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If the A7s3 came with the processing of the FX6 and at least some of its video-related features, there would be no more reason to get any Panasonic nor Blackmagic camera let alone the FX6 at all. 😄 The GH4 was so hard to deal with, shot internally in 8 Bit V-Log L, the banding was insane. Did some selective debanding on some areas to fix it. I wish I had an external recorder back then. The GH5 after was much cleaner but was way oversharpened, had ghosting issues caused by heavy temporal filtering (fixed in mid 2017 via firmware) and seemed to have less DR to me, still kept it until the Pocket 4K came out which was later ruined with BRAW and its quite heavy spatial filtering and sharpening, my original P4K sadly died and had to be replaced with a model that didn't support earlier firmwares. 😭 Since then I've been using the Pocket 6K and later S1H with external BRAW are okish, the higher resolution compensates for the heavy filtering to a certain degree. My new GH6 outperforms both when it comes to texture with its internal ProRes recording, the image basically looks like RAW, almost unfiltered. I love it and used it as my A-camera on my last shoot. 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agTLsPoIYis The low light performance looks really nice 😎

Totally agree. Fits the sublteness, sujet and thrills of the scene though, but of course much less the atmosphere of a quiet and peaceful campfire of course. Haze should have been coming from somewhere to go well along with the sound by all means. But then sound was very well articulated and can stand well on its own. @kye

Great to hear your feedback on the GH6 and Prores implementation. I simply cannot imagine a phrase more lovely than "the image basically looks like RAW".

A big pro for me is no 30 minute limit recording Biggest con is the lower quality 4k50p unless you take a big crop Solid camera though for 4k25p

Yeah, for me at least, the lighting anomaly really took away from the gravitas of the scene itself as this was the moment in the narrative where Mr. Taggart fully realised the extent of the indiscipline amongst his charges that would ultimately undermine his goal of driving the citizens of Rock Ridge away from their homes. In fact, Mel Brook's original reference for the scene was "Fractious Actions Rattle Taggart" which was abbreviated and became the erroneous name by which the scene is now widely referred to.

Umm.... well, in regards to the lighting, what he's referring to is the fact that these cowboys are sitting around a fire, supposedly at night, but for some reason they are being lit by a white single-point sharp light-source that makes their fire look like a dull-semi-glowing object. Look at this frame: It looks like exactly what it is: cowboys sitting around a fire lit by several kilowatts of flood-lights from just off camera. but yes, the sound is a little scratchy! Calling @IronFilm !!!

Oh, don't get me wrong, a 360 camera is a spectacular tool for capturing moments that cannot be predicted. I want one and would use it extensively, except that the quality just doesn't justify it. For me, my experience of shooting is a combination of how good the equipment is and the results I will get from it. The GH5 is a reliable camera with easy-to-use functions that creates a great image (when paired with the right lenses) and it's a pleasure to use, but it cannot guarantee that I will capture the right framing while I am recording, and it absolutely cannot give me two (or more) camera angles from the same moment in time. A 360 camera can give me every camera angle simultaneously. If I am walking down a street I am recording everyone doing everything at every moment. If I was to walk down a street and exchange greetings with a passerby or shop-keeper or turn a corner and see a wonderful view, I can capture the view looking forwards as well as the view of myself looking back. I can capture the person talking and the person listening and the reaction shots. I can capture it all. .......but at the quality that I will be capturing all of this footage, it would be demoralising. Walking around knowing you're capturing everything in "old budget smartphone" quality would just make me feel shitty. It's like going to a buffet and all the food is terrible but you can eat as much as you want. 360 cameras are capturing every shot at a quality that doesn't make me want to use any in my final video. I mean, look at this shot, from Brandon Lee (who is in the Insta360 promo video itself) in his paid sponsored video for it: and here's his face: With image quality like that, my experience is better to shoot with an action camera that is only capturing a quarter of the action in a scene, but the shots are all much nicer and I feel like I'm capturing usable footage. I mean, we have the P4K which was released in 2018 that wrote 1088Mbps to a card and now we have this camera at about 60% of the price and it's limited to 120Mbps. It's not the resolution that's the problem - it's the bitrate. This camera is more crippled than almost any Canon camera has ever been! It's sensor will be about smartphone quality, which if you look at the image that they're able to make when shooting RAW stills, you'll know that they're nothing like the above image quality, so it won't be the sensors - it's the processing and codec.

