Interesting that DJI have entered this field of action cameras, thought not surprising as GoPro did bring out a drone called the Karma during October 2016.

This is DJIs response to the Karma hitting GoPro where it hurts most. I can’t quite see where this camera is much different from the Hero 7 apart from being £50 less and front screen.

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We can confirm the following kit being shown by CVP today at the KitShow at the Glasgow Science Centre starting at 10.30am

Sony Venice with Zeiss Supreme lens

PXW-FS5 Mkii

Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K

Canon XF705

Canon EOS-R

Red Dragon-X kit

Zcam E2

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As I have all three radio mics I thought you might like a run-through of all the features and good and bad points of all three. This will be in the form of a video review at the end of this week.

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Eleven days to go until the KitPlus Shows for 2019 kicks off. Glasgow the 14th May (Pacific Quay, opposite BBC Scotland) in the Glasgow Science Centre.

Tue, 14 May 2019 starting at 10:30 – 16:30

Although unconfirmed you should see the latest kit from Panasonic, Sony, BlackMagic and many more.

AC Entertainment, AJA, Angelbird, Astera, Atomos, Axle, Bectu, 

Blackmagic Design, Bright Tangerine, Broadcast Bionics, Chroma-Q

Codex, CVP, Datavideo, Fujinon, G6 Moco, Glensound, Global Distribution

GTC, G-Technology, Hedbox, Holdan, IDT, IDX, Lacie, Laowa, Ledgo, Libec

Miller, M-logic, Panasonic, Promotion Hire, Quasar Science, RED, Roland

Shape, Sigma, Small HD, Sonnet, Sony, Telestream, Telos Alliance, Teradek

Tourflex Cabling, Vision Research

Simon Tillyer “In short we currently have three seminars, Alister Chapman (sensors and the right tool for the right job), David Chalmers, BBC Scotland (streaming), and David Rudeforth (Slomo filming).”

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It took a while but out of the blue Rode updated its firmware to v1.2.0 finally allowing your podcasts to be saved as multitrack files onto the micro SD card .

This is a major step by Rode as you no longer have to worry about one of your guests being slightly on the low side as you can now crank it up in the edit.

The REC button now changes to green when in stop mode and flashes red during recording. You can also name your podcasts (thank goodness) and send them to your edit program.

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I just love stories like these, the proper use of drone technology.

Getting away from expensive helicopter rides to transport an organ from one hospital to another within a 3 mile radius.

This is certainly a far better use of a drone than delivery of parcels, Amazon wants to pursue.

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A new firmware has been sent out for the Panasonic S1

Improvements include

• Improvement of accuracy in exposure during burst shooting.
• Improvement of accuracy in flash sync performance.

Dont fall into the trap of including all the folders in the SD card or you will not be able to start the update.

You can get the FW here…https://av.jpn.support.panasonic.com/support/global/cs/dsc/download/index4.html

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The first niggle is the way Panasonic have “redesigned” the way this camera opens the card door with a new lock lever. Its very unintuitive in its action and can be a pain to get your cards in and out compared to a GH5.

Panasonic “Regarding your point around the lock lever on the card door, this was redesigned further to feedback received on the G Series that over time the card door opened too easily and therefore could be opened by accident, exposing the cards. So, it was part of the improvements incorporated into S Series to ensure the camera was as durable as possible for the professional audience.”

I am using FW version 1.0 so far I am vey unhappy with the autofocus in a so called professional flagship camera. There were times during my photo shoot with Grace that I had to switch to manual to get focus as the lens 24-105 f4 S lens would not focus on my subject.

This is very serious in my opinion as it took many firmwares to get the GH5 to autofocus with more accuracy. You would think Panasonic would get this right out of the box as so much is riding on it.

Panasonic “The autofocus should certainly not have the issues you describe where it is unable to focus on a subject – especially portraiture style photography which is one of the strong focuses for the S Series cameras.

Once again Panasonic screw up with useless information when I look online at their “REGISTER NOW” to allow me to register the camera the link comes to an abrupt end, the very same thing happened with the GH5 initially.

I never understand how companies never check this information. PS I have since discovered its www.panasonic.co.uk/register

Thanks for bringing the broken link to my attention. I personally wasn’t aware of this and agree with you that it is disappointing that it wasn’t checked before going live – most likely issues coordinating sites globally unfortunately! I’ve raised this as a priority internally and have been assured it has been picked up with our developers.

Video record file formats are also restricting in the S1 with a choice of AVCHD giving you full frame recording at 28Mbps HD only or MP4 restricting you to APS-C in 4K 50p or full frame at 4K 25p. In APS-C you don’t get a full frame 24mm picture as it punches in on the frame.

Richard Payne “It’s processing power I am afraid, you have to spend mega bucks on an Alexa or a Venice to get full frame 4K 50p at the moment.

Using the DMW-XLR1unit allows you to have various qualities like 96kHz/24bit, 48kHz/24bit or 48kHz/16bit on the GH5 but sadly on the S1 its on or off. (The Panasonic manual has it set at 48kHz/16bit).

Panasonic “The S1 is limited in terms of audio recording with the XLR1 at this time, but I will keep you updated if I am informed that this will be improved in the future.”

As a photographic tool the Panasonic S1 produces great pictures out of the camera as for a video tool I am still assessing.

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After the Gatwick fiasco we get a good news drone story about the help DJI drones helped to contain the fire in the Notre Dame Cathedral fire in Paris recently.

The firefighters are using a large screen monitor to view the footage.The DJI Matrice 210 Professional Drone is a rugged, durable quadcopter ideal for a multitude of applications, in an array of sectors. For example: Firefighting: detecting fires and sources of fire

A DJI Mavic Pro and a Matrice M210 were used to track the movement of the flames and inform firefighters on where they should aim the fire hoses. “The drones allowed us to correctly use what we had at our disposal,” said fire brigade spokesman Gabriel Plus.

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I had the pleasure to interview Richard Payne head of technology at Holdan about Panasonics new full frame S1

I decided to take some pictures at my friends house of wee 2.5 year old Grace with my new Panasonic S1.

Grace was a lovely subject to photograph and at 2000 ISO these pictures are very clean.

Not everything went smoothly so I will give you my honest assessments of the Panasonic S1 during this week. I will leave you with my 12m interview with Richard Payne.

Richard Payne S1 interview from Philip Johnston on Vimeo.

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