MrSMW

It works really well Daniel. In regards to AF if you use it, not quite as fast or as accurate all the time as native, but to be expected. I haven't used any other adapters, but use the Fringer Pro with the Sigma 18-35 for that f1.8 aperture. For me, it is the best compromise of size, weight, speed, aperture, focal range etc. Once that firmware upgrade comes out, I expect it to move from the 'good' category to 'very good' based on: bad, less than average, average, good, very good, excellent, a 6 point system with 6 being best and it currently on a 4 with an expected 5 imminent. Last year with the XH1 I would have classed it a 3, but mostly because of the AF, but actually image quality-wise, bloody good!

I am in the wedding business, photography & video and have mixed views on this. First of all, there is a lot more competition. a LOT more. Since I started out close to 20 years ago, there are at least as 10x as many offering a service. Also, the competition is a LOT better than it ever has been, both in quality of output and in regard to marketing it. Video is less crowded than photography however as the learning curve is steeper and the production times longer, - less appeal for many ie, less see it as a fast buck, whereas with photography, everyone with a camera thinks they can do it. Bollocks, it takes years and dozens of different scenarios to get really good at it. I came from 5 years of college and uni photography and reckon it took me nearly 8 years until I felt I really knew what i was doing without having to really think about it. Then there is this 'race to the bottom'. It's been talked about for years and to an extent, it is true...but at the same time, not completely. The trick of it is twofold. First, you need to be offering something that is on another level to 'the rest'. I am not saying you need to be the best in the world, but better than anyone else they will probably look at. Ideally, you need to have a number of 'points of difference' and deliver this message with clarity. People have increasingly shorter attention spans. Second, you need to be found by the type of people that are your clients. This may only be 1% of the entire market. Or less. If you are trying to appeal to all and catch fish with a massive net, you might actually be better off with a rod and fishing for one species only. In regard to the latter, you can try and have a broad appeal and try to snag that 1% through the sheer volume approach or target your marketing and have a much smaller volume of contact, but a much higher booking rate. I've found the latter works for me and prefer the 'larger fish in the smaller pond' approach works better. Over the years, I have seen so many 'young bucks' come into the industry. First of all they are full of enthusiasm and it drives them for a while and all that energy helps compensate for the relatively low prices most charge, fully intending to put them up once established. They then try to do that and the work begins to dry up. Most then give up and go back to their 9-5 day job with all it's securities when they realise the reality is not swanning around the world at their clients expense and editing on a laptop in coffee shops. One other thing I have found is that 'good enough' is not good enough and you need to go above and beyond simply to maintain your position. It's extremely easy to get sucked downstream and incredibly hard to swim upstream/against the current. The latter can be done, but to get that extra 10%, often requires another 100% effort. Is it worth it? Maybe... But yes, I 'lose' out sometimes to the sub 500 photographer who either promises the moon on a stick, or more often than not, don't and they (the clients) know they won't be getting much...but that exists in all kinds of services. Or the client deludes themselves that the cheaper option will work out for them only to regret it. Doesn't help us if they do however as folks rarely pay twice and in weddings, never. To conclude, another couple of attributes any small creative business needs are a thick skin and a lot of drive/determination. I would not want to be starting out in photography/video today knowing what I know and would persuade my daughter against it. The bottom line though is that there IS a market still and a very good one but it's a case of finding the right one for you and working it. Continually. Just like an athlete, there are some people who are naturally gifted, but they can and will be beaten by someone with not so far off genetics that grafts harder then the rest. Oh and one other thought, I have tried several times unsuccessfully to get into the commercial market and in the end gave up concluding I could just not make it work for whatever reason, so I plod along with weddings which I genuinely enjoy shooting. Not overly keen on the whole industry and what goes on behind the scenes, but that is another story...

I find that ebay generally works quite well for me. I ignore virtually all questions as the folks that ask all the questions rarely purchase. I also just set a buy it now price as I've burned myself on auctions with stuff going for a ridiculously low price. Just make sure you set your restrictions which for me is anyone not in the UK or EU. Generally, if it's a fairly mainstream item, it should sell quite quickly, - I find it's the stuff I found tricky to find to purchase that doesn't sell so well. As an example, I bought a Ninja V but it didn't work out for me and as I was outside the 30 day return period, I stuck it on ebay with a BIN price very close to purchase and it sold within 24 hours. Which always makes me wish I'd asked a bit more, but there you go!

