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Gear best and worst
  • We all are, more or less, in the vortex of buying gear, be it for need or for some sort of addiction. I invite people to contribute to this thread by posting, according to their experience, their top items in these 3 areas:

    W.O.W. (Well Over Wonderful)> that heavenly thing that luckily you bought and saved your ass one or several times

    F.W.T. (Future Will Tell) > that item you invested in, never used a lot, but will for sure come handy in the next future

    S.H.I.T. (Should Have Invested in Tacos) > that thing you bought, hardly used, and never will. The more expensive, the more S.H.I.T.

    My list:

    W.O.W. > Tilta V-mount plate and battery

    F.W.T. > ProAim mattebox, RJ follow focus

    S.H.I.T. > GoPro 1

  • 27 Replies sorted by
  • lol, I like your acronyms and it's a good idea so I will add.

    W.O.W. > Shure vp83 mic

    W.O.W. > Sigma 18-35

    W.O.W. > Juicedlink CX231

    F.W.T. > Audio Technica AT2022 mic

    Lucky I don't have a S.H.I.T gear yet.

  • I own too much gear to go all the way through, so I'll just do one from each category:

    W.O.W. - Cinebags Cb25b, PanaLeica 25mm 1.4

    F.W.T. - RX10 (so far great)

    S.H.I.T. - Sennheiser G3 wireless bodypack (so fragile, so much time spent repairing), Every multifunction printer ever bought.

  • W.O.W. > Sigma 18-35mm

    F.W.T. / S.H.I.T. > Dynamic Perception Stage One System & Emotimo TB3 Black

  • Cool topic.

    W.O.W. > PNC PR-1 Shoulder Rig with Varavon ENG Hand Grip

    F.W.T. > Tilta Follow Focus

    S.H.I.T. > Vid-Atlantic flare filter

  • W.O.W - GH2 & P-Tool & Driftwood's settings, Tokina 11-16mm, "Advanced rig" cheap chinese shoulder rig from deals here, Zoom H4N, Rode NTG2

    F.W.T. -

    S.H.I.T - Dell U2410 monitor

    Edit: I Edited out things that are not "gear"

  • W.O.W. - oly 75mm , panaleica 25mm , Hedler HMI (love this one), arri 300w , sennheiser G3 , Manfrotto master stands <3 And not to forget my KINOTEHNIK evf

    F.W.T. - Sekonic 308d (so far so good) , Newmap rig ( removed cage & don't use follow focus which re both crap but the handles are holding up and work fine)

    S.H.I.T. - a Jag35 rig , chinese fresnels or redheads (sold them almost a soon as i bought them)

  • W.O.W. > Panasonic GH1, Nikon 50mm f/1.8D, Vivitar Series 1 28-90mm F2.8-3.5, Weifeng WT-1003 Monopod with a YT-950 fluid head (all of these items were super ultra cheap, and I've got great use out of them so far!)

    F.W.T. > Fancier FC-270A, Laing P-03 MC

    S.H.I.T. > Nikon 35-70mm f/3.3-4.5 (never really used it, but was dirt cheap so doesn't really matter. Don't think I've ever made a large expensive purchase on "S.H.I.T." every before, luckily)

  • W.O.W. Sigma 18-35, GH2, Alphatron EVF

    F.W.T. Sennheiser 416 (just cause it's too much for what I mostly need), Motorized Slider, Pany 12-35

    S.H.I.T. Anything from India, Tiffen IRND set, Rokinon Cine set (maybe)

  • W.O.W: Voightländer 25mm 0.95, Lanparte Delux FF-02, Blackmagic Intensity Extreme (for scopes with Scopebox)
    F.W.T: Panasonic GH3
    S.H.I.T: Defocus FF, Panasonic 14-140

  • W.O.W. 12-35mm Panny zoom, Schneider lenses on the BMPCC

    F.W.T. Kowa 8mm

    S.H.I.T. Redrock Micro FF

    @vicharris Sell the Tiffens to someone with a Red, they are fine there.

  • @nomad Hahaha, they went back to Tiffen. Tiffen admitted they don't work well with BM sensors so they were cool with it.

