31Dec Happy new year!
For some reason I find this plastic bottle of Miller High Life very amusing. It’s time for me to watch a few films with my wife and go to bed before the bars fill up and take over the streets around my apartment. It’s currently -2 degrees outside (and getting colder) and it’s warming up since yesterday. Happy new year!
Photo taken with a Canon 6d and a 50mm f1.2 lens.
30Dec Voigtlander 17.5mm f0.95
One thing I was missing when I first started using the Panasonic GH4 was that shallow depth field I was used to out of lenses like the Canon 50mm f1.2L and 35mm f1.4L on a full frame camera. While the Voigtlander 17.5mm f0.95 is a great lens, it isn’t quite a direct replacement for the Canon 35mm f1.4L in an M4/3 kit.
As you can see in this video test from Vimeo user Valpopando, wide open the Voigtlander 17.5mm f0.95 still enables you to drop most of the background around a somewhat close subjects into a nice, out of focus blur of bokeh. It really about as good as it gets for DOF on a native M43 lens.
Even though the Voigtlander is a manual focus lens, the GH4’s focus peaking aid and Fn3 punch in function make focusing fairly easy. This is also aided by the long travel on the Voigtlander’s focus ring which makes things even easier than I was expecting. It’s not something you’d want to shoot sports photography with, but a portrait in low light is completely reasonable and it shouldn’t be any problem for video.
Because of the amount of glass it requires to make an f0.95 lens, the Voigtlander 17.5mm is ruffly the size of the Olympus 12-40mm f2.8 zoom and slightly heavier. It also extends about a quarter of an inch in and out as you adjust the focus ring. My copy of the 17.5mm also suffers from a minor amount of slack when you change directions with the focus ring. It’s not horrible but it could be better for a $1000 lens.
Other than the slight slop in the focus ring, the Voigtlander 17.5mm f0.95 is pretty solid and a joy to use. It feels very substantial in the hand with it’s all metal body and engraved distance labels. Travel on the focus ring in one direction is nice and smooth and the amount of travel allows you to rack focus by hand very easily.
Wide open it’s a little soft, but it’s what I would expect for a lens with this wide of an aperture. You can download the raw photos here. At f2 it starts to sharpen up and by f2.8 or so it’s very sharp across the board. Honestly though, you probably aren’t buying this lens for it’s sharpness. If you wanted tack sharp wide open the Panasonic 15mm f1.7 is ruffly half the price. You buy the Voigtlander for f0.95 and if that’s the look your are going for, it delivers.
I have a Metabones EF to M4/3 speed booster on the the way and one of the first things I’ll be playing around with when it shows up is my Canon 24mm f1.4 mkII. I’d like to test it against the substantially smaller Voigtlander 17.5mm f0.95 and see how well it stands up.
I’ll post more on that after the new year. Next up is the hopefully successful upgrade of my MSI GS60 Laptop, wish me luck.
29Dec Varavon Armor Panasonic GH4 Cage – Review
I’ve been using the Varavon Armor GH4 Cage with the Panasonic GH4 for the last 5 months. When I first saw it at NAB last year I thought it looked like an interesting design and a pretty decent little unit for both mounting and protecting the GH4. Five months is a long time to work with a cage, in that amount of time you get to know your gear pretty well.
It’s easy to fall in love with something as an idea and at first many of these cages look like they could solve all of your mounting and connection needs. When I first saw the Varavon GH4 Cage I thought it was just that, a solution to a problem I had yet to run into. I hadn’t really spent much time with the GH4 at that point and I really wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew that it’s tiny form factor would require a mounting solution of some kind and the Varavon GH4 Cage looked like a great place to start.
Lets start with the Varavon GH4 Cage’s flip out screen and port cut outs. As you can see there is a nice rounded section that allows plenty of room for the screen to fully rotate in any direction you choose. Above that you have a cut out section for the microphone 3.5mm input. It’s hard to see from the picture but there are two screws located above and bellow the audio input jack that were designed to tighten down no the audio cable from the top and bottom to hold it in place. These screws are mostly useless and unless you plan on fiddling with them every time you connect a 3.5mm stereo cable to the GH4 you may as well take them out and put them somewhere safe. If you don’t they’ll eventually rattle out and you might loose them somewhere that something like that could really get into trouble.
Looking closer at the cut out you’ll see that there’s plenty of room for the micro HDMI port as well as the micro USB port. The two large thumb screws behind the cut out also give you a little pocket to feed your cables through that works very well to clamp the cable down. I’ve been using it with this micro HDMI to HDMI female adapter so that I don’t have to un-clamp a cable if it’s needed for something else.
