LebGeeks

Sanglierdomestique

Member

Hello people

As a long time lurker it feels good to finally join this community.
Given the levels of insight that the so-called 'experts' have in this country, this has always been my Go-to source for troubleshooting. I have found a lot of useful information here in the past, and hope to give something back in the future...

Cheers,

Sanglier

nosense

Member

Re: Hello people

Hello Sanglier , Hope you enjoy it here

Cpt.Majed

Member

Re: Hello people

hello and welcome Sanglier

are you a Scout member ? your name kinda feels like it

Last edited by Cpt.Majed (December 12 2014)

Joe

Member

Re: Hello people

Heya Sanglierdomestique, glad you finally decided to join. Tell us a bit more about yourself, your areas of interest and maybe how did you hear about our forum?

Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy your time here :)

samer

Admin

Re: Hello people

Hey there Sanglierdomestique, welcome aboard!
I wonder what triggered your shift from being lurker to actually joining us.

rolf

Member

Re: Hello people

HellooOOoo!

Sanglierdomestique

Member

Re: Hello people

Hello folks,

thanks for the warm welcome. So there goes an about-me in a long sentence: I'm into net governance ( from policy implications to infrastructure, that's what I study ), multimedia ( video production, editing, the lot ), home automation ( got some integrated circuits and wi-fi transceivers with me from the US to play with ), home brewing ( my plan is to create a controlled environment with aforementioned circuitry ) and music too ( the mandolin at the moment ). Oh and spot-on Cpt. Majed as I used to be a Scout.

I basically stumbled on this forum by mistake. I was looking into ways to extract the Oger* ADSL password from a router. Lo and behold someone here had a detailed description on how to telnet into the thing and get that password out. That made my day, I could now set-up routers with no fuss. As to why I joined after lurking, no reason in particular. I think I got worked-up about the sign-up challenge too . Nice touch by the way :)

rolf

Member

Re: Hello people

multimedia ( video production, editing, the lot )

I'm a bit obsessed by videography gear lately (with special emphasis on low light photography :) ), specifically mirrorless photo/video cameras.
My wishlist (well some of it):

Sony A7S, one of the best low light cameras you can find.
Mikaton Speedmaster 50mm f.095 lens (they also have a 35mm lens)

Here is a video shot with Mikaton f0.95 on a sony A7S body!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZxSzdOACJ8

When you shoot low light with a fast lens, you can get a great bokeh, shoot at lower iso hence obtain better colors and dynamic range.

The Panasonic GH4 is of course on my wishlist :)

And another item is the Sigma 18-35mm f1.8 .

Here is a video shot with the GH4 and a Sigma 18-35mm f1.8 (nice to watch if you're into bikes as well):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVijkG7 … XPAul5K6UQ

The Sony A7S is a full-frame sensor. The GH4 is a 4/3 sensor. You can mount full frame lenses on it using an adapter. If you use a regular adapter you just get a cropped image (50mm becomes 100mm, etc) or you can actually use a focal reducer like these:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Metabones-Nik … 232f6c0e3b

Which have the side effect of concentrating and increasing the light captured by your sensor, that means you can gain like 1 f-stop. If you mount the Mikaton on the GH4 using a focal length reducer, you actually get a f0.75 lens! If you mount a 1.8 lens, it becomes will have the light capturing capabilities of a  f1.3.

Which makes it very interesting for mounting all kind of manual lenses.
This is a good candidate (also on my wishlist):

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NIKON-AIS-50M … 418795c0e5

The older GH3 is also a great camera.

As for me I have an Olympus E-PM2 with a Panasonic 20mm f1.7.

Here's one:

But mine is red, and the lens is in metallic silver, and it's a newer version of the lens.

If I was buying a camera now, I would consider the Sony DSC-RX100 III (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sony-cy … c-rx100-m3). Or a Nikon DSLR, you can't go wrong with a DSLR. Or something like what I have now, but I'd rather buy a Panasonic instead of Olympus. Olympus MFT cameras are a bit rudimentary for taking movies, and quirky.