Beautifully written! @deezid Awesome to read from you! Bought the S1 two years ago after Andrews article and after your deep dive observations regarding an honest hq cinema image without nasty processing artefacts. Hope to see more sneak peaks of your projects. Your GH4 footage was and is a legendary treat for lovers of the little camera with the big image. "Americana" was the name of the piece. A A7S3, FX3 with the processing of a FX6 would be a uber camera though.

How is this interesting? The FX3 and A7sIII are pretty much the full frame 10 bit equivalent to a GoPro when it comes to image processing. Also usable latitude on these cameras is quite weak while the C70, which doesn't have any oversharpening nor heavy temporal filtering and therefor no smearing nor texture loss, is the best in its class and competes with the likes of the Pocket 6K (HR recovery) and Panasonic S series and even outperforms these ever so slightly with internal RAW.

Agreed. I’ve loved focusing on things like lighting and color grading. Composition. Things that actually make a difference to your image. So much on YT is gear reviews of expensive cameras, as I’ve said before we are at an image quality threshold, so all we can do is get better ourselves. I find there is a great mixture on this forum; we can all have fun geeking out about the next new camera or RAW codec, but then we will all turn around, reminisce about an old Gh1 or F3, and talk about lighting/color grading practice, with a dose of anamorphic lenses thrown in. Great forum, I wish it had as much traction as it used to get. I also miss Andrew’s constant articles of the past.

Certainly if Mel Brooks had had access to the Alexa 35 he might have lit scene this in a moodier way.

Another tip: if you can find a spot with space, it gives you some flexible filming options. Here's a bunch of shots from a very unsophisticated talking head video I made last year. Shot it in 3 hours. We only had 1 location for 9 people. Had to make the setting change visually from interview to interview to interview just to break things up. Did some adjustments to the back ground light and camera angle between sit-downs. Quick and easy. The two lights being used on the interview subject never really changed. A small softbox front key and a backlight was it, ambient through window blinds was my fill. Just shuffled the variables and tried to get different looks. Ultimately, it doesn't take a lot to do a lot. And, as said, I always, always, always start with killing the room lights. See what you get, then continue. Finally, here's my biggest dumb tip of all if you want to shoot something faster than you actually should: Rotate 360 and try to find the light that allows the subject to be a few stops above the background. Aim to achieve that visual separation. Hold out the back of your fist at arms length, squint really hard, and get a sense if that's happening. For instance, if you're holding your fist in front of a window, it's going to be a silhouette, rotate yourself 180 and your fist is most likely going to be the opposite, right? Rotate another 30 degrees and you might actually start to see some interesting 'light-moulding' starting to happen. Anyway, it's pretty easy to start seeing light in your work spaces once you know what you're looking for. It doesn't have to be some esoteric maths formula (even though it can be). Just a smidgen of wisdom and practice can get you through.

And their expensive crap! Yes, I agree with you. They weren't always like this.

What the hell is the deal with Canon and their damn crops in 4K. Do they really want to screw everyone that doesn't have a clue about it? They have turned into a whore company out to F everybody that is dumb enough to buy their cheap crap, and by cheap I mean under like 2500 bucks. The CEO needs to have his balls cut off.

Yes. Study how photons do their thing. Even look at renaissance art. Seeing light, which you're starting to do, is the only way to get a handle on it. I just hired a shooter to do a gig and talked to him about everything required on the shoot, including turning off the practical lights and utilizing natural light entering through the windows and controlling the subject's location to maximize the look to his advantage. In one ear and out the other. He left the florescents on. Footage looks like shit. Actually, keeping light "small" is important to me. I like filming and lighting with maximum dimness, or at least having the light go through room in an interesting way. I also like taking the camera sensor and lens f-stops to the edge of their capabilities so the room can be darker. All this allows for more interesting light falloff and controls the ambient if you're running anfd gunning.

@deezidLike kye, I am a great fan of the HD image from the GH5, liking the nice 4K as well. It is a bit too sharp ooc but also high resolving. I must admit, VLog L can produce blotchyness on certain skintones under harsh conditions when graded towards a colorful cinematic look. You have been a fan of the 10bit 150Mbit codec and its image on the S1. So not that much anymore? Neither of the S1H 400mbit prowess? How comes your change of mind? I am pretty impressed by the former. Just having troubles with it in green enviroments with harsh light. But who doesn´t with any camera. 🙂 Looking forward to some GH6 beauty coming from your hands. How does it compare to the other 10bit 422 codecs? How is your general opinion on those? Prores update for many other resolution and modes coming soon! Many questions, I know.:) cheers

What is the deal with the GH6? I hardly see any info on it here and even not too much on the web. It's like it doesn't exist. It should sort of be a one thing does it all camera.

