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I just buy a lot of lenses and then only use one or two of them.

I've built a Canon FD set with 20/2.8, 28/2, 35/2, 50/1.4, 85/1.2 and 135/2 that I use for all my professional shoots which are mid-tier commercials mostly. If I can get away with the characteristics I keep them wide open and if I need sharpness I stop down to an F4 or so. Long-term plan is to have them re-housed to PL by P+S Technik. I like the look and they cover FF to follow the camera trend. Edit: ...with focusgears from followfocusgears.com and fronts from Simmod to make them somewhat usable in a professional setting. Only downside is the fiddly process of swapping lenses ?

I found the Schneider 16mm f/1.9 in stellar condition locally at an auction at the beginning of the year. I had already sold my pocket but that time though. However, I've recently bought another pocket v1 and I am about to order an Arri-s adapter. I'll let you know how I like it! That's a gorgeous short by the way, thanks for the link. That makes a lot of sense. I don't know if I've ever thought about it that way.

That’s a cool strategy for the BMPCC. Did you buy a Schneider 16mm for it, or are you just following the same focal length strategy? If you did get the Schneider, how do you like it? Some of those old lenses look so great on the Pocket/Micro. This BMMCC short was shot on a S16 Zeiss Superspeed... Yeah, I agree with this. I think the audience may not realize what’s off, but some will feel that something is different, so unless the story, or intent of the shot, can utilize the jarring effect, it is a problem, in my opinion. With that said, this is one of the reasons, other than being lazy, that I moved to shooting with single prime lenses. I think it was Polanski that believes you shouldn’t change your focal length during a scene because the change in angle affects perspective, which could take the audience out of the dramatic effect of the scene. This is definitely an option, the 28mm f/2 isn’t too expensive if you can find a good copy. I haven’t priced the 100mm but I assume it’s a bit more. And with that said, there’s a good likelihood that most people won’t even notice or care, so it really depends on how much it bothers you. On a different note, that FD 50mm is probably the best bargain vintage lens out there. I found a copy that was converted to the Nikon F mount, so I can adapt it to EF on my 5D3. If I was a smarter person, I could probably sell every lens I own and just use that lens. As you know, that’s how good it is.

Agreed. My SmallHD Focus has served me incredibly well and I haven't seen a better locking HDMI solution than the one it employs.

A monitor is a lot more than nit per $ ratio.

When I was using the canon C100 I mainly used the Canon 18-135mm f3.5-5.6 and the Sigma 18-35mm f1.8. If I needed wider my business partner (photographer) would lend me his Tokina 11-16mm. I also have a Sigma 50-150mm 2.8 which covers everything! Since getting the GH5 a couple of years ago I've mainly being using the Sigma 18-35 and 50-150 with a Speedbooster. But sometimes I use the Voigtlanders 17.5 and 25 and an Slr Magic 12mm 1.6. But since hiring an Olympus 12-40 2.8 I've decided that I really prefer native and going lightweight. So today I'll pick up the 10-25mm 1.7 and I'm considering the Olympus 12-100mm f4, 12-40 2.8. I'd love a longer lens like the 10-25. Maybe 35-90mm f1.7 or 2 (but constant).

Currently trying out viltrox + sigma 18-35 on GH5 as a main all around lens. Practicing my manual focus skills and i really like the smooth zoom i am starting to incorporate into my shots. Parafocalness is also very nice to have. Also have Oly 75 1.8 in my bag, for portraits, but i want to switch it with Sigma 56 1.4 soon.

Ah ha, so the single soviet lens challenge was a ploy.... very sneaky kye ? i guess im old school. I first bought a microprism screen for my canon and a couple of pentax m42 mounts as m42 seemed the easiest to adapt. After that i figured i may as well get the whole set ?. Within the m42 range of lenses some are more popular than others. Most were quite reasonably priced, the 85mm is the dearest i have bought so far. I must be in the leaky boat next to @noone and with the aussie $ acting like a submarine stuff gets pretty expensive quickly here in aus. I would like to round out the collection with the 20mm, i think the 17mm might be a bridge too far for me. About the time i got the 85mm along came the p4k with the crop factor every lens suddenly becomes a telephoto, i have mitigated that with the addition of a villtrox speedbooster which has yet to arrive. I'll play with that for awhile and see how it goes. I'm still tempted by a metabones 0.64 but it will have to wait for awhile while i see how the villtrox performs and allow some time for the $ to accumulate.

