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Yeah Canon colour science has become modernised and the others have caught up anyway, so that's no longer really the big selling point it once was. Fuji, Blackmagic & Panasonic very nice. Sony still a bit off but certainly improving. Canon-LOG is no longer the best LOG format either. Panasonic caught up nicely with V-LOG and Blackmagic as well. Maybe LOG profiles will become less relevant in future when we're all shooting compressed RAW any way. The pricing is nutty across the board for the RF lenses. £2.5K for a prime lens you can only use on one system is not acceptable to me. I can only imagine what consumers think to that. In the modern world of consumer electronics you could get a really top end Macbook Pro for the price of just one lens like the Canon 50mm RF F1.2. Unless you have existing EF lenses, it's a high premium just to get some fast apertures & AF in the mix. Nikon Z9 is the best all-round body for me. I have a top class autofocus system and editing codec. Fastest full frame sensor on the market. Nice ergonomics and a big battery. With the Fringer adapter for EF lenses, I don't need to go full on and invest in new Nikon Z lenses. It's really reliable on my Z6. On Z9 it will probably be even better. Canon has bet the imaging division on EOS RF mount. EF is dead. All I can say is that it's a good job they have a thriving photocopier division because their camera department is going to shrink back into a niche of pro bodies and lenses. I really can't get over the lack of apology from Canon about the EOS R5 troubles either. Really unethical and arrogant behaviour. Really glad I don't have a dilemma of a really must-have Canon camera I want to buy, so I can be comfortable to continue not to support the liars in that company. Also I don't see a Canon EOS R6 II or Canon EOS R5 II any time soon giving us anything like a big step forward. It will all be little baby steps from here on like it was once the 5D II and EF mount was established. With a Nikon Z9 you're not exactly going to be left wanting for much anyway... What's going to be the big bait and switch once that comes out? Same specs for £2000 from Canon? Not going to happen!

I reckon, all you can do is continue to swim upstream against the tide of mediocrity, that is youtube. I'm fairly confident that you have the lenses and cameras and could do a deeper dive and offer a valid rebuttal but all you'd get is a handful of applause from a small group of people that had a clue in the first place. The rest of humanity wont even look up. I personally have bought a couple of full frame lenses, for their "look". The others lenses are brothers / sisters of the same brand and hopefully make it easier to match in post. I'm on mft, the "baby format" i guess you could say. Since roger deakins and people of his ilk 😉 , still tend to shoot on huge movie formats, i'll go out on a limb and say there must be some differences between the different formats and lenses. Not that i am complaining, just realistic. Its kinda dumb to say their all equivalent or there's no magic. Clearly there are differences other wise good ol rog would be right beside me with an olympus e-m10. 😃 While youtube is useful for a lot of things and there is good stuff out there. The problem is specialists, or the lack of them on youtube. If you had a problem with your arm, you'd go to a doctor. If he couldn't fix it you'd be sent to a specialist. That whole chain of command gets thrown out the window once youtube gets involved. The norm now is anyone with a webcam a wifi connection and an opinion is the new specialist. All you can do is try to educate. There will probably be years before you get any thanks for your efforts but then the same could probably be said of the great painters as well.

I think a few are doing "education" and the rest are on the wrong side of "infotainment" and sliding into confirmation-bias and hear-say. I think there's a broader challenge with this stuff, which is that there needs to be a balance between information and entertainment. Take books for example, a pulp fiction novel provides entertainment but no information and a textbook contains all information and no entertainment, but sadly the textbook also provides no benefit unless there is enough motivation provided to make the person actually read and understand it. I have many dense books that I haven't read due to lack of motivation, unfortunately. It's harder than you'd think. It requires: critical thinking an understanding about matching variables familiarity with lens design and history capability, capacity, and motivation to prepare and plan the video a willingness to go out of their comfort zone motivation to do anything except whatever half-baked thought happens to occur to them at that moment (or is provided to them by a vendor, a forum, or some other flaky information source....)

I understand the confidence RED camera makes for both its owner and the clients. Its like wedding photography that people think big DSLR like 1DX makes their once-in-lifetime photos look magazine-level professional! So even when the photographer knows a prosumer small camera is perfectly fine for the job, he or she invests in the most expensive body, to tell everyone in the party: "Don't worry, I know what I'm doing".

All these contemporary cameras are more similar than different. In nearly every case, practical concerns of the endeavor will, or should, determine your choice. At some point, we're all just arguing over how many angels are dancing on the head of a pin. The correct answer of course is just one fallen angel, the Komodo.

