eatstoomuchjam

From Canon's support people, someone has to examine the camera to determine the level of work, but a rough estimate of prices, based on the perceived difficulty is: Minor = $269 Standard = $359 Major = $499 That's before my CPS discount on repairs which is, I think, 30%. So I guess that'd be $180, $270, or $340, give or take. Added to the approx. $1,500 below new price (and about $1,100 below most used prices I've been seeing), that ain't bad at all. (Though I do really need to sell something now, my gear list is getting ridiculous - anybody want a used Z Cam E2-S6G in good shape with a bunch of accessories including the eND?)

Or in their QA department - for all I know, the first owner received the camera with the dust already in place! Maybe they didn't care or notice - if I hadn't been told of its existence, I don't think I'd have sat here with a lens off clicking through the ND filters and I probably wouldn't have seen it until I filmed something with a solid that happens to be behind it, probably stopped down a little bit. Anyway, I registered it with CPS. The website didn't want to give me a price estimate since based on my purchase date, it's likely under warranty (maybe?). So I sent them a note explaining that I bought it used, asking if there is a way to know if it's still under warranty from the original purchase date, and if not, what the price would be for them to remove the dust. Sadly, a somewhat vigorous shaking doesn't seem to have dislodged it and it didn't budge when I blasted a little air in through the exhaust (the intake is not in a place to have a direct path) This is the way!

Are you looking for a generic one that covers all phones? Most of the smaller ones that keep the phone vaguely phone-sized are pretty model-specific.

It does! Though from what I read when googling it, some Canons have been notorious for it in the past - they even had an upgrade for the C300 to install a better filter to prevent it. The camera looks really clean otherwise, though. It also included the power adapter which MPB said it didn't - I think they just didn't realize that the same power adapter works for both the battery charger and camera. I could call or I can just register it on the website and fill out the maintenance form. Also nice that I'd get 30% off. But it is really small - I'm not completely certain I'll even bother yet. I'm not usually shooting stopped down, it's only on the strongest ND filter, and it's also thankfully near the top of the sensor which means it's where the ground will be if I'm shooting (I'd be more likely to notice it against a blue sky or other patch of solid color vs in the details that tend to come with whatever is on teh ground). Of course, CPS also just recently gave me an estimate that my 85/1.2L that I sent in for cleaning/maintenance needed a new motor because the manual focus ring wasn't working and that it'd be a $700 repair. I asked them to just clean it and send it back because for that price, I could just buy another on the used market. Got it back and both autofocus and manual focus are working exactly as expected. I suspect the technician didn't realize it's focus-by-wire?

I should clarify - the dust is under the outside layer of protective glass in front of the sensor/ND assembly. It's on one of the internal ND filters. Without some disassembly, it can't be reached with a brush. I'm more hoping that one of the air intakes for the camera's fan has some path that goes there and that blasting in air from the rocket blower will dislodge it. 😄 I am somewhere between those people and fastidious. While on set, it's not usually a reasonable investment of time to move to a sheltered area to swap lenses. I don't walk around doing other things while the lens is off, but it often takes 15-60 seconds. Usually the rocket blower is plenty to handle any dust that sneaks in, no biggie. But the fact that it's under the external protective glass is why I can't figure out how someone got it in there. Worst case, I need to decide whether to send it to CPS for what should be a pretty easy fix for them - or I just sent it back to MPB within the returns window.

That's a conversion kit, not an adapter. The FD 85mm f/1.2L, which I have, and maybe some other FD lenses, are non-trivial to convert. With the 85, you need to get a special adapter and remove the rear element. What's that have to do with the discussion?

Canon FD is a 42mm FFD and LPL is a 44mm FFD. A recessed adapter could do that, but I'm unaware of anybody making one. Do you have a link to somebody making an FD to LPL adapter (that isn't a full mount conversion)?

The camera is here. As far as I can see, there is a single decent-sized piece of dust on one of the internal ND filters and that's it. I cannot see any other marks on the camera's sensor assembly. The speck is big enough that I could imagine it being a little bit visible on a big blue sky, but in a way that'd be not hard to clone out. I'm also going to have to experiment with shaking the camera a little bit and/or blasting a rocket blower into the vent holes/fans. It's hard to imagine how that little sucker got in there. Worst case, if I decided to send it to CPS, I have to assume it'd be a pretty cheap repair. Overall, I'll gladly trade that for the $1,500 price reduction vs new. 😅

