Robin R Probyn

3 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

? ? ?

So you think it isn't  .. and your the film camera  guy ..  ooopps you did it again .. 

film cameras are rolling shutter ..  07 is just a refection of a filter .. the same would happen on film .. very old argument that holds no water these days ..Karim with respect .. are you actually a DP ?  do you use Digital cameras professionally  ..

3 hours ago, Satsuki Murashige said:

I guess if Moviecams were good enough for these guys, then it’s good enough for the likes of me. ?

And Barry Ackroyd BSC  used on his first 35mm shoot with Ken Loach 

2 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I have no idea what Kodak is thinking, nobody does. I just look at history and understand that history always repeats itself. That is the one guarantee in life. Not a single thing someone says at Kodak today or even tomorrow, can change the historical impacts of the past. 

You have said plainly that Kodak is not concerned about the price of Silver , backed up by your friends at Kodak, that would put me straight .. and bizarrely by the tiny amount of film you purchase a year .. what is this BS you have now written ..  now you have no idea ?  historical impacts ? .. what happened to all the big talk ..   and I should get a life ???

2 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Yea, you and your buddy Stewart have always ridiculed my abilities, my knowledge and experience. Yet I've been doing this longer than both of you. 

All I did was say certain Sony cameras were shit and from that day forward you turned into a bloody fascist. You don't make them, you don't own the company and you have no stake in Sony as you've admitted. 

Yet you still will defend those very particular cameras to the end of time, by of course telling me, the guy who has shot with nearly every top digital cinema camera AND owned and/or operated practically every modern film camera made, that I'm the idiot. Please. 

For gosh sakes man, get a life. 

Not so .. you made totally wrong comments about shooting Sony  Slog3 and then went on to criticize Sony f5/55 .. I had that camera and pointed out you were not shooting correctly and actually as it transpired  had no idea about log gamma shooting .. I was perfectly polite ... instead of taking the advise and knowledge  you went on the attack and as your ego seemed to have been dented .. and you can never be wrong about anything ..you were and have continued to spread  at times ,totally wrong information about cameras and well just about anything you don't understand ..the whole Walter Mitty thing , the friends thing .. for the love of Pete ... just stop it .. 

30 minutes ago, Karim D. Ghantous said:

Now, that's interesting. So I wonder if dips in the price of silver would likewise have no effect on the price of film.

I disagree! Crypto is volatile but it's a heck of a lot better of an investment than anything else right now, bar none. Bitcoin by itself was the best performing asset of the previous decade, and it's probably going to be the best performing asset of this one. ?

Not a very wise (or nice) thing to say. The cameras that Tyler owns are very well suited to professional cinematography. I don't need to be a DP to see that.

Quick question for Tyler: do you own any lenses, or do you prefer to rent them?

don't worry that comment has history and is not a one off jab .. 

2 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Did they not worry about it when over the course of 2 years silver raised to over $50/ounce? If they did, why didn't the price of film go up exponentially? I've been buying film for 30 years. When Vision stock came out in 1997 ish, I was buying new 400ft rolls for $125 with my discount. Nearly 24 years later, the price is around $40 more. Inflation between 1997 and 2021 is a bit over 60%. So that means film prices have increased BELOW inflation. Yet during those 25 years, there have been two pretty reasonable recessions and film prices never were effected. 

HISTORY doesn't lie.  HISTORY tells us, Kodak's price increases have fallen below inflation by a fair margin and the last recessions have had zero effect. Which means... neither will this one. 

Yes, this is like 52ft right? 

Heck we got some FX9's for our $250/day rate crew at my office. Seems like a fitting match, Sony with low-end crews. Perfect match. 

P.S. My single $20k camera investment will last my entire life and probably someone else's when I sell them in 40 years for 3x what I bought them for. 

But hey in the long run it's all about enjoyment of life. 

You still haven't answered my question though .. is Kodak concerned about the price of silver or not .. yes or no .. you seem to say no .. its not something they are concerned about at all .. BTW  who's taping those cans like that .. looks like a low end crew to me ..

1 hour ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Are you kidding me? That's all you've been saying! Volatile assets are NOT good investments. SO if it's a good investment than its NOT volatile. 

I know what people tell me and I also know based on the cost of the medium. A simple "No, silver prices have no effect as reflected in our pricing" is believable. If silver prices DID have an effect, then you would have seen precipitous increases in costs during the last bump right? But there was NO increase in cost during that bump, in fact the pricing of film didn't really go up much until very recently, long after the last recession AND the prices of silver stabilized. So the proof is right there, I don't even need to have corroboration from anyone on the inside, but I do, which makes it all the more relevant. 