Now that is impressive, I had a sneaking suspicion that the R7 would be good in lowlight, it looks about on par with the C70 in low light. The Pro list might be longer than you think: Pro: - 32 MP sensor and good low light for an APS-C - Dual SD (backup recording also for video), R3 level autofocus - Multi-function Hotshoe (Tascam CA-XLR2d, etc) - Canon/Viltrox speedbooster (0,71x) & VND adapter works Cheap Media - SD Cards vs CFExpress Batteries - Same as the R5, R6, 5DIV, etc....if you have Canon DSLR batteries laying around they will work for the R7 Lens - Massive lens ecosystem from day one (RF, RF-S, EF, EF-S) with full AF capabilities Price - IMO very good price for what you get Overheating - So far overheating seems to be well controlled AF - Looks like R3's AF capabilities and even includes auto leveling which I don't think even the R3 has Battery Life - No battery grip but 2.5hrs recording video with 50% battery remaining is quite impressive to me I have a few more cons as well Cons: - No ALL-I, but only IPB / IPB-light - No battery grip possible (as body is smaller then 2 batteries) - Only 2 control wheels, not 3 like R5/R6, no top LCD - Build quality / weather sealing not like 7D-series, more like XXD-series USB-PD - Requires a USB-PD power source, not just a USB-C power source Crop - Like with any crop sensor you will always have to work around the crop Speedbooster - The Canon C70 speedbooster is $700USD, almost as expensive as the camera and it is unknown at this time if it is fully compatible with the R7. Codecs - No XF-AVC so unless you have an M1 Mac, that footage will be hard to edit without proxies For me no ALL-I is not a big deal, I never use ALL-I due to the data rates and storage requirements. All ALL-I does is makes it easier to edit, no real increase in image quality. I can only imagine how poor the body quality will be, for this reason alone I would almost rather wait and test it out in a store before buying it. My built like a tank DSLRs really got me used to that level of body quality.

How on earth do we get our hands on that GH13 that Hitler sold to Stalin?!?!?!?!?

I think lighting was fine. It emphazises the subtle facial expressions and emotions of the character actors. Though they should have used a haze machine to illustrate the mood and atmosphere much better of the laid back lads enjoying a perfect laid back lads evening and activity. But the sound was a bit scratchy. I hope I got that right what you meant. 🙂

HD 25p has always been of lesser quality on GH1,2 and G6,7,85, GX85. @webrunner5 Shooting in 4K on the adequate cameras helps, that exludes the GH2 and others of course. Or film in 24p and enjoy the classic GH2 image. Congratulations, btw to your purchase. GAS is an akward thang, BMPCC in the pocket but still you needed that legendary GH2, besides your legendary AF100. 🙂

Did some pro/cons for myself after watching some video's as I'm thinking of getting the R7 for photo/video combo. Pro: - 32 MP sensor and good low light for an APS-C - Dual SD (backup recording also for video), R3 level autofocus - Multi-function Hotshoe (Tascam CA-XLR2d, etc) - Canon/Viltrox speedbooster (0,71x) & VND adapter works Cons: - No ALL-I, but only IPB / IPB-light - No battery grip possible (as body is smaller then 2 batteries) - Only 2 control wheels, not 3 like R5/R6, no top LCD - Build quality / weather sealing not like 7D-series, more like XXD-series

Well sort of a problem with a GH2.

Pretty good comparison of the BMPCC 4k versus the GH2 Hacked. GH2 10 times cheaper, takes better photos to boot. Sure, overall, the PK4 wins but.

