21Jun KIPON EOS/EF Lens to Micro 4/3 Adapter with high Speed AF on the GH4
The Kipon EOS/EF high speed AF lens adapter came in on Friday and I’ve just started to experiment with it. If you aren’t familiar with the adapter, it’s basically an electronic Canon EF to M43 lens adapter that provides high speed AF when using Canon glass on a M43 body.
On the lens side you’ll see a tiered interior design with a mat black finish to prevent reflection. The connection on the lens side is snug with no wiggle room and the 1/4 20 mounting point at the bottom of the unit feels nice and solid. Build quality is mostly metal and the fit and finish of the Kipon adapter is what you would expect for a $300 adapter.
On the back side of the Kipon adapter you’ll notice that the M43 electronics plate has 2 screws. This part of the adapter appears to be made out of plastic while the rest of the housing feels like metal. Mine also has the number 00112 stamped on the back. Does that mean I have the 112th adapter made? I paid $30 over the $299 retail price to pre-order the adapter so i’m guessing that’s likely the case.
I took the Kipon adapter out with the Panasonic GH4 and the Canon 35mm f1.4 lens to see how well it actually performs. The video above is my first test using the Kipon adapter
with Canon glass and I plan to spend another week or so shooting with it before I put out a full review.
So far the adapter seems to provide the fastest AF response I’ve seem for Canon glass on a non Canon body. It does seem to flake out at some longer distances and when used with very high shutter speeds when electronic shutter is enabled. It’s also a little slower than native m43 glass, that said, it’s still very snappy.
I’ll post more on the Kipon EOS/EF high speed AF lens adapter once i’ve had a little more time to spend with it. If you are looking to buy one, they are currently only available on ebay
and they ship from China, so expect at least a week wait time depending on your location.
19Jun DSLR FILM NOOB Podcast Episode 33
Episode 33 of DSLR FILM NOOB podcast is up. Mitch from planet5D.com joins me to discuss the DxO One, Sigma 24-35mm f2, Canon G3x, and more.
You can find the show notes here. You can find the show on itunes here, Soundcloud, or under the podcast tab above. You can also leave questions on reddit at r/dslr.
18Jun DSLR FILM NOOB Podcast Episode 32
Episode 32 of DSLR FILM NOOB podcast is up. Devin from http://impulsenetworks.tv/ Joins me to discuss the Came-TV Mini Gimbal, Sony 4k Cameras, Google photos, and more.
You can find the show notes here. You can find the show on itunes here, Soundcloud, or under the podcast tab above. You can also leave questions on reddit at r/dslr.
13Jun Seiki Pro SM40UNP, finally a 40 inch 4k 60hz monitor
I’ve been using the Samsung U28D590D 28 inch 4k panel for almost a year now. It was one of the first 4k 60hz panels to hit the market last year and at the time I was very enthusiastic to have all the pixels I could get in a single panel. The only problem for me is pixel density, 3840×2160 on a 28 inch screen really makes it hard to read text and even with scaling settings adjusted to 150%, a lot of things still end up very tiny.
I’ve been waiting for a 40 inch 4k 60hz panel to hit the market for awhile now and it looks like the Seiki Pro SM40UNP is it. A 40 inch display is the sweet spot when looking at a 4k monitor for my eyes.
The SM40UNP has a Super MVA screen as opposed to the TN panel used on my Samsung U28D590D which should be a decent upgrade for off access viewing. On the down side, the Seiki Pro SM40UNP currently lacks HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.3 support and its $1000 price tag is more than double current 28 inch options.
I’ve been hovering over the buy button on the Seiki Pro SM40UNP all day. Still not sure if I’ll pull the trigger, or if i’ll limp along on the Samsung U28D590D for another few months and wait for the price to drop. Seiki tends to be about 6 to 8 months ahead of other manufactures on this sort of thing, so i’m sure we’ll be seeing more monitors in this form factor in the future.
13Jun DSLR FILM NOOB Podcast Episode 31
Episode 31 of DSLR FILM NOOB podcast is up. Mitch from planet5D.com joins me to discuss the Sony RX10 II, Sony RX100 IV, and a7R II which are all getting 4k Across the board.
You can find the show notes here. You can find the show on itunes here, Soundcloud, or under the podcast tab above. You can also leave questions on reddit at r/dslr.
08Jun DSLR FILM NOOB Podcast Episode 30
Episode 30 of DSLR FILM NOOB Podcast Devin from impulsenetworks.tv joins me to discuss the Seiki Pro SM40UNP 40 in 4k monitor, 512GB microSD cards, new gopro’s and more.
You can find the show notes here. You can find the show on itunes here, Soundcloud, or under the podcast tab above. You can also leave questions on reddit at r/dslr.
If you check out the end of the show, Devin and I spend a little more time talking about the Logger’s lunchbox as well as some discussion about the Parrot Telepromter.
05Jun Canon 6d body $1099
While I’ve been shooting more and more with my Panasonic Gh4 and Sony A7s I’ve still held on to the Canon 6d body. It’s a solid camera and what I take with me when I need to shoot stills and video while traveling light.