I will repeat again, the increase in silver prices, have not effected the cost of motion picture film.  

Kodaks pricing increases have been directly correlated to lack of demand. They are a very strange business and without getting into a long winded discussion, they treat film like eggs and if they didn't, the pricing could be far more stable in my opinion. 

Because you would know; " the increase in silver prices, have not effected the cost of motion picture film." 

Thus, there would be no conversation to have. 

You say this because I complain about shitty Sony cameras that I'm forced to use? If you were forced to use something you didn't like, would you praise that product if it was a piece of junk? Also, last time I checked, you didn't have to edit (import/transcode/tag) and personally color stuff you shot. So honestly you know WAY less then I do about digital cameras and how they work. I'm stuck all day taking shit people like you shot with garbage cameras and turning it into gold. Then I get complaints when it's not perfect and they blame me, not the shitty camera. 

Mind you, I've EDITED AND SHOT with; C100, C300MKII C500, EVA1, Alexa Classic, Amira, Mini, Dragon, Epic, Red One, F5, F55, FS7, Blackmagic Pocket 4k and 6k, UMP 4.5k, GH5, GH5S, A7SMKII, F900, Vericam 24p. Plus footage shot with most of the cameras I document below. 

And you're telling ME that I have no idea how they work?  You're a funny guy. 
 

Honestly how smart is that? The reason why most people don't own EXPENSIVE NEW cameras is because the moment you open the box, you're devaluing instantly. It's sometimes worse than owning a car. At least with a car, you can keep it for 7-10 years and still have SOME value. I've seen people lose their shirts financially on expensive cameras because they buy them when they have work, then they get injured or they have a life change and can't shoot. The bills stack up fast and they can't sell it for what it's worth because it's been 2 years and the value has tanked. The other reason why it's not smart to own expensive cameras is because if something were to happen on set, you'd have to provide another package immediately. It's far easier to simply pay for the production to rent cameras and have a backup at the ready so if anything happens, you can get one shipped out next day. 

Now I have a lot of expensive film equipment, but I bet my total investment is around $20k. I got great deals on everything because I have no need to have the fanciest/newest stuff. Current value of everything I have is probably around $50k and going up by the month. I bring home around $1k a month in rentals on average and I provide full services round trip for my clients, which I profit off of as well. So for a $20k investment, I sit on my ass doing nothing and bring in around $2k a month on average. I then learned how to fix those cameras, so I wouldn't have to pay for a technician and in my spare time (which is basically every moment of every day thanks to covid) I can sit back enjoy my life and write/produce my own content. 

Pfft, you've owned 6 cameras lol.

Film cameras; Moviecam Compact II, Moviecam Super America, BL4, 535, SRIII, 2C, Aaton LTR, Aaton XTR Prod, 2 Aaton 35III's, 2 Electronic Eyemo's (I had many, but only 2 complete packages)  4008, K3, Bolex EBM. Mind you, I've owned dozens more, (and still do today) but the rest are collectors items, so they don't count. 

Digital cameras; 2 Blackmagic Pocket Cine's, DSR300, DSR570WS, VX1000, 2 PDW-700's, Canon AHX1. 

Analog Video; BVU-100/BVP-350, BVW-5,  BVW-300, EVV-9000. I actually learned how to shoot on a VO-8800 and DXC-325 package, but it wasn't mine.

I've also owned several consumer format cameras like the Canon A1 and a few Video 8, VHS and SuperBeta camcorders. I used video 8 and Hi8 for most of my mucking around at home stuff before buying the DV camcorders. 

So I'm well above 30 cameras and out of those 30, a dozen have made me considerable money. 

So before ya brag about spending $300k because you MUST have the latest and greatest. I'll say, I love guys like you because you take it in the butt and hand me perfectly great cameras a few years later. So thanks for existing, but no I don't want your used FX9 when you go to sell it for whatever comes next. I'll be perfectly happy with my Red Komodo for a while, whenever the prices go down used. I can wait. 

Ohh and PS, I have around $4k worth of matte boxes and filters. 

You are comparing your very small fish retail , buy and hold ,silver investments , with a multi national company buying tons of Silver  as a commodity for their product .. any small price movement  per gram will make a huge difference to them.. hence , Kodak don't give out even casual information , obviously as a company policy .. because as stated THEY ARE WORRIED ABOUT THE PRICE!... as Ive said before ,they are not buying to keep under the bed as a small time long term investment inflation hedge .. did you not read that ..

Im merely using your logic .. because you shoot 50 feet of short ends a year ,this makes you some expert on film and the finances of Kodak .. so equally ,the money I have spent on Digital cameras must make me an expert of them ..

