Wait… the Canon C100 Mk1… a 2012 camera vs the Sony FS5, a 2015 camera still widely used. Why would anyone want to see this?

Well, for starter, both cameras are abundant on the used market and at great prices. Second, older doesn’t mean it can’t keep up. And 3rd, some people may be looking at many different options and this could sway them toward a decision.

So we decided to pin both cameras against each other, doing all the basic tests, and see if the FS5 is light years ahead or if the C100 still hold in today’s standards.

All of our tests were made with both cameras at the same settings and with the same lens.

Let’s get to it!

Dynamic Range: C-log VS S-log

In the dynamic range comparison, the difference can be seen right away. The Sony FS5 really shines here capturing both shadows and highlights in the image while the Canon C100 struggles to get all that information.

Here the Sony FS5 is the clear winner with its 14-stops of dynamic range

Rolling Shutter

For the rolling shutter, it is a different story, Sony cameras are notorious for rolling shutter and the FS5 is no different. In our test, our subject (the windows) are slightly slanted to the right, but with the motion, it completely skews them to the left, when for the C100, it still skews them a little but not enough to reverse the orientation of the windows.

Rolling Shutter wise, the Canon C100 handles it better.

Moire

During this test, Marc and James though the C100 would have moire since it produced some on the monitor but when the footage was imported at full resolution in the computer no moire was apparent. With the Sony FS5, no moire is produced in the footage.

In this round, it’s a draw, both cameras handle moire like champs.

Low Light Performance

As for low light, the Canon C100 is surprisingly (for a 5 years old camera at the time of this article) good all the way to its max ISO with a clear image and a minimum of noise. The Canon C100 produces useable footage even without denoiser at high ISO. The Sony FS5, on the other hand, doesn’t shine here, which is surprising for a camera with a high native ISO. For a camera that the ISO can be cranked higher than the C100, the FS5 falls apart really quickly, the image becomes muddy and lose tons of detail in low light (same observations were made in our a6300 vs FS5 article). In the FS5’s defense, the noise becomes a lot less apparent when color corrected but the muddiness stays the same.

For the low light, the C100 is the winner.

Image Detail

This one is a tough one. Both cameras are identical to our eyes, if we adjust the picture a little bit to match on both cameras, it becomes really hard to differentiate which is which. In this case, no camera seems to be ahead of the other one, both have a good respectable image quality with plenty of details.

Image quality… it’s a draw!

In conclusion, the C100 Mk1 is still a really good camera to this day, if you are a videographer that is starting or looking to get a package that is a little bit more professional than a DSLR, the C100 Mk1 is a good contender. There is a lot of talk of “future proofing” and whatnot but the fact of the matter is, that most of us create short-lived content like commercials that will be only relevant for the next 6 months or YouTube content that will be forgotten in 2 years. For this, in our opinion, 4K is not a mandatory at the moment. The hurdles it creates such as storage management and expensive workstations required to edit it is not worth it.

For all those reasons, the C100 MK1 is still a really powerful camera in the hands of a videographer that knows the basic.

But this is not a pro-C100 review, the FS5 is James’ favorite out of this battle, but we have to be honest and face the facts, you need to get the tool that is best suited for you. So, if you film everything in 60fps+ and hyper stylize your image, then the FS5 is for you, but if you would never use those features, do yourself a favor, and save money at the same time and grab a C100!

We, hope you like the camera shootout and we would love to hear from you. Leave us a comment below and follow us on social media.

The post Canon C100 Mark I vs Sony FS5 : Camera Shootout appeared first on The Video Pro Guys.

In this article, we are looking at the JTZ top handle, the JTZ side grip and how all of that integrates with JTZlink.

We will mainly talk about the controls of the handle since we already reviewed its construction and features in our JTZ DP30 a6300 cage review, but in short, I still, to this day, think it is the best handle I’ve ever owned.

Let’s move on, the top handle has 4 buttons:

1. Wide
2. Tele
3. Focus
4. Wide & Tele – Fast or Slow

Basically, the first button zoom out, the second zoom in, the third prompt auto-focus and the forth changes the speed at which you zoom in and out. One thing to note is that I couldn’t get the Focus button to work on the a6300, I’ve tried it on 2 lenses, with different camera settings and none of them would focus. So, this Focus option may be a hit or miss depending on what camera you are using.

In order for these buttons to work, you will need a Sony PowerZoom lens, without one you won’t be able to use the four buttons, but the REC button will work.

Now for JTZlink, JTZlink is a communication protocol similar to LANC where you can connect many accessories to each other and that way they will communicate with each other. To use the handle, you need to first connect the JTZlink cable to the handle, then the other end of the cable to the cage. The cage itself has all the electronics internally and has 2 JTZlink ports and 1 LANC port. Then you plug the USB cable that comes out of the cage to the camera and you are set to use the handle.

