leslie

Inspired by kyes... GET OUT THERE and shoot something pep talk earlier today.  Here's a collection of static shots taken from around the house. 
if you have a spare 52 seconds,  bmdp4k + my new fotga fd-m43 adapter and the standard canon fd 35mm f2.8
 

after noones show and tell, i feel slightly inadequate 🙄 my last acquisition for the takumar collection for quite awhile i hope is a pentax smc 17mm f4 m42.
This should round out the collection nicely and cover all my bases. After this a better tripod and head is on the agenda.
 

after noones show and tell, i feel slightly inadequate 🙄 my last acquisition for the takumar collection for quite awhile i hope is a pentax smc 17mm f4 m42.
This should round out the collection nicely and cover all my bases. After this a better tripod and head is on the agenda.
 

after noones show and tell, i feel slightly inadequate 🙄 my last acquisition for the takumar collection for quite awhile i hope is a pentax smc 17mm f4 m42.
This should round out the collection nicely and cover all my bases. After this a better tripod and head is on the agenda.
 

There are something like 6 free Hasselblad film cameras on the moon for the taking.

Do they shoot 8K RAW?
Smart money these days says not to go off planet for anything less than 8K RAW.

your naughty...   Btm_pix, but i do like it 😃 perhaps its time for a remake of the apollo moon walk. conceptual picture for illustrative purposes only. btw i have nothing to use i'll need another prime lens  cough, cough,😉
edit : if i come last ( again )  you'll have to pry the p4k out of my cold dead hands 😝
 

I think YouTube camera review videos shot on unusual cameras would be good.
Like an R5 review shot on a thermal imaging camera for example.

you should have said something earlier, its been three degrees Celsius and a howling wind today. i also now have a laser pointer which drives the cat bonkers. I have no idea how many g's that cat is pulling trying to catch that red dot but if it were me i'd probably pass out. videoing the cat chasing the red dot is on the agenda 😀

well the fvd-16a has shipped apparently, but i did get another bill for the shipping, as that cost an extra $25. Have to email rapido to figure out the best way to send the money. I have also bought a 120cm camera slider rig. I sure do hope you guys aren't over slider shots yet, as there's alot more coming 😉   Also lashed out on a 77mm Tiffen Black Pro Mist 1/8. I would have liked a 58mm but couldn't find one at a reasonable price. So i have grabbed the last 77mm listed at what i think was reasonable. Maybe i have to look at getting a bunch of step up rings at least it will fit the  tokina atx-pro 28-70 and another lens i have here.

Picked up 11 of these bad boys from a factory swapping over to leds. I think at least 7 of them work, no cost to me just had to remove them. There's a fair layer of dust over them so they'll need a good clean up. Considering keeping a few as original, maybe hacking a couple to  take some sort of led bulb. Anyone else  got some other ideas on what i could do with them ? the diameter of the reflector is about 420mm. On the flip side i guess i could start a grow room 😉
 


Also another vintage lens... circa 1971. While not the oldest lens around, is now making its way to the land down under, more about it when it turns up. Perhaps i should look at getting a really old lens something pre multiple coatings or even single coatings for comparative purposes.
One other thing i have learned  when using the fd adapters. mine has a lock and an open position on the adapter . when you position the fd lens onto the adapter, you need to align them properly as if you do it wrong the aperture doesn't work  on the lens. Not sure if you could break anything by forcing it but i wasn't game to try. Took me several goes to work it out and that was swapping the lens between the p4k and my old canon t90. I guess anyone with fd lenses already knows this.  Just a heads up for anyone thinking about adapting fd lenses. 

Inspired by kyes... GET OUT THERE and shoot something pep talk earlier today.  Here's a collection of static shots taken from around the house. 
if you have a spare 52 seconds,  bmdp4k + my new fotga fd-m43 adapter and the standard canon fd 35mm f2.8
 