I know it was mentioned before, but the Z-Cam E2 seems to be a very serious competitor to the BMPCC cameras, and the reviews by Kai and Look were very favourable without many real down-sides. There's a newer model IIRC called the E2-C which is cheaper, and may be similar to the P4K? If you haven't already, maybe have a look at the spec sheet and a few reviews?

It’s not a secret I like my MFT gear. I go for a balance of flexibility, coverage and weight. PL 10-25mm f/1.7 serves as my wide to portrait lens and as my set of primes. Fast aperture. Great lowlight. It’s on my camera 75% of the time. It also serves as my astro lens. FF equiv. of a 20-50mm. PL 50-200 f/2.8-4 a great telephoto that balances focal range, aperture, and size nicely. Will be getting a 2x teleconverter to extend range. FF equiv. 100-400mm. With a 2x teleconverter a 200-800mm. Those are my go to lenses the vast majority of the time. They are the two lenses I grab when I know I might want to shoot but don’t know exactly what. Packs nicely in even a small bag and with a teleconverter in my bag as well I can carry two lenses and have 20mm to 800mm coverage with two lens! With only a slight gap in the middle around 85mm. I did own the venerable 12-35f/2.8 but sold it as it has been replaced by the 10-25. I sold my PL 12mm f/1.4 as it also just was never on my camera after the 10-25. Will be building out a vintage kit later that prioritizes character and feel.

Same. This is one of the few reasons I decided on a single prime or a zoom for any given film. You can’t really second guess yourself if you don’t have the options, it becomes about composition, lens placement, or thinking about the shot from an entirely different way than how I envisioned it when I wrote it.

Minimalism! I love it That's the ultimate way to get around matching of shots... I'm not familiar with that lens in particular, but I'm imagining it's not perfect when wide open, so do you specifically shoot a film at the same aperture settings to keep the look consistent? As I've said before, my main lens (maybe 75% of screen-time in final edit) is my 17.5 and I love that focal length. I'm also curious to know what you shoot and how you get around the challenge of only having one focal length. It would be logical for Panasonic to release a longer companion lens to the 10-25, similar to how the Sigma 18-35 has the longer companion zoom. I wouldn't hold your breath for a f0.95 zoom - even if they could figure out how to do it I suspect almost no-one could lift it! Lots of good points here. I subscribe to the 3 lenses will cover MOST of what you want strategy, and I just deal with the times when they won't - you rarely have to go wider than 16 and you can digitally zoom quite a bit before adding additional sharpening won't match the footage. Getting a fast lens set while keeping the price down is a real challenge - one thing I've noticed is that the fastest lenses are the ones coveted by collectors and the slower ones seem to be far less in demand, so knowing what you shoot can possibly save you huge amounts of money if you're able to compromise. I also pay attention to bokeh, at least to the extent that I'm very interested in a bokeh that's not distracting. Therefore I'm absolutely not a fan of any bokeh that attracts attention, for example star-shaped bokeh / 'bubble bokeh' / swirly bokeh etc are not desirable. However if you get a bokeh that is unremarkable then matching the things like aperture blades becomes a non-issue for me, as it's not something that will get much critical attention. [Edit: shooting on a cropped sensor also helps with this as the bokeh, and also lens issues in general, tend to be worse at the edges of the image circle which gets cropped by the smaller sensor]

I use the Roxsen/Pixco FD-m4/3 Focal Reducer. I've heard people saying it has had some play/sloppiness on the body mount as well as not mounting the old FDs properly. I've only used it with FDn glass and it's been a treat!

Reading these may prove to be a good starting point:

Isn't the Shinobi better for the same price (on B&H)?

Also weight, size, ergonomics, best cold shoe mount, touch screen interface..

In general I have found that audiences notice differences in color far more than differences of the background blur or object separation.

I was on a study visit at a tv station while in film school, where in the basement they still had two old Arriflex 16S sitting. They were the 3-lens turret kind. If my memory serves me correct they were equipped with 16, 25 and 50mm Schneider-Kreuznach Arri-s lenses, and that is what they used to shoot reportages and the like with. I've tried to adopt this simple 3-lens setup a couple of times. For my BMPCC I only have the 16mm so far, but I am aiming to complete the same set as on the arri at some point. For super35/APS-C I aimed for 28, 50 and 85 or 100 mm. Obviously Both longer and wider lenses would prove to be useful, but the idea is that these 3 focal lengths would suffice MOST of the time. One big problem, especially when shopping for old vintange stills lenses is the matching of aperture while still keeping the price down. I was shooting quite a bit with the canon FDn 28mm f/2.8, 50mm f/1.4 and 100mm f/2.8, and with a cheap chinese speed booster I could match everything at f/2.8 (effectively f/2.0). That brings me to my next problem, which I don't see many talking about - Aperture blades. The 28mm 2.8 has 5 blades, the 100mm 2.8 has 6 blades and the 50mm 1.4 has 8 blades. And it would show! When shooting everything at f/2.8 (2.0), thinking it would match pretty well, the background blur would have - in my eyes - wildly different characteristics. Long story short; if the FDn 50mm 1.4 is the center piece of the set, the 28mm f/2 and 100mm f/2 would be better matches as they all have 8 aperture blades. (don't get me started on weight and size)