As for the grip, you can connect it to the cage via the LANC or the JTZlink cable, it doesn’t matter which cable you are using. The grip has limited functions on the Sony a6300.

The grip does what the top handle does and more! You can trigger REC and use the zoom functions. You can throttle the speed of the zoom as well to a faster or slower speed, 8 different speeds in total. The Focus and Iris functions do not work on the Sony a6300 though.

The grip can be used by itself with other cameras, like the C100 or Alexa, I tried it the Sony FS5 and it worked flawlessly, you only need to connect the LANC cable to the handle port and it will work.

Now with the FS5, all the functions are available. The iris controls and the focus work well. For the focus, the speed throttle also works that was you can set it to your preference.

And of course, the REC button works as well like it does on the other cameras.

If you want to see everything about the handle and grip, have a look at the video at the top where we go into more details.

The post JTZ DP 30 Top Handle and JTZlink Review appeared first on The Video Pro Guys.

There are many ways to setup and handle your rig, some of you may be looking for a shoulder rig to do so which is a great solution for run and gun shoot. The Neewer Portable Filmmaker system is an entry-level shoulder rig that offers the basics you are looking for.

Quality wise, this rig is well constructed, everything is made of aluminum alloy and feels sturdy. The rods and accessories are 15mm, and they are true to size, they will work with any other manufacturer accessories and rods. The tightening screws on the shoulder rig feel solid and can be tightened down without fear of the threads sheering or snapping.

The shoulder pad is good, it is a simple molded block of rubber, and nothing more but it is comfortable especially for the price. It slides on the rails pretty easily, so you can see this as a plus or minus, it can be annoying as it can shift from time to time but on the other hand, it is easy to position.

The handles feel solid and do have great hard rubberized textured grips which eliminate the fear of the rig slipping off your hands.

As for the camera base, it has a height adjustment which is a great feature that will give some more longevity to the rig as you upgrade your equipment along the way. This flexibility will make sure you can almost always make your camera line-up with a mattebox. The baseplate used on this rig are Manfrotto 501/503 compatible, another plus in my opinion since a lot of equipment use this standard. Another feature the camera base has is an integrated level which is always a good thing to have even though we may not be using it as often as we should.

There are 2 cons with this rig in my opinion. The first one being that the baseplate tightening handle falls right under most DSLRs and mirrorless cameras battery door, so changing battery or SD cards is a little more laborious. The second one is the way the rods are connected, rather than using a male threaded rod going to a female rod, it uses a connector piece connecting 2 female rods together. On the unit we have, one of those connectors is loose which creates play in one of the rod. It could be probably fixed with Teflon tape but if you need to disassemble the whole rig to travel, you would need to bring Teflon tape with you.

Other than that, it is a great little shoulder rig for the price. Some competitor offers rigs in the same price range but most accessories are in plastic. This one feels sturdy and we were impressed with the build quality at that price point. We tried it with Full Frame DSLRs, mirrorless cameras and even pro cameras like the FS5 and C100, and, it held well. I also recommend getting the counter-weight with it, it makes a huge difference.

To get the shoulder rig, click here.

The post Neewer Portable Filmmaker system review appeared first on The Video Pro Guys.

The Sony a6300 has been praised with glory from filmmakers across the world, but how does it stack up against a more professional camera like the Sony FS5?

We decided to compare them and see how close (or far) apart they are. In this comparison, we will compare few basics elements and see which camera excel in a specific area.

Before we start, let’s address a few things, we won’t talk about each camera features here as the list for the Sony FS5 is way longer than the one for the Sony a6300 since they are not meant to do the same “work”. We will only talk about usability and image quality, and in the end, that’s mostly what us filmmakers are after.

Setting wise, both cameras have been set to their highest settings and we will be using the same lens, the Sony SEL16F28.

Rolling Shutter

Sony cameras and rolling shutter… they all have it! We used to shoot a lot with DSLRs and Canon C100/C300 (still do), and I will always remember the first day I got my Sony a7s how noticeable the difference was. Anyhow, both cameras do have rolling shutter, the FS5 has less of it than the a6300 which makes it more usable straight out of the camera. Luckily, nowadays Premiere Pro has an amazing Rolling Shutter Repair tool which will allow you to fix the a6300 image, but some editors may be using different softwares or not be aware of it, so having a good image baked in is always preferred.

Dynamic Range

As for dynamic range, Sony claims that both cameras have 14-stops of dynamic range, which I believe is true for the FS5, in any situation you can always capture a lot of information. In the example below, we can see how the FS5 captured all the details in the sky.

On the other hand, we have the Sony a6300 here, and, even though you can see it does capture a great latitude, some highlights are blown. We didn’t do any specific dynamic range test, but according to a few sources, the a6300 would have around 11-stops rather than the 14-stops claimed by Sony.

