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Nice shots. With the telephoto modules on the 14 Ultra they benefit from 3 things: - Computational side - Fast apertures - Very close minimum focus distances As a result, especially at the closer focus distances the small sensor look disappears. The apertures are fast at F1.8 and F2.4 which for long lenses is impressive especially as they are the size of postage stamps in your pocket. The computation side has also taken a huge leap. On the main sensor there's so much more depth information and a shallower DOF to begin with which helps the bokeh simulation to be much more convincing. On this shot of the car it has just embellished a bit the background separation which was already there at 1", F1.63. It really is an extraordinary shot getter in every way. Fast, tiny, wide range of Leica modes and you can create so many different styles of shot in a couple of seconds with a few swipes. It is the moment for me when I realise that traditional mirrorless cameras and especially the lenses aren't long for this world.

I have said before on here and I'll maintain it, DJI's taking one of the smartest plays here. Especially on mid-high end productions, regardless of any other factors, it's going to stay primarily Arri. If you make a traditional camera and try to compete, you'll have a huge uphill fight. On the other hand, if you make a camera that takes something that's a pain in the ass, whether it's Arri or another decent camera system, and your thing makes it really easy, your camera might get used in parts of films that are shot on Arri or Burano or similar. Putting cameras on a gimbal is legitimately annoying. Wanna have that gimbal-based camera track subjects? Time for hacks like putting a second camera on the gimbal and needing to use multiple tools to track and monitor. One of the Ronin 4D's real superpowers is integrated tracking based on what the camera is seeing. Today, a friend and I shot some tests with mine while between blocks at a local film festival. In the first, I experimented with an "impossible" shot where I tracked her walking and then had her pause while I pulled the camera back, planning to do a faux dolly zoom by reframing in post. It's imperfect, but with some practice and a less ambitious distance, I think it could play. For the second, I recently got a Hydra Alien and wanted to see how it would work. My car is a worst-case scenario for rollers - the Wrangler has an extremely stiff suspension. Yet, after 40 minutes of stumbling around with putting the Hydra on my car for the first time ever, I mounted up the camera and had my friend drive while I operated. There are some micro-vibrations, certainly, and I might experiment with the alternate/softer shock plate, but it's kind of amazing how turning on autofocus + tracking on a random car on the road resulted in such great footage. The last shot was to see if I could do a Tarantino-style shot spinning around the subject. If doing this on set, I'd want to set up something to ensure a consistent distance to the subject(s), but similar to the others, given the results after doing no planning or setup, the results are a bit unbelievable for just getting to the parking lot and saying "Hey, I bet we could do this. Let's try!"

Greetings All, I've created and uploaded some cool new seamless ground textures. They're completely free to use in your projects with attribution, just like my thousands of other assets. You'll find them on my TXT - GROUND- TILE-ABLE page: https://soundimage.org/txr-ground-seamless/ _________________________________________________________________ Ad-Free and Community Supported My website is completely ad-free and I pay for everything myself. If you can, please consider making a small contribution on the site to help support it . You can do this by: Making a small donation here: https://soundimage.org/donate/ Purchasing one of my Ogg music packs here: https://soundimage.org/ogg-music-packs-2/ https://soundimage.org/ogg-game-music-mega-pack/ Or hiring me to create custom music for you: https://soundimage.org/custom-work/ Thanks in advance for your support. And, as always, please stay safe and keep creating. 🙂

Weren't a lot of the most influencing and creative films ever made done with equipment significantly less sophisticated than all of this modern stuff? So... I don't get too wrapped up in the new fangled gear. It's all rather incredible, realitvely, tbh.

I think the thing to remember (and hence not to get too carried away) is that the camera choices in Adolescence were led by the story and the way in which the creators wanted to tell it. You literally couldn't have done it using full size cinema kit without massively increasing the budget - and maybe not even then. Likewise, Civil War was mostly shot on Venice, but used the Ronins when the story demanded it. So it's great that big budget movies are doing inventive stuff with non-traditional camera systems, but they're doing it when it's required, not for any financial savings or because they think those systems are overall better.

Yeah, it's an industry, as you well noted. But I can't shake the feeling some share-holders will see the praised garnished by Adolescence and start to ask why they can't use "cheap" equipment like that in every project since it looks as "pro" as any Hollywood film out there. Blair Witch it is not. The last major breakthrough was the Sony FX3 camera for the big budget Creator movie. But that was one piece within a huge industry-like production process. Adolescence take a different route and seeing all the positive press it's garnered I expect 1,000 copy cat movie makers to try and imitate it.