Where I run into problems with this portion of the cage is at the headphone jack. Notice how little room there is for a headphone cable. It’s just enough room for the type of 3.5mm plug you find on ear buds but any larger and you have to shove the rubber headphone jack cover back under the Varavon GH4 Cage’s frame. If you leave the rubber cover stuck between the camera and the frame for to long it starts to distort and becomes difficult to get back into place on the headphone jack when you need it.
While I understand they made this section round in order to accommodate the flip out screen, it would have been nice if Varavon would have cut a bit more out of the top end of the curve for the headphone jack. If you use earbuds you’ll probably be fine, but if you like to use nicer headphones like the Senal SMH-1000 (one of my favorite mid priced headphones) the lack of space at the headphone plug can be very frustrating.
On the grip side of the camera you have a nice easy to use cut out for the memory card. It works perfectly and provides you with the exact about of room needed to get memory cards in and out with no problem.
Besides all of the 1/4 20 threaded holes, you’ll also notice slots at the top and bottom of the cage. These were originally used to attach a fairly nice leather hand strap. At first I thought I’d really enjoy the hand strap, but after a few weeks of use, I opted to remove it. Don’t get me wrong it can be nice if you only shoot hand held and I might look into some kind of quick release for a hand grip in the future, for the most part it was in the way when I used it. I tended to use the top handle when I was shooting hand held and the hand strap would catch on things while generally getting in the way of memory card replacement.
Thought it would be great. Turns out I don’t like the hand strap.
I have absolutely no complaints with the top of the unit. Dials are easy to get to, the ISO button is easy to reach, and the wifi button though slightly covered up, isn’t to much of a problem. The cold shoe works fine and Varavon has used any extra space to insert a 1/4 20 threaded whole just in case you need them for mounting. I found the on/off toggle switch hard to get at when I first started using it, but even that works ok on the Varavon GH4 Cage once you get used to it.
One issue I did run into almost immediately though is the top handle mount. You’ll notice mine is nice and shiny, unlike the sales photos. That’s because I had to take a sander to the otherwise nice looking powder coat in order to get the dang thing to fit into the top cradle of the cage.
It appears to simply be poor planning on the part of Varavon’s designers. They didn’t account for the extra thickness powder coated aluminum would gain and designed the top mounting plate with to little space to compensate. It’s not the end of the world, but it is extremely frustrating when you have to take a grinder to a brand new piece of hardware.
Other than the DIY repair to the Varavon GH4 Cage, the rest of the handle design is decent. There’s just enough room to mount a Juicedlink RM333 audio adapter and still leave room to grip the handle. Notice however the white strip between the RM333 and the Varavon GH4 Cage’s handle. That’s 5 or 6 layers of grip tape used as padding. The Juicedlink RM333’s screw sits sort of loose inside the adapter and bit of padding was required to get the thing to snug up tightly against the cage’s top handle.
Positive:
- Lots of mounting points
- Solid construction
- Access all controls
- Full support of flip out screen
- Leather hand grip
- Top handle
Negative:
- Top handle requires sanding to fit
- Mic input lock down screws are useless
- Headphone port needs more room
- Leather hand grip can be cumbersome
Conclusion
I’ve been using the Varavon Armor GH4 Cage with the Panasonic GH4 for about 5 months now and I haven’t gotten rid of it. While it does have some rather annoying “features”, like the useless mic input lock down screws and the lack of room for a full size headphone cable it also has perks.
As a hand held camera the Panasonic GH4 is tiny. You are definitely going to want a cage of some kind for both mounting and ergonomics. While the Varavon GH4 Cage has some weaknesses, it’s still one of the best options I’ve seen on the market. At $270 it isn’t cheap, but it’s also not 5 or $600 like some of the cages out there.
There are some much cheaper clones out there like this one for $89, but none of those cheaper clones are machined from a single piece of aluminum with no bolted joints around the camera. Because of that you end up with bolted on top and side panels, these end up making the whole cage wobbly. That might not be a problem for light use, but if you plan to put a field monitor, LED light, and audio gear on your cage (with friction arms for adjustment), you might want to consider spending the extra on the Varavon Armor GH4 Cage.
29Dec Co host a podcast?
It’s almost a new year and I’d like to start 2015 with a weekly audio podcast. However It usually takes two to tango and it’s hard to have a discussion without a second voice. I’m currently in search of a co host to work on a 1/2 hour to hour long show. Once a week we’d cover camera news, equipment, filmmaking, and DIY. If any of you out there are interested in giving it a try, shoot me an e-mail.