Not sure whether it is big enough for your needs, but I use a Peak Design 30l. In it, I pack; 3 bodies, 5 lenses, drone (Mavic Air), all my audio gear and small lights etc, batteries and small stuff. Really comfortable and practical. Not cheap however!

So on an XH1... ?

Xtrans raw is superb if handled correctly, but tends to be software dependent, Adobe being one of the more criticized. The biggest issue for many over the years was for those coming from DSLR processing their images, especially sharpening, in Lightroom and getting a less than satisfactory result. That scenario is far better than it was and one of the tricks (some say there should not need to be any extra steps) and in my moderately extensive testing, is to batch the raw files through Iridient X Transforner before importing the resulting DNG’s into LR. I do that while making coffee and doing a bit of admin so actually only takes me less than 1 minute.

Interested to see your report on using the XT3 with the Fringer Pro for video. I have my XT3 set up as a pure video machine with the Fringer and Sigma 18-35 mostly using eye AF and would class it as ‘decent’ but hoping the imminent firmware upgrade will take it to at least ‘good’. For stills, prefer the form factor of the XH1 with longer lenses and X100 for wider and more candid photography.

No, that was Charlton Heston ?

Not at all. I could set it every single time but it reset itself immediately after! I tried every combination of settings multiple times. It’s on eBay now and I’ve moved on. Or rather back to my Feelworld monitor and SD cards.

I just watched your updated video before seeing the above post @Mattias Burling and the lens looks excellent before even taking into account it's relatively low cost. A bit shorter than the 90, but longer than the 80 in reach, but smaller and lighter than both plus a faster f stop. Yep, I shall be getting one very soon as I do not have either of the aforementioned lenses and the 50-140 is often too big and bulky to be lugging around all day.

This cable works: https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B00C9JRV7A/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 And so does this one: https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B00YOFRK78/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Because I have both and tested them and can get 4K60 to the Ninja. I just couldn't get dual record to work no matter what and that is a deal breaker for me. Unfortunately, because I had the cable issue myself initially and then damaged the USB port and had to send the camera to Fujifilm UK for repair, the Ninja and SSD are both past the 30 day return period so it's a visit to Mr E. Bay this weekend ☹️ I'd ideally keep them in case a fix comes up some time, but it's 1k kicking around and devaluing so I won't.

OK, slept on it and decided it's either going back because I can't get it to work, or possibly just going on eBay along with the SSD and docking port. It's not just the issue I have had getting it to work, - that is more a case of 'the straw that broke the camel's back', but the battery chewing issue and other minor niggles that all add up to, "is it worth it to me?" and the answer on balance is not. I think it's a superb bit of kit, build is exceptional etc, but not all things work for all people. Hey ho, I tried!

As above, all good and you can't really go wrong with any of them. The Panny GH5 is probably the more 'purist' filmmakers choice but the weakest for AF. The Fuji the 'new' filmmakers choice plus excellent stills. (My personal choice). The Canon possibly the least decent filmmakers choice with too many niggles to be the king of this lot. The Nikon a good all-rounder, stills & video. The Sony arguably the 'best' all-rounder stills & video. Budget option, probably the XT3 with kit 18-55 lens.

The guns were a bit crap in Princess Bride and the car chases even worse. Tremors was fun but no Gimbal Gun.

Correct! It looks a bit like the weapons they used in Starship Troopers...and that was pants ?

