30Apr RODE Videomic pro 3.5mm to XLR input adapter
These adapters are pretty hand to have around. They work great with for the RODE Videomic Pro when dealing with XLR inputs and they also do a good job adapting wireless audio units like the Sennheiser units I normally use. You can find the cheaper version here for about $6.50 and the RODE branded version here for about $15.
If you are interested in trying to build one of these yourself, you can find the wiring diagram here. While it is possible to do, the Campro adapter is only $6.50 and for most people that price is worth it for the form factor and convenance. Also a few of you over the years have asked about signal cancellation in the XLR adapter. Because the signal output by the RODE Videomic Pro is the same on both the tip and ring, there is no common mode rejection going on inside the adapter. If you really want to know more about how that works, let me know and I can write something up on it, but really all that maters is that there is no signal cancellation.
28Apr New Transcend 64 GB UHS-3 SDXC 95MB/s cards
Looks like the first round of UHS-3 Class “guaranteed for real-time video recording at 4k” memory cards are starting to hit the market and Transcend’s 64GB SDXC cards are winning the price war at $49.95 for a 64GB. I’ve had pretty good luck over the years with Transcend’s CF memory cards, but my experience with their SD cards has been hit or miss. However with the new standard being used any card with the “UHS-3” stamp is required to meet a “Minimum constant 30 Mb/s write speed” which is more than enough to handle 4k recording at 24 and 30 fps.
Will this new standard really guarantee that some of the more budget friendly cards like Transcend’s 64GB offering will workout just fine in the Panasonic GH4? If so who exactly enforces the standard? If you receive a card that doesn’t meet the minimum standard, does that mean you can return it without an issue?
I’m interested to see how this new standard plays out. In the past even respected memory card makers like Sandisk rounded up on read speeds and simply failed to mention write speeds on some cards. All this while labeling them “ultra” and “extreme” to give the impression of speed. But if every card with a UHS-3 stamp is created equal, or at the very least meets the minimum standard, what would be the point in spending the extra money. Even if a card doesn’t have brand name recognition, it does have a UHS-3 stamp and that’s supposed to be good enough, right?
Once I make it back from Iceland, maybe I’ll start buying and testing a few of these bargain cards and see if the UHS-3 label really stands true. In the mean time if any of you take a chance on any of these lower price UHS-3 cards, send me the speed test results and I’ll add them to the list for comparison. Nothing spells fun like memory card testing.
28Apr B&H has the Panasonic GH4 in stock
I haven’t heard anything from B&H on shipping out my order, but it does appear they have the Panasonic GH4 in stock So nows the time to order if you are in the market. I’m not really sure yet if the GH4 will completely sell out like the GH3 when it was released or if they’ll be plenty of inventory. I know the GH4 will be popular but I don’t know how much stock Panasonic is going to make available and who knows how long it’ll take for other camera makers to catch up with Panasonic.
28Apr Want the Panasonic GH4 sooner?
I know a lot of you, like me, pre ordered the Panasonic GH4. It can be a little frustrating when others have already received their camera and you’re still waiting for B&H or Amazon to deliver. If you can’t stand waiting another week and don’t mind spending an extra $100, there’s a seller on ebay right now offering 2 day shipping on the Panasonic GH4 body. A friend of mine bought the GH4 on ebay from this seller yesterday and got a tracking number this morning with a delivery estimate of Wednesday, so they definitely have the camera in stock and ship fast. Where the deal really gets attractive is that ebay is currently offering (through paypal) 12 months same as cash financing on anything over $599. So you can get your hands on a GH4 now and you have a year interest free to pay it off.
I was tempted enough by the 12 months same as cash that I a order in at 7 a.m. this morning. Tracking number came back from the seller about 15min ago. So even if my B&H pre order gets delayed I’ll have the GH4 in hand by the middle of this week. I think a $100 markup is worth it for 12 months same as cash and super fast shipping. Plus I leave for France on the 4th and then on to Iceland and I’d like to take the GH4 with me for testing. Maybe I’ll even have a chance to shoot the review while i’m out.