I am shocked - SHOCKED I say - to hear you got a gimbal!!! Is the Apocalypse upon us? Do I need to keep an eye out for aloft swine??? 🙂

Have you seen how pixilated the UI is through the viewfinder on a Sony? What matters more than EVF dots is the quality of the live-view feed to it. I can't see a downside to the E-shutter on the Z9. Any actual evidence of one? As far as I can tell it has a rolling shutter as fast as a mechanical one, so practically a global shutter or as near as makes no difference to 99.99999999999999% of shots. S1H has all of the extra video features of EOS R5C... LUT support, anamorphic (proper open gate not just desequeze), focus, exposure tools, etc. Personally I prefer to see the shot I am taking rather than a big graph! I will probably never buy another Canon. I don't like the EOS R lenses. They're as bulky and expensive as it gets... Heavier than my medium format GFX lenses.

"camcorder gimmicks" lol... I guess it depends how you shoot. I think exposure/focus tools can be very useful, especially at +4K and for fast turnarounds when you're not shooting raw. I also like to be able to have shutter angle & gain measures. the anamorphic desqueeze can be clutch. the LUT support is probably my favorite cine cam feature. YMMV of course. Z9's EVF is actually not that high res at 3.69 m-dots (which is kinda mid-range A7IV/R6 level) compared to R3/R5's 5.76 m-dots or A1's whopping 9.44 m-dots. E-shutter only, there are pros/cons to that. N-log's a bit dated (not the best DR, they need Nlog2/Nlog3). But overall though, I agree Z9 on paper has the better specs in most areas. Like you were saying earlier, the biggest problem with Z9 will be getting a hold of one. Canon I just read have managed to get around the chip supply shortage and that may very well turn out to be a great advantage at this time and point.

I think Z9 is close to perfect really. Much better codec than R3 in all respects, both the RAW codec and the 10bit codec. I never use WFM, false color, all it really does is distract from the composition. You don't even need to nail exposure with Prores RAW. As for focus, with AF as good as the Z9 offers you don't need any of the focus aids, and with manual focus I don't even use peaking any more because EVFs are such high res these days. I don't see what the EOS R5C offers over the Z9 apart from some camcorder gimmicks and a big frustrating delay between modes, not to mention a worse codec and no IBIS! I'd take the Z9 over it any day for stills as well.

It's not about matching the formats though. They are stopping down to F3.5 on medium format and using just that example to say - "hey it looks the same as APS-C" They are denying the differences that exist between sensor size and lens combinations. There is only one good test that shows how depth of field differs between formats: Use same lens, same focal length, same focus point, same aperture, different sensor sizes.

If they wanted to do the test a bit more seriously, they should have at least tried to find lenses with the same design for the different formats. Finding a Double-Gauss design lens with a similar angle of view for all formats shouldn't be too hard.

Personally, i'm leaning towards smallest, lightest of a persons current setup, we already done the vintage thing. i dont mean to offend but to hell with compromising on image quality 😀

Education by ‘content creators’ and ‘bedroom based businesses’ is the new norm. To be fair, some are quite good. Most, as we know are just copycats and doing it badly. It’s the world we live in and as I always say, you either have to tread through the trash to reach the treasure, or just block the entire thing.

If it is the front lens it really doesn't matter much, now the rear one that is a different matter.

I've been doing some more research. It turns out that UVC light cannot typically penetrate the glass of a lens, so the 254nm UV source like the light I ordered will kill surface microorganisms but won't be able to get inside of the lens. I've read that the ideal UV wavelength range you want is in the 300nm - 330nm range, which I think may put it in the UVB range (I could be getting this wrong). The filter company B+W owned by Schneider put out a product called the UV-Pro a couple years ago, which is allegedly a 300nm source. But it never went on sale on B&H or most of the other major retailers, and there's no info about it on the Schneider website. Maybe it was a flawed concept that was quietly killed, or Schneider was too concerned about the liability of people blinding themselves or trying to cure themselves of Covid that they decided to discontinue it. Either way, it looks like it can still be purchased on eBay or DigitalRev. Here is a test that doesn't tell you much about the tool's ability to penetrate lens elements: What I'd really like to see is a lens with fungus opened, swabbed, UV treated, and then opened again for a second swab. That really would tell us everything we need to know.

Yikes. Sorry to hear it. This site was one of the first that pushed me to look beyond Canon EF and EF-S lenses. I'm certainly glad I did, pitfalls and all. I think that's exactly what it is! I really messes with your head when you're looking for an infestation. This is absolutely right. Every lens is already infected. You just have to keep them dry enough so as not to let the fungus run rampant.