That's true, although the wider you make the shot, the higher the quality but also the more specialised it becomes. For example, if you cropped at 90degrees it would be a standard wide angle view which has almost unlimited applications but is almost unusable, but if you don't crop at all then you're getting 6K 120Mbps in all its glory but the shot is literally unusable for anything at all. The problem is that for any real use you'll need the quality to be above a certain threshold and the crop associated with that is only usable in a tiny tiny percentage of applications. To give you a comparison, an action camera might have a 100Mbps 4K image and a 15mm FF equivalent lens. For a 360 camera to replicate that it would need to be a 1,500Mbps 12,000K image. When I film with my GH5 in 200Mbps 10-bit 422 1080p and my Sony X3000 in 4K 100Mbps I think the action camera looks poor in comparison and I have to really treat it nicely in post to try and elevate it from the cheap/nasty/brittle image that it has. A 6K 120Mbps 360 camera cannot possibly hope to compete against that. I mean, I'm filming with my GF3 and its 1080p 17Mbps, which is still more bitrate and resolution than the 360 camera has at a 15mm FF equivalent crop. This brand new 360 action camera when cropped to anything remotely sensible can't compete with a budget MFT camera from 2011. Oh, I never said this was a "meh" update. It's taking something that is woefully inadequate and taking it to merely being quite inadequate - a huge improvement no doubt. But just because a kid improves their math test scores doesn't mean that they deserve to pass.

Disappointing and barely improved from previous models (or at all??) Once again, people fail to understand what is actually going on here. The problem with 360 cameras was always that by the time you crop to a FOV that doesn't look like you're on massive amounts of drugs, the image starts to fall apart with lack of resolution and compression (poor bitrate). When you crop into the image, this 120Mbps 6144x3072@25/24fps in 360 degrees equates to: 15mm lens on FF (100.4 deg Horizontally) 1713x723 resolution (16:9) at 7.9Mbps 18mm lens on FF (90 deg Horizontally) 1536x648 resolution (16:9) at 6.3Mbps 24mm lens on FF (73.7 deg Horizontally) 1258x530 resolution (16:9) at 4.24Mbps Realistically, the 120Mbps is the limit, not the resolution. A 1.2K image wouldn't be so bad in the context of a nicely graded edit if it was more than 4Mbps... I'm waiting for a 400Mbps model - that would take that 24mm crop to something approaching 'real' camera territory (15Mbps or so). The challenge is that these are often used in situations where things are moving a lot and really stressing the codec.

fast update 0.2: Today I get to shoot a replica Ferrari 250, and here are some sceen shot with simple color grade shot on PMW-F3 and sigma 35mm f/1.4 lens: and a lovely BTS:

Feature films with decent budgets often have the most resources for a colourist compared to other types of productions (eg, reality tv shows, documentaries, other types of tv shows). As I'm sure you're aware, there are aspects of the image that can be adjusted in post and aspects that must be done in-camera. This means that the colour and contrast differences that can be adjusted in post might be left to the colourist, whereas the lenses might be chosen for the characteristics that must be captured in-camera. I'm in a number of social media groups about vintage lenses and these are full of cinematographers building sets and modding / servicing them for cine use (and often for rental) and these guys still care a great deal about matching. It's common for someone building a set to take years and buy several copies of each focal length in the series and then choose the best / sharpest / best matching ones and then sell the rest. It's also worth mentioning that in big budget features the colour will be heavily stylised in post anyway, so matching things becomes a much smaller task in the overall amount of things to be done, whereas if you're keeping a very neutral look and operating on a tight budget then matching would be of much higher importance (or should be!).

yes, it is not a colorist posting this lol. and CST in resolve is not a magical tool that can make a sony look like an Alexa.

It is for family videos and travel, why on earth get a Canon 5D mk2 / mk3? Doesn't really seem compatible with your purposes. Get a Panasonic G9 (or heck, even a Fujfilm X-T30) and enjoy!

Same with me. The S1 gives me not as much pleasure as I had hoped when I bought it. @Tim Sewell Here is a musicvideo I did with my Gx85.

I find that a curve with a nice rolloff in post can give a nice highlight transition without too much fuss - it does raise the brightness of the highlights though, so you can either have brighter image or one with more contrast, but if you're willing to do that then I find it's not too much of a challenge. Another trick that is easy enough is to desaturate the highest luma values. It seems like the most common issues with poor highlight rolloffs is the channels clipping at different points and there being banding of colours around the edges (eg, like the sun going through rings of yellow at sunset or cyan if transitioning from a blue sky). This desaturation can often deal with these in a very organic and neat way. Combine the two approaches (curve and desaturation) and you can get quite good results from even poor footage I've found. Is that what ARRI is saying in the link?

In the few tests I have done the C70 matches pretty well to Alexa.