If we look at each cameras RGB Parade, we can clearly see the dynamic range isn’t the same, although it is really good for a tiny mirrorless camera, there is still something happening in the highlights as highlighted in the image below.

Moiré

I won’t spend much time on moiré, both cameras handle moiré really well, for 99% of the time it won’t happen. So with both cameras, you can film, brick walls, chainlink fence, roofing tiles and funky shirts with ease. The 1% when it happens, it is usually something really linear with texture, like really deep building sidings, and you are filming it from far, in motion and you compress the footage. Outside of that, this is almost thing of the past!

Low Light

As for low lights, there is a clear difference between both cameras. I would encourage you to watch the video to really see it on your screen, but the a6300 has an image that holds up all the way to 25,600 ISO (the camera can’t go higher in s-log3) while the FS5 is pretty much unusable after 8,000 ISO. The Sony FS5 quickly lose image details and become muddy at 16,000 ISO while the Sony a6300 stay super sharp all the way to the end with a fine noise that makes all the shots usable.

Image Details

In the image sharpness and detail, the Sony a6300 shines again. Not that the FS5 image quality is bad per say, it is really good but we are pixel peeping here for the fun of it! The a6300 captures every little detail and texture in the image. In the example below, we can read the fine print easily compared to the Sony FS5 where it less clear and difficult to read.

Here we have another example, where we zoomed in in the corner and can see the difference here.

Slow Motion

For the slow motion, both cameras have to be set to 1080p. Again, we won’t compare the features as the FS5 can do 960fps when the a6300 is limited to 120fps. So we compared both at 120fps, and both cameras are pretty much identical at that settings. For both, the slow motion is smooth, it creates a good and detailed image without degradation. You can see it in our video at the top of the page.

Verdict

Both cameras are great, but it is impressive to see the image quality that comes out of the Sony a6300. On the image quality alone, the a6300 is ahead of the FS5, but when it comes to the colors and dynamic range, the FS5 delivers the goods. At the end of the day, both cameras have their place and use. The FS5 is a good all-around camera with a lot to offer, but you don’t always need all the features, and, many videographers out-there are using the a6300 as a primary camera (I surely do from time to time!) and shouldn’t be ashamed of it because, as we have seen it, this is a little powerhouse who is worthy of big productions quality.

The post Sony a6300 vs Sony FS5 : Camera Shootout appeared first on The Video Pro Guys.

So if you are in the market for a small camera gimbal you probably heard about Feiyu-tech. Feiyu-tech has been gaining popularity in the last few years by offering a variety of gimbal at a budget conscious price. In this article, we will go in detail over the Feiyu-tech MG V2 gimbal camera stabilizer.

Starting with the packaging, this gimbal comes in a small hard-shell case which has everything packed neatly and has plenty of protection to keep your gimbal secure. The case size is also perfect for travelers or people like me who don’t have a lot of storage space.

Now, let’s talk about this gimbal’s built quality. The gimbal is made out of CNC aluminum, which feels solid and would be able to sustain a bit of a beating. All the rods, handles, motor adjustment wheels, and the baseplate, are carefully manufactured with no sharp edges. The tolerance between each part is good, on my unit I have one side rod that is a little loose. When the rod is screwed in all the way it is not a problem, but hopefully, it doesn’t get worst with time. Another minus on the built quality is the baseplate fastener, the chrome plating started flaking off 2 days after I started using it, nothing major but I am telling you in case you get bogged down by these things.

The baseplate has a nice anti-skid rubber surface, that way the camera doesn’t slip when it’s on there, which is particularly helpful when you are trying to balance the gimbal.

The gimbal features a few 1/4″ mounting holes to mount a monitor, a microphone or any other accessories you may need to mount. At first, I wasn’t sure of the sturdiness of the mounting hole on the main handle but I tested it by dangling the whole gimbal with a heavy setup to it and I am glad to say that it wasn’t a problem at all, and I’m sure it could hold way more weight.

This gimbal is meant to have the tilt motor on the left side, which means you will lose access to your ports. So, if you are not using a long lens setup like I do (Sony a6300 with a Nikon adaptor and a Tokina 11-16), which in that scenario you will clear the side plate and can use a ribbon HDMI cable, you won’t be able to use a monitor. BUT, for some reason, looks like no one on the internet tried to flip the setup, and put the motor on the right side, which I did. By doing so you won’t be able to use longer lens because of how the baseplate is built, so my setup doesn’t work that way, but I tried it with a Nikkor 50mm, again with the lens adapter which makes the entire setup longer than any native lens, and that way it was absolutely fine. So if you are using a light and short kit lens with your setup you will be able free up the ports by flipping the motor side.

The gimbal has a thumbstick that controls manually the pan and tilt, which can also be controled via the app. There is only 1 function button, in which you can cycle between the 3 modes, Pan Mode, Pan and Tilt Mode and Lock Mode.