I think if you are a dedicated videographer, it shouldn't be a problem... I shoot hybrid so I am not a dedicated videographer. All day long I am flicking between shooting stills, lowering that camera and popping up the second one to capture the same scene with video handheld. Sometimes, I need to do both at the same time such as: entrances, exits, confetti, vows/ring exchange/first kiss and in that case, the freestanding monopod directly in front of me comes into play so I can shoot stills while the video is doing it's own thing. Except vows/rings where I can lock focus. It's then that reliable AF is required and with the system, it mostly is OK providing the subjects are not moving too fast. And then there is full ceremony and full speeches coverage but that one is easy. Tripod, slightly wider angle than is needed (can always punch in with 4k) and focus locked off. It's really (for me anyway) those entrances/exits/confetti times when I need the reliable AF and the total of these parts of the day are around 2 minutes without vows/rings and not much more because focus can be locked for vows/rings. I can...and do, pop the ZV1 onto the S5 hotshoe as backup at these times as the tracking is excellent and though I don't really want to mix that footage in with the Panasonic S1H/S5 principal footage, for the sake of backup + a 10 second fiddle to pop on the ZV1, why not? For 2022, I've picked up a gimbal, so that might be 'interesting'... I don't intend to use it too much and will be getting some practice in over the next 8 weeks until my season starts, but as my S5 was relegated to the static video role only, I decided maybe I could use it a bit more so got myself a stormtrooper white Zhiyun Crane M3. I put a QR plate on the bottom instead of the standard tiny tripod thing so if it's not in the hand, it's sitting on a proper full size (but still lightweight) tripod. The whole lot; tripod, gimbal, camera & lens, weighs under 3kg so it's really light weight to shift about. It will be interesting to see how the AF stacks up though... I can't see myself using it outside of the drinks reception and the couple session and it's primarily for the latter I decided to get and try one. A few minor gentle push in or pull outs I'll just rely on my ninja moves with the S1H and IBIS, but it's any bigger movements where that doesn't work so well. Might try it (the gimbal) on the dancefloor also. Just need to get a bit more dynamism into some of my shooting some of the day... I have bought a gimbal twice before. And twice sent it back after setting it up. Too big, too heavy, too unwieldy/awkward. This new set up though I feel...at least ergonomically and from a size & weight POV, is OK. We shall see however because as is ALWAYS the case with weddings, it's only at weddings that any bit of kit is properly tested!

The main conceptual thing was I (stupidly) left the rotation of the XR controller on in the first one, whereas with camera projection the rotation should be ignored. I actually don't think it's that noticeable a change since I didn't rotate the camera much in the first test. It's only noticeable with canted angles. The other thing I didn't do correctly in the first test, was I parented the camera to a tracked point, but forgot to account for the offset. So the camera pivots around the wrong point. That is really the main thing that is noticeably wrong from the first one. Additionally, I measured out the size of the objects so the mountains are scaled correctly, and I measured the starting point of the camera's sensor as accurately as I could instead of just "well this looks about right." Similarly I actually aligned the virtual light source and my light. Nothing fancy, I just eyeballed it, but I didn't even do that for the first version. That's all just a matter of putting the effort in to make sure everything was aligned. The better tracking is because I used a Quest instead of a Rift headset. The Quest has cameras on the bottom, so it has an easier time tracking an object held at chest height. I have the headset tilted up on my head to record these, so the extra downward FOV helps considerably. Nothing really special there, just better hardware. There were a few blips where it lost tracking--if I was doing this on a shoot I'd use HTC Vive trackers, but they are honestly rather annoying to set up, despite being significantly better for this sort of thing. Also this time I put some handles on my camera, and the added stability means that the delay between tracking and rendering is less noticeable. The delay is a result of the XR controller tracking position at only 30 hz, plus HDMI delay from PC to TV which is fairly large on my model. I can reduce this delay by using a Vive, which has 250 hz tracking, and a low latency projector (or screen, but for live action I need more image area). I think in best case I might actually get sub-frame delay at 24 fps. Some gaming projectors claim <5ms latency.

It's all fine in theory but it ignores the reality. In reality you simply have different lenses designed for different formats. You cannot mimic the look of a Canon 50mm F0.95 Dream Lens from the 1970s on full frame by taking a different lens with equivalent focal length and aperture on another size sensor because: A) One doesn't exist B) If it did exist, it would not be a Canon from the 1970s C) The hand of the original optics designer matter D) The rendering is unique to that original lens. Not even the Leica Noctilux 50mm F0.95 looks anywhere near close to it. Also there are certain lenses that don't even fit a Speed Booster. There is simply no room for a focal reducer between Leica M mount lenses and any of the mirrorless mounts of today. If I have a special lens that is only at its best on the sensor size it was designed to match then I am stupid to use it on something else. Equally if I have a LOMO anamorphic that simply doesn't cover full frame, how exactly would I try to mimic the look in any other way on my full frame camera without cropping? So Yedlin's theory can go and do one to be quite honest. There's a lot more to the look of a large format than matching DoF. What exactly does he define as the look? Of course the look is not just shallow DOF. Far more depends on sensor size and format than that. Yeah well different lenses were used weren't they? So hardly surprising... Even if you go crazy about matching everything with equivalence you will need to use different focal lengths and apertures, and if you are using prime lenses that means you need different lenses for different camera formats.