  • Well I don't have much but can categorize like that:

    • W.O.W. - GH2, panaleica 25mm f1.4, Rode videomic, Giottos monopod
    • F.W.T. - pana kit lenses (14-42, 45-200), yongnuo yn-460 (bargain for its price)
    • S.H.I.T. - cheap Chinese tripods

    also have Panasonic G3 which isn't bad for photo but almost useless for video. Just trying to sell mine as I got two cheap GH2s

  • looks like the Sigma 18-35 is one of the W.O.W.est items so far

  • "Cheap Chinese tripods" is quite a generalization. There are good ones (maybe not cheap in your book).

  • I ment realy cheap ones that're selling in EU by Polish brands like 4World, Esperanza a.t.c. I know of very good chineese manufacturers that make solid gear like Weifeng, Fotga and other.. I have 2 of theese "cheap" and build quality is realy poor.. I have this expensive monopod by Giottos and it's like heaven in comparsion with theese cheap chinese ones.. It's not realy expensive, but prior theese chinese its 6-7 times price and it's realy noticable. I don't have budget to buy PRO gear so for me it's significant improve within my tight budget :)

    • W.O.W. - GH2 in its time, Metabones Speedbooster + Nikon lenses, Cullmann Cruiser
    • F.W.T. - Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera, M42 lenses, GiniRig
    • S.H.I.T. - EOS 50D + MagicLantern Raw, c-mount lenses (all of them) & Lumix MFT lenses (all of them), Manfrotto Modosteady
  • W.O.W. Panasonic leica f1,4 25mm, Minolta MD f1.4 50mm, Minolta MD f2.8 28mm,
    F.W.T. DPA 4099 mic,
    S.H.I.T. Hama traveller pro (didn't travel with it and it's still falling apart, piece of shit hardware)

  • C-mount all crap? Did you ever see a Schneider, Kern or Angenieux?

  • Thank you for that topic. Now I understand how much WOW I use every day!...

  • @nomad Yes, do have multiple Schneiders (17mm, 25mm, 17-90mm), Kerns (10mm, 17mm, 25mm, 75mm) and Angenieux (12-120). They produced pleasing images on the GH2 because they made the camera's harsh, oversharpened, sterile video image look more organic. But the huge disappointment came on the Blackmagic Pocket despite its more suitable 1"/S16 sensor size. Except for the newest, most modern megapixel video lenses by manufacturers like Kowa, classical c-mount lenses simply don't resolve 2K/FullHD. On the BMPC's raw image, this doesn't look 'filmic' but just blurry, or, truth to tell: just shit.

    Another factor for this disappointment: 16mm movie film camera lenses were constructed to take into account the bending of the film in the film transport and the different distances of single color layers in the emulsion. This makes them suboptimal/unsharp on video sensors, especially at shorter focal lengths. It's the same issues rangefinder (Leica) photo camera lenses create on mirrorless full frame bodies (such as the Sony Alpha 7/7R). You don't get those problems with adapted vintage SLR lenses because of their much longer flange mount/greater distance to the film layer.

    And finally, you need ND filters + IR cut filters on any lens you're putting on the Pocket, and that is difficult to impossible with c-mount lenses because of their often esoteric filter thread sizes.

    Ah, yeah, and regarding Lumix MFT lenses being all S.H.I.T.: once you put them on a camera like the Pocket which doesn't software-correct its distortions (and can't do that anyway because its video signal isn't downsampled from a higher sensor resolution, but recorded in native 1080p) and its purple fringing, you see how terrible their optics really are. All the more in comparison to Nikon lenses that actually cost less (and adapt and perform superbly with the Speedbooster.)

  • W.O.W: 2 GH2 + pl mount adapter

    F.W.T: Rokinon cine lenses

    S.H.I.T: Newmap Chinese rig

  • @cantsin

    No discussions here, just simple list.

  • W.O.W. Personal-view.com, GH2, the Vitaliy GH2 hack, the Driftwood settings, 1970s Lomo lenses.

  • S.H.I.T > Varavon T3 jib (with tilt head)

  • W.O.W > Supamods X4 flight system. (Steadycam with arm)

    Very well made, pro time saving adjustments for balancing, adjusting load. Up to 15 lbs. Very well made, pro level gear, will last a long time, user serviceable parts (with some basic mechanical know how).