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Finally sat down with footage from over a month ago. Shot for about 45 minutes with this guy, grabbed some goofy audio, and eventually put in my afternoon of editing. I used a Helios-44-2. So, 116mm FF equiv on the M43 camera I used. Lens had a variable ND filter on it.

Figure out how to tell a story. Build a tale of high-stakes, conflict, resolution, redemption. Use whatever toys you have to accomplish that. Your gear is adequate, but I see that you're fretting so much about the technical. I can't stress this enough, it really doesn't matter. Your. Gear. Is. Good. Enough. That part is done. Figure out how to tell a story. Concentrate ALL your efforts on that. Don't worry about ProRes vs. DNxHD. Don't worry about this drone vs. that drone. Premiere vs. Resolve? Not really going to matter. Don't even worry about frame rate. Pick one you like. There, you're done with that. Anymore consideration into these things is a waste of time. A lot of new filmmakers fall into the trap of putting the majority of their efforts into equipment and specs because it's a somewhat non-creative aspect of the craft and results are objective and easy to understand and control. Avoid this. However, do accept that story telling is difficult and messy and highly subjective. Understand you'll make storytelling decisions that are flawed. It's part of the challenge. But you absolutely gotta do it as your main focus. Figure out how to tell a story. Does your protagonist have an antagonist? Can you frame what they're doing as a "hero's journey?" What sort of set-backs will they have to struggle through? Can they overcome those road blocks? Will you be able to film those moments to tell such a story? Is there a bit with a dog in it? These are the things that really matter. Also, making bad movies is depressing. I can't tell you all the corporate projects I've unfortunately done over the years where the singular goal was to put a camera on someone, have them talk to a dry boring interviewer, snag a few b-roll shots on the way out the door, and call it good. Bah. That's a recipe for mediocrity. You could shoot that crap on an ARRI and no one would give two shits except the people that got to play with the ARRI. And unless your subject is someone like Robin Williams on one of his cocaine benders, it's not going to be interesting. You want to make a film? A real film? Figure out how to tell a story. Okay, that rant over. You asked about DCP. So, I do a film festival every winter. We screen 8-bit .mp4's off a laptop at 1080 and they look fricking awesome. Why? Because we care about our projection system and have dialed it in with high-end equipment that's well-considered for the theater we use. Not everyone does this. Properly encoded .mp4's can look beautiful. Well shot movies made into DCP's can look like crap. Depends. It's not the file, it's the system that screens it. Here's another anecdote: I toured my doc around the country this year with an .mp4 exhibition screener as well as a DCP. The best screening experience I had was with the .mp4 running off a laptop into a consumer projector. It just so happened the particular auditorium was gorgeous AND had a new projector AND the image it put out looked lovely. OTOH, I had a screening of my DCP at a well known multi-plex chain that looked awful, even though my DCP looked absolutely fine elsewhere. Your film is often at the mercy of teenagers running the projection system...and who knows what state that projection system is in. Now, the bad thing about .mp4's is that it's such a generic format that inevitably some Boomer will be running a $400 laptop and a cheap-ass projector in a rinky dink film festival that's been set up in the town's abandoned bank lobby...with no window black outs and a complete lack of understanding how to operate the sound system. BTW, it's a sound systems that's a low-end PA in a room made out of marble. That sounds oddly specific, right? It's happened to me twice. None of your technical stuff matters one bit in that situation. When you're out in the wild with your screeners, shit happens. Finally, you absolutely do not need 4K for exhibition screening. People are too far away from the screen to notice that level of resolution. 4K is great for editing and then downscaling to 1080 for exhibition screening, but 4K for screening? Only in very specific situations. I get 4k ProRes screeners for our festival. I get DCP's as screeners for our festival. Take a wild guess what I transcode them into for playback on our system... Don't worry so much about the technical. Figure out how to tell a story

I continue to edit down videos from my recent trip. I did bring the gimbal with me, but almost have not used it. So all hand-held again. Perfecting my ninja moves though ??

Thought this was interesting, First shots are all Sony F3, second are all BMPCC 4K

You ever work for a nonprofit? It's like squeezing liquid from a stone. And I know, cause I gotta get the liquid in the stone in the first place. Actually, though, I just got them to buy a bit of gear for my next project, coupla drives and a Mixpre3 ii, a year's subscription to Artlist and insurance for my gear. I put a wireless mic on the expense list, but it got stripped out. I'm going to see if I can get it put back in if I get more funding for the project. It's hobby level for now, hopefully I'll be able to launch a business for real when in six months to a year.

