SLR Magic 8mm on the x5?

[John Gullam]

Can anyone confirm that the SLR Magic 8mm will work (when hot swapped) on the x5?
I've seen a couple of threads and a video with it working on the x5 R or S but not the plain old x5.
Thank you

 

[niki]

Can anyone confirm that the SLR Magic 8mm will work (when hot swapped) on the x5?
I've seen a couple of threads and a video with it working on the x5 R or S but not the plain old x5.
Thank you

I don't have it but if people are saying that it works with x5r then it should work with x5 as well. The hot swap was used to enable raw recording on x5r and x5s but as you are on x5 and don't have raw recording you don't have to do a hot swap. For example I can directly power up the inspire with x5r and laowa 7.5mm lens and it works and records on the SD card, but to enable recording on the SSD it need the hot swap.

 

[Mixchief]

I don't have it but if people are saying that it works with x5r then it should work with x5 as well. The hot swap was used to enable raw recording on x5r and x5s but as you are on x5 and don't have raw recording you don't have to do a hot swap. For example I can directly power up the inspire with x5r and laowa 7.5mm lens and it works and records on the SD card, but to enable recording on the SSD it need the hot swap.

I don't think the SLR Magic works same way as the Laowa, I actually have it but haven't used it yet, but from all accounts I read the lens will not be recognized at all unless hot swapped on either the X5 or X5R. Does the Laowa focus work?

 

[niki]

I don't think the SLR Magic works same way as the Laowa, I actually have it but haven't used it yet, but from all accounts I read the lens will not be recognized at all unless hot swapped on either the X5 or X5R. Does the Laowa focus work?

Laowa is full manual, the focus have to be adjusted to infinity by hand prior take off.

 

[niki]

I don't think the SLR Magic works same way as the Laowa, I actually have it but haven't used it yet, but from all accounts I read the lens will not be recognized at all unless hot swapped on either the X5 or X5R. Does the Laowa focus work?

I just saw the specs of SLR Magic and it is full manual too, so there should be no difference in the way it works on x5/x5r camera compared to how laowa works.
SLR Magic seems slow at f4 compared to laowa at f2. With laowa one can shoot night cities.

 

[Mixchief]

I just saw the specs of SLR Magic and it is full manual too, so there should be no difference in the way it works on x5/x5r camera compared to how laowa works.
SLR Magic seems slow at f4 compared to laowa at f2. With laowa one can shoot night cities.
[/QUOTE. I mean the camera reads it differently than the ale magic.


I meant

 

[niki]

The camera reads every lens without electronics in the same way. There is nothing to read, so there is no way the camera to make a difference between them [emoji38]

 

[John Gullam]

SLR Magic seems slow at f4 compared to laowa at f2. With laowa one can shoot night cities.

True, but at 3x the cost.

 

[niki]

True, but at 3x the cost.

The fast lenses have never been cheap

 

[John Gullam]

The fast lenses have never been cheap

True

 

[John Gullam]

Circling back to this, I picked up the SLR Magic 8mm. It is unchipped and totally manual, the minimum focus at ∞ is short enough that I've set it at ∞ and left it there.
It works fine for video and.jpg and DJI DNG Cleaner works to convert RAW files. I was surprised when I converted from RAW that the quality wasn't significantly better than the.jpgs though. I don't know if that's a function of the conversation or if the RAW files just contain more information about a mediocre image coming through the lens.
The quality works for me to get the wide field of view, but no doubt the Laowa will look better.
f4 has been fine for my purposes, though, again, the f2.8 on the Laowa would be preferable.
For $150 I'm happy with it.