28Apr Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM Micro Four Thirds Lens?
As I continue to research micro 4/3 lens options I was surprised to find that the Sigma 30mm f1.4 lens comes in a micro 4/3 mount. The 30mm f1.4 lens was original designed for APS-C size sensors cameras. It’s a great little lens for the price but it is a little soft in the corners and produces noticeable vignetting wide open on an APS-C body.
I’ve used the APS-C version of this lens for years and had no problems with image quality. A micro 4/3 sensor would likely make this lens even better because the sensor would only be using the center of the Sigma 30mm f1.4 lens which would reduce vignetting and increase corner sharpness at f1.4. Admittedly the lens is a little on the fat side for a Panasonic GH4 body, but a 30mm f1.4 lens for $300 sounds pretty tempting.
I haven’t found a whole lot of information on the micro 4/3 version of the Sigma 30mm f1.4 so it’s a little bit of a mystery. Have any of you given this lens a try? This older version is kind of unique since Sigma doesn’t produce any of their newer “Art” lenses in an M4/3 mount. I might have to give the Sigma 30mm f1.4 micro 4/3 lens a try.
UPDATE: I was having trouble finding any real info on the Sigma Panasonic mount so I sent an e-mail to Panasonic to get a little more information and they sent me this compatibility list. They also let me know that the Sigma is a 4/3 mount not a micro 4/3 mount (apparently I still have a lot to learn about Olympus and Panasonic cameras) and requires an electronic adapter to get things working. With the adapter attached all electronic features including AF work on the Sigma 30mm f1.4 and the electronic adapter only adds about $45. I might still have to give the Sigma a try.
27Apr Libec Allex S kit Slider tripod combo
At first look the Libec Allex S slider kit seemed like a pretty decent package. You get a heavy duty tripod with a 31 inch slider and a nice solid fluid head for around $600, making it an attractive starter kit. Libec makes some decent tripods and fluid heads a so I was expecting the slider to be as nice as their normal kit, but the demo models they had at NAB were pretty disappointing.
The tripod stand was nice and solid and the motion from the fluid head felt pretty good but then there’s the slider. The demo model was brand new and had only been out on the show floor at NAB for 2 days when I stopped by to test it out. If you loo at the slider track where I have my fingers (in the shot above), you’ll see that it’s turning a grayish silver. The track actually started out life completely black, but as people stopped by to test out the slider and play around with it, the roller bearings began to distro the finish and mangle the sliding surface.
By the time I got there, the track was rough to the touch and camera slides were filled with lots of micro vibration from the damaged slider rail. I’ve seen a lot of positive posts about this slider but everyone seems to be missing the fact that the models Libec had at NAB were defective.
I spoke with the reps at the booth about it and at first they denied the problem, but when I walked over and showed them the problem they admitted that yes there was actually a problem with the slider. Apparently the surface material used on the sliders track wasn’t meeting their design spec and the metal roller bearings used on the carriage ended up being tougher than the track itself.
The rep from Libec said that “they have an engineering team working on it” and hopefully that’s why we haven’t started to see any of the Libec Allex kits for sale yet. If they don’t fix this problem this slider kit could end up being a disappointing buy. I thought I’d post this quick warning for those of you interested in the slider, if I were you, I’d wait unit they’ve been road tested by someone else before I pulled the trigger on this guy.
26Apr OpenCL vs Cuda Adobe Premiere CC rendering test
As I mentioned earlier this week, I was pretty impressed with the OpenCL Adobe Premiere CC demonstrations I saw at NAB this year. Thanks to some attractive used prices on ebay, I decided to pulled the trigger on a used Sapphire R9 290x GPU. The R9 290 and 290x GPUs have had a drastic drop in used pricing on ebay thanks mostly to the virtual currency miners unloading used GPUs onto the market. Currently you can pick up an R9 290x for under $400 and a R9 290 for around $300
used on ebay, making them both a very attractive GPU upgrade.