Another neat feature is that this gimbal is “tool-less”, you have motor adjustment wheels that are easy to operate, they don’t require a lot of force to lock and unlock. Same goes for the side rods, they have wheels to screw in the gimbal itself, and for the baseplate, all the fasteners have a D ring so you can adjust the gimbal on the fly, although, I suggest you use a screwdriver to tight those fasteners. One of the motor adjustment wheels locked on me for some reason, to unscrew it I had to use a lot of force to get it free, I was a little bit disappointed about that issue, but it was the only time I had any issue with it since, it may have been a fluke.

The gimbal is also newbie friendly, anyone can just pick it up and go. No need for long stabilizing process, or balancing cycle in the app that takes 30 minutes to an hour the first time you use a gimbal. You literally balance the 3 axis, a quick initializing and you are flying!

If you have any issues with the gimbal, like the gimbal shaking, which a lot of people report, you can easily fix that with the app (see video below). Within the app, there are few functions to explore so you can tweak your gimbal the way you like it.

The gimbal is rated for 1.6 kg and it seems to be accurate. I have tried it with my Nikon D610 and Tokina 11-16 lens which is about 1.4 kg and the gimbal didn’t have any issues, but I felt that it was a little less nimble than with my Sony a6300 and Tokina lens (about 900g). At a lighter payload, the gimbal seems a little bit more forgiving, but in a pinch, I can use a heavy setup and I know it will do the job. So if you have a Sony a7 series, a6000 series, Panasonic GH3, GH4, GH5, Canon T2i, T3i, this gimbal will be able to handle pretty much everything you throw at it. If you have a Full Frame DSLR, you just need to be wary of what lens you will be using with it, and even then, with the proper operator technique, the footage will be smooth.

Overall, I really like this gimbal. I wanted something that can hold my full frame DSLR, something that is versatile and light, and something hassle free. For me this one meets all the criteria.

If you are interested in this gimbal, you can find it here:

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2ffbrT0
Ebay: https://goo.gl/Dw3L8E

The post Feiyu-tech MG v2 Gimbal Review appeared first on The Video Pro Guys.

Alright! So you need a camera cage for your A6000/A6300/A6500 A7/A7S/A7R/A7II/A7SII/A9, and you found a few options but which one to get? I’ve been there, a few months ago I sold my Sony A7s with its cage, and bought an A6300. Sure I have a universal cage, but I hold my rig with the top handle a lot, so I needed something sturdier.

First, the packaging is flawless with this cage, it is in a sturdy box where everything is compartmentalized the same way you would do in a hard shell case. It is refreshing to see this rather than receiving your equipment in a plastic bag with bubble wrap.

The moment you open the box and feel the cage you can see how well made it is. All the pieces are CNC machined to perfection and have no defects. Assembling the thing shows you the quality control and tolerance used on these is taken seriously, every piece fits nicely and firmly together with no play or wobble.  Starting with the camera cage itself, it is a full body cage, not a half shape, but it doesn’t hug the camera body like some other cage out-there. This is especially true with the A6300 since this cage is a hybrid cage with the A7 and A9 series, which have larger bodies who would fill the cage more.

The cage has plenty of 1/4-20 attachment points on it, maybe a little less than other cages, but who needs 300 different options when you only use 2 to 3 of them? It also has other sizes screw holes dedicated to mounting an HDMI clamp and an EVF. Talking of HDMI clamp, the cage has one integrated into it and is right next to the handle NATO rail facing up. The cable JTZ provide is a micro HDMI to full-size female. I am not personally using it but the clamp makes it really secure and makes for fewer chances of a mishap if someone would snag the cable. Also, other cables on this cage can be managed via the 2 different sizes cable holder at the front of it.

On the top right side of the cage, you have a cold shoe to mount an accessory, which works great for a wireless lav mic receiver. The top handle function markings and the 2 JTZLink J6 port and a LANC port are also there. All the electronics are mostly hidden within the camera cage and a USB cable is routed in it coming out conveniently on the ports side.

On the left, the ports are covered twice, once by the camera QD plate and a second time by the cage itself, so it is unlikely someone would rip anything by mistake. Personally, I would have loved a screw-type cable clamp to pin the cable down and make it absolutely impossible to break anything, but that may be overkill!

Now on the left side, you have more 1/4 mounting points and an Arri Rosette to attach the JTZ grip handle to it. And lastly (for the cage body), the bottom has an integrated lens support and/or lens adaptor mounting point. It is adjustable in many ways (up, down, forward and backward) and the provided lens support has small integrated wheels that make it adaptable to any lenses. In my case, I am using my Nikon lenses on my Sony A6300 and the lens support rest on the Nikon-G adapter aperture ring. The bottom also has a battery cover hole so you can change your battery on the fly, which is nice since most Sony mirrorless chew batteries like there is no tomorrow!