I'm also interested in HDR for movies. I know it should be possible to shoot at double framerates with alternating exposure and get a higher dynamic range. Red cameras can do that, but Red is out of my league, with each camera costing like $ 30K. I think that Canon cameras can do that through Magic Lantern as well but I don't know how well it works.

There are also the blackmagic cameras.

This is an exciting time for photo/video. With micro 4/3 mounts, if you can live with manual focus and pay extra for adapters, you can mount almost any lens from any system on your camera, and the sensors and software are getting better. TVs and viewing devices have a hard time catching up.

Last edited by rolf (December 14 2014)

Sanglierdomestique

Member

Re: Hello people

Very exciting times indeed...

If you're going for an all-rounder, I think a DSLR would be the way to go. 5D with firmware upgrade maybe ? Loads of support

I got the Nikon D90 when it first came out, very reliable, it was the first DSLR to feature HD video.

vegetaleb

Banned

Re: Hello people

Yeah same here, still got the D90 and will not switch to another one until a FF Nikon camera will be under 2000$

Joe

Member

Re: Hello people

Honest question: What does a high end body give you? Wouldn't it be better to invest in lenses instead?

rolf

Member

Re: Hello people

Honest question: What does a high end body give you? Wouldn't it be better to invest in lenses instead?

My camera body with the kit lens cost me about $320 (that particular model is a bit of a bargain)
Some time later I bought the 20mm 1.7 lens at about the same cost ($320)

One might see that as a step backwards. The kit lens is 14-40 (something like that) zoom. My new lens is a fixed, 40mm equivalent lens. I've been told that I don't need a new lens, that I can just "push the ISOs".

But with F 1.7 I can now take nigh photos, on the streets, at ISO 400 to 800. The difference is huge. Previously I had 2.5 stops less, so I had to push to like 3200 iso. The colors would be quite unnatural and the photo would be all fuzzy and grainy. TBH the grain on my camera is not too bad, but it was the colors that were the worst.

Now I can have natural colors in low light situation. This lens is also much sharper than the kit zoom so it's a joy to zoom into the photo and look at details, and I'm looking forward to print them.

It's also well smaller than the kit zoom (half the size).

I have no regrets about the whole thing. But yeah lenses can be expensive :(

rolf

Member

Re: Hello people

On the bright side they loose less value on resale. It's not a given, though, some lenses hardly loose any value or get more expensive, other lenses may loose all their value if their system is phased out and they cannot be used on other systems.

vegetaleb

Banned

Re: Hello people

Full Frame (FF) cameras have much less noise than DX, even at very high ISO like 12800 or even 64000 noise is tolerable while on DX from 3200 and + it's beginning to be messy, even at 200 dark clouds have noise. Only FF can let you take perfect photos in every possible situations.

AvoK95

Member

Re: Hello people

Helloz

rolf

Member

Re: Hello people

Full Frame (FF) cameras have much less noise than DX, even at very high ISO like 12800 or even 64000 noise is tolerable while on DX from 3200 and + it's beginning to be messy, even at 200 dark clouds have noise. Only FF can let you take perfect photos in every possible situations.

If you don't mind the size and price :)

I think that smaller sensors often have a better quality than FF when compared by "quality by square cm" (if that makes any sense). The advantages of FF are because the sensors are bigger, not because they are better. Most of the times, at least, I think.

I don't know if you heard about "speed boosters". These are adapters that let you mount a FF lens on a less than FF sensor, while retaining the FF focal length. For example your 50mm, when mounted with a speed booster adapter (actually the correct term is "focal length reducer"), will not become a 100mm equiv, but stay a 50mm equiv. Since these adapters concentrate the light rays on a smaller surface, you will win one f-stop. So a F1.2 lens will become an F1 lens (but only from the aspect of light intensity. Depth of field is not affected).

These are exciting times, indeed. The only think I am not finding is a more "open" system, where you could for example swap sensors, or modify and recompile the firmware yourself.

Some makers went a little in the direction, for example Ricoh have a system where you can swap the sensor-lens combos (the sensor is attached to the lens) and Samsung released some of their firmware source code, but in practice they're not really open system. Then you have, of course, medium format cameras, in which you can swap backs. But they'll cost a house and break your back :)