Your not going to get the last word here  .. PS you need to get some way better cameras to turn professional ..

5 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

No, that wasn't the conversation Robin, maybe it was last week, but no... the conversation today has shifted to stability of Silver over the long term. Your claim is that it's too volatile, but I claim it's not. I'm the one who has invested because as you can see from all the charts, the price of silver has consistently increased with inflation, making it actually a pretty good investment, outside of recessions like the one we're currently in. 

To your comment tho and this is very important. Silver has had two major spikes in the last 30 years. I have shot film during both of those spikes and ya know what happened to Kodak's pricing? Nothing, zero, nada. Kodak has been raising their prices every few years to coincide with inflation just like every other brand has. Remember, at one point silver was over $50/ounce during the last recession, but Kodak's pricing stayed pretty consistent, few bux here and there. The biggest shift in pricing was actually over the last 5 years, when silver was rising with inflation. 

Since you don't shoot film and probably haven't in decades, you have zero skin in the game. Also, you have no idea what you're talking about, according to my friends who bloody worked there. I wish they'd make accounts and put you in your place, but oh well. Silver is a great investment as it's the only precious metal that has seen some stability in the last 50 years outside of recessions. 

ok lets narrow it down ..(I was never questioning precious metals as a worthy investment for the long term).. you still claim ,based on the knowledge yet again of mysterious " friends" that Kodak has no or little  concern about the price of Silver ..thius non volatile commodity .. . this is your position correct .. so the Kodak guy who spoke to David Mullen , who we can agree is an established DP, was lying through his teeth when he wouldn't even give any causal information about Silver, due to a worry about the effects on price .. or David has just totally made up this story ? Yes I haven't shot film for many years ,what is the relevance of that .. or the fact that you do .. I mean you make all sorts of claims about digital cameras with very little clue of how they work , Ive brought 6 pro video cameras costing well over $300K, yet you are not accepting  I know more about them than you ..when all you have is a pocket camera that cost less than my mattbox  ..surely this proves I know much more about digital than you ..  following your logic .. no ?

8 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Bro, I have been buying silver for years. Find the nearest exit and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. 

Sorry Bro , your not getting the last word .. the fact that you have been buying silver for years makes no difference to the fact its a commodity that changes price by seconds  and its price is very important to Kodak .. both of which you seem to think is not the case ..   your just plain wrong man ..  stop talking out of your ass ..  

2 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

But that's not my point. You said that silver is volatile, but it's not outside of recessions. It follows inflation nearly perfectly outside of recessions. Again, my guy who use to work at Kodak said there are no issues with silver. Also remember, there is far less silver retention then there was during the days of making prints. 

  you are wrong .. its not the end of the world .. its ok to be wrong .. embrace it and move forward .. if the price of silver is not a concern to Kodak how come they wouldn't tell a well known DP , a user of their product, any information , and in fact they stated the  exact opposite .. its a secret as they are worried about prices .. this wasn't recently either .. of course  the price of silver is very important to Kodak ,thats just common sense .. for the love god just google the damn thing.. 

From Forbes 10 year analysis 

Silver has had its fair share of volatility in the last 10 years, with prices ranging from $14/ounce to $50/ounce between 2009 and 2018.

1 hour ago, charles pappas said:

 

Why in the world would Kodak want to divulge any information that could possibly affect the price of silver, even if they were, as I suspect they are, so well hedged with long term fixed -price contracts and call options that the spot price of silver is immaterial to them?  Why potentially stress-out suppliers lower down the chain and why potentially open themselves up to lawsuits from speculators? 

no one is saying they should though .. my point is Silver is a commodity and pretty volatile one .. luckily the forum metals expert has corrected me .. and I have alerted Mitsui Bank commodities trading desk to the error of their ways too... so Kodak and the one of the worlds biggest banks have been saved through the amazing largesse of a forum member .. 

2 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I even clarified in my post that prices changes during recessions. WERE IN THE MIDDLE OF A RECESSION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

 

Not just recessions .. as David has stated , Kodak themselves are very secretive about their silver supply / holdings  for .. drum roll... the reason thats its a volatile commodity and well known to be one ..  regardless of what your mates "who work for Kodak " are saying on FB ... institutional  traders love people like you .. they will have your shirt ..

9 hours ago, David Mullen ASC said:

I got a tour of Kodak at Rochester years ago and saw several train box cars in the yard.  I asked about the amount of silver they use and what they can recover from processing, etc. and the rep said that was all secret because they didn't want to effect the price of silver on the market.