As for the top handle, at first, I was skeptic since I really like the cheese plate style one, even though I never used more than the cold shoe and the front rod attachment, which the JTZ one has anyhow. After spending some time with the camera cage, I can say this handle is great. It fits really nicely in your hand, it is made of strong polymer (you can lift a fully kitted camera cage with the tripod attached to it without any issues), it controls the camera with JTZlink, and, it has all the features I like to use, like the rod attachment.

The top handle features a NATO rail attachment that can be used horizontally or vertically depending of your setup and personal liking. It also has a 1/4 mount toward the rear, to mount a magic arm or what have you. And then you have the JTZlink buttons, where you can control a few functions from the 4 buttons, such as Wide or Tele zoom functions. The two other buttons are Hold and REC, which is really handy, as the REC button placement on the Sony cameras isn’t liked by many.

Coming with the camera cage is the 15mm rod baseplate and the dovetail plate, both of which are well made and really sturdy. Everything in the kit features a quick disconnect stage, which is great for flexibility and not have to disassemble everything when you need to do little changes to the rig. Basically it works this way: The camera baseplate connects to the cage > The cage connects to the rod baseplate > The rod baseplate connects to the dovetail plate, which is connected to your tripod baseplate.

To conclude, there are some minimal cons to this cage, no deal breaker as everything can be worked around. The setup is made to work within its own ecosystem, by that I mean, it works well with the JTZ DP30 matte box, the JTZ DP30 follow focus, and so on! So, if you are using a matte box and follow focus from a different line or manufacturer, you will get those piece of equipment interfering with the quick disconnect features. Again, nothing major, but it can be annoying to some! Another little flaw I found was when using the lens support, it would render the cage to rod baseplate quick detach useless as the support would hit the rods so you basically have to unscrew everything manually instead.

Overall this JTZ DP30 camera cage is the sturdiest I had the pleasure to work with, I am very happy with all of its features. Another great piece of equipment made by JTZ and a real contender with the other major players.

If you want to see what we think about the DP30 Mattebox, see our article and video here! 

The post JTZ DP30 Camera Cage Review – A6000/A6300/A6500 A7/A7s A9 appeared first on The Video Pro Guys.

So if you’re reading this, you’re probably on the market to get some decent lenses for your camera, but you don’t want to invest a lot of money on such thing as a set of Rokinon lenses:

Well, good thing, I went there as well and found an alternative solution to that expense!
A couple years ago, my uncle (who once worked as a professional photographer) gave me two old lenses, that had a strange mount, unknown to me at the time. It was a m42 screw mount. At that time, I knew that there was different mounts like Canon, Nikon or Pentax. But this screw mount was obviously very old, and those lenses were Pentax M42 lenses. They were easily adaptable for Canon or Nikon, using a simple adapter that screw on the lens. As simple as that, and the picture quality was incredible! So those lenses didn’t feel cheap as they are all metal housing and real glass optics. This was a great gift as I’ve used them on pretty much every photo gig I had since! The two lenses were a 50mm f/1.4 and a 135mm f/2.5. Both were awesome lenses to me at the time, as I was using a good old Canon T2i, so having fast lenses as these, I was a happy camper!

So when came the time to get decent lenses to go with my Canon C100, I turned to those good old Pentax M42 lenses! The good old 18-55mm “kit” lens from my T2i was doing just fine, but a “proper” set of lenses was the best choice for proper framing and constancy.

Not that I’m only using fixed focal lenses, one of my workhorse lens is a Sigma 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3:

I talk about that lens the video as well as it’s a go-to lens for run and gun type of shooting, but it doesn’t have the character of old vintage lenses. Aperture can be adjusted manually, but won’t give nice bokeh as a prime lens. Let’s just say that there’s a tool for every job, and one tool can’t do as fine for every job, as a specifically designed tool would do. I love that Sigma lens, you simply snap it onto your camera body and can get wide shots as well as long telephoto shots in a single turn.

—

But back to the vintage lenses. Why would you choose old lenses with a m42 mount? The best and probably simpler answer would be, because of the mount! The m42 mount can be adapted to EF, Nikon or even MFT mounts, using a simple adapter that usually cost like 1$ on ebay. Cheap, but works pretty well. As these lenses are vintage, they are all manual. So you don’t need to bother to get a good or a better one with a chip on it. And talking about cheap adapters, another excellent reason to get these lenses is that as they can be adapted to multiple camera mounts, you can use your set of lenses on more than only one mount! So if you’re usually shooting with a Canon camera, but eventually have to shoot with a Nikon or nowadays, a MFT cine camera like a BlackMagic, then using a different adapter can let you use your set of lenses on that camera as well. Something that wouldn’t be possible with a specific mount, like a Rokinon EF lens. Sure, an EF lens can be used on a MFT mount, using a speedbooster, but that’s another story, with additional costs!