28Dec Olympus 17mm f1.8 M4/3 lens
I debated for awhile between the Panasonic 15mm f1.7, Panasonic 20mm f1.7 and the Olympus 17mm f1.8. I spent a few hours at a camera shop Playing around with the 20mm and 17mm and even rented the 15mm for a week. The 20mm f1.7 was a great little lens and the pancake form factor is appealing but it left me wanting something just a little bit wider. The 15mm f1.7 is an all around impressive lens and wide open it had the best corner sharpness out of the bunch. The difference in image quality between the 17mm and 15mm isn’t dramatic enough to be a deal breaker, but it is noticeable if you start pixel peeping.
At the time of this purchase I had already planned on picking up the Voigtlander 17.5mm f0.95 and was really just looking for a decent walk around 35mm equivalent with auto focus for those times when I didn’t feel like focusing manually. While both the Panasonic and Olympus hover right around $500 new, the used prices are dramatically different. After doing some research it turns out that the used price of an Olympus 17mm f1.8 hovers around the mid $300’s while the Panasonic 15mm f1.7 used price is stays solidly in the mid to upper $400’s.
I already planned to spend the majority of my budget on the Voigtlander and I figured saving some money made the Olympus a better buy for my needs. After making a few offers on Ebay I was able to pick the Olympus up for $330.
For the price, I’ve used the 17mm f1.8 just enough to make it worthwhile, and it ended up making a great walk around prime. The Olympus is a good lens and for the price, well worth a look if you are in the market for a 35mm equivalent focal length on the GH4.
If you only buy your lenses new, the Olympus and Panasonic are within $50 of each other and the Panasonic 15mm f1.7 is the winner by enough of a margin to make it worth wild for the price. However, if you don’t mind buying your lenses used the Olympus 17mm f1.8 is a really good value.
27Dec The GH4 and my current Lens collection
I’ve been continuously shooting over the last 5 months and the Panasonic GH4 has become a pretty stable part of my current kit. I haven’t given up on my Canon 5d mark III or the Sony a7s, both of which fill important roles in my collection, but I have started to look at things from a size perspective. If I think I can get away with shooting solely on the Panasonic GH4 it means I only have to travel with a single camera bag for everything (minus tripod, crane, slider, etc.).
Three M4/3 lenses can fit in the same space and weigh less than a single full frame lens. A medium size bag has enough room for all of the lenses above, audio gear, battery chargers, field monitor, and any other random hardware I deem necessary for the shoot and there’s usually room to spare. That makes a huge difference when you’re trying to schlep your gear through woodlands or up to the top of some dam fish ladder.
The GH4 still hasn’t taken the place of the full frame look I’ve come to enjoy with the 5d mkIII and a7s, but many times when a project doesn’t require it. The GH4’s 4k ability has also made a big difference when i’m working on something that I’ll only have a single opportunity to capture. I can shoot hand held or on a monopod while i’m on set, then stabilize, pan, and crop as needed in post or simply resize to 1080p. It isn’t my preferred method, but it’s saved more shots than I’d like to admit.
I started out only occasionally shooting 4k on the GH4. In the past I’d rent a RED when I needed 4k and enjoy all the benefits of R3D files as well as all of the frame rate options. I figured 1080p was more than enough for most projects with the GH4 and I liked the ability to punch in on any lens. I also thought data rates might be an issue in post.
It turns out the data rate on the GH4’s 4k mode isn’t horribly unreasonable, it still eats up a lot more space than 1080p on the 5d mark III, but the 100mb codec is reasonably efficient and easy enough to work with in post. Plus 128GB SDXC cards have come way down in price over the past year or so and if I need to punch in I have a 4k image to work with.
The Panasonic GH4 has become such a stable part of my kit that I’ve made the destitution to sell off one of my 5d mark III bodies and invest heavily in M4/3 lenses. From left to right above, here’s the list so far:
- Olympus 17mm f1.8
- Voigtlander 17.5mm f0.95
- Panasonic 25mm f1.4
- Voigtlander 25mm f0.95
- Olympus 45mm f1.8
- Canon 55mm f1.2
- Olympus 75mm f1.8
- (back row) Panasonic 35-100mm f2.8
- (back row) Olympus 12-40mm f2.8
There are still a few lenses I’d like to add to my list including a 7-14mm zoom and a 100-300 super-telephoto. I’ve been holding off on picking up the Panasonic 7-14mm f4 because the Olympus 7-14mm f2.8 was supposedly due to be released this year. It’s been almost a year since Olympus’s announcement and there is still not 7-14mm f2.8 on the market. I’ve held out for the Olympus but it’s been long enough, it might be time to pull the trigger on the Panasonic 7-14mm f4.