This is the thing. I wanted to at least test the Ninja and see something that I could say was better by a quantifiable margin, but don't seem to be able to get that far. However, in the process, discovered other issues that you can only discover through personal trial and error such as... My Feelworld monitor with the same battery will last about an hour rather than less than 15 minutes. The 5 batteries I have will last an entire day as long as I don't have the thing running all the time. And I don't. Using the Ninja though would mean either buying some bigger batteries (more expense and more weight) or a charging point that some DJ or band won't come along and unplug so they can stick their crappy lasers in (that I will then refuse to video later as the last time I did that, they fried my XH1's sensor). Bastards. Instead, use the Anker powerbank attached to the Smallrig cage and have camera power all day which is another potential issue. There's a limit to how many batteries I can and should be charging on a job. With this version, Feelworld and Anker for XT3, precisely none until I get back home. And then there is the quality... I shot some 4K Eterna today in bright sunlight back to back with HLG and then graded the two. The difference is diddly nothing IMO and it means if I choose to shoot Eterna which currently is my preferred option, I can do so at 160 ISO and not a minimum of 1000 which makes for less use of variable ND. Whether that has anything to do with anything, but a less noisy image at 160 than 1000 though nothing anyone would really notice. I do need to test some bright sky backgrounds though, - 160 Eterna vs 1000 HLG... I'm not expecting much difference. The moral of this story is (I hope) to just shoot internal Eterna and get the f*ck on with it and stop dicking around with evermore kit which only gets in the way!

I'm thinking so and leaning to just internal and sticking with my non-recording monitor as above. Life will be simpler!

Yup. Unless I am missing something somewhere, I just cannot work this one out. I have read the manual in regard to this, both of them, several times!

No, not a stupid question, - willing to try anything! No difference. As soon as I come out of that Input screen and press record on camera, camera recording works but Ninja does not unless I press record manually there also which suggest to me the cable(s) are good and on playback it all looks good. Go back into Input however and trigger has been reset to off. Every time.

Weird, the Ninja now reads over 5 hours of recording time... well that is that one sorted at least, but still stuck on this dual record! Camera is set: Page 4/5 Movie Settings: HDMI REC CONTROL (ON) Ninja: Input page: Source = HDMI, HDp59.94 2.0 HDMI Standard Trigger = set to on (though switches itself off every time I come out of this screen) Camera Output = LogHDR on and Fujifilm camera F-Log + Rec.709 + HDMI HDR Auto

@thephoenix done that, repeatedly, but nope, still will not dual record from camera. Either unit on it's own or both manually, yes. Plus, no matter how many times I set it, come out of that screen and it's turned itself off again. It makes no sense. I'm going to sleep on it but I think I'm going to pass on it. On paper, it's all great and I'm sure for most other users, it's great. But try as I may, I cannot get it set up right and on that basis, don't 'trust' it. Too many other issues also such as: 1: It's heavier than my Feelworld monitor. 2: It chews through batteries at an unbelievable rate. OK, I only have the smallest of the Sony batts, but it munched through all 5 faster than I could recharge them. On the verge of pushing the button on one of the bigger jobs one reviewer said lasted him over 3 hours of continuous use, the Anton Bauer NP-F976 Sony L series Battery - 7.2V, 6600 mAh Lithium Ion Battery 47w/h if anyone is interested. 3: The XT3 likes to eat batteries which as we know are hardly the biggest/longest lasting and based on this mornings fiddling, ideally need to use my Anker powerpack to charge the camera which = more weight to lug around and on a typical 9-15 hour shoot... 4: I can claw back the 1k I spent on the Ninja, the SSD and the dock. 5: Was I unhappy with Fuji 1080 Eterna internal last year? No and I can shoot 4K Eterna internal this year and even Flog etc, just not in 10 bit. If there was something like a 1 day workshop out there, I'd happily pay for that but I'm just not going to go out on my next paid shoot (coming up very soon) with gear I'm not fully familar with or isn't even set up right, no matter how good the footage is because if the footage is missing... It's all a massive PITA but for whatever reason, it's just not working for me.

That's where I am trying to set it? The other thing that is frying my brain is that the camera is saying I have 74 minutes recording time on a 64GB SD card recording 4K but the Angelbird 500GB is only saying 2 minutes longer and 1 hour 16 minutes? Eh? I have both set to record HLG. I'm missing something here...

Yep. If camera output is set to 'standard camera' on the Ninja, I can switch the trigger setting on. If it's set to Log/HDR and Fujifilm, I can switch it on, but hit record on the Fuji and it only records there and going back to the Ninja input settings, the trigger setting is switched back off?

Ah ha...except it's pink and off and I can't work out how to switch that on!

This for one thing... I can hit record on the Ninja and it will record that only and also hit record on the Fuji and that will also start recording, but just hit record on the Fuji and nada on the Ninja? I will also take a look at that video, cheers.