So these m42 lenses are usually quite cheap on ebay, as they are all manual lenses, but still little gems of their own. Glass optics and metal housing makes them an excellent deal as it’s doesn’t feel as cheap as the usual kit lens, which is plastic in both bodies and opticals. I’ve build a set of lenses over the months, counting 11 vintage lenses and 2 zoom lenses, for under $2,000. Still, quite a good amount of money, but considering the fact that a set of 6 Rokinon lenses (that doesn’t include zooms nor ultra-wide angle) costs roughly around $3,000. Of course, comparing a vintage lens to a brand new and proper cine lens isn’t fair, as they are designed to do a different job. The cine lenses won’t “breath” when the focus is being pulled, they will all have the same diameter for constancy when using a follow focus, the gears are built-in and so on. But the real deal-breaker comes in the price, which is fair, but still, probably not affordable to everyone…

Then, comes the m42 lenses. Affordable, great built quality, excellent optics and the ability to adapt the lens to multiple mounts. Now, to get the lens to work as a “cine” lens, you will need some accessories.

First will be a lens gear, to use with a follow focus:

The ones I’m using are from PCHood/CINEMATICS and usually costs around $10/gear ring. An extra $110 considering I have 11 lenses, but not having to change the gear from one lens to another, and adjusting it every time is a real time-saver. You can start with only one, but eventually, having a gear that stays permanently on the lens is priceless.

Then, you will need some new rear lens cap, as the good old m42 screw mount will be replaced with an EF mount. Add an extra $10 for a pack of 10, this is really cheap too.

Now for the front caps, you can use the ones supplied with the lens (when they comes with it) as they will do just fine to protect the lens front element. But, personally, I’ve replaced them with larger lens caps. Why would I do such thing? Two major reasons. First being that all the lenses will have the same front cap size, so in the eventuality of losing one, I can replace it with a spare one quite fast. The ones I got were 77mm pinch caps. Got like 10 for $10 as well, pretty cheap. I prefer the pinch caps as they are easier to remove (to me) and there’s enough room to label the lenses in the middle:

Then, by having larger caps, you’re using a step up ring from the different front threads, usually between 49mm and 58mm depending on the lens, and making them standard 77mm size. Once you remove the cap, the step up ring also serve when using a mattebox, being used with a foam donut or better, with a flexible donut:

The step up ring will retain the flexible donut in place, so when you pull the focus, the lens will actually breath in and out but will stay in place because of that ring.

If you’re using a foam donut, make sure that your lens won’t hit the filters when breathing before you place the donut around the lens. I’ve bought them according to my lenses, in 49mm, 52mm, 55mm and up to 58mm. Buying a couple of each size also gets you covered if you damage one or even lose one. As they are usually pretty cheap as well, I bought a bunch.

So, roughly $10 per gear ring, $1 per step up ring, $1 per front cap, $1 per EF adapter and another $1 per rear cap. Rounding this up to $15 of additional costs per lens, to me it’s still quite affordable compared to other set of cine lenses. And if you’re on a budget, you can get one lens at the time, with the required accessories, easily under $200. The most expensive lens in my set was the 85mm f/1.9, at roughly $250. To start, if on a budget, I would say that 28mm, 50mm and maybe 105mm would be a good “set” of focal. The 28mm provides wide shots, but nothing extreme. The 50mm will give you a nice “portrait” lens for such type of shots and the 105mm is a good compromise between a portrait and a telephoto lens to me. I’ve managed to get great photos with the 50mm and the 135mm since I got them, but the 135mm f/2.5 is a bit more pricey than the 105mm f/2.8, so the 105mm is an excellent compromise to start.

Now, let’s talk about image quality. The Pentax lenses are reasonably sharp even when fully open at their native aperture. I’ve included some test shots in the video, demonstrating how sharp or soft all these lenses are. To me, considering the age and the price, it’s an excellent deal and a fair compromise between price and quality.

In addition, depending on what you need to shoot, you can get an m42 2x extender for fairly cheap, especially compared to the Canon 2.0x extender!

