eatstoomuchjam

5 hours ago, Emanuel said:

You said mini laptop?

Yes, and then I made a Zoolander reference.

Looks like we'll also be seeing a bunch of BYD in Canada soon.  This is why you generally don't want to piss off your closest trading partners...

https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/16/chinese-evs-inch-closer-to-the-us-as-canada-slashes-tariffs/

2 hours ago, Emanuel said:

Here is one under €1000 mark.

What is this?  A LAPTOP FOR ANTS?

Tesla's sales numbers in much of Europe would lead me to believe that their increase in most countries has nearly completely stalled.  Aside from BYD and Xioami being cheaper, their CEO's aren't making white power salutes on stage and/or collaborating with a president who has begun to threaten military action against Denmark (and as of today, Iceland???).

22 hours ago, Ilkka Nissila said:

My guess is that there is a longer-yerm perspective and they want to hinder DJI and other manufacturers' sales in order to allow American companies to take the market and a soft transition would mean the customers can fly their drones until they crash them or wear them out, and then replace with new US products.

It's not a guess.  Trump's kid is a major investor in a US-based drone manufacturer.  If they actually cared about security, they would have performed the audit that the law required (and that DJI was demanding that they do) instead of refusing to perform it.

3 hours ago, Ilkka Nissila said:

I would imagine the operation of unapproved drones can be shut down in the US territory based on GPS data, so IMO it would be pretty risky to invest in equipment that is not approved. 

i'm not sure what the government could do to shut them down, but DJI's app uses/needs GPS and I could see them threatening to fine/sanction DJI if they don't geofence out non-approved drones.

But at this point, I don't think there are any existing DJI products that aren't approved.

9 hours ago, Emanuel said:

I was into RED for a while, but the proprietary stuff eventually made me step back.

Then you'd probably like DSMC3.  Standard batteries, standard CF Express cards, etc.

If the CFE card isn't on the compatibility list, you'll get a warning, but then the camera will let you try to record whatever quality you want.

10 hours ago, kye said:

I think there are different kinds of diffusion, with some looking overbearing at low strengths and others being fine at much greater strengths.  The majority of movies and narrative TV will be using a decent amount of it.  Maybe it's the type that you didn't care for?

Probably.  I just found it really overbearing.

10 hours ago, kye said:

I've also found diffusion filters to be almost impossible to use in uncontrolled situations, even at 1/8 which is the lowest strength available - on some shots it'll be too weak and you turn around and a light hits the filter and now the image is basically ruined because half the frame is washed out.  Maybe because of the uncontrolled conditions they just had some shots that suffered.

I personally don't bother with diffusion filters at all.  The short, lacking detail reason is that I'll just use a vintage lens if I want a vintage look.

And yes, your observations align with mine about using diffusion filters.  On low-budget sets, they also add headaches on controlled shots as the DP is now complaining that the lights are interacting with their diffusion filter in a bad way, causing time loss due to coddling the darn thing.

On 1/3/2026 at 9:45 AM, Ilkka Nissila said:

Okay, so there are two separate issues: foreign made drones, and DJI products with wireless capabilities. But that doesn't make much sense; how would a DJI gimbal affect US national security? 

I think you're assigning more capability for logic to my government than they deserve.

This is incorrect.  They were added to the FCC's "covered" list which means that they won't be able to get certification on any new devices that have wireless transmission moving forward.  It's not just future drones.

And while it's true that DJI can still legally sell existing devices that already have FCC approval, if you try to buy something, you will quickly find that DJI are barely trickling stock of any of it into the US now (apparently customs also scrutinize/delay their stuff a lot more).  In some of the Ronin 4D groups, people are practically begging for parts.  Just the other day, I saw somebody offering to pay full MSRP for used ProSSD's since they couldn't find stock anywhere.

5 minutes ago, Davide DB said:

Does it really matter exactly how it looks? The low-fi aesthetic fit the story perfectly

At least judging by the trailer, I agree.  The only thing that bugged me, really, was the glow/halation effect - were they actual diffusion filters or did they just smear the lens with vaseline?

Other than finding the diffusion distracting, though, I thought the look was absolutely well-suited to the story being told.  The choice of a phone felt intimate and immersive.

Hezekiah Northrup is somewhere in the background too.  He's just hard to make out because the photo was taken just a few weeks after he invented Bokeh.

8 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

All paid for by Pathé and everyone on the trip etched postcards home saying “Game Changer”.

The weirdest bit is @Andrew - EOSHD in the center rear, similar to Jack Torrance in the old-timey photos from The Overlook... 

5 hours ago, kye said:

The other thing I have been contemplating is if I could make an insert that didn't have hard edges, but had graduated edges.  The only way I could think of doing that is to get some sort of semi-translucent sheet material and cut it at an angle so the edges had a slightly translucent transition to being completely opaque, but I am not aware of such a material.