Vlog looks amazing on the S1, so good it has me seriously considering selling my Sony a73/a7r3 kit and moving to the S1/S1r. After handling all the S1's last week, I don't want to carry the S1h, and used prices are crazy low on the standard S1 and even the S1r if you need resolution for stills - which I do. But the Vlog image is just super nice, great colors, great highlight rolloff, and just very natural motion. If Panasonic had AF like Canon's DPAF or Sony's new active tracking I'd be all-in on the S1's. Its the AF that's holding me back. I use a gimbal a lot for video and shoot a ton of stills for paid work which would mean at least one body in another mount to get great AF, still waiting for that unicorn camera.... Chris

I did the film festival / film competition circuit for a while and my takeaway was this. Content is the only thing that matters. I've seen barely acceptable videos with out-of-focus shots, shots where the camera got bumped, clipped dialogue, noisy dialogue, car sounds making it difficult to hear people, overexposed shots, and various other problems win competitions outright because they interviewed old people and got them to talk about sex and it was hilarious. I've seen films win best edit when the editing was clunky because the story was good, etc. Content is the only thing that matters. Content is the only thing that matters, content is the only thing that matters... content is the only thing that matters.

I think the 24-70/2.8 may be heavier. This is definitely a chunky camera. Chris

The Fred Miranda Buy and Sell boards. Here's one with Vlog for $1650 https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1623339/0?keyword=s1#15054947 They come and go. Just set up an alert. B&H was blowing out some like new open box models too recently. Chris

https://www.eoshd.com/2018/10/dynamic-range-test-eos-r-x-t3-z7-a7-iii-gh5s-who-has-the-best-log/ Seems pretty decent in Andrews test. I forgot though that you can't use continuous auto focus with Nlog. 10 bit in the flat profile is probably really nice though. There is an S1 on ebay right now for under $1600 from the UK. A guy on the DVXuser forum was going to sell me one for $1600, but I ended up staying with my fuji.

Yeah, I just like old lenses too. They don't resolve resolution as well as modern lenses when wide, but... so what? You get good character out of them. I did another one of these "hometown" things with the Oly 12-40 Pro f.28, and it looks sharp as a tack, but it's also kind of sterile. Good for things if that's what you want/need, but I always like taking the edge off of video. For the chainsaw guy, I shot most of that stuff at f2.8 through a cheap-ass variable ND. FWIW, if you shoot stopped down a bit and without filters, almost all lenses made in the last 100 years will look fine for video.

If you need to add the Ninja, I'd go EOS R for Clog, 10-bit and AF. That's the appeal for me, the DPAF with the recent eye update is just amazing and the crop is easy to work around with one wide APS-c lens like the Tokina 11-16 or the new speedbooster. I like the Zed's a lot and the lens lineup Nikon is building, but they just aren't quite there for me yet. Just my opinion. Every option in this space has significant warts, the perfect hybrid just doesn't exist ... yet. Sony could easily build it, but they clearly won't. Panasonic just sticks their collective heads in the sand pretending PDAF doesn't exist and the jarring DFD is somehow better, but it isn't. That's why I'm also considering a mashup of the Zcam or the S1 as video centric camera along with a photo workhorse - the rest are just because I like to tinker with new toys, haha. The R appeals to me as a gimbal body. I shoot lots of stills as well, so I will always have one FF body. I shot Fuji for a long time, about 25k frames over the year and a half I rolled with a couple XT2's, but for most of my paid work I still used the extra DR and resolution of Sony's 42mp files. Used a7r2's can be found for under $1000, at those prices FF is a no brainer. Again my opinion. I have a gap of about a month between projects, so I'm looking at shifting my a73 kit in a couple weeks and getting a S1 with a couple EF lenses. Of course that means the a7s3 will be announced shortly after and it will blow everyone's minds. Chris

The Nikon Z6 seems to be the best option right now for 10 bit and auto focus, of course you need an atomos which is a pain in the ass. Until the new Canon DX comes out, though it'll be a lot of money I am sure. Of course there is Fuji if you aren't set on full frame.

That's why I'm looking elsewhere, I just don't see Sony stepping into FS5 10-bit territory with one of the a7's unless its priced at $5000. My bet is the mythical a7s3 has same 8-bit internal with a 10-bit external like the EOS R - which ironically is another option I'm considering along with the S1 and either the Zcam E2 or S6. All could use adapted EF lenses and the EOS R/Zcams have the added benefit of using speedboosters. But for handheld stuff - which is how I mostly shoot - the IBIS on the S1 is just amazing. I was tinkering with it and there was a significant improvement over my a73, along with the vastly superior EVF, LCD, grip and so on. Used copies are already in the $1600 range with Vlog and dropping. Chris

@IronFilm Will do. I need to find time to do a listening test. I am thinking RX7 Dialog Isolate, ERA-D, Acon DeNoise 2, brusfri and Resolves 16 Noise Reduction. If I can get permission I am hoping to post the unprocessed, pre-processed with eq (Magpha) and dynamics and stereo management (DynOne3), and post processed with NR (15 db and 30db) and post the clips to SoundCloud to share them publicly.

Brexit is a setback. However Boris who will win the elections got his Brexit deal to have his page in the history, so there's no changes as far as EU trade concerns. Fortunately, Farage is out of the game this time. If Labour and Liberal Democrats would run together, Europe would have a chance for a 2nd referendum very likely. (polls until 3 December 2019) source E : -)

My brother owns S1 and i shot with it to me they both look identical, Vlog from S1H * S1 But make sure u shoot in 10bit to squeeze the potential out of it?