Just upgraded from the 4k to the 6k and thought i'd share some thoughts.
I think they have updated the packaging again because my unit was significantly different than either version i've seen online. There was no scratches or scuffs to the body and the sensor was clean and clear. One of my main concerns with the 6K was how tight the fit of the lens mount would be but upon testing, my unit was great. It is very tight and holds the lens much better than the my 4k did. All ports/connections work correctly. The only issue I have a few stuck pixels on the monitor (not sensor). Its not a huge deal but not nice to see on a brand new camera. I have read that all LCD monitors have a few and often warranty doesn't cover it but i've opened a ticket with Blackmagic to see what they say. They have always been incredible in the past! I don't remember seeing any stuck pixels on my 4K (although I didn't look for them). Battery life appears slightly worse than the 4k. Approx 46m to 42m continuous recording in 4k ProRes to a Cfast card. Obviously requires larger and faster cfast cards mine are already on the approved list but I might pick up 1 or 2 more. Also the 6k feels much heavier than the 4k and is slightly louder although not enough to hear even in an interview setup. Don't block the bottom fans on the 6k, the camera expels a lot of heat during long recordings. 
These are only initial tests, i'll need more time with the camera to form a better opinion, I haven't used it on an actual shoot yet. I also didn't have the cameras side by side. I really see the 4k and 6k as complimentary cameras that both have positives and negatives. Price wise, it was only a £100 upgrade from the 4k & SB to the 6k. I also find it incredible that I sold my 4k & a speed booster for the exact price I purchased them for brand new almost 2 years ago.
The Dynamic range isn't miles apart but is improved. The 6k appears to do much better in the highlights but might have a touch more noise in the shadows. Although this is offset when putting the 6k file in a 4k timeline. To my eye, the colour is very similar. Samples online show the 6k to have slightly more accurate skin tones but, without a side-by-side, you'll never tell the difference. It's worth noting that the 6k does have more rolling shutter, the 4k is much more controlled in this area. 
The 6k has a larger sensor (1.55x to the 4k's 1.89x) but a speed booster gives the 4k a much wider FOV (1.22x using the Metabones XL). However, I've found that speed boosters mess with the image too much. I personally wouldn't recommend one. Ive picked up a new sigma 18-35mm as my standard zoom. It would also work very well as a standard zoom for the 4k (non-speedbooster). The sigma isn't my favourite lens, but you can't beat the range and the speed and performance for the price.  My Tok 28-70 was way too telephoto for the 6k (it was on the edge for the 4k XL). On a side note, the sigma Is MUCH contraster and sharper than the Tokina. I might try out a low-con style filter. Recommendations welcome!

Add a water tank and you’ll have a steam engine...

well the fvd-16a has shipped apparently, but i did get another bill for the shipping, as that cost an extra $25. Have to email rapido to figure out the best way to send the money. I have also bought a 120cm camera slider rig. I sure do hope you guys aren't over slider shots yet, as there's alot more coming 😉   Also lashed out on a 77mm Tiffen Black Pro Mist 1/8. I would have liked a 58mm but couldn't find one at a reasonable price. So i have grabbed the last 77mm listed at what i think was reasonable. Maybe i have to look at getting a bunch of step up rings at least it will fit the  tokina atx-pro 28-70 and another lens i have here.

I’ve done a decent amount of front/rear group mismatch pairing. What I’ve found is this:
1. you can often find mismatched pairings that function at equivalent quality to their matched arrangement.
2. mismatched pairings are not able to be focused, meaning that they are in focus only at infinity. (This is different from what anamorphic users refer to as “dual focus.” The anamorphic is infinity only just to be clear.)
3. The maximum angle of view is determined by the front element group, and cannot be changed. (Note a key distinction however that the squeeze ratio changes, which DOES change which taking lens focal length will be associated with the unchanging angle of view. This also means that the vertical field of view changes as well.)
4. the source-point flare comes from the rear element group, the secondary mirrored flare comes from the front element group.
To take all of this and give a specific example, let’s say I’m trying out pairings with the front element group from my Kowa 16-H. On my Blackmagic PCC4K, lets say my favorite lens to use with it stock is my Canon FD 24mm, which also happens to be the widest lens I can use if my final delivery is going to be a tasty, vignette-free 2.39:1. 
Let’s move on now to the (imaginary) mismatch pairing. I have an old B&L CinemaScope kicking around, and I pair the rear grouping from this scope with the front grouping from my 16-H, in front of my 24mm, which is set to infinity. The B&L elements are nice and cozy right up against the 24mm’s front, but things look blurry. I move the 16-H front grouping in and out until I get a nice sharp image. Neat! If I focus the 24mm on something closer, say, my C-stand at 5’ from camera, I can’t seem to achieve anything sharp no matter what the distance is between the Kowa and B&L element groups. Oh well... infinity it is! (That’s what variable diopters are for anyway, right?)
Ok, so we have our trusty 24mm. We have a Frankenstein of glass from two scopes in front of it, and it’s nice and sharp (at least at infinity,) so what now? Well, let’s shoot a chart, pull some footage into an NLE, and figure out what the squeeze of our new Frankenscope happens to be. A quick stretch of the footage to where the chart looks normal reveals..... 1.75X! Neat! Now, there’s definitely some vignette, but that’s ok, we’re after 2.39:1 delivery. Let’s crop in until the vignette goes away, shall we? The result? vignette free when cropped to 3:1. That’s cool, we could probably go a little wider with the spherical lens.
A quick scour through the camera bag unearths a LUMIX 21mm lens. Let’s ditch the 24mm and try the 21mm. Abracadabra, drop some 21mm footage into the timeline, desqueeze and crop out the vignette: 2.39:1. There now exists a 1.75X scope that can go as wide as a 21mm taking lens! That’s a wider taking lens than the Kowa could handle stock! 
 
