a bunch of threads online about cleaning fungus where people don't know the first thing about anything, so they're just full of BS basically.

Here are some interesting links and notes I've gathered so far:

• Alcohol, vinegar, consumer grade acids, UV from the sun or otherwise, aren't effective (or will damage the lens if concentrated) says a microbiologist, and they recommend caustic soda (Sodium Hydroxide) (source)
• This is a nice tutorial on how to do it and they recommend Hydrogen Peroxide and Household Ammonia (source)
• Sodium Hydroxide / caustic soda is widely available, but is a powder and must be dissolved to be used, unfortunately neither of the above talk about concentrations to use.  Adding it to water also creates a lot of heat, risking splashing, so it's not nice or safe stuff to work with.
• I've looked for tips from a lens maintenance person and unsurprisingly I couldn't find anyone that would give away trade secrets for free.
• It's kind of difficult to tell who knows what as lots of people say "I did X and it worked" but the consensus is that storing lenses without lens caps in a relatively well-lit room will prevent fungus growth, so these people might be completely full of it and just have a well-lit room.
• You can never fully cleanse lenses of fungus (or protect them from it in use either) so you need to view every lens as potentially contaminated and store them somewhere there is light available and is dry.  Leaving lens caps off and using a desiccant are commonly recommended strategies.  Some suggest using cheap filters instead of lens caps but your mileage may vary.

More research is required.

The lens tear-down videos I've watched show that many of these old lenses were designed to be serviced and that you can get to the optics without having to mess with the sensitive aperture mechanisms which is really cool.

Only one of my fungus lenses has arrived so far, but here's a shot of my new friend....  No, the lens isn't cracked, that's just the edge of the rear of the lens being lit up by the torch.  Apart from the colony the lens is super nice, and basically looks new.

Anyone else taken the plunge with cleaning lenses?

43 minutes ago, Stab said:

Hey everyone,

I'm in the market for a Helios 58mm f2. I'm using the Panasonic GH5-S with a Nikon -> MFT SpeedBooster. 

I would really like to use the lens on the Speedbooster so the question is, is that possible and will it degrade the image quality to use 2 adapters on stacked on each other? Because I would need an extra adapter first to change the mount into Nikon right?

So which version of the lens do you recommend me to buy? And with which mount?  Does anyone use this lens with a Speed Booster and is happy with the result? Thanks!

+1 for getting it.

There are a few different versions and it's a little complicated.  Here's what I remember as being important:

• The name of the lens is Helios 44.  It's often described as Helios 44-2, or 44-4, etc.  These are the same lens model with slightly different features.
• The number in the model number 44-X is supposed to relate to the lens' resolution, so higher numbers are optically better.  However, due to poor QC in manufacturing, some higher number lenses aren't as sharp as lower numbered examples.  Plus they're all old now, so might be scratched or whatever.
• The lenses have a pin that the camera uses to close the aperture, so for the aperture control on the 44-2 lens to work you need to cover the pin.  This is relevant because my Fotga m42 to m43 adapter doesn't press the pin, but my cheap m42 to m43 focal reducer does.  The solution is the 44-4 which has a switch to set manual mode where the pin doesn't matter.
• The lenses are built like tanks, so don't worry if there are scuffs or whatever, but beware any that have fungus or haze in them.  Ebay auctions often have a shot through the lens onto a plain background so you can see any issues, these are safer (but not completely safe).
• They can be a little soft, so make sure you like the look before you buy.
• Have a look through the completed auctions to see what you should pay - there are heaps for sale so don't pay too much!

Enjoy!

On 1/12/2018 at 3:25 PM, jase said:

Just finished my very first doc using HLG:

All surf scenes were shot in CineD (4k60p), all non-surf scenes were shot in HLG (150mbit). Used Leeming LUT for the HLG scenes as base for my grading. Suprisingly, the Leeming LUT for CineD did not change the image at all when applying it?

Lessons learned:

- Use a lav for interviews. Even though I mounted the Rode VideoMicro next to him there were way too many background noises. I am no audio expert, so all attempts to filter those noises resulted into non-natural sounding audio

- Now that I am used to non-slowmo shooting, I have to admit that the 60p didnt add as much as I thought it would. If I had to shoot it all over again, I would probably buy some V90 cards and shoot everything in HLG 400mbit.

