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There has been an EXPLOSION in recent years of super affordable cine lenses. However most are prime lenses. But there are a few zoom options out there, DZOFilm perhaps is the most famous low / no budget option. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1701864-REG/dzofilm_dzo_ff3580e_blk_catta_35_80mm_t2_9_e_mount.html Some other options: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1684620-REG/chiopt_xtreme_zoom_28_85mm_t3_2_e_xtreme_zoom_28_85mm_t3_2.html https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1708655-REG/sirui_jupiter_zm_pl_jupiter_28_85mm_t2_full.html https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1772955-REG/venus_optics_ran2875plef_laowa_ranger_28_75mm_t2_9.html Otherwise, the next cheapest options is pushing up into the lower end of professional priced lenses: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1292121-REG/angenieux_ez_1_pack_ez_1_30_90mm_cinema_lens.html https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/895001-REG/zeiss_2008_990_28_80mm_t2_9_compact_zoom.html Yup, something like say a black pro mist quarter filter would be a popular choice for many https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/55639-REG/Tiffen_44BPM14_4x4_Black_Pro_Mist_F_X.html

This. Old zoom lenses on modern IBIS equipped cameras are a PITA to use if stability is a thing. And it is…was for me. Yup. Can’t stand variable aperture lenses so first thing l do is go to the first constant and use that. Another yup. There is something to be said for ‘getting it right in camera’, but this is one of those areas where it’s easy to get it so wrong and it can be difficult as a result to recover from. I’ll take a decent starting point and consistency every time.

I use a modern Sigma 28-70mm f2.8 as my principal workhorse for that very reason, to take off that digital edge (along with the OLPF my S1H has) and also for the subtle halation effect that a 1/8th causes (I’m a fan of subtle) but due to modern coatings, you get far less ‘vintage effect’ than an old lens, ie, contrast is reduced, but not massively and there is better sharpness towards the edges. I appreciate sharpness is not something all desire but personally I prefer a more modern rendering so am not a fan of the soft look. Each to their own and all that…

Oh for sure, but we're in a thread talking about filmmaking to do with a recently released film. Thus I'm writing from the perspective of film sets (or tv sets). As for going on a side tangent about corporate / weddings / music videos / etc... I think you'd be surprised by just how many of them are being shot with cameras that are at a higher level than a FX3. I think you underestimate those numbers. It's just like with sales of stills cameras, there are likely far more hobbyists who were buying say a Nikon D5 than there are professional sports photographers buying a D5.

That’s who I am ‘guessing’ is the market for the FX3. I came very close myself, but went S5ii for various reasons. It can’t hurt the X1000’s who have bought one or will be buying one just because of the caché that it was used on this movie. Just as the S1H had the ‘honour’ of being the first full-frame mirrorless camera to be Netflix certified. I did not buy one for that fact, but kind of low-key proud of it all the same. Now if only I could get my hands on some 20k+ cine lenses, a crew and 90% of 80 mil and… Or has that moment passed? I suspect the next movie shot on a non-pro cam will be shot on the SjCAM twin lens zero marketing Go Pro rival from that thread the other day…

I am now less interested than I was… I operate very much on the KISS principle as A. You can operate much more simply the less complicated anything is. B. If it ain’t broke and Premiere is not broke for me. C. I know someone who can do me 90% off the entire Adobe suite. D. I is a bit thick when it comes to techy stuff and to be honest, it bores me to tears. I suspect I’ll manage half a day with Davinci and then chuck it out the window… I don’t get out much at all to be honest… And that is why my road car is a 12 year old 200,000 mile Skoda 😉

I started learning Resolve in 2016 and still consider myself an intermediate beginner after hundreds of hours of training and practice. But it's worth it.

