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Got the bang for buck 8K camera. Only had it for 5 minutes and noticed it has a stuck pixel on the LCD so better get it switched. Quite distracting. Seems on paper to be one of the most exciting cameras at or under $2k. (£1899 in UK) First before I get too far into praising this bargain cinematic beast, here's a few things that the usual suspects in the review / shill kingdom didn't tell you... Handling has some distinct steps back from my beloved X-H1. There is no more drive mode lever, but unforgivably no movies/stills switch either like X-T4! A very strange omission given the hybrid nature of this model. I can however assign custom stills mode to function button and tap in/out from movie mode without having to change mode dial through all the many steps from Movies to PASM. The finger gymnastics to reach the WB and custom buttons on top panel is ridiculous. Really bad placement. The overall styling isn't as nice as X-H1. It looks and feels cheaper as if some cost cutting has taken place. For sure it is an uglier camera. No more inward press action of the jog dials, quite poor dial feel, just in general a slow hacking away of what made Fuji bodies nice like the extra dials and nice styling. But when we get down to the nitty gritty I expect to be more impressed. S35 8K ProRes for $2K is pretty special. I have read that IBIS is better on X-H2 vs X-H2S as well. Any idea why that might be? I can't quite believe reviews have that right.

Ha yes couldn't make it through that film, was such a disconnect between the characters and their environment - reminded me of the early days of the 5d mk2 when everyone was filming everything wide open - just because you can doesn't mean you should

Andrew although you don’t know me, I feel like that we know each other after all these years of visiting this site. I wish you and your family all the best in these difficult times.

And the film suffered because of it, I think. Sorry, just had to say it!

You forgot the S5 which is a better all rounder and cheaper than most of the above.

Yes and I think that was kind of the point. As with any strong technique/gimmick/call it what you will, if it is only used at certain times it can jar. If it’s used throughout, same as a color grade, it just becomes part of the whole. We did watch the movie on Netflix and of course it was utter trash, but I have to confess I didn’t remember it being shot with such a large aperture!

Say what you will I give him props for even attempting that.. its not like if it was an Ingmar Bergman film.. the flick was so over the top it just added another level of surreal.

It's like Zack Snyder was possessed by Tony Northrup! Too much toneh!

You need frame accurate sync, none of the a7 bodies support that. You're playing with fire if you don't have a TC box for each game. You don't want to rely upon the camera itself getting TC right! Nope. Some people go with wireless timecode, fed from a master clock. (such as the Timecode Systems :wave that I've got, which feeds to the TCS Ltd USOs over the :blink network) But it is more normal you'd jam sync each at the start of the day to the Master, and let them run.

Artlist didn’t work for me… MUCH better lyrical stuff on Musicbed, but more expensive. Better non-lyrical on Epidemic Sound which is quite reasonably priced. Where I have always struggled is more upbeat faster paced ‘dancy’ stuff to end my wedding videos… Generally I’ll start with some ‘beautiful’ strings/piano for prep & ceremony, something a little livelier for the drinks reception into something sung and more contemporary and then…then that is where I struggle to find anything and have always struggled to find anything 🤪

yup saw that one in my feed this morning.. as he says at the very end though "we haven't tested out mixed lighting where a lot of the time the camera will break apart". especially true with Sony footage in my experience. but its encouraging, Sony definitely seem to improve CS, WB, skin tones etc on each generation. certainly true for broadcast and any production house that favours Sony. I know I bought my FS7 for that type of work even though it was technically an "old" camera, its still an industry standard. and the FX30 is shaping up to be the perfect b-cam (or even a-cam). I'm warming up to it. that said, let's not forget all the freelancers, content creators & web delivery production teams that don't need to bend to a specific manufacturer. that's a huge chunk of the market actually and where we start getting into spec wars. R6/R7, FX30, A7IV, XH2S, GH6, A7SIII, FX3, R5/R5C, Z9, FX6, C70 etc all start to compete with one another.