(also quoted from the previously-linked thread)

Nice short - there's some really nice shots in there

I thought the 60p shots you slowed down were really nice with the jumps and turns etc, and it kind of broke up the pace of the film and provided something in-between the really fast action shots and the motionless interview shots.  I don't know your style, but I'd have tried to use a few more of them and maybe extend them longer.  

You also went at a great time of day, the light on the water gives it dimension and the back-lit spray from the waves looks just great!

I couldn't help notice that the shots with (what must have been) a very long lens seem quite jerky, was this the IBIS getting in the way?  

I'm gearing up to shoot my kids sports games and have got some 135mm-200mm lenses in transit, but the longest lens I've used on the GH5 so far is the 58mm Helios, so I'm not familiar with how the camera works with long telephoto lenses.

30 minutes ago, tweak said:

What's going on there? Looks like some serious BK pollution in that image.

What is BK pollution?  Even Uncle Google couldn't tell me what it means

14 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

Why not just buy one of these.

https://www.aputure.com/products/dec-vari-nd-1

If you have to adjust the ND manually then it's no easier than having a variable ND on the front.  It's probably better optically, but it's the fact the camera can expose for me without mucking up the aesthetics that is what I'm interested in.

I want the ND to be controlled by the camera automatically like the FS5.

8 hours ago, redepicguy said:

Just got a GH5 to go with my Alexa and purchased the LUTS. Pretty impressed so far. With some tweaks, they work very well. 

VLOG

GHa 

Final Look:

Welcome!

Nice looking stills.

Have you tried to match the GH5 with your Alexa yet?  If so, how did it go?

11 hours ago, Dan Wake said:

I wish this  camera may create proxy videos...

You mean in addition to RAW?

If you shoot in Prores then you don't need proxies

My 350Gb of footage took 11 hours to render proxies.  Good thing I didn't have to go anywhere and take my laptop!

4 hours ago, UncleBobsPhotography said:

I hope they realize that GH5 users are buying it for video and not for taking pictures. Replace the mechanical shutter with an internal ND!

4 hours ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

I think an electronic ND feature that only works for photos would be a cool idea 

Or just implement it for both, and make the camera a bit bigger.  Hell, someone could even make a range of speed-boosters with it included (the optics would probably be required to accommodate the extra thickness) and if they updated the MFT lens mount communications protocols to support it then it could just be a bolt-on accessory without needing external power or wires or whatever.  Then every GH5, G85, G9 user could also have one.  I refuse to pay $700 for the Metabones SB but I'd pay for that.

5 hours ago, Kisaha said:

Insta 360 cameras offer a small view of the future. AUTO everything, a lot of options in post.

There will always be a need for dedicated and specialized - and expensive - professional equipment.

I remembered another possible use for 360 cameras.

360 cameras + 8K (or higher)
360 cameras might make a great second angle for professionals who shoot events or weddings, especially if you put them on an extendable pole and put them up high.  I think they'd make great wide shots that would look like static drone shots but could be gotten in places you can't feasibly use a drone.  Eg, a wide shot of the crowd at a concert (either looking towards the stage, or back from it) or at the back of a wedding ceremony for a wide view of the bride walking down the aisle, etc.  This wouldn't be too hard to use either, just mount the camera on an extendable arm and mount it to your tripod (or a separate one), then whenever you setup your camera, hit record on it, extend the arm, forget about it and get your normal shots, then retract the arm, hit stop, and deal with the rest in post.  You don't even have to watch the footage it gets, just knowing what shots you want from it and scrubbing back and forth to find a good snippet is enough.

A second variation would also be possible:

360 cameras + high MP sensors + crop modes
If they implemented modes where you could crop into the sensor to reduce the resolution but up the frame rate then it would be a flexible camera to get specific shots from it, so it wouldn't be a one-trick-pony and wouldn't be limited to allocating its bitrate to the full 360 angle.  Like the P4K / GH5 / Sony/ RED cameras that can can downscale the whole sensor or can do a 1:1 crop, and can trade-off resolution for frame rates, imagine if you could have a 360 camera where you position the camera, connect with your phone, engage the crop and frame rate you want, adjust framing (I'd imagine crops would be limited to certain areas of the sensor), then hit record.  This would enable the full bitrate to be used for 4K120 at perhaps a 16mm equivalent or 28mm equivalent focal length.  You'd get that epic wide shot of the crowd bouncing, the band screaming, the lighting peaking, and the pyrotechnics flaring, but you'd get it well framed, in slow-motion, with plenty of bitrate.  Or if you framed the wedding from within an autumn tree you could get that moment of the bride laughing, the guests reacting, and the autumn leaves falling in the wind all in slow-motion.  Those are hero shots that would define a style, like how every wedding photographer needs a drone now.

