rawshooter

I totally agree with your analysis, @Andrew Reid. RED is shooting itself in the foot by patent-trolling other camera manufacturers who implement raw video recording. They should continue making their high-profit margin cameras for the professional cine market and, instead of burning their money on nonsense like the Hydrogen phone, offer attractive license packages for their RAW codec so that it becomes a prosumer industry standard. Everyone would profit, RED probably the most.

As a long-time Linux user, I am reminded of the company SCO (which owned the copyrights of the historical Unix source code) and its attempt to patent-troll and bully Linux development through a gigantic lawsuit - and ended up going out of business because of that.

8 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

I really don't get this argument.  Limitation in one aspect of photography, such as sensor size, might not be a hinderance if it allows a superior option in another, such as compact gear and IBIS.

Certainly not all photographers want the same thing.  I'm a videographer that's attracted to small gear for the ease of use.  I have to imagine photographers are into that convenience as well.  Maybe not at the levels required to be market successful, if that's what you mean.

You didn't carefully read my posting and quoted only a part of it. It was not - as I explicitly wrote - making an argument for or against MFT as a stills photography system.  

To rephrase: We all can have our own opinions on MFT and, from our experience and knowledge, bring up all kinds of good arguments for its merits and place as a photography system. But the market decided otherwise. 

The numbers posted by Andrew clearly tell that since its introduction, MFT has never been profitable for Olympus.  The company was the only MFT manufacturer that sold MFT as primarily an enthusiast (and even high-end) stills photography system - as opposed to Panasonic, DJI, Blackmagic who sell it as a hybrid or video-only system, and as opposed to other manufacturers who sell APS-C and full frame cameras in the same price range as Olympus' bodies.

Which leads to the conclusion that  MFT failed on the market as a specialized system for enthusiast stills photography.

After the megapixel race came the sensor size race. Our opinion is irrelevant if the vast majority of people base their buying decisions on these criteria - and if that creates casualties in a dramatically shrinking market. 

DJI Osmo Pocket. Seriously, that camera is amazing for its price, and really fits the bill of an ultraportable run-and-gun camera. Its image is astonishingly good within the limitations of its small sensor and 8bit 4:2:0.

My wish list:

• Either bring the electronic shutter of the next fp to the performance level of the Sony A9 or add a mechanical shutter to make the camera more usable for stills photography, too. Get rid of the 0.1s shutter lag.
• Implement compressed CinemaDNG in non-US regions where RED's patents don't apply; in the US, simply block them in firmware. With compressed CinemaDNG, 6K RAW image recording could even work on SD cards.
• Implement Log, and apply the Log curve to 10bit and 8bit RAW so that its recorded values are more sensibly distributed (and the material can be better graded without falling apart). Work with software manufacturers to have the Log curve supported in their programs, including Resolve and its "Color Space Transform" function. Provide IDTs for ACES.
• Replace the back wheel with a more solid wheel that stays in place and doesn't accidentally rotate. Replace the AEL button with a wheel that can be pushed in - so that there would be 3 wheels in total, for shutter, aperture and ISO control, or alternatively audio level control.
• Allow simultaneous focus peaking and zebras, and focus magnification during recording.
• Replace, if possible, the micro HDMI port with a full-size HDMI port.
• Make the "Tone" and "Color" buttons user-definable. Make the photo shutter button user-definable in cine mode and vice versa.
• Stick to the same, tried-and-tested Sony 24MP FF sensor.

11 minutes ago, josdr said:

#rawshooter. I have never read about the black nylon bag trick. I will do this test and report back. Thank you very much for the idea P.S i would presume it turns out brownish rather than actual brown?

Yeah, like the color of an eggplant (violet-brownish) instead of true black. Any deep-black nylon texture (recyclable shopping bag, sports shoulder bag etc.) will do the trick. 

Here's a good example:

Wow, that is a good interview! Sony seem to have their priorities (and philosophy of what makes a good image) right, more so than I would have expected!

19 minutes ago, Chris Whitten said:

It's missing a few basic, handy features.

It is a very basic, stripped-down camera.

(No EVF, no mechanical shutter, only two dials and only one customizable button, no Wifi, no Bluetooth, no IBIS, no phase-detection AF, no high flash sync speed, no dual SD card slots...)

For a digital camera, you don't need a UV filter because the sensor filter glass already does UV filtration.

However, if you use an ND filter (including a variable ND filter), it's a good idea to combine it with an infrared cut (IR-cut) filter, which should be put between the ND filter and the camera lens. Since an ND filter only decreases the visible light spectrum, it lets through infrared light which often creates infrared pollution on the sensor and in the image (with blacks turning into violet-browns). You can easily test this by shooting a black nylon bag in broad sunlight with your ND filter and see whether it turns out black (or brown) in your footage. 

3 minutes ago, Chris Whitten said:

Also, no IOS app? Even traditionalist Leica has a phone app you can quickly link to your camera. It's handy to upload a few pics for friends or Instagram when traveling.

The fp has neither WiFi nor Bluetooth... So there's really no way for a mobile app to talk to the camera.

On 6/27/2020 at 1:37 PM, Andrew Reid said:

Rather than go full frame as has been rumoured (let alone 8K), I think Blackmagic should bring back the old BMCC 2.5K sensor for a $999 model and do an updated Pocket 6K with same S35 sensor, but mirrorless L-mount or E-mount.