Well they don't have to worry about that anymore  , Tyler has clearly stated Silver is  a very stable priced commodity ... weirdly in contradiction with the worlds commodity traders ..   according to Tyler and his  mates from Kodak on FB this is not the case after all .. happy days ..  . thank god  we have Tyler and FB to put us right, yet again , on this forum  .. 

5 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

You're so funny. I'm part of some Facebook groups with actual guys who use to work for Kodak, they said this means nothing to them, period. Remember, this has happened many times before, nothing new to see here. 

Your so funny saying silver has very stable price ,then saying this huge volatility happens all the time and nothing new ..,  I mean make your mind up ? .. you think Kodak is going to say on Face book anything other than everything is ok .. I hope you don't take investment advise from them.. 

4 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Yea and? ALL precious metals are up because WERE IN THE MIDDLE OF A RECESSION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HELLO! 

Yes but its not so gradual is it .. as I said Kodak is not buying silver to  put under the bed , they are buying it as a commodity to make their product .. 20% spike in 5 days ..  HELLO .. they are toast of they were on the wrong side of that trade .. futures .. its not stable man .. didnt Trump say the US economy  was the best its ever been ? 

On 1/26/2021 at 11:15 AM, Tyler Purcell said:

Well, yea of course but everyone see's the recessions coming. During a reason the prices go up is because the value of the currency you're using to purchase has gone down. Also during a recession, you see peaks due to wealth preservation. They buy low and sell when it peaks out and the recession is over. It's no different then as you said, buying futures and making a gamble. A smart person will know these things and predict recessions and buy a lot more than they need early on. 

Silver up 20% IN 5 DAYS .. !   12% in a day ..as I said ..  its a commodity .. its volatile ..this could ruin Kodak in days if they holding short positions on silver .. or they should sell the farm and take the money and run .. 

8 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Well, yea of course but everyone see's the recessions coming. During a reason the prices go up is because the value of the currency you're using to purchase has gone down. Also during a recession, you see peaks due to wealth preservation. They buy low and sell when it peaks out and the recession is over. It's no different then as you said, buying futures and making a gamble. A smart person will know these things and predict recessions and buy a lot more than they need early on. 

Well my wife is not smart .. she married me after all ..

2 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Here is silver. Draw a line from 2005 to the far end of this graph. Then do the math on inflation during that same time period. You'll see silver prices follow inflation (outside of recessions 2008 and 2011). So in 2005 the price was $6 and by 2015 it was $16. That's a $10 change in 10 years. Obviously today we're in a recession, so yea it's not a good time to buy silver. 

Here is gold, slightly less detailed graph, but you can see it does not follow inflation what so ever. This is because the demand for gold is less stable. Golds value is more speculative rather than driven by demand like silver. Gold is also used as a currency replacement, so when local currencies devalue, you see the price of gold increase. Notice how gold started going up before the "official" recession. That's investors getting out of the USD and into gold due to fears of currency devaluation. 

 

So do the math will ya?

Silver was $6  per ounce pre-recession in 2005 and before the recession in 2019 it was $18 per ounce

Gold was $500 per ounce pre-recession in 2005 and before the recession in 2019 it was $1400 per ounce. 

So silver has gone up 3x AND again, outside of recessions, it has a stable price that follows inflation. 

Gold has gone up less than 3x, but has huge fluctuations and will never go back down to the level of inflation. We hit a peak of $2100 on gold in 2020 for instance and sure, it's down to the high $1800's now, but it will continue going up and it will never get back down to anywhere near $1400 an ounce. Meanwhile silver, will keep going up, but when the recession is over in a few years, we should see it go back down again. 

So silver is actually a better buy for savings because not only has it increased its value faster, BUT follows inflation pretty well outside of recessions. Silver also has a benefit of being used in more industries than gold actually. Where I wholeheartedly agree that gold does have a better long term investment outcome, due to it being more aligned with the financial system, that wasn't the discussion. I simply commented that silver outside of recessions like the one we are currently in, will not go crazy in price. It will follow inflation. 

 

 

" Draw a line from 2005 to the far end of this graph. Then do the math on inflation during that same time period. You'll see silver prices follow inflation (outside of recessions 2008 and 2011). So in 2005 the price was $6 and by 2015 it was $16. That's a $10 change in 10 years"

But shifts in between that are huge in massive amounts .. Kodak are not buying silver to put under their bed as a hedge against inflation and Fiat currency Armageddon, they are buying futures , they are trying to / have to .. lock in prices for the future , its a gamble , they have to hedge these futures too..  much like airlines and oil prices .. flying the planes in a secondary business ,mainly they are huge oil futures trading companies. I'd also question any government inflation figures these are easily manipulated, ie they change the basket of goods they use to decide purchasing power !     commodities are volatile and change every second , thats why they traded by banks etc.. and silver is regarded as more so than many .. look at wiki not just graphs .. as I quoted ..