Plus these cameras are silent, unobtrusive, and would be pretty small.  Imagine if the Insta360 One X was three or four sided, and each had 30-50MP sensors, had the crop modes, and could write 90+MB/s to a microSD card.  It would cost more than the consumer 2-camera version and be larger too, but it would still only be the size of a small drone, ie, semi-pocketable.  When those sensors are in smartphones none of that tech will be that special, it will be the combination of them that creates the potential.  

It's also worth noting that the Insta360 Titan can do 11K30, 8K30 in 10-bit and 3D, so the beyond 8K tech isn't a dream either, it's here for pros now.  Hell, even if it had four cameras and four microSD card slots and it just recorded full resolution from every camera to each slot and you had to use a merging program in post, that would be fine too if it gave you the quality required.

8 hours ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

Yes but 2/3rds of the shots out of focus isn't good enough! ? The world is an interesting place.

True.  There's a threshold at which people are so pissed off with the results that they make a big noise about you, which would stop people hiring you.  However some markets are big enough that bad feedback doesn't get to every client and slick sales-people still make sales.  

Interesting is definitely the word...

On 12/17/2017 at 5:30 PM, jase said:

I tried this on my own. The following two shots are taken in 24p 10bit HLG 150mbit and 6k 24p 200mbit. After that I applied some grading with some grain, what I noticed is that the 6k image is indeed a bit less sharp (compare the ear for example), however the amount of detail is still the same - at least to my eyes. Obviously you need to check the files at 100%, otherwise you wont see it. At least I dont.

4k HLG

6k HLG

(quoting @jase comment in the other thread - to see the image full size you have to click through to the other thread)

Thanks, that's very helpful

I can see what you mean about there being an equivalent amount of detail but with less sharpening.   In fact it's quite a difference in sharpening, I didn't realise there was that much of it being applied TBH.

On the whole though, it doesn't seem like there is really much downside to using it.  Looking at individual frames really blows me away, such a great looking image

As much as I love the IBIS on my GH5, I will say that recording prores internally would be lovely.  I'm rendering proxies for a three week trip and 350Gb of footage, it's done about a quarter and has been going for a couple of hours now and it says it has about 7 hours left..  that's an hour more than when I started!!

4K Prores Proxy has broadly similar bitrate to 4K 150Mbps or 5K 200Mbps footage and both are 10-bit!  

That person who shot that video in Prores Proxy (or was it LT?) had the right idea

39 minutes ago, tellure said:

Your description of the automatic exposure control using built-in variable ND is exactly how the Auto ND feature on the Sony FS5 works as far as I know (video).  I would definitely love to have that feature in a smaller body.  Fiddling with screw-on variable ND's to get the shutter speed where I want it is always a hassle and just takes time away from the creative aspects.

I agree with you about the face tracking and shot analysis features to help mainstream consumers get into editing.  In the same way that AI neural nets are taught what type of content to look for in image processing you could probably teach them what kind of shot types are attractive to the YouTube audience and then have it use that to rate a user's raw footage, then assemble a rough cut like you suggest.

Yeah, that FS5 video is exactly what you want - the tech doing the tedious things that you can easily describe and leaving you to do the creative things that you can't easily describe.

In terms of AI creating rough-cuts, it works for things like home videos where it just picks the shots with the nicest smiles and tries to include everyone, but other types of videos like commercials, drama, music videos, corporate, etc have much more complex and subtle criteria and often editors themselves don't even know consciously why they prefer one take over another, or why a group of certain shots is better than other groups of similar shots.  I've seen a number of those BTS with big-budget feature editors and they often have as many or more assistants whose job it is to log, sort, tag, and create rough cuts.  Having a computer do those things, as well as laborious things like checking focus down to pixel level on every shot, would be worth money in basically every scenario.

2 hours ago, tweak said:

Resolution and colour, both seem to look nicer to me even on a 1080p display. I really notice the difference trying to match the two side by side.