This is a real thing and a very good point. To give a personal and recent example, I was asked on Thursday of last week to jump in at the last minute to help finish someone's feature over the weekend. I'm not sure of the details for why their DP became unavailable. The filmmaker had a shot list for Saturday that was 15 pages long taking place in 7 different locations - and both I and the other guy they brought in had a hard out at 4 or 5 in the afternoon. Sunday's agenda was similar, but without either of us needing to leave. We didn't finish the list for either day. Likely, we'll be shooting again next Saturday. It was all outdoors in parks, usually a several hundred meters from our cars. None of our usual suspect gaffers were available/handy. We had basically 0 time to light things and the director wanted a bunch of wides and tracking shots (both tend to take longer to light). Controlling the light in any meaningful way was not a realistic option. These are exactly the situations when an extra stop of dynamic range is nice to have to keep the sky at least a bit blue, but yet also still have some detail in some of the harsh shadows. Real tough situation for the filmmaker - they definitely want to keep quality high and have they great ideas, but there are also budgetary and delivery date realities - the difference between a real indie film set and a reddit comments section. 😉 (Also, RIP colorist - there are like 5-6 different color profiles in play across all of the cameras that were used between the original DP and both of us last weekend, hopefully they only have to match 2 or 3 within any given scene) I'm not sure what ASA 50 has to do with needing extra light on a sunny day. Assuming ~24 fps, that'd give a proper exposure at approximately F/16 in bright sunlight (1/48 second for 180 shutter + sunny 16 rule indicating a 1/50 shutter speed = close enough) and you'd still need to use ND to open up the aperture beyond that. I suspect those lights are for filling in the faces/front of talent in a wide, given that the sun is actually at about a 60-90 degree angle from the lights (judging by shadows). From where the cameras are pointed, the subjects will be backlit.

You'd think so, but no! If you're using like an f/1.2 lens, you can have surprisingly big dust spots on your sensor and never be any the wiser. The more stopped down, the more they appear. From what I remember, and I might be wrong about this, it's bascally the same effect as using a large diffuse light source vs a small point source - put your hand next to a white card near the large diffuse source and you'll get a blurry, indistinct shadow. Do the same with a small point source and you'll get a well-defined crisp shadow. It's the same on a smaller scale with sensor dust.

That, and also to set the aperture down to like f/16 or f/22 and shoot something - or even to put a pinhole lens on and shoot something. If you ever want to know how many pieces of dust have landed on your sensor, a pinhole lens is the quickest way to see them all. 🙂

Thanks to a maybe-too-good-to-be-true deal from MPB ($1500 or so off new), I guess I'll have a C80 soon? This puts me in officially "too many cameras" territory and I'm going to force myself to finally sell my E2-S6G for this. We'll also see whether what they describe as "dust on one of the ND filters" that won't impact image quality actually means. They originally said it was an unremovable mark on the sensor protection glass that wouldn't impact image quality - and they revised the description after I asked for a picture of the mark. There's a two-week return window, in case I feel differently after seeing the sensor. Of course, CPS membership should mean I'd get a 10% discount on a repair - so if the price would still be less than the substantial difference vs new, I could just do that. Anyway, any special requests from anybody for tests while I poke at it? Will this inspire me to buy Canon's 24-105/2.8? Could be a great pair for a super minimalist/fast day of shooting setup.

This is why, for me, there are two likely ways to use it: 1) My small bag full of C-mount and D-mount lenses and possibly attach it to the smallest 5" monitor that I have (which is quite small) 2) Throw it in my bag where it takes up almost no space and attach it to the back of existing short telephoto lenses which now function like long telephoto lenses

Oh, thank goodness Zoom finally have a reasonable accessory for timecode shoots. For a bit now, the worst thing to hear from an audio engineer has been "I use a Zoom F3." "Guess I'll hope waveform sync works in post, then..." 😅

The GFX 100 II and, I assume, Eterna, have a 5.8k 2.35:1 full sensor width recording mode. And the Ursa Cine 17K has a 65mm sensor. And FWIW, any of the Red VV cameras have a 40mm-wide sensor which is exactly in the middle of the 36mm of a FF camera and the 44mm of GFX/Eterna. Since terms don't matter anymore, they should probably just call that "medium format" since, y'know, the GFX sensor is also substantially smaller than what would traditionally be called "medium format." Unless Sony have a big 12K sensor that can read out fast enough for video, how would that happen? There's only one 12K video sensor on the market, as far as I know, and BMD have it custom-made. There isn't huge economy of scale in it so manufacturing costs are high. But also, speaking as a person who owns a 12K-capable camera, there is almost never any reason whatsoever to shoot in 12K - including in IMAX. Mine is an 8K camera nearly all the time, except when shooting plates - and when I forget to toggle back to 8K after switching plates and facepalm.