In my case, Porsche 911. I could probably just about stretch to a 10 year old (or however old it is now) base spec 997 Carrera, but… …but I bought a motorhome instead that is: transport, a bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen, an office, for work, for family and actually in this instance, saves money over a 10 year lifespan compared with just board & lodging on the work side alone. But then, not all purchases have to be rational or cost-effective. I may very well still switch to Nikon over the coming Winter even though in pure financial terms, it does not make sense 🤔😉

Exactly, it's the same reason I don't own an Aaton Cantar X3, even though I really really really want one. (just maybe, I might commit financial suicide one day and just buy a Cantar X3 anyway!) But I'd never earn another extra penny for having a Cantar. Ditto why I don't own Schoeps or DPA shotguns. My 2x MKH60/MKH50 + 2xCS3e / 2x CS1e / CSM1 can do the job just fine enough.

Not really, compared to the FX3 is cheaper than almost any camera on productions that I would usually work on. For reference, this week I've been working days on a tv series shooting on 2x Panasonic Varicam 35 (yup, the big heavy one! Not the Varicam LT). The previous production I worked on before this one, the DP was using a Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro. And funnily enough, the previous DP before that was also using a Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro! (the only two times this year though that I've worked with a Blackmagic camera, no other production has) Then the film before those, it was shot on an ARRI 35. Can't recall far enough back as to what it was on the production before that, all the various productions I'm on tend to all blur together. But I think so far this year the only times I've worked on a production using a camera "below" the URSA Mini Pro would be a little short film I helped out on for one day that was a total sh*t show, big time amateur hour, and they were using a Panasonic GH6. And I think that's it. I am scratching my brain searching for any time with say a mirrorless or a Blackmagic Pocket, but nope. Not this year, perhaps a few rare times last year or the year beforehand. That's why I call the FX3 "prosumer", it straddles the worlds of both consumer and pro worlds. Largely purchased by more consumer orientated purchasers, but also is a handy camera for a B / C Cam for pros (or A Cam for aspiring pros). Although, I haven't came across the FX3 being used for even that myself, just not the circles I'm moving in. However, I did do one day (again, it was just one day, because they were ultra micro budget) on an indie feature film shot entirely on a FX3 last year. Oh wait, I'm just remembering, there was a student short film I worked on which was shot with a Panasonic GH5! That might have been early this year? Or perhaps it was late last year. I think you're missing the point here, at least that I've been making. For myself, I very rarely ever work on productions using a "FF" or 6K or 8K camera. Also, it's a bit unusual if they're shooting raw. And before this year, then the most common camera type I'd shoot with wouldn't even do 4K!

The BMCC 2.5K was $3K in 2012 does equate to being about the same as the FX3 now, including inflation, so that seems a good comparison although it quickly went down to $2K within a year. Of course, they followed it up with the P2K a year or so later, which was one third the cost(!) and apart from being slightly lower in resolution was light-years ahead in basically every other way. To continue the comparison, the BMCC was 2.5K to oversample for 2K/1080p delivery and apparently they collaborated with Arri to deliver ARRI PL-mount kits of it(!) so that's all very "professional". The P2K was much more lower-end in comparison (auto-focus, consumer mount, pocketable, consumer batteries, consumer media, etc), so in this comparison the P2K is the prosumer camera and the BMCC is the completely professional one.

A few thoughts... If you are using the IBIS on the camera, an electronic lens that tells the camera the current focal length is hugely useful - this is one of the reasons I'm swapping to electronic lenses from manual zooms. Cheap zoom lenses tend to have similar optical aberrations to classic vintage lenses, especially if you add some filters as has been suggested above and I definitely agree with. Cheap often means variable aperture, but if you don't need the speed then stopping down to F4 or F5.6 will make most zooms a constant aperture. Try the deeper DoF look if you aren't used to shooting with it, most feature films have deeper DoF most of the time but internet people seem to be both blind and in denial about this for some reason which completely eludes me. Also, remember you can distress the image in post. This gives the advantage that you can adjust the amount per shot. If you shoot with anything even hinting at vintage then you'll be amazed at how variable the look can be - one shot looks completely clean and the next moment the sun comes out or you change the composition slightly and the image is a wash of flare. If you're not sure about what is possible in post, just think of all those action blockbuster films that have a super-heavy anamorphic look to them and then realise that all the VFX work starts out being infinitely sharp and they were able to degrade to perfectly match everything else on a huge cinema screen. Adding a bit of glow, blurring and vignette in post is super-simple and gets the job done.