That would be my dream camera - I still have my BMCC 2.5K, and prefer its image over that of any other camera I own, including the Sigma fp. IMHO, the image of BM camera's declined with each new camera generation after the original BMCC, and now - with the Pocket 4K/6K - is just the generic Sony photo camera sensor look that practically all sub-RED/Arri/Venice cameras do have.

But unfortunately, a Pocket with the 2.5K sensor won't happen because that old Fairchild 2.5K sensor needed massive cooling. Most of the insides of the large and heavy BMCC 2.5K consist of the cooling heatpipe construction for the sensor unit....

11 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

It's important to realise none of the marketing is forced on people or dictated.

The control is done by soft ways and by building personal relationships.

Plus, there's a Stockholm/lock-in syndrome. Reviewers are part of the camera industry whether they like it or not. When companies go under, when camera sales tank, when less cameras get released (and those that get released, like the G100, are shoddy repackaging of old tech due to axed R&D budgets), their jobs are endangered, too. Reviewers therefore have a conscious or subconscious self-interest in people buying new cameras to keep the industry alive.

It's really a pity that Olympus threw decades of its expertise in making compact and optically brilliant FF lenses out of the window when they switched from analog to digital. I agree that they could have had a brilliant future as an all-systems lens maker (instead of a single-system camera maker).

Manual focus OM lenses are still among the best vintage lenses you can buy and adapt to your camera, since their optical formulas were optimized for compact size, low contrast (=high DR) and high resolution.

It's a f*ing disgrace for the legacy of Yoshihisa Maitani, Olympus' genius camera and lens designer (who created the original analog Pen/Pen F system, the original 35mm OM system, the fantastic Olympus compact rangefinder cameras and the brilliant Olympus XA).

1 minute ago, kuau said:

I though these were APS-C lenses and not FF

You are correct.

17 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

So done a bit more experimenting with the picture profile: Off function.

It does recover highlight detail

It does reveal a lot of shadow detail.

If it barks like LOG, is it a DLOG?

That is the question.

It's actually linear. You get a good final image by using Resolve's Color Space Transformation tool and mapping gamma from linear to Rec709 (preferably with the Tone Mapping option activated).

The numbers pretty clearly tell that - no matter the actual pros and cons - you simply can't sell MFT as a system for stills photography only. It doesn't work now and, as we see here, never worked in the past. Especially not with comparatively expensive bodies and lenses, targeting enthusiast photographers. 

Problem is, in the allegedly "good old times" pre-Internet, things were just as bad. By far most camera magazines in the past were just shills, too. Their reviewers were invited to expensive trips, advertorials were the norm etc.etc. So these practices have just moved over from print to social media.

Bloom is a paid influencer. About five years ago, colleagues of mine organized a seminar on influencer marketing when this was still a new phenomenon. They showed us a subscription-only, non-public B2B matchmaking website consisting of a database of social media influencers who offered their services. I searched his name and found his listing/pitch in it. (Unfortunately, forgot the name of that database website.)

3 minutes ago, Super8 said:

No.  What case study have you seen that proves your fear mongering?  

The market will not shrink to one tenth of it's current size. 

 

It already did:

https://www.statista.com/chart/5782/digital-camera-shipments/

But one shouldn't even reply to you since you're bullshitting this list.

The G100 is a pretty clear indicator that Panasonic is putting no more significant development into MFT. It's just recycling old components, including the PCB - the camera still has USB 2.0...

I wouldn't expect the GH6 to get more than a CPU upgrade (with the same current-generation ASICs developed for the full frame cameras), but otherwise the same electronics and maybe even the same sensor.

1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

BRAW could have a great future if they license it to other manufacturers.

Bit of a pain having to buy an external recorder for it.

Here is the choice for Blackmagic... Do they have the most successful RAW codec on the planet in all sorts of cameras by Sony, Panasonic, etc. and massively well adopted NLE (Resolve) or do they reserve BRAW for some Pocket potatoes?

It's not better with ProRes RAW.

Problem with BRAW is that it requires an encoding FPGA - so we'll likely never see recording internally except by BM cameras. 

6 minutes ago, Cliff Totten said:

Hmmm....the Lumix S1H will give full pixel readout and full sensor width in raw. Same sensor?

Yeah, same sensor, but likely different licensing deals with Sony (the sensor manufacturer)...

1 minute ago, Cliff Totten said:

This is a 4k, APS-C windowed raw readout? Full width sensor readout would generate 5.9k raw sensor data.

Either 4K, APS-C-windowed, or 6K lineskipped to 4K-Pseudo-RAW (similar to how MagicLantern records scaled-down RAW video on Canon cameras).

Unfortunately, the BRAW and ProRes RAW external recording options didn't give us full sensor resolution.

5 hours ago, bjohn said:

Sure, they're a consumable, but in general the maxim of "date your camera, marry your lenses" still applies. Lenses don't last forever but they almost always outlast cameras.

This is unfortunately no longer true for fully electronic mirrorless lenses - which not only depend on system-specific protocols to function at all, but also heavily rely on in-camera digital geometry and vignetting correction. 

When a mirrorless system falters, you can pretty much throw away the lenses. (As it happened before with Nikon 1 and Samsung NX.)

2 hours ago, Chris Whitten said:

Just about to download the update. Super excited about Braw.

 

But you are aware of the fact that BRAW can only be recorded externally by the newest model of the BM Video Assist, with firmware yet to be released? 

3 minutes ago, androidlad said:

"Supports HDR in movie shooting"

Anyone tested this? I wonder what it does.

This is only for 8bit h264 mov and rather useless.