By adding this extender at the rear of your lens, you double the focal length (by the magnification factor; 2x, 3x,etc) but you also divide your aperture by the same factor. So my 300mm f/4.0 becomes a 600mm f/8.0. And this setup is quite heavy, so to ease the weight of the lens off the camera mount, I’m using this SmallRig lens support:

By adding an extra optical element between your lens and your sensor, you also introduce a bit of image degradation with that extra layer of glass. But for under $30 to double your focal length, I find it pretty acceptable. Here are some sample shots:

The bare 300mm f/4.0:

Then the 300mm with the 2x extender, now becomes a 600mm f/8.0. Note that it also introduce a warm color cast:
…and some chromatic aberration to the shot, unfortunately. But nothing that can’t be color corrected in post.For under $30 to get such a telephoto lens, it’s perfectly acceptable in my opinion. Still cheaper than getting a real 600mm lens!
Even at night, I got interesting results using that 300mm lens with the 2x extender:

All right, but the widest option in m42 mount is usually 20mm, which isn’t the widest field of view. So if you want to go wider than this, you will have to consider other type of lenses. Personally, I’ve had great experience with Sigma, as I mentioned above with the 18-200mm. So starting from there, when I stumbled on a Sigma 10-20mm f/4.0-5.6 under $200 on ebay, I had to get it. Not that you will use ultra-wide angle lenses on a daily basis, but having more than 18mm or 20mm can be really helpful in tight environnement or simply to get wide landscape shots.

So, for a set of lenses that goes from 10mm up to 300mm (600mm with the extender), I think this is a pretty good solution, especially if you’re on a budget. Not the best, but certainly not the most expensive neither. There is downside to this solution, but considering all the benefits paired with the little price tag, I think it’s a win-win solution.

As usual, if you have any comments or questions, please drop them in the section below and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible! Feel free to like the video and subscribe to our channel!

The post Affordable Set Of Vintage M42 Lenses appeared first on The Video Pro Guys.

Over the years, I’ve been trying to get the best microphones for my video work, without breaking the bank. There is some excellent option that already made their proofs, like the Sennheiser MKH-416 that is industry-standard by now, but it’s a bit over the 4 digits in price! So, I was always looking for inexpensive yet good microphones. And as there’s different polar pattern, each microphone in my collection has pretty much his own purpose. So far, the most expensive microphone I own is the Audio-Technica AT897 which sells for like 250$. Pretty much all other microphones are usually under 100$, and they make a very decent job despite their lower selling price!

In all the fairness of this test, we simply plugged the microphones into the camera, Canon XF100, without any additional preamp or audio device.

In the video, the first microphone I covered is the Audio-Technica AT875r:

This microphone is a short condenser microphone with a Line/Gradient polar pattern. In short, it’s a small shotgun microphone which is quite directional, despite it’s short length. This little beast runs on phantom power and as it’s very small, it can easily be used on top of a camera/camcorder and it’s not in the way, even when using wide angle lenses. This mic has a pretty hot signal output, which makes it a very interesting and solid workhorse when dealing with cameras that doesn’t have the best internal preamps. Using it paired with an XLR portable recorder like a Zoom H4 or a Tascam DR-40 makes it a little beast to get good and clean audio.

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Next was the Audio-Technica AT897:

This one is also a Line/Gradient polar pattern shotgun. It’s also longer than the AT875r, making it more directional. It features a single low-cut filter option, but similar to the RØDE NTG-2, it can run on either phantom power or on 1x AA battery.
It’s roughly -10dB lower (green track) compared to the signal of the AT875r (yellow track). But with a little work in post with a good compressor, you can easily adjust your sound to the same level, without raising the noise floor much as you can hear in the video.

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Then, I tested the Takstar CM-63:

A pretty unknown contender, but a very nice and affordable one. This one sells for like 60$ or so. While not originally designed for dialog capture, it performs quite well and the overall sound is decent. The overall frequency response is also very good (to my ears!) for the price. It sounds pretty flat, which is quite good. It’s also a small form factor, it can be used camera mounted as well as it has a Cardioid polar pattern, it can be useful when capturing a live event, it will pick up a good overall sound. As it’s not as directional as a shotgun, you can pick up sound from pretty much left to right from your position so this can be useful when you can’t position your mic before you shoot. Snap this little one on top of your camera and then you’re good to go. Won’t be as good as good microphone placement, but when you have to shoot on-the-fly, this one is very good at it!

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A brand that I really like from their portable recorders, Tascam! I really fell in love with the DR-40 with it’s buit-in cardioid mics and it’s ability to record up to 4ch at the same time! I recorded some foley sound for a short film with the built-in mics, but I wanted more flexibility in the placement. After some researches, I found about the TM-PC1.

This one is a cardiod polar pattern but picks up more than the Takstar in comparison. For foley or just ambiance, this microphone is a beast! Sound is crisp, clean and it’s the most faithful in terms of frequency reproduction. It records what you hear, and it sounds exactly as you hear it! As I mentioned in the video, you could even use a single mic like this one to boom between two persons, and it would pickup them both clearly. Only downside is that if it’s a noisy environnement, you will hear pretty much everything else with it!

Still, B&H sells a 2-packs for roughly 100$, if you want to record stereo sound, it gives excellent performances! Either you want to record nature sounds or LIVE event recording, this mic is surprisingly good!