Right now the Canon 6d body is on sale for $1099 with free shipping on ebay. That’s around $300 less than I paid for it this time last year and a pretty decent deal for a full frame camera.
As with all of these ebay sales, packages generally require a signature. So if you decide to take advantage of the price, make sure you will actually be home to meet your new camera.
04Jun Metabones EF to M43 S Speedbooster adapter – First impressions
I picked up the Metabones EF to M43 S adapter for the Panasonic GH4 right before I made the big move to the Pacific Northwest, but i’m just now getting a chance to start playing around with it. This is my first speedbooster type of device for the GH4 and my first metabones product in general so I’m a little new to this whole focal length reducer business.
For those of you not familiar with it, the Metabones Speedbooster basically acts as a focal reducer or in layman’s terms, a magnifying glass. If you’ve ever used a magnifying to start a fire, you’ve probably seen light focused into a smaller point. Since Canon’s lenses are designed for larger APS-C and full frame sensors, you can reduce the light coming from the lens to a smaller point like a m43 sensor using the same principle. As a result, you get more light at the sensor and a reduced crop factor for your Panasonic GH4.
I’ve only had a chance to play with the Metabones EF to M43 S adapter on a few shoots so far. On the plus side, it works as advertized and you end up with better low light performance while reducing the focal length multiplier when using a Canon lens.
On the down side, the Panasonic GH4 is a little glitchy when using the Metabones adapter. Sometimes aputure readings and other settings can disappear or refuse to change. Autofocus doesn’t work period, so if you want AF for photography this wont help you out. Also in photo mode F-stop changes don’t update on screen, so an image will look overexposed right up until you take a shot at which point it’s a crapshoot as to what you’ll end up with.
I’m still trying to decide if the Metabones EF to M43 S adapter is really worth the $599 price tag for my setup. Lack of AF and the crippling problems when taking stills are a bit of a hassle for the way I work. On the other hand I haven’t had a chance to update the firmware on my adapter so maybe things will get better. I shell continue testing.
03Jun Xeon E3 1231 Save on your next NLE build, basically an i7-4770
While glancing around I came across the Xeon E3 1231 cpu. After doing a bit of research, it turns out that this little server processor is basically an i7-4770 minus the onboard GPU. Since most editing system builds will need a decent GPU budgeted in, the lack of onboard graphics isn’t really much of a problem.
Priced at $242, the Xeon E3 1231 is kind of a hidden treasure. It’s not a huge savings, but this Xeon labeled cpu will knock $70 or $80 off an i7 build. That bit of savings could give you room for a better GPU, 32GB of ram, or any number of other upgrades, but there are a few things to keep in mind.
First, this is a locked down chip, so if you are interested in overclocking, this probably isn’t your best option. Also you’ll want to check on motherboard support. It took me about 15 minutes of digging around to come up with a cheap $90 MSI motherboard with Xeon support and from the research I’ve done, most newer boards have support. That said, if you are trying to use an older Z87 motherboard, you might want to look at the slightly older Xeon E3-1230V3 varrint.
Despite being a Xeon processor, the E3 1231 doesn’t require ECC memory so you don’t have to worry about that added expense. Also, the benchmarks I’ve seen put it just under the 4770 and 4790 which isn’t bad for the price.
I think I might give this guy a try in my next HTPC build. When I do, I think some rendering tests comparing this to my current i7 4790 build would be interesting.
02Jun Saramonic SR-AX107 Review
I’ve been using the Saramonic SR-AX107 for the last two months off and on for various things. As far as XLR audio adapters go, it sounds good. In fact you’d be hard pressed to find a major difference in audio quality between the SR-AX107 and something like the Beachtek DXA-SLR XLR audio adapter.
While the Saramonic SR-AX107 does provide a little more gain (20db vs 16db on a beachtek) and offers up a few more features like backlit level meters, cold shoe mounting points, peaking, and AGC disable for older cameras, but the real benefit of the SR-AX107 is the price. At $199 and $169 for it’s very similar brother the SR-AX104, Saramonic’s offerings are $100 or so less then the nearest competitors.
On the down side, the Saramonic SR-AX107 is very large compared to any of it’s competition. So the trade off here, is really price vs size. If you want to save some money and don’t mind dealing with a larger XLR audio adapter the SR-AX107 or SR-AX104 is a good choice. If size is important, you might want to spend the extra on something smaller.
I know a lot of you will probably ask “Why not use a field recorder?” and while I could try and write out all of my thoughts on the pros and cons of field recorders vs XLR audio adapters, I think Devin and I did a pretty good job of covering it on the last podcast.
In short use an XLR audio adapter if you don’t have a sound guy and are working with limited resources, use a field recorder when you have the time or sound guy to handle it. Alternatively hybrid units like the Tascam DR-60D and Tascam DR-70D might be a better compromise for both field recording and camera adapters. Still haven’t had a chance to play with the DR-70D but it’s on my list.
All in all, I think the Saramonic SR-AX107 is well priced for what it offers and it’s a great budget XLR audio adapter if you don’t mind the size. Hopefully they’ll continue to improve on the design in future models.
