Let's dish on all the crowdfunding tactics companies are testing on us, so we help our fellow gear addicts back onto a path of sanity and focus on what's important in life (YOU... not the gear), and absolve each others naughty habits encouraging bad behavior by Manufacturers & Crowdfunders

BTW, I never heard anyone ask "HOW MUCH DID MICHELANGELO'S PAINT COST?" or "He couldn't finish- he died waiting for a pre-release chisel"...

My gear confession: Lifelong gear addict, I most recently preordered Red & Blackmagic design cameras

VK: Can you absolve me of my Camera sins?

Brushing is a deceitful technique sometimes used in e-commerce to boost a seller's ratings by creating fake orders. Sometimes a seller will do this by paying someone a small amount to place a fake order, but sometimes the seller will just use another person's information to place an order themselves. Because a shipment usually has to take place for an order to be considered valid, the seller will frequently ship an empty box or some cheap item. These fake orders, if unnoticed, can boost the seller's rating, which can make it more likely that their items will appear at the top of search results on e-commerce sites.

Many e-commerce sites have recognized the problem and claim to actively combat brushing. One company that has received a lot of attention is Alibaba, and in the prospectus they published before their Initial Public Offering they even mentioned the problem. Brushing also inflates the numbers reported on a company's financial statements, and therefore, it also attracts the scrutiny of investors and market regulators. For instance, the US Securities and Exchange Commission opened a probe to investigate the validity of their data when Alibaba reported revenue of more than $14 billion on Singles Day.

Good article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2017/11/27/americans-are-receiving-unordered-parcels-from-chinese-e-criminals-and-cant-do-anything-about-it/

Makes you think twice when you give your address to random Chinese seller. Brushing itself is kind of harmless, but if the seller is willing to abuse your address for brushing, what else the seller could abuse it for?

https://www.patreon.com/personal_view/overview

All your support will go to improve our measurements (including in reviews) ability and help to make even better our exhibitions coverage.

Nashville-based Gibson — which filed for protection from its creditors nearly two months ago — said it is looking to unload its inventory of Philips-branded headphones, speakers and other accessories because the Hong Kong division that handles those products is being liquidated and the North American subsidiary that markets them is being wound down as part of the Chapter 11 restructuring. Gibson has on hand about $3 million worth of product, of which about a tenth is scheduled to be sold to existing customers by September.

Remember to get Fidelio X1 or X2 headphones. This things will become legendary with constantly rising price.

I estimate that the COGS without labor or shipping is $16.89 — yet Beats is able to successfully retail these headphones for $199+. This is the power of brand. Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine have leveraged their personal backgrounds and a sleek design to launch a remarkable brand that’s become fundamental to music pop culture.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-einstein/we-took-apart-some-beats-headphones_b_7639618.html

so my Sony Xperia Z3 compact has a screen that doesnt respond anymore - which is a known hardware problem

Repairing makes no sense, the screen replacement costs as much as a working used phone.

Selling makes no sense, used prices are down to 30-40 bucks for working copies.

But it is still a powerful little device.

Any projects that these devices are useful for?

The screen is flawless, except that the touchscreen doesnt work anymore.

I am a filmmaker. Is it possible to use the phones screen as a HDMI display?

Cheers,

Tim

Why dont they do it? I would gladly pay a grand or more for one of the handheld cameras do have it. I don't see the point of having a small form factor but always having to have it on a tripod or gimbal etc and I'm not a fan of the floaty in IBIS on many of them. Why the hell don't they put a global shutter on any of them?

Will it have a new organic sensor with more dynamic range?

What about Sony? Will they release a 8k mirrorless?

What will be the future of Sony Sensors?

It seems Nikon is entering the mirrorless full frame game. What to expect?

Share your thoughts...

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/e-c-r-v1-electric-cafe-racer-by-denzel-motorcycle#/

Check more about exhibition - http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/18775/cp-2018-japanese-exhibition

We need your help to make coverage better

• Please donate (check button above), all funds will go to camera and transport expenses for CP++
• If you have any spare camera or lens, send us message via http://www.personal-view.com/talks/profile/1/Vitaliy_Kiselev

Give me a private message with links t music videos that you were involved with and I'll pass on the information to the people who needs the video done. They have a few candidates already to choose from but it's always best to get more choices. They'll hire who ever will be the most capable of doing a video in a similar fashion. Also, if you know of someone else who'd be able to do the video, see if they'd be interested in this job or give me their contact info along with examples of their music video work.