Or is it? A meander through the maths:
21/1.75=12mm lens equivalent horizontal
24/2=12mm lens equivalent horizontal
BUT!!! (You may say, and you’re correct) there is no vertical squeeze factor here, so vertically, the 21mm is STILL wider than the 24mm. Yes. You are using a wider focal length lens, but your horizontal field/angle of view remains unchanged. The two scope configurations both are and aren’t equivalent to each other. Oh the joys of anamorphic. This is why anamorphic lenses are said to have two focal lengths (one horizontal and another vertical,) and it’s why we get oval bokeh too! 
The final kicker is when we add our variable diopter of choice: an SLR Magic Rangefinder. The stock Kowa is now choked to a maximum of 28mm, and the Frankenscope can only do 25mm. It turns out that in practical application, the limit of all wide anamorphic adapter setups is the variable diopter, not the scope. The new Rapido FVD-35 is right at the limits of the very widest anamorphic adapters. What’s more, a bigger diopter setup to squeeze out those last few distorted degrees of angle-of-view would be laughably gigantic. The FVD-35 is 134mm in diameter. That means it already sits only 2cm above a 15mm LWS rod setup, so unless you want to go full 19mm studio rods and use 6.5X6.5 mattebox for filtration, the FVD-35 will do “just fine.”
Why, then, would anyone bother to Frankenscope? Well, because lenses are so much more than the numbers. Even by the numbers, you might prefer a novel squeeze ratio. You might want beautiful mixed gold and teal flares. You might want the thick, lush flares from an old scope with some added sharpness and contrast from one more modern. You might want a unique look, that’s all your own, completely custom. Besides that, the experimentation is really fun! 
A quick look at remotely reasonable anamorphic offerings reveals: Xelmus has a 40mm and Atlas has a 32mm, both of which only cover a standard 35mm open gate. The FVD-35 is right in this ballpark in any case. Unless you find an exceptionally rare 22mm LOMO, or rent some top shelf glass, you’re not going to go wider... never mind that depth of field becomes so deep when this wide that the differences between spherical and anamorphic are difficult for most people to differentiate. As someone who hacked scopes apart to try and go wider, here’s my conclusion: do what works for you, but you’re gonna need a big variable diopter, because that’s the bottleneck. After that, find your wide scope of choice, Frankensteined or stock, it’s just preference. 
I had some awesome results from very humbly priced pairings. I bought a half dozen or so scopes off eBay, and did my level best to spend $100 or less on each. A great trick is taking big/long adapters meant for 35mm projection, and pairing their front element groups with rears from shorter 16mm projection scopes. As a general rule, this seems to significantly shorten the scope’s length, and reduces the squeeze factor. There are a plethora of theoretical 1.8X, 1.75X, 1.5X, and 1.33X custom scopes out there for anyone with the willpower and funding to go on a mix and match bonanza.
 