As for the super-telephoto, the Panasonic 100-300 f4-5.6 is probably what I’ll be picking up. The used price is pretty reasonable and if I can find one on ebay for under $400 I’ll probably be picking it up towards the beginning of the year.
I’ll be covering my lens choices a little more thoroughly over the next few weeks. For now though, time for some more Christmas themed drinks and unpacking.
26Dec iRig PRE DSLR XLR audio adapter mounting mod
I currently use Velcro to mount the iRig pre to my DSLR cage when needed but Dave sent in these handy mounting mod for the hacked iRig Pre XLR (Audio hack guide video here) audio adapter. Velcro isn’t the most secure option and this looks like it could be a decent improvement.
Dave sent in this correction: I drilled and tapped two small holes into the aluminum bracket and through the battery cover. Then I used two 1/8 long stainless steel 6/32 phillips head machine screws to attach the battery cover to an L bracket flash grip. This provides a handy way to attach the iRig pre directly to your camera with something a lot more solid than Velcro.
Dave drilled two wholes through the battery cover. Then he used two flat head 1/4 20 screws to attach the battery cover to an L bracket flash grip. This provides a handy way to attach the iRig pre directly to your camera with something a little more solid then Velcro.
Once you’ve mounted the battery cover to the L bracket you simply slide the iRig pre into place and you’re good to go. There’s only one design change I might recommend and that would be to mount the battery cover in the opposite direction so that the iRig pre slides down into the plate instead of up into the battery cover. In it’s current configuration a strong pull on your XLR cable might yank the iRig pre loose.
Update: After talking with Dave a little more about this mod, he makes a good argument for mounting it with the XLR cable down. With the velcro wrapped around the handle, it prevents the iRig pre from flying completely off the rig if something goes wrong. The benefit is that your XLR cable is angled down which makes the configuration much more manageable.
Thanks Dave for sending in this mounting idea!
25Dec Take advantage of that Christmas tree for Bokeh
It’s christmas day and you most likely have your whole family gathered around and your camera in hand. All those lights on your christmas tree gives you the perfect opportunity for some lovely bokeh. Get your favorite prime lense out, in this case i used the Canon 50mm f1.4 on a Canon 6d body, open your aperture all the way up and place your subject 8 or 9 feet away from the christmas tree. Shooting with a 50mm lens you’ll want to be within a few feet of your subject so that they fill up the frame. Line up your shot so that you have your christmas lights filling in the background and let the bokeh fill up the frame.
This is a simple and easy way to take some great christmas shots with the family, friends, and anyone else you can convince to hang out in your living room. On that note it’s time for my wife and I to make some spiked coffee and watch the Muppet Christmas Carol. Merry christmas!
24Dec IBM model M clicky Keyboard USB upgrade
I have a very special place in my heart for the Old IBM model M buckle spring mechanical keyboards. They’re loud, they’re tough, and every single key makes you feel like you are really typing something. I have a new version of the original model M that set me back around $100 and I enjoy it immensely. However I also have a few hideous old 1980’s vintage models laying around and I was looking at what it would take to upgrade it them to usb.
It turns out you can buy a USB adapter cable for these old keyboards for just under $40 and convert them over for modern use. These aren’t for everyone but if you’re sitting on a stash of these guys and want to put them back into service, this is a pretty easy solution. $40 is still a little steep, if any of you find a cheaper source for these things let me know.
24Dec MSI GS60 Ghost Laptop M.2 SSD upgrade
I’ve been doing a bit of research on the MSI GS60 Ghost laptop and I think i’m just about ready to start upgrading. From what I’ve gathered in forums as well as the MSI manual, the GS60 has two (type 2280) 80mm M.2 SSD slots and a single 2.5 inch bay. I just received the Crucial 512GB M.2 80mm SSD this morning and I have a 1TB 840 EVO SSD on the the way. Once that shows up, it’ll be time to tear the MSI GS60 apart.
Looks like there are 15 screws total (red marks the spot) and from what I’ve been able to gather, gold screws are one size, the 4 at the bottom are another size, and the rest are identical. MSI has placed one of these screws underneath a warranty sticker which could be an issue. I spoke with a rep on the phone yesterday and apparently they have no problem with removing it, however i’m still waiting on an official e-mail to find out if this will void my warranty.
Once all the parts show up, i’ll be filming the upgrade and posting photos as well has screw sizes. I’m pretty sure I’ll have to partially remove the motherboard in order to get to the M.2 slots, which could be a little tricky. Hopefully I don’t end up destroying my brand new laptop.