Thanks.

https://petapixel.com/2018/02/12/canons-nikons-crazy-dslr-stockpiles-2018-olympics/

The number of teens who get together with their friends nearly every day dropped by more than 40 percent from 2000 to 2015; the decline has been especially steep recently. It’s not only a matter of fewer kids partying; fewer kids are spending time simply hanging out. That’s something most teens used to do: nerds and jocks, poor kids and rich kids, C students and A students. The roller rink, the basketball court, the town pool, the local necking spot—they’ve all been replaced by virtual spaces accessed through apps and the web.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/

http://www.vidtoolz.com

If you are interested in video making and storytelling.

What do you think about the page in general? Are the topics interesting or uninteresting? In what ways could it be made better? Why would you not subscribe to a page like that?

As simple small secure (Windows 8, no hacker will be interested!) smartphone is very good.
Just love Windows Phone interface for simplicity and speed.
No one push any stupid updates that slow down your phone.

Good camera, OIS, F2.0 Zeiss lens.
One of the best WB and colors I saw on any cheap phones.
Very good camera app.

Specs

• 8.7 megapixel 16:9 backside-illuminated multi-aspect ratio 1/3” sensor
• 8 megapixel output in 4:3 ratio, 7.1 megapixel in 16:9
• F2.0 lens, 26mm in 16:9, 28mm in 4:3 (35mm equivalents)
• Optical image stabilization
• Dual LED flash
• Two stage (half-press, full-press) dedicated shutter button
• 1080p video capture
• 4.5-inch 1280x768 332ppi display

Where Nokia’s unique Optical Image Stabilization, created in conjunction with ZEISS, differs from and outstrips its competitors, though, is in moving not one lens element in compensation, but in shifting the entire assembly of optical components. There are two advantages to this tactic: one, the camera can compensate for a much greater amount and form of movement—it picks up and cancels out about 50% more movements per second than convention OIS set-ups—and, two, the system has an incredibly fast reaction time—that is, approximately 300 times faster than the average human reaction time.

Plus it is red one that cost less (use $1 seller coupon), amazing.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Nokia-Lumia-920-Cell-Phone-GPS-WiFi-3G-4G-32GB-ROM-1GB-RAM-8MP-Camera-Unlocked/32829111004.html

https://bedroomproducersblog.com/2012/04/11/paint2sound-free-image-to-audio-converter-by-flexibeatzii/

http://jasonsiegel.format.com/shoot-portraits-not-people

I first understood the power of the documentary during the editing of my first film, The Quiet Mutiny. In the commentary, I make reference to a chicken, which my crew and I encountered while on patrol with American soldiers in Vietnam.

"It must be a Vietcong chicken - a communist chicken," said the sergeant. He wrote in his report: "enemy sighted".

The chicken moment seemed to underline the farce of the war - so I included it in the film. That may have been unwise. The regulator of commercial television in Britain - then the Independent Television Authority or ITA - had demanded to see my script. What was my source for the political affiliation of the chicken? I was asked. Was it really a communist chicken, or could it have been a pro-American chicken?

Of course, this nonsense had a serious purpose; when The Quiet Mutiny was broadcast by ITV in 1970, the US ambassador to Britain, Walter Annenberg, a personal friend of President Richard Nixon, complained to the ITA. He complained not about the chicken but about the whole film. "I intend to inform the White House," the ambassador wrote. Gosh.

The Quiet Mutiny had revealed that the US army in Vietnam was tearing itself apart. There was open rebellion: drafted men were refusing orders and shooting their officers in the back or "fragging" them with grenades as they slept.

None of this had been news. What it meant was that the war was lost; and the messenger was not appreciated.

The Director-General of the ITA was Sir Robert Fraser. He summoned Denis Foreman, then Director of Programmes at Granada TV, and went into a state of apoplexy. Spraying expletives, Sir Robert described me as a "dangerous subversive".

What concerned the regulator and the ambassador was the power of a single documentary film: the power of its facts and witnesses: especially young soldiers speaking the truth and treated sympathetically by the film-maker.

I was a newspaper journalist. I had never made a film before and I was indebted to Charles Denton, a renegade producer from the BBC, who taught me that facts and evidence told straight to the camera and to the audience could indeed be subversive.

This subversion of official lies is the power of documentary. I have now made 60 films and I believe there is nothing like this power in any other medium.

Read more at http://johnpilger.com/articles/why-the-documentary-must-not-be-allowed-to-die

Palihapitiya’s criticisms were aimed not only at Facebook, but the wider online ecosystem. “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works,” he said, referring to online interactions driven by “hearts, likes, thumbs-up.” “No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth. And it’s not an American problem — this is not about Russians ads. This is a global problem.” SNIP

https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/11/16761016/former-facebook-exec-ripping-apart-society