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9mm F1.9 prime on Super 16mm is considered a decent lens. That's what the 12 Ultra has. The telephoto has a deep DOF, which is quite useful actually as you can get a lot in focus whereas 135mm on full frame, it is more challenging to not just see the subject and nothing else. At closer focus distances you have a very shallow DOF regardless on both of these lenses. You can also buy a DOF adapter and use DSLR lenses on it.

There's still a lot to be said for camcorders. I'd probably still use them if they retained their value. They are, without hesitation, my favorite form factor.

Define ‘good’…. A bit mental is the term I would use. Since 8th April, other than 2 family days off, I have worked every day min 12 hours, whether that be shooting, traveling to or from, or editing/doing admin. I am currently 4.5 weddings behind on the editing side. By the end of this month, I will be 9 weddings behind… I am never behind. Well rarely by 1 or 2 max and I quickly catch up during the season, but this one is the mother of all seasons. And then there will still be the Sep jobs and 1 in early Oct. Some great events and couples. Some less so… It will take me up until the end of Nov at least to catch up and then I can breathe once more. The downside has been that in 2021 when I shifted to L Mount, I had a more limited kit but made the best use of it. This year has added more (needed) kit and I have juggled various combos around but the problem has been I have had to shoot another 2-3 weddings before I fully know the result of any prior wedding where I have made changes. Only a few blips along the way and a couple of bits of kit I intended to sell, I have kept and I don’t miss anything I have sold. Sold the Panny 85mm f1.8 and the freebie Sigma 45mm f2.8 with zero regrets. Not yet sold the DJI Action 2 which is the only bit of kit I am not using. Back on the fence over the VND EF to L Mount adapter and Meike cine lens and it’s the other bit of kit I have shelved. Just can’t find a place for it now I’ve moved a few lenses around. Pity because the quality it produces is great.

I am so sick of seeing gimbal footage I could vomit. It looks fake as hell. Wee look I can fly.

Sure - I'll revise my statement to "They're essentially really good, really small, really affordable, camcorders." Were you comparing the "Smell of Village" video to the OG BMPCC? If so, the video looked good and was obviously shot as RAW, but beyond it being RAW and deep DoF, it doesn't look anything like a OG BMPCC to me. It looks more like a smartphone that can record RAW. I looked at OG BMPCC footage only days ago, and even SOOC the footage just screamed "film" to me. The grain and texture and resolution and sharpness are all on-point for film, and nothing like the high-quality high-resolution very-modern presentation of that "Smell of Village" film. I've said it in other threads but it's worth repeating - I think people have forgotten what film actually used to look like. If someone posted stills of non-recognisable moments from big blockbuster films and TV shows shot on film, the response would be akin to "your lens is broken" rather than "looks cinematic".

Interesting stuff, but still a way to go. The Xiaomi 12S Ultra has a crop-factor of 2.7 (calculated from sensor width) with an f1.9 fixed wide (which equates to a 23mm f5 lens) and an f4.1 zoom (which equates to an f11 5x zoom lens) and a f2.2 ultra-wide (which equates to a 13mm f6 lens). This means that even wide open its got deeper depth of field than decent lenses on a S16 camera: https://www.vintagelensesforvideo.com/category/super16/ The codecs are getting better though - I noticed that my iPhone 12 does 10-bit video, which makes a huge improvement to the subtlety of colour and also to the DR which seems to just be chopped-off in 8-bit mode compared to 10-bit mode. Prores and RAW are better still. They're essentially really good, really small, camcorders. Great if you want that look, but without ability to change lenses they're useless if you want any other look, which these days is what most people want. They're also a pain to put an ND on if you want them to still fit in your pocket, so most users will just expose with SS making terrible motion cadence.

I looked at various Android options before I went with my iPhone 13 with a view to the photo side, but in the end decided I would rather stay in the Apple ecosystem. Not because I’m a fanboy (I prefer to buy unbranded products whenever I can and don’t like paying a premium to simply be a walking billboard) but rather because it works for me. I went with the 13 to replace: an 8, a compact everyday camera and a dedicated drone controller. I prefer the convenience of a phone as my every day camera, but the downside is the ergos/handling/use ability which definitely isn’t as nice as even a small ‘proper’ camera. Still a long looooooong way off any kind of ‘phone’ taking over my pro needs and unlikely within the remainder of my career, but all that ‘stuff’ you speculated about Andrew will come because that’s where it’s headed. It’s not just phone tech that is hurting actual ‘real’ camera budgets and development but stuff like AI. Perhaps even more so, ie, what is becoming possible with any old shitty footage. Or even no footage and the whole thing is fake… It’s not going to take over and dominate for the 10-12 years I have to eke out a living, but I do think the photo industry (as we know it) especially is changing. That’s just reality and either adapt or die, or find a niche. If it changes quicker than I anticipate, I’ll just start playing the retro card 😎