While I was able to see a number of OpenCL examples at the AMD booth, there weren’t any side by side rendering comparisons with any Nvidia cards. So I figured while I was making the upgrade I’d do some quick timeline rendering testing to see how far OpenCL has really come in comparison to CUDA in Premiere Pro CC.
Keep in mind this isn’t an extremely scientific test, I simply picked a typical timeline (above) with lot of cuts, transitions, multiple layers, and some moving graphics. I went with a timeline that is 3 minutes and 15 seconds in length because I don’t want to spend all day timing renders. I did not check the timeline to see how many effects were optimized for OpenCL or CUDA because I wanted a timeline that represented a normal edit. After all you aren’t going to stop and change how you edit something simply because an effect is optimized for this or that.
Here’s the system I used for these tests:
- Intel i7-4770 Haswell CPU
- Gigabyte GA-Z87-D3HP motherboard
- 32GB G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series DDR3 1600 RAM
- 1TB Samsung 840 EVO editing drive
- CORSAIR TX750 V2 Bronze power supply
The two GPUs used for this test are the Nvidia EVGA GTX 670 4GB and the Radeon Sapphire R9-290x 4GB I bought used earlier this week. I also ran this render test in “Software only” mode to see how long a none GPU accelerated configuration takes to render this 3 minute 15 second timeline.
Software Only:
Lets start things off with the software only mode. Rendering out this timeline to H.264 on a standard youtube output preset in Premiere Pro CC with 2 passes and maximum rendering quality enabled took 18 minutes and 30 seconds. I kept the Resource panel open during the test and all 4 cores plus all 4 virtual cores were maxed out at 100%. At a time of 18:30 it basically took 5.5x real time playback to render in software only. The intel i7-4770 might not be the highest rated CPU on the market but it’s also no slouch. This first test just gives you a benchmark for how much of a difference a GPU can make in rendering speeds.
CUDA rendering:
Next up, the Nvidia EVGA GTX 670 4GB GPU. Rendering settings are exactly the same as the test above with a Standard youtube preset output of H.264 with 2 passes and maximum rendering quality enabled. The only difference is that this time the Mercury playback engine is enabled with CUDA support for the GTX 670. This time it took 4 minutes and 52 seconds to render this 3 minute 15 second clip and the CPU ran at 92% in resource monitor on all cores.
Just enabling GPU acceleration decreased rendering time by almost 74%. That might not be a big deal on a short clip, but it really starts to add up if you are working on a 10 minute or 18 minute piece.
OpenCL rendering:
Last but not least is the Radeon Sapphire R9-290x 4GB GPU I just picked up. Before I cover the results I will say that this thing is massive compared to the GTX 670 4GB. First I thought I’d just put it in the bottom crossfire slot (shown above) so that I’d have enough room for my ASUS PCE-AC66 wireless card, but it turns out that’s a 4x slot instead of a 16x slot. I had to remove the ASUS PCE-AC66 and go with a lower profile (and slower) 450Mbps card to get things to fit. Even than that second PCIe slot was a pretty tight fit. I might have to look into getting a new motherboard if I want to continue to take advantage of my Asus wireless system.
Although the R9 290x is roughly 2 inches longer and thicker, the card actually feels lighter than the GTX 670 4GB. The Sapphire R9-290x is also much quieter than the EVGA GTX 670 4GB card. When rendering the 670 sounds like a small remote control plane taking off, however I didn’t hear any change in sound or pitch out of the Sapphire R9-290x. The size of the card is a pain but the Sapphire Tri-X shroud really seems to do a good job cooling.
As for the results, the Radeon Sapphire R9-290x 4GB GPU scored the best out of the bunch with a render time of 4 minutes and 46 seconds and CPU usage at 88% in resource monitor. This puts the R9-290x ahead of the GTX 670 by a marginal 6 seconds.