Seems like it is just a name Watson gave their third party batteries? Which are compatible with NP-F systems

It weight ton alright that 50mm heavy as fuck ? but 4k60p in 10bit full VLoG is just dream come true for grading.

I get the importance of story. I'm a former magazine writer and newspaper editor. At the same time, if I'm going to do something professionally, I want it to look professional. There's nothing like being prepared for something when you go to do it. That's why I asked about the technical aspects of shooting/editing for big screen. ? I don't necessarily want to avoid a DCP. I haven't exported this way before, and it sounded like it might be either a bit of a hassle with third party plug-ins or stand alone software or expensive.

I feel your pain, brother. I can live with spending a lot of money on a camera and lenses for a great image; I just want to make sure it is in focus. Everything seems All Quite on the Sony Front right about now too. The only rumors there have been lately (and there haven't been many rumors lately) is that Sony WON'T be putting 10-bit / a better codec into the alpha series cameras any time soon.

Uh oh, I do the same with people using MacBooks which are quite slow (and much more expensive) in comparison to mine haha

Decided to do a quick test with my newly acquired GH5. I am pretty happy with how its doing in these difficult lighting situations. I am also really happy with the GH5 up to 3200 iso, which I was often hitting. I am not a big fan of the Minolta 50mm 1.4. It may just be my copy but the sharpness isn't great until 2.8. I guess thats ok but I've heard people say it is one of the sharpest lens in its class even wide open. Must be a bad/old copy. I really like Paul Leeming's creative luts as well. The East German LUT and faded film are really nice I think.

Looks beautiful but must weight a ton!

I think the Mavic 2 pro is fine for professional work. Probably depends on the shot of course but I think you get away with a lot with drones as you don't have to worry about skintones or anything like that. I've seen stuff shot on the Mavic Pro 1 that look good.

That lut is literally not in the same universe as the level of work Alex has done here. I doubt that person profiled each camera - it looks more like hue curve adjustments in Resolve.

I've done a few things that ended in both theaters and online. 1.85:1 is a good ratio to go for if you are targeting both online and festivals, and you can always crop a 1920x1080 video from a 1998x1080 flat DCP, if you happen to need to send a video file somewhere. Going much wider may compromise the online version; contrary to popular belief a cinemascope ratio on a tablet or computer display is not particularly cinematic, what with those huge black strips. Is there a reason you'd want to avoid making a DCP for festivals, or am I misunderstanding? Don't bother with a 4K release, unless you are really going to benefit from the resolution. Many festivals don't like 4K anyway. Master and grade in a common color gamut (rec709/sRGB). DCP creation software will fix gamma for the DCP, if you grade to an sRGB gamma for online. Also, most (all?) media servers in current cinemas do 23.976 (and other frame rates like 25, 29.97, 30) fine, but if you can shoot 24 fps you might just as well do.

AIVASCOPE 1.5x on Helios 44-m 58mm f2 @ full aperture on Lumix S1H I had a two hours time having in my hands the Lumix S1H in a workshop organized by Panajou Photograph shop in Bordeaux. This was shot in full frame 4k 24p 8bits then 10 bits 150 mpbs (after the desolve @3'48'') -my sd card didn't want the 400mbps- Unfortunately my old Premiere didn't liked the 10bits, I had to transcode it. Panasonic Lumix S1H Sigma adapter L mount to M42 adapter Helios 44-m 58mm f2 @ full aperture f2 Aivascope anamorphic lens variable ND filter +3 macro filter full frame 4k 24p V-log Few CC Lumetri Cinespace 25 Thanks to Aivascope Thanks to Panajou Photograph shop Thanks to Bernard Bertrand for his precious help Music : L'impératrice "Le départ" Gyoergy Ligeti "Musica Ricercata N°7"

I have some stuff from Ugreen. They are higher grade than the usual Chinese accessories. I use the Tilta cable.

Change shoes between the first half and second half of the day.

Here is my P4K Film - Rec 709 LUT with built in natural highlight roll-off. I created it for myself for monitoring & fast colour correcting. Hopefully someone here might find it useful, if you do let me know what you think! P4K - Rec709.cube

This topic is sad because it pits forum users against each other over something as facile as politics. This should be a place where people come together over their shared love of cameras and be supportive of each other. This does the opposite. Good job sowing discord. Those sane few who are left can't escape this nonsense. Everything has to be about politics because people don't have enough imagination to think about anything else. Let's go back to talking about cameras and forget about this. I can understand this coming from the Sony shooters but the rest of us should be better than this ????

They gonna have to let Mokara go, can't afford the licensing fee and his payroll. That's a sad news for this forum as Mokara was a constant source of entertainment.

Don't know what it is with these magical radioactive lenses. But the images do have a certain glow to 'em.

I'm not taking the tinfoil off my head for anything.