Fascinating.  I can feel a camera test coming on

3 hours ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

I didn't mean an actual list. More like word getting around. I guess the world is big enough where that isn't effective.

Yeah, even in small cities, the world is still a big place unless you stand out in some way or are part of a very small field, like if you're a specialist or charge a spectacular rate.

Sadly, human nature is quite pervasive so these aren't unique issues!

You only have to be good enough to get hired for work - you don't generally have to be that good at actually doing it

17 minutes ago, heart0less said:

Damn you, guys.. 

I just bought an used 5D Mk II because of you.. 

You're welcome!!

???

2 hours ago, mercer said:

All Raw looks pretty good to me but there is just something special about 14bit FF Raw with that little punch from Canon’s color filter array.

I figured there might be some extra love in there for Canon.

Is Canon + ML the only hybrid setup that does 14-bit?  I never focused on what bit-depth the BM cameras operated on, or what external setups could offer.

I remember those 10-bit vs 12-bit vs 14-bit conversations we had where most liked 12-bit over 10, and some even preferred 14 over 12.

1 hour ago, mercer said:

Yup, on occasion I think about buying another camera until I look at my footage.

I completely agree that ML footage looks wonderful, but for me so does all RAW footage.

Do you notice a big difference between your 5D ML footage and other RAW cameras?  or is it just that RAW loveliness?

44 minutes ago, tweak said:

If you shoot with anamorphic lenses the difference between the 4k and 5k modes is noticeable. I shot a whole short almost entirely on 5k anamorphics with HLG and it was a dream to grade.

What was the main difference that you noticed?  Resolution, or something else?

59 minutes ago, thebrothersthre3 said:

What industry do you work in? Seems like a person like that would get blacklisted once clients see their subpar results. I am not an industry person so I don't know. I guess it's the downside of an unregulated industry.

I'm a business consultant, so spend my working days in head offices dealing with management types and office politics.

I once spoke to a coworker with a HR background after we ejected someone from the building who was beyond useless, and I suggested that we make a note never to hire that person again  and they said that there was some kind of HR rule and we couldn't make any kind of list like that.  I don't know if that was just for that company, or a wider regulation, but that company wasn't anything special, so similar limitations are likely in other organisations.  The company was around 5000 employees, so the chance that someone else in management somewhere sees that person has experience within the org and re-hires them is considerable.

But it has its upsides too - if someone only wants to work with people who agree with them then good riddance, I'll go somewhere else and actually be productive.

Cool topic and interesting predictions.

Innovation tends to come from the intersection of technologies, less from a single technology reaching a threshold.  Here's a few combinations that might be interesting:

360 cameras + AI with face-tracking + AI video editing
This could create a camera that consumers just take with them to events and it automatically records video, frames shots in post, and edits them together to deliver a finished product or products (photos and video).  This might even be free if FB / Amazon / Instagram think the data gained by spying on you is worth the hardware costs, but if you willing to pay for it then they'll happily take the data and your money.

Electronic variable ND + better ISO performance (or dual ISO, or Triple ISO?)
This combination could create a camera where we control the creative parameters (SS, F-stop) and the camera manually exposes using only non-creative controls (ND, ISO).  This means you can set whatever aperture you want, 180 degree shutter, and then take exposure off your plate and think about more creative aspects of shooting.  The "cinematic vlog" crowd might help with this as there's a ton of them and they care about SS and F-stop but want fast-paced shooting, and will be adding their voice to the pros who also want built-in NDs.

NLE + AI face-tracking and shot analysis
Not something people talk about, but there might be benefits to NLEs being able to analyse your footage.  Immediate benefits would be logging footage by reading slates (if you have them), detecting takes (visually similar shots repeated over and over), tagging of shots with which faces appear in them, etc.  Combined with smart bins this would save a lot of leg-work, especially in doc work where you have huge amounts of footage.
For the less serious users (some people felt that FCPX was really iMovie, so Apple are trying to reach these people) you could also have expression detection, framing detection, and other ways to rate clips.  The existing 'choose the best shots and make a sequence' technology could be incorporated, creating a rough-cut with a single button.  More advanced features would be to watch you through the webcam as you view shots and further refine based upon your reactions.  
This could be huge as people are recording video and photos all the time, and editing your photos and choosing the best ones has been made easy but video editing is still something the average person doesn't even attempt.