...and today I cleaned up the effect quite a bit. This is way too much fun! The background is a simple terrain with a solid color shader, lit by a single directional light and a solid color sky. With it this far out of focus, it looks shockingly good considering it's just a low poly mesh colored brown! https://s3.amazonaws.com/gobuildstuff.com/videos/virtualBGTest2.mp4 It's a 65" tv behind this one. You can vaguely see my reflection in the screen haha.

I've thankfully been in a rather dry environment and luckily kept my lenses in a clear storage case so if I'm tackling fungus it's because it was there in the lenses I bought online or locally in antique shops and occasionally a flea market or garage sale. If you look at my Instagram @zackbirlew you'll see some lenses I've taken apart and cleaned as well as my slip ups that led to damaged glass and broken lenses, thankfully not too many! My strategy is to keep each lens individually contained in a clear container with a push in locking seal or a clear screw top tupperware container (Ziploc brand or equal) with a silica gel packet. This helps isolate the lens from others and keeps it sealed dry with the clear case letting in enough light to scare off fungus. However, DIY lens cleaning is an entire skillset and research heavy practice that needs to be developed and you'll still run into lenses that are a shot in the dark as to whether you'll be able to take them apart and fix them back together properly. It's also an investment since you need to figure out all the tools and certain techniques and gotchya tricks involved but it is amazingly fun to do once you get going! This past year I've taken in a camera collection on top of my own and there may be another one coming from a family friend so I have A TON of lenses that need cleaning and maintenance as a lot of them are fungus infected or just dirty with dust from use and I'm going to be filming each lens cleaning and, if necessary, repair as I go through them. I'm currently trying to wrap up VFX post production on my first feature which has taken forever to get off the ground, long story, but the lens videos will be one of my weekend projects for the Babs Do Productions Youtube channel going forward. One thing to note is that you don't always need to take the lens apart to get the glass out, normally a lens spanner or rubber lens wrench will be able to remove retaining rings around the glass so you can get at the glass elements and the aperture blades if they need a wipe. Also, certain lenses simply require just the few screws of the lens mount ring taken off and others require a certain number of things to be taken off or even twisted apart, it just depends but I can say that older manual lenses are the easiest to do as they tend to be metal tubes holding glass and retaining rings in place. Most importantly, get some of those soft rubber or foam bead shelf liner rolls at the hardware or decorating store to lay down while you work on lenses as lens glass likes to slip out of your fingers and you don't want them falling onto and hitting or rolling off the table.

Well you know the best answer to that right now is the R5C.....IF you can hand hold without IBIS which for me remains to be seen. Of course there's always the Sony camp as well. I don't think you will find a good solution with any Panasonic camera. I do make mine work with people though, I've shot weddings and plenty of events with my S5.......you just have to be prepared to throw away whatever you can't keep in focus.

Z9 & R3 are indeed the current flagships at D6/1DX3 equivalent prices. ..very nice specs on both but again on video side, you're not going to get WFM, false color, LUT support, dual ISO, time code, magnify during record etc. These are very important cine features imo. That is where R5C beats both, for much cheaper. But yeah no IBIS or instant photo/video switching. So yeah, there is no perfect hybrid. Always a compromise somewhere!

Thanks to this topic, I dug a little further into virtual backgrounds myself. I used this library from github, and made this today. It's tracked using an Oculus controller velcro'd to the top of my camera. "Calibration" was a tape measure and some guesstimation, and the model isn't quite the right scale for the figure. No attempt to match focus, color, or lighting. So not terribly accurate, but imo it went shockingly well for a Sunday evening proof on concept. https://s3.amazonaws.com/gobuildstuff.com/videos/virtualBGTest.mp4

Sets the cameras to match each other, and surprised they look the same. One of the dumbest exercises I've seen in a while. Full frame is nothing special compared to M43 by the same logic. Thinking that DOF is the only reason to choose a sensor size is ridiculous. MF is often shot at the other end of the aperture spectrum where the detail, dynamic range, and physical size of the optical and sensor area provide an advantage in image fidelity, or retaining the DOF while stopping down where a lens preforms better. Alas, a typical Dpreview video.