Seems like your the one that's been cooped up too long,.... We do this because we can. There is no right or wrong,  there is only the image aesthetic. If it doesn't please you go someplace else. Rapido sure do make some nice kit, i plan on getting the fvd16 fairly soon. Having said that i bet that rapido's  first few efforts were not exactly exhilarating to look at either. On set it wouldn't surprise me what a DP' would do to get an image. So long as it doesn't fall apart and kill some poor sod who cares what it looks like. Your last comment is just mean and spiteful. Everyone has been cooped up for the last three months, cosimo is fortunate to have some kids that are happy enough to be involved.

good luck with the new lens, i have one on the way as well but not olympus. Like fuzzynormal i also like the older mf lenses
bodycap lenses count, i know this because i have the 15mm besides its not really dead until its no longer breathing (exempli gratia, humans) or is broken and can no longer function as intended (exempli gratia, machines). I think its sad that people have already written olympus off, however the cameras and lenses will work for years to come. If you have olympus and like it, i wouldn't suggest getting skittish just yet and jumping ships.

seems either greedy or selfish to sell one item for a large profit. Good for you if you can get away with it i guess. Seems kinda like extortion to me, i prefer bm's business model better If bm cameras get much better, easy to  see red going the same way as olympus and the dinosaurs. 
I had a look at lemac the place i got my p4k from yesterday. they have the p4k, p6k and even the blackmagic Micro Cinema Camera is all listed as out of stock. Either their really popular or covid 19 has stuck again, perhaps it a combination of both. Not sure what stock levels are like in other places.

Alright, didn’t get any answers so I’ll have to find out on my own, just placed my order! I’ll let you all know how it goes.

Picked up 11 of these bad boys from a factory swapping over to leds. I think at least 7 of them work, no cost to me just had to remove them. There's a fair layer of dust over them so they'll need a good clean up. Considering keeping a few as original, maybe hacking a couple to  take some sort of led bulb. Anyone else  got some other ideas on what i could do with them ? the diameter of the reflector is about 420mm. On the flip side i guess i could start a grow room 😉
 


Also another vintage lens... circa 1971. While not the oldest lens around, is now making its way to the land down under, more about it when it turns up. Perhaps i should look at getting a really old lens something pre multiple coatings or even single coatings for comparative purposes.
One other thing i have learned  when using the fd adapters. mine has a lock and an open position on the adapter . when you position the fd lens onto the adapter, you need to align them properly as if you do it wrong the aperture doesn't work  on the lens. Not sure if you could break anything by forcing it but i wasn't game to try. Took me several goes to work it out and that was swapping the lens between the p4k and my old canon t90. I guess anyone with fd lenses already knows this.  Just a heads up for anyone thinking about adapting fd lenses. 

dammit, i hate you guys, i just bought a ff lens made in 1971 and im looking at an even older lens..... Anyway i think you people have too much time on your hands  😛

More pictures of the front lens, you can see the two small cracks, no influence at all on the image

 
Here is some videostills and stills :

After doing some testing, I've recorded some raw rgb video, but have no way of viewing it. Does anyone know what to do with this kind of data? 
Over on the RPi forum they suggest this software, but it's only for viewing. You can't export, so you can't use the files with any other software, which seems a shame. (It's also €30 for mac. I don't want to pay anything if it doesn't help me actually use the footage) 
https://www.offminor.de/
If anyone's interested, there's a few samples below. They're shot with my 25mm cctv lens, which on this sensor is very tele. It's the only c-mount lens I have and until finish my project, it's the only lens I can use... It's a soft lens at the best of times so keep that in mind when viewing.
FYI:
The .rgb file is raw data. I'd love to work out how to view this in a coherent way - or convert it into DNG frames.
The .264 files are straight out of the pi before any wrapping. You can only view these in VLC (as far as I know)
The .mkv files are unadjusted conversions to h.265 - this is only for viewing the files in an NLE
The 4x3 file was a stress test for how large a frame I could make using the basic settings. (1600 x 1200)
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/seddezwwymwnh4v/AAAU5es-RCWOXCj1Fpkbz3Dba?dl=0

Generally, the darker the image, the more the saturation.  Furthermore, most digital cameras give a lot of saturation in their non-raw files, and Canon cameras additionally boost the reds.
 
Starting with the brightest sample posted, the image below was yielded merely by boosting the gamma/mid-tones, bringing the blacks down to zero, reducing the saturation and backing off the reds (for Canon):

 
 
If one wants to keep it a little darker (and still have it look like daytime), be more gentle in boosting the mid-tones but further reduce the saturation, and keep the blacks at zero and keep the Canon reds reduced as in the image directly above:

 
 
By the way, the fringing/chromatic-aberration doesn't look too bad, and a light touch with a CA/fringe filter should take care of it nicely.