Yup. All those things. Brought in as an editor after 6 years into the production. Just didn't have a decent director. Or producer. Or a writer. Or a DP. So yeah, a few issues. Things happen. It's a wierd business. Sometimes you end up working with people a bit over their heads.

Thanks! I've literally used the same saved powergrade for each set, adjusting it a little perhaps but not by much. I think I backed off the halation on that set, but I can't remember making any other change. They do look nicer though, so maybe it's just the exposure levels, or maybe it's just the subject matter? Sunset and blue hour always has a certain magic to it.

I see your contax 85mm 1.4 and raise you a super takumar 85mm 1.9 Very windy day here. No good for videography, i did get few nice images with the takumar however i struggle a bit with the focus peaking and it wasn't much fun, with the wind about. So i swapped to a 60mm oly lens as i wanted a comparison of how both lenses did sunstars. The next few images are the oly 60mm macro lens. I massaged the exposure to suit my preferences, however the colours are sooc

I think that last set is nicer, although i can't tell you why. i know its night and i expect it darker. I'm not entirely sure that its being down to night is the only reason they are nicer. You've done something different in your approach to grading or the initial video i think.

1+8 pro with Helios 58mm on a steady tripod, 226mm FF equivalent.

Defocus Test: 1+8 pro with Vega20mm @f2 wide open (78mm FF equivalent) Vs canon 5D3 with Lomo 75mm @f4

Just had a look at some stills from it, and yes, much darker than my other references. I looked through all the John Wick franchise, as well as some other action series too, and one way they can make these things all look dark is just have them all set in night-exteriors or interiors without visible daylight. I think there's lots of tricks like this. For example, I read an article on how movies often look "larger than life" which has many factors, but one was that there were almost three times the number of shots that were taken below eye-level as those at or above eye-level, so most of the movie was literally looking up at the characters.

Nah, they will pass, but then these are night shots rather than day so would expect them to be darker 😝 I re-watched The Batman yesterday. Last time was big screen with French subtitles 🥸 but at home on this occasion and that movie I think is a great example of ‘dark’ for reference.

Just came out of watching Sinners in IMAX. What can I say? Its a good movie, I really liked it a lot and I would highly recommend it. Cinematography 12 out of 10. Acting 10/10 Story 9/10 - I would give this 10/10 if I didn’t think it was slightly inspired by dusk till dawn. If you don’t think so… 2 criminal brothers flee south to some bar to fight off vampires… [SPOILER ALERT] 1 brother is level headed and the other one is off…in both movies there is a girl that is forbidden fruit where the brother that is off wants that forbidden fruit. In Sinners the forbidden fruit is a white girl (black guy in prohibition time), in Dusk till dawn Quentin Tarrantino (yeah he acted in his own movie) was the creep that wanted to fuck the 16 year old (the forbidden fruit). Look… there are some sequences in this movie (sinners) that you’ve never seen before and that alone makes you forgive the inspirational notes and thats why its still a high 9 out of 10 for me.

Last nights adventures. This time I graded with MBP monitor set to middle brightness and referred to some references. I swapped from the 14-140mm f3.5-5.6 + vND combo to the 12-35mm f2.8 lens without vND once the sun went down, as it's easier to shoot with the constant aperture when zooming. The stalls and restaurant areas were too bright for F2.8 and base ISO 500, so had to stop down on some shots. The massive lanterns in the parade were also a challenge too, bring so much brighter than the ambient levels, and I didn't want to smash them into the highlight rolloff of the emulation. I tried walking with it at 12mm but it was IBIS-wobbles galore, so next time when walking I'll probably use my iPhone. I compared my iPhone 12 mini cameras to my GH5 and the normal iPhone camera was equivalent ISO noise to GH5 with F2.8 and the iPhone wide was equivalent to GH5 at F8. @MrSMW can tell me if these are still too dark 🙂 I based the FLC grade on the 35mm preset, but I'm thinking that it's a bit too low-end, and the 64mm preset is a bit clean, so I might create my own 50mm preset for something in between.

