eatstoomuchjam

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...

On 12/14/2025 at 5:07 AM, Andrew Reid said:

I want to see it.

Real world subjects only (like landscape scenes, people, and so on).

For a still image?  Photons to photos has never measured one - their highest measured DR is between 13 and 14 stops on some Phase One.  They have the A7V and the GFX 100 II about equal at ISO 80/100.  If you want some landscape photos from my GFX 100 II, I can certainly share a few.

For video, it's not exactly a mirrorless (but same sensor as in the mirrorless S1R II), but supposedly the Ronin 4D 8K in DR expansion mode has 16.3 total stops on the cined chart, but like most cameras, a lot less than that at a usable SNR.

There isn't a single camera in the entire GH line that wouldn't be usable today.  If you want 4K, you'd need to go GH4 or newer.  If you want reliable video autofocus, the only option is the GH7.  For the best low-light performance, the GH5s is probably your best bet (though I'm not sure if the GH6 or GH7 have great low light performance).

The older models struggled more in low light.  With the GH1 and GH2, hacking them for more bitrate is suggested for best quality.

The most popular models were the GH2 and GH5, but the GH7 seems also to be well-regarded.

There have been numerous stories over the years, apocryphal maybe, but they were coming out even when the media loved Muskrat... anyway, the stories were frequently about how employees of companies like SpaceX believed him to be an absolute idiot and upper management believed that their main role with him was to block him from getting in the way.

One of the most famous stories was about some fuel tank that was fracturing in flight.  The engineers had some ideas, but Muskrat came up with some idea to put a layer of fast-set glue/resin on the outside that would stay liquid - and when the cracks started to appear in the tank, the adhesive would leak out and set, automatically healing the crack.  All of the best engineers in the company said that the idea could not possibly work and explained why it couldn't.  Yet, Muskrat insisted on an all hands on deck and everybody worked non-stop with the vessel and the resin until...  Muskrat finally acknowledged that the idea couldn't possibly work.

It sort of fits with a man who has basically failed upward for most of his life - such as how he got fired as CEO of PayPal after nearly running the company into bankruptcy with his bad ideas, but still owning a bunch of stock so that when Thiel transformed it to a profitable company and sold it to eBay, Muskrat came out with billions.

Would SpaceX exist without him?  No.  Would Starlink exist without SpaceX?  Also no.  Did he invent Starlink?  Also no.

Would Neuralink exist without him?  No, and who cares?  It's a good accessibility play for people who can't otherwise operate a computer, but for the rest of us, do you know anybody who is loudly complaining that they don't have some shitty device in their head that will ultimately be used to shovel ads directly into their brain?  Do you spend every day glaring at your computer wishing that your brain could directly control it?

For Tesla, he didn't invent it at all.  Outside of having a strong first mover advantage in terms of modern electric cars, they aren't very good.  Quality control has always been lacking.  Muskrat decides that for full self driving, they don't need industry-standard tools like proximity sensors, but instead they'll rely only on cameras.  He did, apparently, invent the truck that looks like a small child drew it and which is almost universally reviled.  So yay.

Otherwise, what has Muskrat invented?  Hyperloop - the dumbest mass transit invention in the history of humanity?  12 years later, there isn't a single operating hyperloop that you can go ride.  And it turns out that vactrain concepts had existed for years before he "invented" that too.  So...  has he had a single novel idea in his entire history?  Or is his "genius" really just in ways to exploit existing wealth to extract more money, mostly from the government?

1 hour ago, Geoff_L said:

contain a canal of major interest for international maritime trade

The canal is not in South America.  It's in Central America which is considered to be part of the North American continent.

There's basically no part of South America where a canal would make any sense.

1 hour ago, Geoff_L said:

mineral ressources/oil

As far as oil, I wouldn't be surprised if we decided to take a real interest in Guyana, given the recent coastal oil discoveries there.  Brazil's oil is already more or less in the hands of multinational companies.  For minerals, I'm sort of surprised that we haven't taken a more active interest in Bolivia's lithium reserves, but I suppose that Chile and Argentina have both commercialized their adjacent ones enough to sate our appetites for the time being.

43 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

Laying the ground for a full on war with South America, to seize their oil and natural resources.

Well, with Venezuela.  As of now, there's minimal/no saber rattling with any of the other 11 other countries.

28 minutes ago, zlfan said:

i think that baby's face is one of the challengest situations, dark shade, interwoven with the sunshine areas. this demonstrates that the 27h has some mojos.

The woman with bubbles at 1:00 or so or the sun behind the mountain at 1:50 or so are more challenging scenes than the baby and the rolloff in both looks really rough to me.   The image at 0:49 also looks pretty bad to me, as do the highlights in the water at 0:40ish.

It's great for a camera from 20 or so years ago, but in modern terms, I'd expect better from any mid-tier hybrid.  Like with most things, in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing, it can look great - but so can a Nikon ZR or a Canon R6 III.  😃

3 minutes ago, zlfan said:

what is the point of shooting with film rolls? maybe because the film rolls are expensive, only exclusive to the big budget films?

The effective resolution of properly-exposed modern 35mm film is somewhere in the neighborhood of 5K if I remember right.  But as above, a lot of people aren't so likely to care about that.

Unless the varicam had some sort of miracle sensor, though, 35mm negative film will have much better dynamic range and much, much more pleasing highlight rolloff.  It's still seen as king of rolloff - and on a film with a 20 million dollar budget, the cost of shooting on film vs Arri vs anything else is basically an afterthought.

36 minutes ago, zlfan said:

although there is argument that 2k projectors can be replaced with 4k projectors or 8k ones, on the other hand, 2k projectors have been there many years and nobody complains about the lack of resolution on the big screen about the movies shot with 35mm film

I think a lot of people would be surprised to learn how many movie theaters are still projecting in 2K.  Movie theater projectors are expensive as hell and overall profits for theaters are down compared with 10 years ago.  Exhibitors aren't going to rush out to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on anything that doesn't have a direct positive impact on their profits.  Being able to count the pores in the lead actor's skin doesn't put asses in seats or sell more candy.

34 minutes ago, sanveer said:

should a sitting US president be openly influencing the fate of an entire industry, for his own or his family's personal gains?

No, but it turns out that a lot of our guard rails are imaginary.

40 minutes ago, enny said:

 YT videos ?

Why not?  Tito's channel is excellent.