Looks promising! Let's hope it's keeping up with the Joneses, and offering Prores!

Another option is to use any modern zoom and put a diffusion filter on it. This will "take off the digital edge," although depending on the type of diffusion filter it may have unwanted side effects such as speckled out-of-focus highlights in the bokeh. But it's an easy solution, one used by many.

The Tokina ATX Pro 28-70 2.6-2.8 in Nikon or EF mount could be a good choice here; the earlier model (which I have) has more primitive coatings and is very susceptible to veiling and ghosting flare. It's quite affordable on the used market; it was made in the 1990s. I used one myself recently with a Sony A7iii. It's not very sharp wide open and is pretty soft at 70mm but I like the look; the lens is based on an Angénieux design but you have to be sure to get the early model; the later ones had a different design; there's some good history and guidance here: https://cameragx.com/2018/04/11/the-truth-about-the-angenieux-28-70-af-zoom/

I went with the Carl Zeiss 40-80mm f3.5 for this very purpose. I made a wedding film with it you can see here: https://firehorsephotographyfrance.com/2023-weddings/jenniedan Day 01 and Day 02 anyway, ie, up to evening stuff on the wedding day. Not the drone obviously... Quite a nice 'vintage' rendering without being 'too vintage', average contrast which gets very low if shooting into the sun/direct light sources and it flares quite a bit then also due to the lack of modern coatings. Has a bit of a glow to the result also. I used it wide open at f3.5 exclusively and with the Fotodiox VND L-E Mount adapter plus a plate adapter that converted the lens to E Mount in the first place. Tricky to stabilise handheld, even with Lumix which is regarded as one of there best so unless you wanted the more handheld look, on a gimbal, mono or tripod might work better. I've decided the more vintage look is not for me so selling it if anyone EU is interested either at 100 euros with adapter, or 200 euros with adapter and L-E Mount VND.

Of course, I don’t judge the quality (hw, sw and video) from their stock price 🙂. But they are under enormous pressure to survive, it is not like being a private company. They did many miss steps so now they seem to be ripping off customers to try to stay afloat. Btw I was a GPRO stockholder. My first Gopro was Hero 2 and went up Hero 10. In parallel I started using insta360 cameras and now I’m Gopro free 😊 although I use sometime some of my customer’s ones as backup cameras. I filmed in harsh situations so my experience could be different than others. I have mounted on Rally Cars in Lapland and Africa, on wings of Military Jet, on desert's Buggy, Alaska Heliskiing, MTB etc.. The number of freezes, overheats, battery draining (enduro battery was made because the standard one was basically useless in winter conditions...wtf) that I had it was just so frustrating. Gopro Hero Max is so old that is insane that they still sell it and the software is ridiculously bad compared to the insta360 one. Gopro Mini, Session etc they still don’t know what to do… seems a trial and error approach Gopro 10 was probably the buggiest camera that I had from all the camera that I have owned. Just do a google search for freezes, overheats, battery drain... and you will see that I'm not the only one. And let’s not talk about their subscription model that they try to “lock you in” with hw discount hoping that you will not cancel a pretty useless subscription. I was a big gopro fan, but they failed so many times on me that I don’t trust them anymore. The 12 should have been a FW fix of the 11.. but as quoted company you need to bring more revenue and is a declining market too as form many a phone is a better solution than a gopro.

I dont disagree with you either here kye, i think we’re both somewhat in a camp of having the most image quality for the money. i’m not entirely sure if i technically paid off my p4k, lenses, etc with freelance work for example. at the same time, 10-15 years ago something like an fx3 seemed pretty crazy to imagine probably. I think the first bmcc came just out for slightly more money (without adjusting for inflation even)?

i guess prosumer is more correct, but its kind of an arbitrary distinction imo. its a technically ‘good video camera’ that you could buy in most camera stores for not that much money. Ive never had a pleasant time using it, but some people made a movie with it, so my opinion is irrelevant.