I just saw this movie 20 minutes ago. Amazing. I think anyone who’s truly offended by it simply doesn’t live in the real world. As with many films and art in general it’s an exaggerated reflection of reality. He’s the bad guy, it’s ubdeniable, but you really see how and why he feels like what he’s doing is right. His judgements on the world around him are fully justified, his reaction, of course, is not. Throughout the film, I kept thinking of the saying ‘you can fool all the people sometimes, some of the people all the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time’. For me, that is essentially the point in this film. There are many more themes and criticisms in the story too and I would highly recommend everyone to watch it. It’s not just entertainment. As for performances and the technical stuff. A+ on all accounts.

I agree. The FX6 will be the a7s3 we all want, minus the IBIS and the $3200 price tag. Chris

settings cog in the bottom right corner - colour management

I have 2 bodies so 2 lens 'strategies'. XT3A on tripod with Fringer adapter with main choice being Canon 50mm f1.8. Options are Canon 85mm f1.8 if I need longer or Sigma 18-35mm f1.8 if I need wider. This is my 'static' for wedding ceremonies, speeches and dancing. XT3B on monopod with Fuji 50mm f2 which goes everywhere with me all day as my principal tool. In summary, APSC 50mm ie, full-frame 75mm, is my principal chosen focal length for as much coverage as possible. I've chosen them as the best compromise of fast aperture and size/weight.

Yeah also recommended the Z-Cam E2. I haven't tried it though but looks like it's also a good cam + 4K 120fps without crop. E2-C is a cheaper version but I don't think it can record at 4K with 120fps. I think one downside is that it doesnt work with Viltrox speedboosters so you have to spring for the more expensive Metabones to adapt EF lenses

I'll do it. Used to have a J9 years back, but sold it. Time to get back into some funky lenses.

I agree. I bought an fs5 a few months ago, I love good AF but I dont think I would give up for the internal ND, XLR inputs with amazing pre amps. I usually shoot on a tripod so ibis is negligible for me.

Yes, otherwise known as the empty bank account strategy, AKA: homeless man strategy.

I think I'm going to start with some Contax Zeiss and go from there. I'm not a huge fan of the Russian Helios swirly bokeh lenses much but there are many others.

Meh... Every new Sony announcement has me feeling like the a7s3 is going to be a major dud - from rolling out the same damn sensors across the board except for the a7r4 and the endless 8-bit parade, I'm expecting very little from the s3 beyond the Z battery and the new AF. Chris

I've found 3200 iso is very usable. I am seeing them easily had now on eBay for $1000

@Alt Shoo - congratulations on the film! It sounds very interesting. Did you shoot in 4K? And what about the final distribution / screening format. If course it doesn’t really matter, and I still enjoy using my LS300, I’m just interested in other workflows haha.

What is 50fps supposed to look like? It's slower then reality. You have a You Tube channel and that's the best way you can describe videoish? Amazing. You saying any footage looks videoish is a put down that is left for people to thing a camera is sub par. Your comments prove this. The grade put on the camera can push the color and tonal values in any direction but you commented on that. The clarity is not over done at all and not "sharpened" or unnatural. You're nothing but biased and your word is not real. I want to trust You Tube influencers but your response to the P4K is amateurish at best. And I just watched S1 with the new update look like iHone garbage compared to the P6K footage I posted. Nothing I said about the P6K footage had to do with the color grade and everything to do with cadence and how it handled motions, background and captured data information. You guys need to read my comment before you use the word videoish. Next time you pick out GH5, S1 and P4K footage make sure you watch out for the motion stutter because it seems like you all have a blind eye when it comes to admitting that those 3 camera have issues in that department. Motion in film is like silk because its capturing real like. Real life doesn't have stutter and jitters. You need to revisit film versus the low end motion and cadence. And then revisit the P6K footage. Motion in film is like silk because its capturing real like. Real life doesn't have stutter and jitters.