Verdict:
Real time playback of the timeline in full resolution from both cards was virtually identical so it’s a tie in that department. While the Radeon Sapphire R9-290x 4GB did win the rendering test by 6 seconds, I would also call the rendering test an overall tie. What the results of this little experiment really mean for me is that i’m no longer tied strictly to Nvidia for GPU upgrades with Premiere Pro CC. Adobe seems to really be improving their support for OpenCL and it’s come along ways over the past few years. At this point you can choose the GPU you want and expect very comparable performance in Adobe CC.
I’m guessing over the next few years we’ll see less and less CUDA specific support while OpenCL support continues to rise. With all the Radeon cards being used in Mac Pros and Macbooks it would be foolish for Adobe to continue on the proprietary CUDA only path.
Now if only Amazon would ship the 4k Samsung panel I ordered. Apparently it won’t ship until the 30th. Hopefully they actually meet that estimate.
26Apr Next Panasonic GH4 lens – Voigtlander Nokton 25mm f0.95
Craigslist came through on a reasonably priced ($560) used Voigtlander Nokton 25mm f0.95 lens. While I ended up getting a pretty good deal on the Voigtlander, i’m shopping without an actual camera body for testing. Thankfully the guy I bought this from brought his GH2 with him.
Optics on the Nokton 25mm f0.95 looked pretty nice on his GH2 and the one I was able to use at NAB on the Panasonic GH4 seemed to do a pretty decent job resolving 4k. The action on the focus ring feels nice and smooth and the lens feels like a nice solid piece of metal in the hand.
I’ll probably still end up spending the money on a Panasonic 25mm f1.4 down the line to get full autofocus support, but it’s always nice to have one or two good full manual primes around. Worse case scenario I can always put it back on ebay, the nice thing about a lens like this is that it holds it’s value.
Still itching to get my hands on the Panasonic GH4, latest news from B&H is that it’ll ship next week. I’ll keep you posted.
25Apr Canon EOS to M4/3 speed booster from Mitakon
I found this one by accident while searching for more Panasonic Gh4 lens options. Apparently Mitakon, the company that makes that mysterious 35mm f0.95 lens I posted this morning also makes a very interesting Canon EOS to M4/3 speed booster style adapter. The focal multiplier for this guy is 0.726x so a Canon 50mm f1.4 would be a 72.6mm instead of a 100mm on a M4/3 body. You still get a gain of 1-stop as with other adapters, but this is completely passive, so you’ll still run into the aperture control issues with standard EOS glass.
Still at a price of $149 the Canon EOS to M4/3 speed booster style adapter looks like a pretty interesting option. I might have to give it a try once I have the Panasonic Gh4 in my hands. Apparently Mitakon makes M4/3 adapters in just about every flavor imaginable
and all of them are in the $130 to $185 pricing range. That’s around $200 or so less than the Metabones adapters, I wonder what the downside is.
25Apr Panasonic 12-35mm f2.8 vs Olympus 12-40mm f2.8 Full test
Before I left for NAB at the beginning of the month I posted this quick flicker test between the Panasonic 12-35mm f2.8 and the Olympus 12-40mm f2.8 lenses. Above is the rest of the tests I ran between the two lenses before I left town. This includes flicker tests that cover more f-stops on each lens as requested by a number of you.
For me it ends up boiling down to 3 major factors. The Olympus 12-40mm f2.8 has hard end stops and far less flicker, the Panasonic 12-35mm f2.8 has very impressive image stabilization. If you need hard end stops and to be able to zoom without flicker the Olympus wins, if you want really impressive Image Stabilization the Panasonic wins. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed with either one of these lenses, but it is nice to think about what features are more important to you before you make the purchase.
I left build quality out of the lineup because although the Olympus feels like a much nicer lens build wise, the Panasonic is supposed to have high end weather sealing hidden inside. Plus I’m not going to pour water on a lens i’m borrowing from a friend to find out if it is infact weather sealed.