Well… take it as a learning experience… What was your job on that project? In the future, if you have some input on it… state the gaps in pre-production. And, also… just to elaborate on “Figure out the story you are trying to tell before shooting.” A lot of people have an “idea” or an epiphany of what they want to shoot… that’s not the same thing as a story. Usually a story has a beginning, middle and end; a good story has a climax and resolution with characters and character building (so the audience has some connection with the characters they are watching)… now having a climax… characters… may be too much… but at the very least have a beginning - middle and end (thats the bare minimum requirement). The idea or epiphany is stuck in the beginning… there is no middle and there is no end. You don’t need to have a full on script… especially if it’s a one man band. But, write it down (may its a 1 page - point form thing) because it will help organize your thoughts.

I suspect the gap between the free version and paid studio version of resolve will grow wider, with the studio version getting all the good stuff. Honestly i'm surprised its taken this long for them to get around to charging for it. I'm also glad its taken this long 😀 I downloaded ver 20 last night, its still free, maybe the last "free" version. The whole "We'll probably eventually charge some kind of upgrade for this." is just a way of softening the blow. its already been decided, its just the when may still be up in the air. Personally i feel paying a subscription is a like cutting an artery and watching the life leak out. I can live with a modest upgrade fee if i feel like i need to upgrade for the features, however if bm go subscription, I'll stick with whatever is the last free version or move to something else. I'm also thinking if and when they do start charging for it, they might have to do something special to entice us. At least for the first upgrade anyway. Maybe that is where the magic part comes in. If they do manage to make it something magical i'd probably look at buying one of the controllers That comes with a studio licence key. Assuming that it comes with the upgraded studio version.

Pretty stable and even with the post stab, not a huge amount of cropping going on 👍 I'd say FF Lumix is about the same level with S5ii.

Edited and uploaded the stabilisation test video. Test of how well the GH7 and 14-140mm combination is able to stabilise hand-held footage. GH7 was using the Boost IS mode, which is a more stable version of IBIS (but it doesn't do electronic IS, that's a different mode, so this mode has no crop). My hands were more shaky than normal when filming this, and the first shot was standing up without leaning on anything, and the second shot of the hotel was sitting down. Results aren't perfect, but they're good enough for my purposes.

I don't mind at all, I mentioned it partly to raise the topic as I'm not sure about it. What I need to do is to get a bunch of references and study how they distribute the DR of the images into the final grade, so I can get a sense of things. A bit like how cinematographers get an understanding of levels and ratios, using false colour or a light meter. I pulled a few reference stills from the movie Perfect Days which is set in Seoul to compare: and some from Kill Bill vol 2, as it's a bit more contrasty: and The Matrix, because it's got that feeling of the matrix not being a real place, which gets to the idea that Seoul is like a world unto itself: or The Killer has quite a dark grade to things: There's something about the rich dark areas, and having rich dark colours that I'm chasing, but obviously I'm yet to work out what it is and how to get it. Works in progress though!

The Insta360 Mic Air seems a rebranded Hollyland Lark M2, I hope they implemented the receiver in the X5 so is not using bluetooth for the audio.... this would be great. As you can put a full windmuff on it and place it in better position it would be a great improvement. Currently I sync in post a DJI Mic but is a pita. https://store.insta360.com/product/mic-air

I'm finding this last set a little too dark Kye...but that might just be my personal taste. I often do the old 'Squint Test' when it comes to images and these are just a tad too dark for me. Hope you don't mind me saying...

+ Currently = 5 bodies: 2 stills + 4 lenses (within the Sony e Mount/Nikon ecosystem) & 3 video + 5 lenses (within L Mount), so considering a switch to: 4 bodies (1x Sony + 3x Nikon) & 5 lenses, ie, 5 bodies + 9 lenses currently across 2 incompatible systems for 4 bodies + 5 lenses within 1 compatible system, ie, with the Megadap adapter, Nikon Z has access to anything E Mount with near native autofocus. Ie, 1 less body and 4 less lenses and within ONE single compatible (lens) system. And yes, it is my full-time business so everything I buy (or sell) is a business decision and expense. Well maybe, but anything I say I always qualify with 'for my specific needs' any time I talk about gear. Sorry, all FF Lumix or Sigma glass...and as above, if it happens, won't be until October soonest with any kit for sale UK or EU only! It's more likely I will do it than not because as I am always saying to my missus, no more 'sideways' steps when it comes to business expenses, - any major changes have to be because the thing is quantifiably better. Or I broke something. But hardly like I could break an entire system so, the former.

A few more from today, in Hongdae. Even less grading than yesterday, but trying to lean into the contrast and deep shadows more.