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I'm still using my 5D Mark iii with ML Raw as my main camera for hobby narrative filmmaking. I recently bought a Sigma FP which I like okay enough. I also have a BMMCC all rigged out but I never use it. I think I'll sell it soon so I can hold onto the FP for a bit longer. I'm still unsure about the FP. I like it, but it doesn't feel like an extension of my arm like my 5D does. Here's a frame from the FP with the Nikkor 35mm 1.4 ai-s lens that I took recently while working on a short film... Otherwise, I have a few film cameras I enjoy walking around with when I'm out and about.

some stills from a new short i dp’d. Still ungraded, some still need to be cropped a bit.

Or fold the packaging flat, so that you can post it back to yourself cheaply. Then you can reuse the packaging to get a bit higher selling price when you inevitably end up selling your gear in six months time.

@newfoundmass My argument was that we all didn't start with the equipment we now use..I am not sure that this makes this camera less capable for what it was made for..there are half a dozen Sony cameras one can choose (for around that money) and I choose noone, by the way! For me it is not a big deal, for some people this camera is a dream, and I get it..

Actually, that is not a bad idea! I’m not going to go buy a new camera just to do this, but next time I do, I might just look at the dollar price and if it makes sense, go do that, dump the packaging, use it, bring it back. 👍

I wish Sigma would come out with something like this for L, F and N Mount as well as the usual E because many of us non-Sony users are crying out for a lens like this. In fact, if anything, scrap the f2 aspect which is only available something like 35-40mm and just make it a constant aperture f2.8 so maybe a little smaller and lighter… And internal zoom if possible… E Mount certainly has the most exciting glass (for me) right now, especially Tamron with their zooms.

Interesting post. I really like the GX85 shots. It's a shame that Panasonic hasn't upgraded the GX85 and G85 with 10bit. But I think the biggest takeaway is that Canon sucks.

The GX85 is the next challenge. For Priority 1 it needs to be kept handy and accessible. This means either being kept in-the-hand or kept in a pocket - keeping it in a bag adds access time unless the bag is on the front of my chest. Both of these mean that the rig has to be kept as small as possible, which essentially boils down to lens choice. The 14mm f2.5 lens is an absolute gem in this regard. In the 4K mode (which has a 10% crop into the sensor) it's got a 30.8mm equivalent FOV. I edit and deliver in 1080p, like all sensible people in the real world who haven't confused their ass for their elbow do, and so I can also use the 2x digital crop feature, which gives a 61.6mm equivalent FOV. These two FOVs are hugely handy for showing people interacting with the environment around them - environmental portraits. It also has good low-light, good close-focus distance, and has a bit of background defocus if the subject is close. I have the GX85 configured with back-button focus. This means that I hold down a button on the back when I want to engage AF and hitting the shutter button doesn't engage it. This works brilliantly in practice as it means that I can focus once for a scene and then shoot without having to wait for the camera to AF. I also have the viewfinder set to B&W and have focus peaking enabled in red, making it easily visible. The histogram is also really handy to know what is going on too. For Priority 2, this setup works well - the tilt-screen is great, AF is super-fast, IBIS is impressive and very functional, and I find using it in real-world situations to be easy, fast, and very low-friction. It still gets some attention, but it's not excessive. I find that for most shots I want to stop down to ensure that everything is in focus. This is because my work is about the subjects experiencing the location and the interactions that are going on. A nice portrait with a blurred-beyond-recognition serves very little purpose as it could have been shot anywhere at any time and therefore has no relevance. This lens can give a satisfying amount of background defocus for mid-shots if required, and especially for macro shots, which are occasionally relevant in an edit. Here are a few grabs SOOC. In grading I would typically lower the shadows to the point where the contrast is consistent (assuming it makes sense for the scene - lots of these have haze which you have to treat differently) and I would even out the levels of saturation etc. I'd also sharpen or soften images to even out the perceptual sharpness too. Interestingly enough, most of these images have enough DR, and even have elevated shadows, despite the camera not having a log profile. These provide a really solid foundation to grade from.

Very awesome kit! The GH2's are so killer for the price! GH1's as well, you can get them for under $100 if you look hard enough! Such a nice 1080p image from those older Lumix MFT cams, back when I used a Panasonic G7 as my main camera I always liked the mojo I got from the 1080p image, despite it being pixel binned and a low bitrate it had surprisingly good detail and held up well all things considered. Would often use it instead of 4k to save filespace, and I always was happy with the results!

Almost twenty years ago or not so far, this level of footage coming from so tiny form factor (body-worn, go figure!) capture devices would put all of us on the edge of the most legit excitement through these or some other boards, this is the pure and straightforward truth... Why not today anymore? Or people now are merely obsessed in-between latitude and the whole subjective mantra on organicity of the outcome? Read it as cinematic structure of the elements to frame, among them the infamous skin tones palette to celebrate this art and craft as the most human synthetic medium. And then? People tend to forget filmmaking is not reality in the same proportion they/we all seek the organic Holy Grail, it's all about something anyhow undeclared fake. That's it. It is what it is. - EAG