2 hours ago, Philipp Kunzli said:

I just have heard from different sides that the fx9 still "walks in its children shoes".. that were are still quite some issues considering its reliability  and the the "greenish" tone as you mention... 

So for me, going in to a 40 shootingday documentary, I feel like I rather go with the proofed and reliable "old" camera instead of going for the "funky" new one... But maybe I'm just to old fashion... ?

Yes the v1 had some issues ..most you read online were user error , have been a couple of updates since then .. the green tone is only when applying the s709 LUT without any grading,  not in the camera , I guess thats a toss up on whats more reliable .. new or old .. one thing I would recommend , ask the seller to replace the internal battery .. you can do it yourself but scary the first time and its bad on action .. I had this happen to me on location and had to do it in my hotel room under pressure ..  a night I wont forget soon !

16 minutes ago, Philipp Kunzli said:

Hey everybody

I'd love to hear your thoughts on buying a used Sony F55 (incl. RAW-Recorder) for around 8000.-€ 

First of all, the data Handling of the AXS 4K RAW files. a few years ago I shoot a short with this system and as I remember it was quite a "handful" working and handling this huge files.

What do you guys think compared to a FS7?

Does anyone has experience about the its image quality compared to the Sony Venice? (of corse beside the full frame sensor!)

Venice: XAVC 4KClass 480     compared to   F55 XAVC (AVC/H.264 High 4:2:2 Intra Profile) 4K: VBR, 600
 

 

Still a good camera , but pretty old now , AXS / SxS media is expensive .. but its in a different league to an fs7..  very different markets .. f5/55 both have XAVC I 480 too..  I think it depends if you really need raw or not , and what camera suits your work..  basically the closest thing to a Venice image wise, is now the fx9.. not the same sensor but FF and " Venice color space ".. the Venice s709 LUT for Slog3 is also what Sony recommend for the fx9  ( but its a bit green )..  but the fx9 is not good for raw , have to go to a 3rd party external recorder and its 12 bit recording , although  the cameras out putting 16 bit ....  if your choice is between an fs7 and a fx9 ..I would take the fx9 for sure ..  Pros and Cons .. personally I think its always better to go for the latest sensor technology, its moved on so far from the f55 sensor .. and the prices have dropped massively too !

24 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Really, you wanna talk precious metals with someone who has their entire life savings in that market? Please. 

Well any google search will tell you Silver is a very volatile commodity .. especially in gold / silver forums you will see this  .. very easy to get burnt with silver .. my quote is from Wikipedia , its not just my personal opinion..  its simply wrong to say Silver is a stable commodity with no / not much price fluctuation over decades ...  last post on silver from me ..  lets hope there is a silver lining for 2021 .. ? 

45 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Yes Yes, during the recession the prices went crazy. If you look at non-recession periods, silver has followed inflation very closely, even with those substantial fluctuation. 

Sorry but no way could silver ever be described as a non volatile commodity ..., its a very harsh mistress .. the Misses almost choked on her sushi at the mere thought ..

"The price of silver is driven by speculation and supply and demand, like most commodities. The price of silver is notoriously volatile compared to that of gold because of the smaller market, lower market liquidity and demand fluctuations between industrial and store of value uses. At times, this can cause wide-ranging valuations in the market, creating volatility.^[6]"

On 1/22/2021 at 11:48 AM, Tyler Purcell said:

Sliver has been very stable, it hasn't budged more than a few dollars in decades. We actually moving over to it and gold as our savings because precious metals will probably be more consistent than the dollar in the future. 

Totally not true sir .. according to my wife , head of commodities trading Mitsui Banking Corporation , and not to be argued with , Silver was $50 an ounce in 2011.. !!  its now $25.50.. its all over the place, same as copper .. its much more an  industrial metal more than a store of wealth like gold ..

9 hours ago, Satsuki Murashige said:

In the interviews where Mr. Doyle talks about not knowing anything technical, I believe he was referring to his early days (which is why I said ‘when he was starting out’). Obviously, by the time he was shooting ‘Chungking Express,’ he knew what he was doing.

Sure I wasn't trying to contradict what you were saying , Im sure he knew what he was doing way before CE..  he still seems to play down any "techie" knowledge .. my point is I think this is his image  too..  he doest want to be seen at the guy who knows all the tech .he likes this spontaneous, fly by seat of the pants , type guy image .. but of course under all that he knows a lot ..