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Another pretty unknown brand, the iSK Pro Audio company. I’ve heard about them on DVXuser.com last year. So far, I’ve tested their “Pearl” model, which is pretty similar and looks pretty much the same as the previously covered Tascam TM-PC1. It looks and sounds very close to the TM-PC1, only it’s cheaper in price. As it’s pretty cheap in price, like 29$ each, it’s a very nice addition to your sound bag, and it doesn’t break the bank!

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Still with the iSK Pro Audio, the “Little Gem”. This one is probably my favorite one on the list, on-par with the AT875r, mainly because of it’s versatility. It comes with a set of 3 capsules, Omni, Cardioid and Hyper-Cardioid. It sells for like 60$ or so, and you get 3 different microphones at that price. Similar to the Pearl, using the Omnidirectional capsule, you can record ambiance and foley sound while when using the Hyper-Cardioid you can record clean dialog.
For the price, it’s really a solid contender and it’s hard to beat. It’s not as directional as a shotgun, even with the Hyper-Cardioid, but still, for 60$ the mic, it’s versatile enough to have a place in your bag. It can even be used camera mounted depending on the task! It also have a good sensitivity, making it working good even with weaker preamps. Very good sound, cheap price and versatile with a set of interchangeable capsules.

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Finally, last on the list is the SONY ECM-NV1. As I mentioned, I picked this one on ebay for like 20-25$. Probably not the “real-deal” as it doesn’t sound excellent. Listed as a shotgun mic, it’s not as directional as the AT875r nor the AT897. It tends to pick up more ambiance, so it can turn into our favor if we use it camera mounted in a run-and-gun type of shoot. Not as bad for the price, but not the best. But to start with, on a very tight budget, it can do a fair job compared to the on-board sound of your camera!

So, I hope this video and article will help you to choose the best microphone for your needs! As usual, if you have any comments or questions, please leave them in the section below or on the video, and we’ll answer them as quick as possible!

The post Affordable Microphones For Indoor Dialog appeared first on The Video Pro Guys.

All right, so if you’ve watched our video and you’re reading this, it’s obviously because you need a mattebox!

We talked about the JTZ company earlier this year, being the Pro Line of Fotga. Well, this mattebox actually delivers what you would expect from a Pro Line. It’s definitively not the 100$ plastic type of mattebox you can find online. This one is a real carbon fiber body, with aircraft grade aluminum, precisely CNC machined. This is, what you would call, a professional mattebox. Now, the only other “professional” mattebox I’ve ever used, is the RedRock Micro Mattebox. This one sells for roughly 900$ while the JTZ starts at roughly 500$.

If I compare the mechanisms of both models, the JTZ wins hands down. The swing away mechanism is, as mentionned in the video, really well designed and machined. It’s stiff, precise and robust.

One cool thing is, not only the fact that it’s height adjustable, but because it is adjustable with a thumbscrew:

Once you have unlocked the two screws, you can use the thumbscrew to adjust the vertical position of the mattbox, to fit the center of your lens. This is a nice feature because you can do a precise alignement when you adjust:

The top handle is also a very nice feature. First time I saw one and I’m still impressed how handy this can be. It can save a lot of time when manipulating the mattebox when installing or removing it from a rig. The fact that is has 5 threaded holes on it is also very handy.

You can attach multiple types of items on it, like magic arms, cold shoe adapters, etc.

The only downside or negative thing I’ve actually experienced, is the fact that if the rods doesn’t end fits with the 15mm bracket, the rotating filter can’t fully rotate up to 360°. Really not a big issue, but still, worth mentioning.

Other than this, I’m totally in love with the flexible donut that comes with the package! Really, it’s perfect for pretty much any type of lenses.

I’ve simply added a simple stepup ring in front of my old Pentax M42 lenses, and the flexible donut holds in place without problem, allowing the lens to breath when focused.

In conclusion of this brief article, I can’t recommend more that Mattebox. I’ve used other brands and model in the past. Some were really good, but this one actually beats pretty much every other models so far. JTZ is definitively a brand to look for in the upcoming months. Their products are really well made, of excellent quality and worth the money you spend on them!

I hope you enjoyed this review, stay tuned for some more reviews on the way!
And again, if you have any comments or questions, leave them in the comments section below!

The post JTZ DP30 Mattebox Review appeared first on The Video Pro Guys.

I used to rent a lighting kit every time I would need one, but about two years ago the Aputure HR672 caught my eye and I decided to build myself a versatile lighting kit for less than $1,000.

What’s in the bag?

• 3 x
• 2 x
• 2 x
• 2 x 4″ Spring Clamps
• 2 x Gels of each color (Red, Blue, Green)
• 2 x 25″ Cord Extension
• 1 x Powerbar

We recently did a review of the lights, head over here to see it!

The post What’s in my bag? James’ Lighting Kit appeared first on The Video Pro Guys.