My first thought was "I bet Rosco or Lee have something like that, but maybe not in the right size" and after a few minutes of searching, I found something from Rosco that's like that, but not in the right size.

https://www.adorama.com/ro1081102024.html

So there's hope, maybe that or searching for "graduated center filter gel" or similar would get you closer!

Another thought would be to make something like the soft focus disc for an some types of large format soft focus lens - some examples here: https://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?49632-Recommendation-for-Soft-Focus-lenses-for-4x5/page2

It wouldn't be exactly the same as varying the opacity of the film like in a gradient, but you could make an aperture that has a hard edge in the center with the edges around it perforated, but with the density of perforation decreasing toward the edges.  It'd almost certainly introduce some interesting aberrations.

3 hours ago, Andrew - EOSHD said:

And nobody seems to want to turn the camera 90 degrees

I think the goal is to record once and have a frame that can be cropped to work with both landscape and portrait edits.

I'd be inclined to put the R5 II over the a7V on the IQ chart.  The A9 III is probably worth mentioning somewhere too.

The OG Komodo is almost worth including, even though it isn't a hybrid mirrorless - but I have seen some in the approximately $2,000 range on the used market - pair it up with a $500 RVLVR Clutch handle and a $300 Portkeys monitor and you have a setup that's not much heavier than most mirrorless cameras on the market, with good ergonomics.  The main bummers are the battery (I use a V mount adapter from Wooden Camera instead of the Canon batteries that it uses natively) and the recording media (CFast).

I, for one, would like to welcome Zhiyun's marketing team and/or their spam bot to this forum.

As to that specific light, if it doesn't come in an ugly leather case and have Cam Mackey's signature all over the light and all of its accessories, is it even worth considering?

9 hours ago, Andrew - EOSHD said:

The MapCamera one is interesting but is always heavily skewed to what just got released. I'm more impressed when I see an older camera like the a7c II at number 3.

Wouldn't any new camera sales be heavily skewed to new releases?

10 hours ago, kye said:

I had the vague impression that LCD panels had some element of polarisation to them, but maybe that's not true.

However, even if it was true, the fact you haven't noticed any probably means the polarisation isn't changing direction as the strength varies.

I have the same vague impression, but I'm not sure.  I never really went looking for it.  But as you said, if there's some polarization, it stays consistent as the ND is dialed up or down.

10 hours ago, kye said:

I do a lot of tests where I match different shots in post, things like latitude tests etc, and if I use a vND to control exposure then I'll end up with two shots where the subject is the same WB/exp but the sky or the level of reflections in water/glass will be completely different, which ends up being the polarisation from the rotating element of the vND being a different angle between the two shots.

Definitely, it's one of the dangers of vND.  Also with wide angle lenses during the day, the sky can end up looking funky and not just different.

Map Camera are pretty transparent with what's selling well - though what's selling in Japan might not be as big in other markets.

https://news.mapcamera.com/maptimes/2025年11月-新品・中古デジタルカメラ人気ランキング/

Their top 10 lists for new and used cameras are quite a bit more varied than lensrentals' list.  Even the much-maligned X-Half makes it to the top 10 list for used!

e-ND filters (at least the ones I've seen) are LCD panels with what is effectively a single very large pixel, so yes, it won't have some of the drawbacks of a vND, especially including no X when dialed up.  I've never noticed any polarization with mine which is the inline filter for the EF mount on Z Cam.  They are also effectively infinitely variable (if someone wants to nitpick that, feel free) so they also make it less important to have a clickless aperture, if you're one of the people who needs stepless exposure pulls on a regular basis.

As for color accuracy, that'd depend on the quality of the LCD panel used, I imagine - but at the very least, I would expect it to stay consistent throughout its range.

I'd also be curious in the future if someone will come out with an electronic ND that allows for gradations or split filtering, etc.  Landscape photographers would be all over it.

The BF is beautiful.  If I found one used at half price, I would probably take it.  B&H has one used right now for about $1,700 which gets into a range where I daydream for a minute, but I'd be much more interested at $1,100-1,200.  It's the same thing that makes the X-M5 tempting.

The X-Half is... not for me, at all.  Not at any price.

I think that a lot of the FX2 irritation is that they released it so close to releasing the A7V.  But I also suspect that it's only a small number of people who bought it who want the A7V now.

I'm glad that it sounds like they'll be open sourcing what they finished, at least.  

It takes its core from CinePi, but the people working on it are attempting to make it accessible with a better GUI, buttons pre-configured, etc.  If you visit the CinePi discord, the AltCine folks are pretty active there and seem to be working with the full blessing of the CinePi core developers.

It's also interesting to watch a number of the same people who claimed that others were monsters if they weren't in tears over Kirk's murder who are now falling all over themselves to defend the president's repulsive post about Reiner - or if not defending it, becoming deafeningly silent about it.  It's almost like they're a bunch of hypocrites or something...