Well, the first thing that's worth mentioning is that I got USB power bank that I can hang from my tripod in its little bag. Now I can shoot all day (from a tripod!) without changing battery or getting into rigging. So that's cool. The other thing is that I had been shooting a bit in DR Boost in order to get extra highlight range and to help with shooting indoors in natural light. BUT! I noticed the midtones were quite noisy so I did a little investigation. I shot a step wedge (from +1 to -8 in whole stops) at various ISO levels, slapped on the VLog to V709 conversion and looked at where the noise is, in a bid to figure out whether I should be aiming to shoot at 250 or 2000DRB in general Here is ISO 250 and it's a familiar noise pattern. Midtones are clean, shadows are a bit noisy: Compare this to ISO 2000 with Dynamic Range Boost on: The extreme shadows are cleaner up to around stop -4, where noise is similar to ISO 250. But from stop-3 all the way up to stop +1 this is clearly much noisier than ISO 250! It's noisy in the midtones and clean in the shadows. Weird! And it looks a bit weird when you see it in a real world clip. For comparison's sake, here's ISO 2000 without DR Boost: Right around the midtones, from stop -1 to +1 the regular old ISO 2000 is cleaner than with DR Boost. Below that point the shadows get noisier in a way we are used to seeing. So what's the conclusion? Well, I use some colour treatments that really push visible noise a bit, especially chroma noise. If I'm going to shoot with DR Boost on I get some distracting looking midtone noise. It depends on the shot but sometimes it's really quite shitty looking. NeatVideo's temporal settings do a good job of cleaning it up, though. So my conclusion is that I'm going to start using a bit of noise reduction again, when I need it. DR Boost is not simply "one stop extra in the highlights" and that's that. It comes at the cost of noise in the midtones. PS: all shots were long GOP

I shoot on both Canon & Sony systems. It's a tough call and does come down to personal preference. I favour Canon for camera ergonomics, UI, AF (both in stills & video), colours (especially skin tones). Lens wise, I find EF glass has more mojo (I just love my 35mm F1.4 L & 50mm F1.2 L). But I also love my Zeiss Batis primes that are more compact. RF has some amazing glass also, and even the affordable STM line is really good (I think I'll go for the 24mm & 85mm STM next). Lenses is really what ties you to a system so don't underestimate that aspect! Now specifically when comparing A7S3 to R5, well R5 does have 45MP stills, 8K, oversampled 4K & internal RAW. A7S3 has non oversampled 4K, only 12MP stills & a lot of NR at high ISO.. but better DR & less RS. The lowlight used to be where A7S series killed it but that's not the case with A7S3 since it is in fact a 48MP quad bayer sensor. Also the 1:1 4K doesn't allow super35 crop or focus breathing compensation. Bummer. 4K120p I dunno, it looks great on the R5 but haven't A/B it with A7S3. I think with 1.6 R5 wins on overall specs but if you really need that extra DR, super low RS & better 4K120p then it might tilt you over. Both I think are mirrorless workhorses. Sony colours have become much much better than in previous generations but I still find myself spending way more time in Resolve adjusting footage than with Canon where I pretty much can just slap a custom LUT and it looks simply amazing. Especially skin tones. To me this is a MAJOR advantage for Canon.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, it would just be nice to have more than one or two comments in a row in a Panny thread that didn't talk about AF. It's like in the entire world of film-making that nothing else exists. It makes it so that nothing else can be discussed, doesn't add anything new to the discussion and just wastes everyones time.

First, I genuinely believe that Panasonic not only offers the best value, but their video capabilities are significantly better than their competitors. Still, I think it's important for Panasonic to be more aggressive in letting people know what their plans are and to meet the needs of the market. Sony and Canon don't need to do it because they're leading the industry, but Panasonic absolutely does. I don't know how else to say it, but the auto focus perception is killing them. I will maintain until I'm blue in the face that the AF isn't as bad as people claim, but the bottom line is people demand Sony and Canon level AF. It is what it is, and the longer they delay it the worse their long term prospects seem.

To all my friends at EOSHD I have some very sad news. My sister has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. She is just 38. I have just brought the news to the main blog page here, for the full story: https://www.eoshd.com/news/my-sister-zara-reid-is-in-end-of-life-care-for-cancer/ I might need to rely on my friends here to get me through this very difficult time and keep working. Anyone who pre-orders my Panasonic GH6 Shooter's Guide will really be helping. I am in financial difficulties too, on top of this. I want to keep this blog going even though I am a wreak at the moment. I am going to miss my sister enormously. She was at the heart of my family. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you wish to pass a message of support onto myself, Zara or my mum. My email address is eoshd.com@gmail.com In the future my aim is to get back to work and carry on EOSHD. Sorry it has been so quiet of late. Thanks guys.